A day night cycle would be epic and a night time that limited vision would be immersive but perhaps not conductive to any kind of gameplay ideas.
Sorry to revive a three-week old topic but I felt like I needed to add my two cents to the debate here.
I would have to agree with Chambers167's statement here. As much as I would love to see true darkness within the mmo industry I understand the numerous problems that it presents and that sometimes an MMO has to prioritize. But perhaps a compromise of some sort could be reached regarding this subject. As the Dev stated there are plenty of ways for a player to get around that "true" darkness if they want too. I think everyone can agree on that. So we would have to think of a system that gives players a reason not to get around the system. If a feature would be added, the devs are looking for it to appease and be made use of by a large number of players; and not annoy those who would rather go without it (I think?). In which case, if we can absolutely not garner enough support for that "true darkness" where it blocks your visibility and requires a torch (or another source of light)then perhaps we can compromise for a dulled down Day and Night cycle.
This has been done in countless other games; including but not limited too Star Wars Galaxies, Aion,and the upcoming Archeage all have shown day and night cycles. Archeage has displayed a cycle within it's CTBs. In this "dulled down" version, you would have perhaps a slightly smaller factor of visibility and a darkening (along with a change to darker colors) in the landscape and sky. Also the sky and stars would have to reflect that it is night-time. You would not have that true darkness that I and many others would like but we can atleast keep a day/night cycle for the sake of immersion, RP, and perhaps a slight advantage in PvP (to the side that uses it). I still recall one of the most glorious RP moments I've ever had was when the suns were setting over the Tatooine landscape and the guild was sitting around knighting a new intiate in the guild. Having a day/night cycle is absolutely imperative to RP and immersion within this game. Even if it is a "dulled down" compromise of what we really wanted. A weather system is also important but that is another topic for another time.
All I can stress is that to just have a stoic unreal daytime for ages upon ages takes away countless opportunities for player storytellers, RPers, and immersion in general. Night encompasses many emotions including fear of the unknown, serenity of the stars, the peace of the silence, the feeling of secrets left untouched, and perhaps the joy of sneaking up on an enemy. Taking away a day/night cycle takes away all these emotions that the player base would be allowed to feel. So I advocate to the Devs to not take away this feature entirely... not only would you be falling short of standards set by competitors but also falling short of the sandbox genres standards which is persistance.
Anyhow, that is just my two cents on the subject.
/rant off
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...jus sayin... that would be awesome....
LET'S KEEP THE DARK DARK. ARE WE NOT MEN?!
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Night time is not really that dark. I have ridden my pedal bike through the woods on moonless nights without an artificial light numerous times (helped improve my vision too) it seems really dark to people nowadays because noone ever really goes without artificial lights anymore and spend lots of time looking at light producing screens so their eyes adjust and adapt to brightness.
The day/night cycle shouldn't produce pitch black unless there is also a major storm overhead. Or underground.
I think this also gives the lowlight vision and darkvision a chance to be noticable as well.
If its somwhat dark then, those with lowlight vision can see almost as well as normal and those with darkvision can at anytime switch it on and see a black and white but clear image. And this also allows darkness and daylight spells to be useful, though I wish they would go back to dnd light spells instead of this "only one step" thing they have now. It totally makes the low level ones useless.
Goblin Squad Member
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Night time is not really that dark. I have ridden my pedal bike through the woods on moonless nights without an artificial light numerous times (helped improve my vision too) it seems really dark to people nowadays because noone ever really goes without artificial lights anymore and spend lots of time looking at light producing screens so their eyes adjust and adapt to brightness.
The day/night cycle shouldn't produce pitch black unless there is also a major storm overhead. Or underground.
I think this also gives the lowlight vision and darkvision a chance to be noticable as well.
If its somwhat dark then, those with lowlight vision can see almost as well as normal and those with darkvision can at anytime switch it on and see a black and white but clear image. And this also allows darkness and daylight spells to be useful, though I wish they would go back to dnd light spells instead of this "only one step" thing they have now. It totally makes the low level ones useless.
