Was't sure exactly where to post this, but I was wondering if we've been given any information on how long day and night will be in-game.
This matters for the timelines of roleplayers.
If the cycle is way too quick (like some games, one "day" is only an hour or two), the community of roleplayers kind of just ignores this cycle and uses real time as the measure.
It might be really refreshing to see a game with relatively lengthy night and day cycles, with one day being perhaps 8 or 12 hours, so that the community of roleplayers actually uses the in-game day and night cycle to dictate a different-than-RL time flow.
I am not sure how I feel about 8 or 12 hour day/night cycles, I feel like that is kinda long. I have seen MMO's that have "quests" that require the game to be in the night cycle to complete.
I think 4 hours per day then night cycle would be better as it makes it a little easier for those that have weird work schedules.
A 4 hour day and night cycle means that each day is 6 times faster than an Earth day. This still makes trying to roleplay a cohesive timeline nearly impossible.
I think if the day/night cycle is anything less than 6 hours long, I'll just stop trying to reconcile and will go by Earth time equalizing Terminus time.
In FFXIV, I think one day is a little more than an hour, but the yearly timeline matches Earth's, with slight variations. It's a complete mess. Like, Day 1 of the First Umbral Moon is the equivalent to January 1st, but the day/night cycle is such that nearly 24 nights pass in one Earth day... Yet January 2nd would still be called Day 2 of the First Umbral Moon. It makes absolutely no sense.
I hope that more thought is put into the system in Pantheon, and that if the day/night cycle is not 24 hours, we also have an in-world calendar to help kee track of things.
#RPproblems
well I mean as long as they stay away from quests that say
"Quest:
I must hunt and eliminate Ghost and Ghouls that have been haunting the nearby village.
Perception Check: Ghosts and Ghouls can only be found at night."
I would be all for 24 hour systems then, but it would end up having to ignore quests like that or make them very limited as people play different times of the day.
Oh yeah. I definitely agree that those quests should be much less common than a "normal" quest.
However, I do kinda think a 12 hour day/night cycle hits that sweet spot. It would make it easy to calculate in-game time, and even playing for a few hours would give you access to most times of the day. As far as roleplay goes, our character's lives tend to develop faster than anything in the real world. This goes for relationships (of all sorts), general character growth, and any number of other things, so having a double time cycle in-game might help to reconcile that with real life.
A 24 hour cycle would definitely bring in that immersion though, and that can be pretty powerful. I mean, if you watch a really scary movie in the dead of night, it tends to enhance the movie's scare factor, and I think having a full 24 hour cycle brings in that element. If you're playing at night, you are in the dark in real life as well (assuming the majority of players are near the server time zone). Giving the game the same time flow as real life could definitely add a lot of realism.
Just my two cents though. This is all just really friendly discussion unless we get an actual developer to comment. Not that I mind that at all!
Its already been said Pantheons night will be very dark so that it impacts gameplay... if day/night cycles are terribly long, a players entire available playtime any given day could be seriously hindered. This is not good. Not fun.
Players are not 'alive'/in-game 100% of the time. This is not RL. Players can adjust when they log-in to match their RL obligations, but they cant always adjust RL obligations to log-in during gametime night/day equally..
Sorry for the RPers, but a development team needs to figure out an average time someone might spend in game and divide that time by at least two, preferably four, to determine day/night clycles.
IE if the average player plays 4 hours at any given time, then the day should last two hours and the night should last two hours.
Okay so I think I misunderstood the Day/Night Cycle's as time frames. Previously when I said 4 hour cycles, I meant as 4 hour's day, 4 hours night; totalling for 8 hours.
For my self I always hate games that had to long of day/night cycles as you could be adventuring outside and (if what brad and his team is doing with the extremely dark enviroment at night) if you happen to be in a dungeon for the entire "Day Cycle" (and that dungeon happens to be extremely dark too) then you come outside and its dark for another 12 hours RL time. My god, It would feel like I am staring into the embodiment of "Space" but without light. There is only so much "Darkness" I can handle. Then as you are wondering around trying to find something on the ground because your quest told you to, but you can't see a ******* thing because its to dark and you spend your entire day trying to find 1 one thing, and turns out it was like 5 feet away from the quest giver -.- smh.
