Water too easy to come by?

[Nyard]

I was in the "Advertising" topic, and I read the first two paragraphs, I think it was, of the first reply, Larrath's post, and it made me think..  That, and the official description of Armageddon make it seem like water is extremely rare, and hard to come by, which should be true, yet in Allanak, here's how you get water.
1.  Have 55 sids.
2.  Walk to Temple of the Dragon.
3.  Get water.

I mean, this seems okay, and a good idea, having water supplied by the city, but should it really be so cheap?  Plus, there's thirst-quenching liquids all over the place, just check a tavern.  Just wondering if you people think water should/could be harder to come by than it is currently.

[adrien]

i say we need a lake and rain in the forests so they have a reason to exsist

[WarriorPoet]

I think people forget how much 55 coins really is you your average, everyday fuck.

You could sit around, looking for marks and nicking their daggers -all day- and not turn up 55 coins. If you do manage them, are you going to buy food or water? Maybe you have a taste for spice or booze and there is ever more pressure on your 55 measly coins. You could also sell information, hunt salt, obsidian, or wood all day and not turn up 55 coins.

As a complete newb I'm sure that it -is- bloody hard to turn over a thousand coins in an RL week as I've known brand new merchants to do. It's also hard to learn the tricks of your endurance when you're foraging, mining or chopping. We as crusty old elitist players may come by coins/water/spice/mudsexxx fairly easily, but that's only because we know the tricks of the game and can exploit them.

Here's an idea. Create a grubby commoner in Allanak. Do something frivolous with all of your starting coins. All of them. Wish to an immortal to have them taken away or simply piss them away on a hundred rounds of drinks for everyone in the Gaj. Now, instead of getting a 'PC Job' where you're going to be making 300 coins a RL week/month, you can beg, steal, and scrounge for a living. See how easy it is to keep yourself wet and fed when that's -all- you have time for, yet people are still trying to exploit you.

While it may not be uber difficult to get water and stay hydrated, I don't think it's too easy by any means. Besides, dying to the thirst code is only amusing once or twice. I would much rather easily get the coin for the water, but get stabbed and robbed before I got to the hag and her bucket, which I'm pretty sure she washed her crotch in when noone is looking...

-WP

[My 2 sids]

Although by definitions deserts are areas with little or no rain (and thus very dry) it doesn't mean deserts don't have enough water to sustain life.  The world itself doesn't have a lot of places to get water; that doesn't mean individual cities don't have any.  As for the templars selling it so "cheap" (as in over a day's wages); well if they can keep the commoners "happy" with a few drops of liquid it simply makes it easier to rule over the commoners.

[HardCarbon]

I was in the "Advertising" topic, and I read the first two paragraphs, I think it was, of the first reply, Larrath's post, and it made me think..  That, and the official description of Armageddon make it seem like water is extremely rare, and hard to come by, which should be true, yet in Allanak, here's how you get water.
1.  Have 55 sids.
2.  Walk to Temple of the Dragon.
3.  Get water.

I mean, this seems okay, and a good idea, having water supplied by the city, but should it really be so cheap?  Plus, there's thirst-quenching liquids all over the place, just check a tavern.  Just wondering if you people think water should/could be harder to come by than it is currently.

 As a note the common people have to drink water too... one thing a city require is an adequate supply at a 'price' everyone can afford (whether paying the dragon's price, getting it from an employer, or other means).

[Angela Christine]

An ample water supply is why there are cities where the cities are.  

People build settlements where they find water, there just aren't enough Vivaduans to support a large group of people.  You need water for the people to drink.  You need water for the animals and plants the people eat.  You need water for construction.  Water for industry.  Even water for washing.  You need gallons of water every day for each and every person.  

When you find a large source of water, you build a big wall about it if you can, because if you don't defend it someone will come and take it from you.  Since you can't take a spring somewhere safe, you have to create safety around the spring.  Once you have water, and are stuck in place to protect that water, you might as well start up agriculture.  At first you may trade some of the excess water to other tribes that need it, causing your settelment to become wealthy, and using that wealth to further fortify.  After that it is just a matter of time until your population grows to the maximum your water supply can comfortably support.  That is where Allanak is now.  The price of water is high enough that a few people are dieing becauser they can not afford water, you can see the piles of corpses in game, but it is only a few people and none of them are all that important to the city.  If you are sick, injured, weak, or otherwise unfit to make a good living and your family will not support you, then you may die for lack of water.  If you are strong and healthy you should be able to make enough money to keep yourself and a couple of dependants sufficiently hydrated.  Unlike the majority of the populace, PCs usually don't have dependants.  The relative ease of survival is why people live in the stinking armpits of the known world.