Natural night is pretty darn dark. Alot of people have never actualy experienced it so they assume it's not. The reason is that they live near urban areas, and the background light from those actualy brightens the night considerably. This effect can carry as far out as 100 miles from a major urban area.
Get out in the true wilderness away from any background lights and on a moonless, overcast night in the woods and you'll understand what I mean. There have been times I've gone out bowhunting and getting to my stand before dawn... without light sources, I've litteraly held out my hand at arms length and have been barely able to make it out..and I have 20/20 vision.
Being out in the wilderness on a night like that with only a bow and knife gives one a real appreciation for the level for the fear and supersitition pre-modern man held for the dark. Every little sound becomes amplified....and even though the logical part of you mind dismisses it as nonsense...every horror story or old wives tale you heard as a kid starts creeping in at the edges of your imagination and you find yourself looking up at the sky just hoping to see the faintest little traces of the sky lightening at the approach of dawn.
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I would absolutely welcome nights that actually appear to be taking place during night time once again.
In my opinion, the ambiance and restrictions of dark nights and deep dark caves are worth any small inconvenience.
I want a broad spectrum of experiences, rather than 'all good, all safe, all easy, all comfortable, all the time' which when not in contrast to 'bad!' feel decidedly shallow. If this were a linear task hub grind, it wouldn't make as much sense or serve as much as a purpose. However in a sandbox environment, where the world you play in can be one of your biggest enemies and sources of danger, it fits perfectly - especially when considering the ways in which we're intended to interact with this specific environment as outlined in the blogs.
Waiting at the zone line of Kithicor Forest at night brought the world alive, the darkness was an entity and it meant something, it added weight to an otherwise mundane area. You knew Kithicor was a dangerous area at night, prone to undead invasions, and traversing it alone in the dark was down right risky. Waiting for others to arrive so you could make the journey in a group was wise; the second you shed light on that you destroy the entire zone.
Here I am over a decade later clearly recalling experiences that led to social interaction and really made the (then) unforgiving world of Norrath a very real place to be.
I want to explore dungeons by the light of a flickering torch and traverse vast forests that are pitch black mysteries beyond the reach of my lantern.
I don't want you holding my hand all the time, I don't want a cave artificially lit by fluorescent bulbs and I don't want wilderness lit by street lamps. I want to, as they say in their blogs, stumble into adventure - what better way to do that than by flickering torchlight?
If the game is designed with the notion that nights will be dark, caves will be dark, the underground will be dark - aside from tools like spells, torches or lanterns, I think the end result would be a game that could treat darkness as a realistic danger and entity, and more than just an inconvenience to some.
It's worked great in the past.
I would gladly welcome any small inconvenience it brings for the sake of setting, ambiance, threat and immersion.
I would like to see the game with dark night & places, however there are some concerns of mine. Since a character's night sight ability affects how the players perceive in the game, will characters getting blinded make the game screen covered in total darkness? (same question to the deaf status)
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Excellent idea!
I would, if up to me, make the render of dynamic light left to the clients comp so it can acoount for the characters senses (lowlight, darkvision, etc) but also if bringing a light actually adjusted how far you can see.
In reality if your eyes adjust to dark you can see quite far, just not very well, however, the moment you turn on a light the distance you can see is cut very short, but you can see well in that limited area while not at all beyond it. I would love for this to be in game as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does this thread keep popping back up... The lead developer already said this is not practical on page 1. If darkness hinders capabilities, it will be cheated around and thus only give cheaters an edge. Just as Ryan said 10 posts in... why we keep necroing this thread I will not understand.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why does this thread keep popping back up... The lead developer already said this is not practical on page 1. If darkness hinders capabilities, it will be cheated around and thus only give cheaters an edge. Just as Ryan said 10 posts in... why we keep necroing this thread I will not understand.
Because some potential customers feel it would be a serious design flaw to cater the game to the exploiters, people who will not really enjoy any game you place before them...they only enjoy the advantage they can gain through cheating.
Making something less for everyone so a few will gain less advantage while cheating seems an absurd design philosophy to me.
Until release any decisions can be changed...I am always pleased to see this thread respawn.
