Guild Wars 2

So the Asura race seem like a bunch of Scientists and Engineers. Not just by trade, but by nature. This leaves the question nagging at me “Would my Asuran Elementalist really be using the imperial system to exagerate his hight”?

On one hand, yes using feet as a rough, easily vocalized measurement is convenient, but on the other hand the Asurans seem way too scientifically inclined to use such a type of measurement.

Taking into considerating some of the idle banter I hear in Rata Sum I’m inclined to think that this voice acting for gaining might should be “I feel 1.8288 metres tall!”.

3 letters will clarify why feet is used. U.S.A.

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard my Sylvari say this as well, or is it an Asura only thing to say? Either I’m crazy or I’ve legitimately been around an Asura every single time I’ve heard it.

Because scientists used the imperial system for centuries before they invented the metric system?

Wow.
Digging deep for finding new things to fault in this game.

Having any kind of accurate measurements is a relatively new concept, even for scientists and engineers.

Throughout history there have been all kinds of different systems, some of which would seem totally insane to us, and a lot of which were not entirely accurate. But the people using them were still able to build some amazing things.

mtpelion.4562:

Because scientists used the imperial system for centuries before they invented the metric system?

meh. scientists also used the Greek measuring units before the imperial system was thought up. The greek system btw, was much more logical than the Roman one, only a few fractional measurements and even those were like 1/2 instead of 1/16 measures; and most of the measurements were easily dividable by 2.

(my personal pet peeve: Romans getting all the praise for stuff the Greeks thought up. Art, architecture, science… The only original contribution of the Romans to the world as a whole was their military organization, their legal system and their roadbuilding – the first 2 of which are intangible)

Point is, scientists use the system that everyone around them uses (which is kind of the entire point of having a system of measurements).

Any system is easy to use, if it is the system you are familiar with.

It’s fiction. You should also ask yourself why are they speaking english…

Napoleon complex :P

6 sounds like more than 1.8.

Paul.4081:

Napoleon complex :P

6 sounds like more than 1.8.

1.83 m de facto

And when you consider their starter area is Metrica Province…

“I feel approximately one point eight three metres tall!” would not be more in keeping, it’d be a helluva lot funnier.

I’m pretty sure, had they chosen metric, they’d have gone with 2 meters, however for our non-metricised brains over here in the US “2” sounds less than “6” and the humor would have been lost. And believe me, there’s a bloc here that would have been quite happy to complain about using that European metric thingie instead of good old ’murican Feet and Inches.

Metric is just as arbitrary as Imperial units. It doesn’t really matter because its unlikely the asura would even use either inferior measurement system. Heck metric is based on H2O of all things. They would use a system based on something much fundamental to the eternal alchemy.

Putting someone six feet deep means to kill someone.

The calling “six feet tall” is playing with that saying.

Well I am european (danish to be exact) and I am so bad with numbers that I barely understand what numbers mean in the metric system and the imperial is complete jibberish to me, I have absolutely no concept of how much it is.

But I do get that the asura saying indicates that the asura feels much taller than it is, and I get that Anet would use the system they know. So I don’t really mind and it is still funny.

@Ettanin I did not know about that, must be a US thing, slang and sayings from around the world can be quite intresting.

Ettanin.8271:

Putting someone six feet deep means to kill someone.

The calling “six feet tall” is playing with that saying.

Probably comes from ‘I feel 10 ft tall’ which was used to mean pretty much the same as what the asuri mean. Since they are short the 6 ft covers it.

What did the depressed Norn say after losing a fight?

I feel … 6ft tall!

Probably we should start with measuring this particular asura’s feet.

For me and for some others is pretty much convinient to use bananas to scale. That way everyone understands what size you’re refering without excluding any metric system.
Would love if Asuras start saying “I feel 8 bananas tall”

Bananas too vary in size considerably.
We should measure in grapes.

notabot.3497:

Metric is just as arbitrary as Imperial units. It doesn’t really matter because its unlikely the asura would even use either inferior measurement system. Heck metric is based on H2O of all things. They would use a system based on something much fundamental to the eternal alchemy.

Metric system is all based in units on 10 (1 meter = 10 decimeter = 10 centimeter = 10 millimeter…), both for measurement and temperature.
Imperial is really random (1 yard = 3 feet = 12 inches …), and Fahrenheit is also apparently very arbitrary, but if you think that use H2O as reference imagine use a mix of water and salt to create a new unit.

@OP: Well, this game is created and based in the USA, so yeah … we need to deal with it.

Belzebu.3912:

Metric system is all based in units on 10 (1 meter = 10 decimeter = 10 centimeter = 10 millimeter…), both for measurement and temperature.
Imperial is really random (1 yard = 3 feet = 12 inches …), and Fahrenheit is also apparently very arbitrary, but if you think that use H2O as reference imagine use a mix of water and salt to create a new unit.

@OP: Well, this game is created and based in the USA, so yeah … we need to deal with it.

All measurement systems are arbitrary. We, as people, decided that X should be 1 on the scale and that X+Y=2 on the scale.

Metric uses a base 10 system for Y, but X is still completely arbitrary, and Y was arbitrarily set to use base 10.

Someone, somewhere, arbitrarily chose to define the length of a millimeter to be 1 millimeter. Everything else is just adding more arbitrary millimeters onto it.

Watch this.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131129-are-imperial-measures-outdated

Did you know that in game range units are in inches?