If you leave the city, if your people do not own a reliable source of water, then getting enough water is difficult.  Not only do you have to find or buy water (or things that contain moisture) but you also face a much higher rate of dehydration in the wilderness than you do in the city.  Oh, it isn't too bad if you sit in your tent all day, but generally people who live in the wilderness don't have the leisure to sit around.  In the wilderness you need more water and it is harder to get.


And if you look at it another way, water is hard to get.  Go to the supermarket and pick up one of those gallon jugs of bottled water.  Feel the weight of it.  Ok, now imagine that you had to go to the store and buy all of your water that way.  No faucet for you, instead you have to haul every drop of water that you use accross town every day -- and you have to carry it yourself, you don't get to use a car or even a bus.  Whenever you leave your home you have to carry that jug with you, along with whatever water is left in it, because it is too valuable to leave at home unguarded.  Don't leave home without it.  You can use a smaller, lighter container and need to make the trip more often, or a larger, heavier container and make fewer trips, but in either case you need to have that bottle by your side at all times.  And not just to protect it from theft either, water from the supermarket is the cheapest thing to drink in the whole city.  Getting a cappachino from StarBucks is going to cost like $50 while buying a glass of water from a restaunt is probably $30.  You can afford to drink out occasionally for a treat, but for the most part your waterskin is your best friend.   . . .   That really would be a pain in the ass.


Angela Christine

[Cuusardo]

I say we need a lake and rain in the forests so they have a reason to exist.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aquifer

Edit: Keep in mind, the part of the Grey Forest that most people see is not exactly lush and fertile.

[Rhyden]

Water is expensive as it is. Like WP said, 55 coins isn't cheap for commoner types. Most commoners in a house will be making somewhere around 400 coins a month. With my highschool math edumacation, I believe that would total a little less than 8 containers of water. This isn't including food, weapons, armor, clothing, rent, etc.

Most indies, who generally make even or less than a commoner working in a house will have an even harder time buying water, seeing as they won't get some free benefits that other houses supply to their workers (water, food, etc,).

Water is expensive as it is.

[House Rising Sun]

For my answer to the poll, I say yes. I asked myself if I could find, as a pc dying of thirst, somebody to spare me a glass of water. With all the ridiculously wealthy pcs in this struggling world, all you have to do is look to a certain type of character to foolishly give up his three lifelines, and you're fine. Outside the cities, it's dry as a bone, but inside... it's practically raining?

This is a good topic to discuss further, I think. It relates to technology, magick, and all those silly threads about the physics of heat and moisture and wind. So, let's be productive- can people here describe real life methods for gathering water in similar climates, that could work on zalanthas? If tribes exist in fairly large numbers outside the protected water supplies of the cities, they must have some way of gathering enough to stay alive, outside of trade. We're talking about the fremen-like protection of water for an entire group, not just one hunter with a dozen waterskins and no worries.

Of course, there are natural sources: Fruits and plants, certain animals, the famous mud pit, etc. Beyond this, it seems to me that zalanthan technology would be geared, through generations of trial and error and observation of life in the desert, towards gathering and preserving a water supply. An example I just found is of a beetle in the Namib Desert that uses tiny bumps and waxy troughs on its shell to gather moisture from morning wind and let the beads trickle down a slot into its mouth. By it's mere construction, it's capable of surviving in one of the hottest deserts in the world. What mechanisms do zalanthans have?

Let's have some of this. Let's have links, articles, and ideas.

[Sandstorm Phoenix]

I believe water - or at least dehydration prevention - is rather easy to come by.  I would comment on the price in someplaces, but in my opinion the economy is pretty wacked out anyway  (Rent one furnished apartment for a year at the same price you can buy a tent)  so, I don't really think making it more expensive would be the case.  


I do know I've never had a character worry too much about dehydrating, except from my own foolish errors.

[Anonymous]

Here's the thing.  Starting out an outdoorsy player that 55 or 70 sid (in Storm) is murder.  Yes within a few days of play, if you survive that long, 55 sid stops feeling like a major problem.  But if you make it too hard starting off on your own would become impossible.

[Armaddict]

Didn't read too much on the thread because I have to return to work (don't tell I'm not working!), but just wanted to say that it may -seem- easy to get water in the city, but that's because you need drastically less in the city.  55 'sid for a waterskin doesn't seem much to the city-dweller.

In the desert, on the other hand, water is pretty damn hard to come by, and when you do, it's generally guarded or watched over by some group or another.  You get thirsty much faster out in the desert, and to stock up on water for any length of time outside the city, it's -very- expensive.

I think that's kind of the way things should be...people live in the city because of the protection and availability of things they need to survive.  If there was no water available in the city, or it was -impossibly- hard for the average commoner to do it and still have money...then I think there would be a lot more people out in the desert.

Might have some fun things if that happened, but in my opinion, things make sense the way they are, currently.