EDIT: I am not an expert in MMO design or marketing, so I wanted to temper my above statements with my admission of ignorance on the topic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi, I think part of the reason this is an Undead Thread is because there are a lot of people who would prefer the darkness purely for atmosphere. It could even be a client-side option, so that nobody needed a "cheat" to overcome it. If it were a client-side option, I think there are quite a few players who would choose to play with darkness even if it did put them at a not-too-significant disadvantage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi, I think part of the reason this is an Undead Thread is because there are a lot of people who would prefer the darkness purely for atmosphere. It could even be a client-side option, so that nobody needed a "cheat" to overcome it. If it were a client-side option, I think there are quite a few players who would choose to play with darkness even if it did put them at a not-too-significant disadvantage.
Well yeah as an atmosphere type of thing I can completely agree with it. Possibly even a boost to effectiveness of the stealth skill. But yeah those who think that cheaters would be an insignificant minority most likely haven't played the original counterstrike, your average game at minimum 20% would be using wall hacks etc... When you stack that with the basic algorithm, people are more likely to cheat the longer the consequences are, so when we are talking ambushers, or late night castle sieges etc... situations that can completely shift the curve of power, an undetectable, unprovable cheat that is being abused by say only 10% of the population... would greatly punish legitimate players by a huge margin.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Onishi, I think part of the reason this is an Undead Thread is because there are a lot of people who would prefer the darkness purely for atmosphere. It could even be a client-side option, so that nobody needed a "cheat" to overcome it. If it were a client-side option, I think there are quite a few players who would choose to play with darkness even if it did put them at a not-too-significant disadvantage.Well yeah as an atmosphere type of thing I can completely agree with it. Possibly even a boost to effectiveness of the stealth skill. But yeah those who think that cheaters would be an insignificant minority most likely haven't played the original counterstrike, your average game at minimum 20% would be using wall hacks etc... When you stack that with the basic algorithm, people are more likely to cheat the longer the consequences are, so when we are talking ambushers, or late night castle sieges etc... situations that can completely shift the curve of power, an undetectable, unprovable cheat that is being abused by say only 10% of the population... would greatly punish legitimate players by a huge margin.
Actually, I don't see much harm to it if it was something that could be set as a client side option. That's nothing more harmfull then putting in a gore on/off option or pretty much any other UI or graphics customization for the players.
Yes, when people were participating in PvP likely almost everyone would have it turned off so as not to handicap themselves against the cheaters.... but there ARE going to be some other aspects to the game besides PvP.... so what would be the problem of letting folks have that sort of ambiance effect turned on when they were doing RP or PvE or some other activity with like minded folks and wanted to enjoy the atmosphere?
It's kinda like saying you shouldn't put darkness in single player RPG's because people could circumvent it....sure they could and some of those games even ship with purposefully designed cheat codes or god modes... at that point no ones really being handicapped for playing without the cheats because you are not actualy in competition with anyone. You're just trying to enjoy the experience according to your preferences.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, I don't see much harm to it if it was something that could be set as a client side option. That's nothing more harmfull then putting in a gore on/off option or pretty much any other UI or graphics customization for the players.
Yes, when people were participating in PvP likely almost everyone would have it turned off so as not to handicap themselves against the cheaters.... but there ARE going to be some other aspects to the game besides PvP.... so what would be the problem of letting folks have that sort of ambiance effect turned on when they were doing RP or PvE or some other activity with like minded folks and wanted to enjoy the atmosphere?
As an optional visual effect I am 100% in favor, as i said in the previous post, for atmosphere it is perfectly fine, If it's purpose is to add challenge or difficulty that is when it is an issue. Actually I was also thinking if player modules have low/no reward they would also be a perfect place for the darkness to be a factor. Closed instances with no risk of PVP are the place I could see it as most useful without the risk of putting griefers at a strong advantage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well yeah as an atmosphere type of thing I can completely agree with it. Possibly even a boost to effectiveness of the stealth skill. But yeah those who think that cheaters would be an insignificant minority most likely haven't played the original counterstrike, your average game at minimum 20% would be using wall hacks etc... When you stack that with the basic algorithm, people are more likely to cheat the longer the consequences are, so when we are talking ambushers, or late night castle sieges etc... situations that can completely shift the curve of power, an undetectable, unprovable cheat that is being abused by say only 10% of the population... would greatly punish legitimate players by a huge margin.
