Authenticity nitpicking

Story & Setting
#1

This thread purpose is to find small historical errors in the game (that can hopefully be corrected…).

Starting : in the last trailer, a common error about medieval books, here at 4’52’’:

In the Middle Ages, books where never stored in this modern, standing-up way. They were always stored unstacked in horizontal position, like this:

The shape of the medieval bookbinding required that (the purpose of the metallic bosses was to avoid the leather to touch the shelf the book was put on), and also the fact that a big library at the time constited of a few dozen of books at most, so there was no need to stack them in a compact way like you would do today.

I agree this is kind of nitpicking, but yeah, it matters to me. Don’t judge me :slight_smile: I think authenticity is important not only for weapons and armours, but for all the assets inspired by historical counterparts, as it’s already donein the game for many objects and environment. Don’t you think ?

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No front line?
#2

Nice find, didnt know that
Escpecially these things that you dont think about at first are interesting and would be cool if there are many things like this in the game.
I guess its too much work and effort to fix every book shelf now but yeah :smiley: still good to know

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#3

Patches incoming. Small details are the spice of immersion.

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#4

I totally agree!!

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#5

this is cool, but maybe too late to change

#6

I love when someone comes up with absolute truths when referring to “Middle Ages”, i.e. area of entire Europe in a span of 1000 years, and tells us that “this is the way it was”.

The game takes place about 25 years after first translation of Bible from Latin to Czech (which preceded even translation to German). This has led to large scale dissemination of literacy in the area as well as rise of demand for books.

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#7

That’s what i though when someone suggested that medieval bows NEVER had any leather or string wrapped around the place where you’d hold it. Like seriously dude? Do you think rudimentary paintings by people, who aren’t specialists in the area that they are painting, are a good enough sample size to make such lofty statements?

#8

I stand by what I said. Since the invention of the codex in the late antiquity, books were scarce, and for the reason I talked about, nobody had yet “invented” the modern way of storing them. Let me add that all the styles of medieval bookbinding, would it be (chronologically, for the 1000 years span you are mentioning) coptic, carolingian, roman, gothic, were never designed to store books standing-up without a risk of damaging them. So yes, one can say with certainty that before the mid-15th c., books were not stored this way. :slightly_smiling_face:

Well, that’s true, you could also talk about the 12th - 13th centuries cultural revolution that happened in European cities, following the creation of universities, that leaded to an incredible increase in production and demand for books. But when we talk about a great amount of books, that still means a very small library by today standards.

Look, you talk about the Bible, but translated or not, it was a very, very costly object. We’re talking about manuscript books, hand-writed by a copist. This kind of work took years to achieve, not mentioning the enlumination, and the whole herd of sheep needed for the parchment. Not the kind of object found in every house…

It’s only after the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th that books became really cheap and common. About that time someone who probably had a great amount of books got the idea that he could store them to save room, in that new, revolutionary, standing-up way. When did that happened ? I don’t know, but it wasn’t before mid-15th century, for sure.

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#9

I cannot challenge your knowledge on the subject because I have no clue.

I am curious however if this was an oversight or if the historians working with WH had credible reason to suggest it being the way that it is in the game.

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#10

1380s were the time of Bible translation.

1400s were the time of spread of “heresy” as well as literacy.

By 1420s (i.e. before the printing press), large portion of Hussite army was literate. Foreign visitors even write about their surprise that “common women” could read and hold elaborate debates on divine topics.

I am no expert on the topic but I can’t imagine people being literate without having available literature.

#11

It is probably an honest mistake, since it’s the kind of thing easily taked for granted. And maybe they haven’t any codicology specialist among their historians.

I do not know about the Hussites, but being litterate doesn’t mean owning a great amount of books. You can learn your letters on wax tablets. Maybe own a couple of books if you’re wealthy enough. Maybe go to libraries openend to the people, such as in some universities or religious establisment with for instance the famous chained books, that were chained to the bookshelves so you could read them but not steal them.

Your story about common women with religious knowledge is interesting. In France, since the 13th, it was common for wealthy enough women (ie. lesser nobility or cities bourgeoisie) to own a book of hours and use it for “personal devotion”, so to pray and study the Bible at home, outside the church. It was somehow part of their traditional role as a women. Thus, they were litterate and had some good religious knowledge. I do not know if it was the same around Prague, but that would make sense.

#12

This is very interesting. I did not know this, and in fact had never given the history of book storage much thought. Thanks for sharing! I’m sure it was an honest mistake - Historians and archaeologists are knowledgeable, but we aren’t all knowing. :slight_smile:

For those who want further reading, I found an online article here:

And a book on the history of bookshelves (available as an e-book):
https://books.google.com/books?id=7ahpbLtmksgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

I know Warhorse won’t have enough time to change this for launch, and it probably won’t compete with bugs on their list of things to fix, but I generally wonder if in the future they will address little authenticity nitpicks like this as they are discovered. They’ve had a good track record so far. It would be neat if they do, but totally understandable if they don’t!

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#13

I have that (to my understanding) the game is a bit liberal with it’s treatment of fire and not properly portraying it’s inconvenience, but I’m really not bothered by it. I could imagine that a Long Dark esk fire system could be a bit annoying and arbitrary for the type of game this is, and this game has try to stay authentic in enough areas that it really doesn’t bother me that much. Especially considering they have actually bothered to make nights dark in the first place.

#14

Far Cry 2/3 Fire Propagation System :slight_smile:

#15

Ah, I’m not familiar with it I’m afraid.

#16

Here you go


#17

Nice burns to death

In seriousness though, if I were to tweak one thing to fix the fire issue, I would probably make a higher candle to torch ratio. It wouldn’t change up gameplay that much, just a aesthetic tweak more than anything.

#18

If there are carrots in game, I am curious what colour they have. Orange carrots were very rare, most of carrots were white, yellow, red and purple.

#19

Carrots will be yellow or white. There was a huge debate on this issue on this forum :slight_smile:

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#20

Same with non-white chickens :slight_smile:

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