So I personally think that a 4 hour cycle (2 hours day, 2 hours night) is super short and you will always end up thinking to your self as you play "Why is it always night time!? Why Can I never see anything!?" Theoretically if they minimized if any at all; the amount of quests that are actually "Day or Night Locked", having a longer day/night cycle should not be that much of a problem. The only problem that I run into is "WHY IS IT DARK ALL THE TIME!?"
A game day and night cycle should only be of concern if there is a real difference between what happens in the light hours to what happens in the dark hours. If there is no difference, then a day/night cycle is just cosmetic. If there is a real difference (for instance day mobs sleeping through the night and nocturnal types are active and vice versa) then this is a valid issue that does need discussion.
So assuming that there is a difference, then the game cycle has to be fair for all players around the world. A 24 hour game cycle, would mean that someone logging in at the same time every day, would always see the same game time (whether this was always day or always night). Longer than real 24 hour period game cycles I dont think are practicable. So that means that a shorter game cycle needs to be implemented and should take into consideration the average length of time for a gaming session (not that I know what that is).
I am inclined to think that 3 hour day, 1/2 hour dusk, 3 hour night, 1/2 hour dawn giving a 7 hour period should be ok for most people and a gaming session should see a difference in that time. Also, because this is a length of time not easily divisible into a 24 hour period, it means that the game cycle would drift compared to the real world time, so all players logging on the same time every day would see a different time of day in game.
But as I said above, unless the day/night cycle has real implications, then this is just cosmetic. I am hoping that there is a real difference between the two.
In Everquest, the day/night cycle is 60 or 72 minutes, I don't remember which. While that time is short, it is extremely functional. It allows for day/night quests, spawns, spells and events. I find including day/night specific features in the game significantly increases immersion. Why would the world always be exactly the same no matter the time of day? It doesn't make sense to remove those features for the sake of having insanely long duration day/night cycles. I would not mind the same 72 minute cycle. A two hour cycle would be ideal in my mind. I could probably adjust to a four hour cycle, but that will be the absolute limit, imo.
The day/night cycle should not depend on the real life cycle. There is at least one good reasons for me. Some people then only can play during one period because of their working times. Another one maybe is, that the time of day would depend on where the server is located and this would not match with the real life in other regions.
And I would love to see the above mentioned time of day depending quests and other actions in game, therefore a full day/night cycle should not take to long, as not every player has unlimited time to play the game. The already stated 2 hours may be a good solution, but there are better ones because with this solution it is every day e. g. night, if you start playing at 8 pm.
The lenght of one day/night period should not be a divisor of 24, then playing at 8 pm is not always the start of a night period but could on another day be halftime of a day period. Below are the examples of a 5 hour period. This one would be to long, but it shows how this brings variety in the day/night cycle.
0 5 day
5 10 night
10 15 day
15 20 night
20 1 day
1 6 night
6 11 day
11 16 night
16 21 day
21 2 night
2 7 day
7 12 night
12 17 day
17 22 night
22 3 day
3 8 night
I am working from the premise that the day/night cycle and the perception system will be integrated into meaningful exploration. As I adventure and find interesting location I will be camping out to see if I can perceive any thing at night. When you consider the teams focus on reducing tedium, I would think they would keep the night cycle under 2 hours. Maybe 60 minutes + 15 minutes to shift from day and night allowing for dusk and dawn to be represented.
Caine: When you consider the teams focus on reducing tedium, I would think they would keep the night cycle under 2 hours.
Why would you consider night time as tedious? Its should be viewed as a different environment with its own mechanics, creatures and lore. I don’t get why it should be something that should be got through as quickly as possible.