I would not have any interest in playing a game that attracted this type of community anyways (at least within my local in game community). I suppose my biggest problem is that I work in the AI research field and it amazes me that we can do some of the things we can do with computers, but we evidently cannot figure out how to practically not have something sent to an IO device. In my line of work, if something does not work you figure out a different way to do it. Well, I am sure the game will be awesome with ambient twilight too.
Anyways, this is just an opinion thread so people are expressing their opinions. I do not see why these opinions cannot be counter to that of the dev team...especially in predevelopment.
Can anyone tell me what this game Zesty used a screenshot from is:
http://i.imgur.com/cjcSr.jpg?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would not have any interest in playing a game that attracted this type of community anyways (at least within my local in game community). I suppose my biggest problem is that I work in the AI research field and it amazes me that we can do some of the things we can do with computers, but we evidently cannot figure out how to practically not have something sent to an IO device. In my line of work, if something does not work you figure out a different way to do it. Well, I am sure the game will be awesome with ambient twilight too.
Well when it comes to cheaters, the games they are attracted to are the ones that they can successfully cheat in. Most commonly it falls into these 2 groups
1. The proof of concept hacker, these are the types of people that just love figuring out what they can do, many of them have no intention of using the cheat after they've written it, half the time they pick up a game exclusively to find out what security holes they can find and have no intention of playing when they are done but usually they have ego, and will wind up sharing the cheat with some group, that will start publishing the program to do it automatically.
2. The script kiddy
These are the ones you will actually run into in the game, in general these people just browse sites looking for cheats, often specifically picking out a game, because of what cheats are available for exploit.
I agree neither one of those are desirable people, but those types are drawn to a game because of exploitable mechanics, traits rather than drawn to it and then look for exploits.
As far as the comments on how we can't avoid sending things to the IO ports, the main reason for that in an MMO is pretty simple, the network latency factor is a pretty big deal. In WoW or almost any MMO that has some sort of teleport etc.. If you are teleported into a crowd of 20 or more people, rather than instantly seeing all 20 people, you usually see 5 on arrival and then 1-2 pop in every second or 2 until you see them all. That is the shock of the game trying to get everything drawn at once, while if you walk to that same crowd, the game is usually calculating where everyone is in the cache before they are in your sight, so there is no sudden shock when you reach them.
If the game isn't caching and you walk into a surprise team of 10 ambushers that you can't see till 20' away, it would be horrible design for the game to attempt to load them all during that 20 seconds. You'd only see 5 of them and then the other 5 would pop up randomly... huge chaos, so the game would have to be pre-rendering them at 50' and thus the player can cheat and learn they exist at 50'.
So far the only idea I've heard of that might counter such a tactic, is have the server lie, and force the game to render random fake characters only revealing which ones are real when they are actually reached. To me that one could in theory work, but how harsh that would be on a server, client and if it is even plausible within a premade engine, is a whole different animal.
Anyways, this is just an opinion thread so people are expressing their opinions. I do not see why these opinions cannot be counter to that of the dev team...especially in predevelopment.Can anyone tell me what this game Zesty used a screenshot from is:
http://i.imgur.com/cjcSr.jpg?
I do agree, I just think for gameplay effectiveness, almost every point and counterpoint has kinda been covered in pages 2-5
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well when it comes to cheaters, the games they are attracted to are the ones that they can successfully cheat in. Most commonly it falls into these 2 groups
1. The proof of concept hacker, these are the types of people that just love figuring out what they can do, many of them have no intention of using the cheat after they've written it, half the time they pick up a game exclusively to find out what security holes they can find and have no intention of playing when they are done but usually they have ego, and will wind up sharing the cheat with some group, that will start publishing the program to do it automatically.