600 units is 50ft
1200 is 100ft

mtpelion.4562:

All measurement systems are arbitrary. We, as people, decided that X should be 1 on the scale and that X+Y=2 on the scale.

I have to agree with you.
Metric just looks less random, but I really agree that it is arbitrary.

Also double post but the measurement units aren’t just randomly defined. They are tied to constants so they will never change.

E.g. 1 meter = distance light travels in 1/299,xxx,xxx of a second in a vacuum. It isn’t entirely random.

Of course we could just use planck constants for everything…

Ryan.9387:

Did you know that in game range units are in inches?

600 units is 50ft
1200 is 100ft

This is very helpful…..I never knew this. Thanks.

As far as someone saying it’s the same as 6 feet under, no. If you are excited and just got might, do you feel dead? If so, that might be used explain that state of SBI’s zerg.

Ryan.9387:

Also double post but the measurement units aren’t just randomly defined. They are tied to constants so they will never change.

E.g. 1 meter = distance light travels in 1/299,xxx,xxx of a second in a vacuum. It isn’t entirely random.

Of course we could just use planck constants for everything…

What he meant is that, why light speed was picked, it couldn’t be the sounds speed? It couldn’t be other fraction of time? All that was arbitrary.

Well, feet sounds better in that sentence. It makes sense. Something that doesn’t makes sense is not using the metric system in your country.

Ryan.9387:

Also double post but the measurement units aren’t just randomly defined. They are tied to constants so they will never change.

E.g. 1 meter = distance light travels in 1/299,xxx,xxx of a second in a vacuum. It isn’t entirely random.

Of course we could just use planck constants for everything…

Arbitrary =/= random. Also you are using the SI version of the meter. The original meter was barely better than a stick that somebody liked the length of.

Belzebu.3912:

Ryan.9387:

Also double post but the measurement units aren’t just randomly defined. They are tied to constants so they will never change.

E.g. 1 meter = distance light travels in 1/299,xxx,xxx of a second in a vacuum. It isn’t entirely random.

Of course we could just use planck constants for everything…

What he meant is that, why light speed was picked, it couldn’t be the sounds speed? It couldn’t be other fraction of time? All that was arbitrary.

Light is constant. Sound travels at varying speeds based on density, etc. Shoot, in a vacuum there is no sound.

No-one ever seems to complain about a minutes and hours having sub-units of 60 and not 100.

VOLKON.1290:

Light is constant. Sound travels at varying speeds based on density, etc. Shoot, in a vacuum there is no sound.

I know, but any constant could be used instead of light and any frame of time could be used.
Sound speed in hydrogen during 1/100th of a second, terminal velocity of a mass of 1 kg in vacuum attracted by earth gravity during 1/25th of a second … any thing could be used.

Belzebu.3912:

VOLKON.1290:

Light is constant. Sound travels at varying speeds based on density, etc. Shoot, in a vacuum there is no sound.

I know, but any constant could be used instead of light and any frame of time could be used.
Sound speed in hydrogen during 1/100th of a second, terminal velocity of a mass of 1 kg in vacuum attracted by earth gravity during 1/25th of a second … any thing could be used.

Well… that’s just it. The things you listed aren’t exactly constants. Gravity varies depending where you are on earth. The speed of sound is too varied depending on pressure, type of matter passing through, etc. You want known, set constants. Light in a vacuum travels at a constant speed, period. A second used to be defined as 1/86,400 of a mean solar day, but then people realized the length of the day is slowly but measurable increasing, so that was changed to " the duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom." (SI brochure, Section 2.1.1.3) You can’t just pick something and go with it.

The original line as mentioned in the twitch the other day was “I feel four feet tall!” Which for you euros is the size of an 9 year old human or so. Shame that didn’t stay in.

Actually you CAN pick anything, as long as that thing is plausible.
I don’t live in US, I like the metric system, the way it was created makes total sense, all I want to say it that is that other scales could be picked to create it.

Celsius temperature used the frozen and boil temperatures of water in 0 altitude, Fahrenheit use the temperature of brite (a mix of water and a salt) and the average human temperature and another thing that I forgot as milestones, Kelvin use the absolute zero, all of them use totally plausible and constants to base their scale, just like metric system could use other scale.

This is some pretty serious nitpicking. I guess I have no room to judge though, I can’t stand the pronunciation they use for the word ‘golem’, which seems to be more and more common lately. It’s goh-lem kitten it!

The meter is still somewhat arbitrary because the time measure used to define it is arbitrary, one second is officially:

“the duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.”

Why? to make it so that there are more or less 60*60*24 seconds in a day.

Cuz the game takes place before the metric system was invented.

Practical answer: because the game was made in the US.

The meter was originally described as one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth’s equator to the North Pole (at sea level) (source: wikipedia)… why would Asura use a measure system based on the size of a planet they’ve never even heard about?. Besides, the fact that they use feet as a measure unit doesn’t means it’s the same feet we humans use on earth. From the Edge of Destiny novel:

"

Snaff went on, "We could fit two golems in here if we put the table, bunk, ale cask, and soforth into storage.

“The captain colored slightly but managed a laugh. “No. This is the captains quarters, not the golems quarters.”

“Fifty feet wide by forty feet deep, "Zojja announced with satisfaction.

“Fifty by forty?” Magnus said. “Its hardly twenty-five by twenty!”

“Im using asuran feet. More accurate,” Zojja said. She glanced at his boots. Id never measure in norn feet!"

It’s also “I feel six feet tall.” If we’re nitpicking.