LeonSanborn: well I mean as long as they stay away from quests that say
"Quest:
I must hunt and eliminate Ghost and Ghouls that have been haunting the nearby village.
Perception Check: Ghosts and Ghouls can only be found at night."
I also don’t get the idea that quests shouldn’t depend on day and night timings? The only reason I can think is that you would want to plough through the quest as quickly as you can. I am sure there would be plenty to do while waiting for night to fall to progress something. Imo, ghosts, ghouls and creatures of the night, should be exactly that. Maybe the odd one comes out in day light hours, but from an rpg stance, ghosts are night creatures, as are vampires and lots of other things. I want the world to make sense in a fantasy way and feel that it could exist. Im all for day/night cycles with day/night creatures, mechanics, quests and intrigues.
Pantheon have said that night time on the land will not be very dark, as they want players to still interact with the environment. So darkness would not hamper general questing.
However, they did say that the darkness in dungeons will be exactly that. Dark.
So, I would ask for a change in perception and think of night time as new realm to explore and conquer. In effect, every zone would have two environments, doubling the discoveries and fun.
In the latest stream, we actually saw day change into night. The devs then changed it back into day time to keep the stream more enjoyable, and I totally understand and agree with that.
What I was wondering is if after the night was changed to day, if the cycle progressed normally or if it froze for the sake of the stream.
The stream after they used GM powers to change the night into day was a good two and a half hours long. After they made it day. Now if they also just froze the cycle there, then this is all just speculation that really doesn't matter. But if the cycle then continued on to progress normally, then it means that the day time as it is right now in pre-alpha (so clearly highly subject to change), is at least several hours long.
It might give us some general idea of the time span of day and night that the developers are looking at, which may give us more grounds for discussion!
In response to chenzeme above, we actually saw the night time get pretty darn dark, and that was out in the open world, not within a dungeon. So night time may end up being much darker than what you are forseeing.
Temmi said:Was't sure exactly where to post this, but I was wondering if we've been given any information on how long day and night will be in-game.
This matters for the timelines of roleplayers.
As an avid Roleplayer myself, day/night and time perception is a very important aspect for me and many of my RP friends. We often hold yearly birthdays for our characters and keep up with our ages. If I remember correctly, Everquest II had a function that allowed you to know the exact time, date, and year that the player was currently living. My Last rememberance of this feature displayed something like the year 920AC or something of that nature.
I personally enjoy keeping personalized journal entries of my character's exploits through their travels, written in their own words. This helps me flesh out my characters and breath them to life.
I hope that Pantheon has a feature or command that allows me to know the date, month, and year in game for this very purpose.
I really like WoWs cycle, which is a full day and has something like day from 6am to 8pm or something similar to that. There are multiple issues with having too fast of a cycle. In a game this large, where traveling is important and it can take a long time to get certain places and even longer to clear to an area once you're there, having too fast of a cycle can be a problem. Also, in games like FFXIV, since the days and nights are so short, it takes a lot of the immersion out of the game. I enjoy the sunsets in Thanalan so much. The music and the scenery is perfect, but i know that itll only last about 10 minutes max and ill only have to wait a bit for it to happen again. You cant plan RP meetups at night time or day time either since it happens so fast. I understand the issue of people only being able to play during certain times of the day, but it feels more like a REAL world when YOU have to plan around time cycles that aren't created to pander to you, rather than just waiting 2 hours for the next night cycle. I'd be ok with maybe a 12 hour schedule, rather than a 24 hour one, but it really depends on what the devs are aiming for: RP and immersion or function in order to accomodate other systems in the game. Also, the cycle would have to remain static. Mixing it up for players so they don't have to play always during night or day would mess the whole server clock up for any kind of roleplaying or immersion. Dusk is at 6 server this day, but 3 server tomorrow, etc... I just really think that this is one thing that shouldn't be created to pander to the players so much, especially in a game that is trying to stray away from sacrificing immersion for the benefit of more convenience to players.