2. The script kiddy
These are the ones you will actually run into in the game, in general these people just browse sites looking for cheats, often specifically picking out a game, because of what cheats are available for exploit.I agree neither one of those are desirable people, but those types are drawn to a game because of exploitable mechanics, traits rather than drawn to it and then look for exploits.
As far as the comments on how we can't avoid sending things to the IO ports, the main reason for that in an MMO is pretty simple, the network latency factor is a pretty big deal. In WoW or almost any MMO that has some sort of teleport etc.. If you are teleported into a crowd of 20 or more people, rather than instantly seeing all 20 people, you usually see 5 on arrival and then 1-2 pop in every second or 2 until you see them all. That is the shock of the game trying to get everything drawn at once, while if you walk to that same crowd, the game is usually calculating where everyone is in the cache before they are in your sight, so there is no sudden shock when you reach them.
If the game isn't caching and you walk into a surprise team of 10 ambushers that you can't see till 20' away, it would be horrible design for the game to attempt to load them all during that 20 seconds. You'd only see 5 of them and then the other 5 would pop up randomly... huge chaos, so the game would have to be pre-rendering them at 50' and thus the player can cheat and learn they exist at 50'.
So far the only idea I've heard of that might counter such a tactic, is have the server lie, and force the game to render random fake characters only revealing which ones are real when they are actually reached. To me that one could in theory work, but how harsh that would be on a server, client and if it is even plausible within a premade engine, is a whole different animal.
To me there are solutions to this, first, if teleporting is breaking your game...don't have teleporting. This would make for a better game with or without darkness imho. As an additional or alternate solution, why is the game loading everything about the 20 players before resolving them? Why not send extremely simplified information such as "character n at relative position x, y, z" and once this data is sent about all the detectable players, send the next layer of detail, known friend or foe. And once this data is sent about all detectable players move to the next layer, basic physical descriptions...etc.
This model would at least have players recognize that they are surrounded by characters (and perhaps would see some sort of immediate dark silhouette in general humanoid shape). Next the would receive notification of the silhouettes "known intentions". This is a small amount of information being sent, position and intention...five bits of information needed at maximum per character to know if a known friend or enemy is present...this is a tiny amount of information.
This actually makes for a really cool mechanic, if there is not enough light, maybe the system would not pass any more information that those 5 bits and all you would see would be a shadowy silhouette where other characters are. Likewise, it could use the same system to prioritize information about characters in close proximity.
This type of system would work much like the human brain, receiving very broad information first quickly and later filling in the details as necessary and possible.
Anyways, just throwing out a possible solution to illustrate that the problem is not insurmountable. My solution may not be a good one, but it took me 4 minutes to think up...and I am not an expert.
I do agree, I just think for gameplay effectiveness, almost every point and counterpoint has kinda been covered in pages 2-5.
Agreed, but most here practicing necromancy where not present or participating in the earlier discussion. I think they have as much right to voice their opinions even if they are redundant or shared with earlier posters. But, I am biased because I agree with them and do not see the need to concede features to those who would try to break them. I see a need to redesign them to not be breakable. And, I don't see why some redesign could not end up more simple and more elegant that what is currently accepted MMO design practice.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I for one would love for darkness and vision modes to be meaningfully implemented. I simply think that the practical limits to that are insurmountable- if nothing else, the video card drivers can be altered. I refuse to support a feature that would result in literally undetectable cheating which provided such a large benefit to the cheaters at the expense of legitimate players.
Can anyone tell me what this game Zesty used a screenshot from is:
http://i.imgur.com/cjcSr.jpg?
The Witcher 2: Electric Boogaloo
I for one would love for darkness and vision modes to be meaningfully implemented. I simply think that the practical limits to that are insurmountable- if nothing else, the video card drivers can be altered. I refuse to support a feature that would result in literally undetectable cheating which provided such a large benefit to the cheaters at the expense of legitimate players.
Haha this is truly the undead thread, which is great! Just because the game is going in one direction doesn't mean people can't voice their opinion about that direction or the direction they think it should be going in. I believe that threads like this are instrumental for developers. Often a feature that they don't think is important can surprisingly be important to their fanbase and they didn't have a clue. They are reading are ideas right now and probably discussing them. Now to the idea discussing part:
Although I would love darkness to be meaningful, I can understand if that would not happen. I would love to take a torch into a dungeon but realistically the light rendering on that might be tough on a graphics engine and people might just cheat out of it (I don't pretend to be a graphics expert so I could be wrong, neither do I think you should remove a feature just because someone might cheat out of it.) I would love to see a stat raise during the night even if it has nothing to do with visual or perhaps a stat decrease to something like archery. Adding meaningful darkness (along with a weather system, moon calendar,and [dare I say] season system?) however does add alot of immersion and "persistence" (Yes, I just used Ryan's favorite word :)haha.) to the game. It adds roleplays elements and opportunities and since one tries to appeal to the majority population it would add a unique system for the majority of people who don't cheat in a game. Let's be honest, their are a lot of hackers within games, we tend to notice them more because they stick out and annoy. But cheaters and hackers are still a minority not the majority.
For me, the purpose of a day/night cycle is more for atmosphere, immersion, and persistence. If there would not be a day/night and weather system in PO I would be GREATLY disappointed. I play sandbox games because of the immersion, if I am stuck in a static daylight then I will be severely disappointed because that completely ruins the immersion in my opinion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Didn't read the whole thread, but it would be awesome if dark-vision, low-light vision etc would alter the view distance when it really is dark, so that people would have to use torches and light spells also. But I would code it so that the gamma would not affect it. The day and night(and darkness) would be an automatic view distance slider that doesn't draw graphics beyond that point unless your character has some kind of light or vision that would alter that slider. Don't know how hard that would be to implement though.
If you would zoom out of your character you would get a black screen...
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Goblin Squad Member
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This may be more of a technical limitation question that only GoblinWorks can answer but here goes.
When looking at creating a darker night for enhanced imersion would it not be possible to to use a combination of actually darkening the environment and Draw Distance, Character Draw alterations to accomplish the task.
The trick, IMO, would be to have a check before drawing a character on screen similar to invisibility where a person's vision was checked and maybe a behind the scenes perception check of sorts. If at the edges of what a person can see then it would a very low detail "outline" (maybe even somewhat generic to cut down on models needed) of the approaching person. If they have darkvision you could load a thermal outline of the approaching person.
It could even be passed on to the environment to a degree as it could load a "shadow" version of the textures which I realize would increase the size and number of the textures in game but Because of the low detail and the fact you would already have the normal texture it should be relatively quick to alter.
Just some general thoughts but basically if you create textures that load during this part of the day/night cycle and simply have things that aren't seen not rendered then people can make the general area brighter but can't detect a person simply by altering how the game is rendered. I'm not super familiar with the exact tech that makes a game so there may be limitations I don't understand and any feedback would be appreciated.
--Pharazon
**Edit**
I realized an example may be useful.
I have lowlight vision and have a light source. If something is withing 20ft my client will tell my graphics card to render normally anyone that isn't invisible or stealth beyond my ability to see them.
Because I have lowlight vision the twice the area of lowlight will act the same way as above for me. For anyone with me that does not have lowlight vision if they make a basic perception check they will load the "shadow" texture of anything they see.
Beyond the lowlight area every character model for all intents and purposes would count as invisible and thus not be sent to the graphics card to render at all.
Darkvision would work as the others except it would load its own "thermal" texture.
Here's what Ryan had to say on the subject..
Here's the one thing that means that darkness isn't worth building into a game design:
Players can easily run software that will render the surrounding areas as if lit. If a game actually shipped with "meaningful darkness", a player-built patch to remove it would be available within hours. Then the only people who would "suffer" from darkness would be the ones who are unwilling to "cheat", and the "cheaters" would have a huge advantage.
Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero could be done to stop this from happening. (Look up what happened when people figured out you could make the walls transparent in iD games if you're interested in the cat & mouse between developers and those wiling to cheat).
Did you know that World of Warcraft runs a hidden process on your machine that is designed to detect this kind of cheating? It's called "Warden" (you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_%28software%29
And even with this, people still hack the heck out of the WoW client.
Ask yourself if you really want Goblinworks to be that creepy, all for the un-achievable goal of making people have to worry about torches, lanterns and light spells.
I would love to see (haha) races different visions come into play during game nights. But the method would have to be planned around cheaters modifying their way around the effect. Then there is the matter of the group of people who resist anything that's not in Wow, and finally, are the benefits worth the developers time to create such a system? Sadly I think they will view it as a needless time consuming job unless a majority of players asked for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@valandur - Assuming your post was directed at me
I understand what Ryan said but what he was talking about is fundamentally different than what I was asking. What Ryan is talking about is having the environment and textures loaded then telling it to be rendered a certain way. What I am talking about is actually choosing not to render at all what you can't actually see, and having low definition (shadowy) textures for that which you cant see clearly.
This would mean that you would render that "shadow" textures normally which keeps you from altering how it is rendered. You could still technically make the environment brighter by changing the render under what I'm proposing but it wouldn't matter because its not the rendering that is making the textures shadowy to begin with.
My idea actually came up as I was discussing what Ryan said with some friends. I asked my friends that question and none of us could think of a reason that wouldn't work. I realize it might not be realistic or feasible but it seemed worth bringing up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@valandur - Assuming your post was directed at me
I understand what Ryan said but what he was talking about is fundamentally different than what I was asking. What Ryan is talking about is having the environment and textures loaded then telling it to be rendered a certain way. What I am talking about is actually choosing not to render at all what you can't actually see, and having low definition (shadowy) textures for that which you cant see clearly.
This would mean that you would render that "shadow" textures normally which keeps you from altering how it is rendered. You could still technically make the environment brighter by changing the render under what I'm proposing but it wouldn't matter because its not the rendering that is making the textures shadowy to begin with.
My idea actually came up as I was discussing what Ryan said with some friends. I asked my friends that question and none of us could think of a reason that wouldn't work. I realize it might not be realistic or feasible but it seemed worth bringing up.
So I guess that would mean a lot of textures, if you would divide day and night with different shades of textures. For each texture you would have to have a few variants, one for evening, one for day, one for night maybe more. If I understood correctly.
@valandur - Assuming your post was directed at me
I understand what Ryan said but what he was talking about is fundamentally different than what I was asking. What Ryan is talking about is having the environment and textures loaded then telling it to be rendered a certain way. What I am talking about is actually choosing not to render at all what you can't actually see, and having low definition (shadowy) textures for that which you cant see clearly.
This would mean that you would render that "shadow" textures normally which keeps you from altering how it is rendered. You could still technically make the environment brighter by changing the render under what I'm proposing but it wouldn't matter because its not the rendering that is making the textures shadowy to begin with.
My idea actually came up as I was discussing what Ryan said with some friends. I asked my friends that question and none of us could think of a reason that wouldn't work. I realize it might not be realistic or feasible but it seemed worth bringing up.
Interesting. This does seem like it would eliminate the cheaters advantage. I wonder what the Devs would think about it? They could still keep the twilight night time like they plan, but the different vision types, and the use of light sources would apply like it was in EQ.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If put to a vote, I'd side with Zesty Mordant, but I fear that Nihimon is correct that it would take too much server resources. It would be nice to have my Elf be a bit better than say a human during twilight (just after sunset and just before sunrise, as well as nights where the moon is bright and there are numerous stars). That is part of the fun of being able to play a number of different races. It will be interesting to see how GW tackles various racial abilities and bonuses (as an Elf, even my Mage can use a longsword or a bow, for example - something I make use of in the dice and paper game).
As an aside, has the racial abilities and skills been addressed anywhere? I haven't seen a thread on it, but I could easily have missed it. Thanks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I love the idea of dark areas that hide horrible things in them, some of those horrible things might even turn out to be me.
This is especially cool in dungeon and on long merchant trips. Gives a caravan incentive to stop for the night build a fire and "circle the wagons". Meaningful nighttime would add so much to the game in way of bandit companies and strategy as well.
However, I think OP here has alienated many who would agree with him by insulting them (saying they want easy mode if they don't agree) or at the very least I feel insulted.....
This solution has been discussed before. It requires a lot more processing on the server, to determine what information to send to each client.
An well, I thought as much. I wonder if the Devs would consider having darkness and racial vision coming into play in dungeons?
As someone with compromised vision - subtle contrasts give me great difficulty - I'd find a "dark-night" setting virtually impossible to play in. I'd vote to make it a purely optional setting, but I strongly oppose an enforced darkness setting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This solution has been discussed before. It requires a lot more processing on the server, to determine what information to send to each client.
I don't see how it is a lot more processing on the server side of things. client has all the textures locally and only needs to be given the command to default to "shadow textures" after a certain time so that check only needs to be done every so often. As far as choosing whether or not to display an object how would it be any more intensive than having a platoon of mages cast invisibility or invisibility sphere in large scale combat which is likely to happen?
It would operate along the same parameters as invisibility for determining whether or not an object should be rendered by the client so I don't think its outside the realm of possibility.
As far as non player objects are concerned it seems a system that grouped objects and determined if the group was visible would also be a way to keep the number of things being processed down.
You also have to keep in mind that draw distance would automatically be cut back (overriding any other draw distance setting) during night which again cuts back on the number of checks that the server would have to do in order to tell the client what to draw.
Again I'm definitely not an expert but the processing requirement came up in my discussion with friends and if you are going to have hundreds of people in a large scale battle situation and invisibility as an option then I don't see how the system I brought up is going to be any more taxing than that.
--Pharazon
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Goblin Squad Member
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This solution has been discussed before. It requires a lot more processing on the server, to determine what information to send to each client.
Cheers to the necromancy.
Ah, but that added expense is inversely proportional to the processing on the client side. And...since the only real difference is that you are adding a filter that limits information send to all the clients, it also means there would necessarily be less communication bandwidth. And...if implemented, it opens up other options such as "improved stealth" mechanics. I would much rather spend more on my single backend setup if it means opening the game to a wider paying audience.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As someone with compromised vision - subtle contrasts give me great difficulty - I'd find a "dark-night" setting virtually impossible to play in. I'd vote to make it a purely optional setting, but I strongly oppose an enforced darkness setting.
Anyone wishing the ambience of dark darkness should be able to experiment with their gamma settings in game options to make it appear so to them anyway. Gamma sliders slide both ways usually.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anyone wishing the ambience of dark darkness should be able to experiment with their gamma settings in game options to make it appear so to them anyway. Gamma sliders slide both ways usually.As someone with compromised vision - subtle contrasts give me great difficulty - I'd find a "dark-night" setting virtually impossible to play in. I'd vote to make it a purely optional setting, but I strongly oppose an enforced darkness setting.
This is actually a dead issue as far as I am concerned, but this is often the response to those of us who actually did want meaningful darkness. Do the rest of you really think we who want meaningful darkness are simply asking for ambiance?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Everquest had darkness at night in 1999, fyi we carried TORCHES. Or played races that could see , instead of hunams.
Besides which, light is trivial, trivial to provide for yourself, besides the oft cited immersion, darkness makes stealth possible without using some stupid invisibility, & it helps the economy.
Plus, lighting is a huge part of PFRPG. (20% miss chance for dim light, etc.)
Towns have streetlamps, torches and fireplaces in buildings, etc ad nauseum.
Economy : Travel in groups/with guards/by caravan... buy continual flame torches , those and other items/castings/enchantments can all be viable ONLY if it gets dark sometimes.
(Not talking about in dungeons, where groups go, when casters can orison light all over the place. )
Gamma correction: that should only apply to light available, not night itself.
TL/DR;
Torches are cheap.
Make night dark !
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pharazon, the problem with darkness that Ryan was concerned about was that it would be easy to hack to be able to see through it. This is because the Client process can't be trusted to enforce any rules. If the Client is aware of something, then the player can be aware of it. In order to keep the player from being aware of stuff their character shouldn't be aware of, you have to make that determination (should they be aware of it) on the server, and only send things to the client if the character should be aware of it. Making that determination on the server means more work on the server.