Goblin Squad Member
|
So there's something that's been on my mind for a few days, and now is the time for me to bring it forward for dsicussion.The passage of time or - to be more specific - the day and night cycle, is a pretty important point for this game. A kingdom raising sandbox which uses use 'real time' with one day per day will run into one of two problems. Either things will have to develop much faster 'in game' than they should in regards to gathering resources and assembling fortifications and such, or these things will take FOREVER over the course of real time day by day labor.
My preferred solution is to bypass both of these issues entirely by implementing a faster cycling of time. In my mind, the ideal cycle is 8 hours, which delivers three 'days' per real day, and approximately one season per month.
Alternatively, a 12 hour (two 'days' per day) or 6 hour (four 'days' per day) are also viable (just not quite as good in my opinion :P)
Well, this thread suggests weather and seasons work just like on Earth. So the length of night and day will change based upon the seasons. As for the length of a cycle? I think it depends on the size of the world. traveling from place to place should take x time, at average walk speed this would happen in y time. So however it really takes to walk an average medium sized character from that same place to place should be y time. Hope that makes sense.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
This hasn't at all been worked out yet, but it's pretty common to do a full day-night cycle in an hour or two. This keeps things moving fast enough that you get to lots of great varied lighting when you explore an area. But not so fast that it's irritating.
But we may end up with a gameplay reason to have a different cycle later. For instance, FFXI had some sort of moon cycle that affected crafting which was kind of interesting.
Moon cycle and seasonal change would be a good thing. Especially when trying to avoid always-summer/always-winter regions. On the other hand persistent weather (i.e. actual snow falling and covering the ground) effects would be a pain in the back of programmers - unless you'd resort to 4 set of textures for each region for 4 different seasons - and I am not so convinced to that idea.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If the game is taking into account an accelerated time cycle, I'd really like to see Age and aging as a relevant point to the game. I like RPGs where my PC can grow from a snot-nosed young punk to a venerable sage, and I've always looked for MMOs that allow for that element to keep characters from being static. I've been disappointed that in most games characters only change their look through gear or barber/hairstylist-visits.
How would this affect in world holidays if there are any. The celebration will only last for two hours real time?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If the game is taking into account an accelerated time cycle, I'd really like to see Age and aging as a relevant point to the game. I like RPGs where my PC can grow from a snot-nosed young punk to a venerable sage, and I've always looked for MMOs that allow for that element to keep characters from being static. I've been disappointed that in most games characters only change their look through gear or barber/hairstylist-visits.
I think a lot of people would be turned off by the idea of their character eventually turning old and gray.
If the game is taking into account an accelerated time cycle, I'd really like to see Age and aging as a relevant point to the game. I like RPGs where my PC can grow from a snot-nosed young punk to a venerable sage, and I've always looked for MMOs that allow for that element to keep characters from being static. I've been disappointed that in most games characters only change their look through gear or barber/hairstylist-visits.I think a lot of people would be turned off by the idea of their character eventually turning old and gray.
I think you are correct, Scott, but for those that want this sort of effect there are several games out there that have different youthful - middle age - old age skins for characters, that can be placed upon a players character just like changing hairstyles or gear.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I propose a period of 60 seconds every 3 in game day cycles in which the world enters a minute long timelapse.
In this 60 seconds, all the trees which have been chopped down, crops harvested, fished out lakes and rivers etc, these will spring into rejuvenation and grow and revive before our very eyes as we smoke pot and listen to Enya.
♠ Join the Pathfinder Online community in IRC | Server: irc.stratics.com (6667) Channel: #pfo | We'll see you there! ♠
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
2 to 3 hours sounds like a good amount of time to me. I'd probably lean towards the longer length. Especially if you're going to have dynamic environments where different things will come out to play during the night.
But then I guess it really depends on if the day/night cycle will actually have any effect on the game world itself. Will we see things that come out more during the night? Certain nocturnal animals, or bandits that more likely attack at night, that sort of thing. Or will it be just for the lighting effects? Those would probably be questions that need to be answered first before deciding how long each day actually is.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm for making aging optional. If you want to grow old and die, you may. If you do not, you don't have to.
One thing I'd like to see as a result is a reasonable way to include progeny. With this, one might actually have the situation later on in the game of young heroes coming from farming villages built by their previous player.
Would also make 'retiring' a character carry weight - Could retired characters be removed from a players account and added to the world as an NPC tied to the building they built with their hands, grow old and die?
Mental math written out -
The 2-3 hour day cycle means a week in a ~1 RL day, a month in 4-ish RL days, and a year in just over 1 RL month, leading to ~ 8 IG years per RL year.
Ok, that actually works pretty well in my mind, but mostly for the active player. Not sure I'd want to play the same character for more than 2 years, and if that's over 16 years of game time, that's about the length I figure most PCs would even have in terms of 'active adventuring careers.'
Well, for humans, anyway.
I know, right?
I know the idea of progeny was once an idea for one of the Fable games. Did that ever happen? How did it work if it came to be?
Assuming day and night are equal an equal amount of hours, I'd vote for 5 hour blocks of day and night. That way it wont always be day or night at noon real time.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think it depends on the size of the world. traveling from place to place should take x time, at average walk speed this would happen in y time. So however it really takes to walk an average medium sized character from that same place to place should be y time.
In this previous post I was just trying to be logical, but upon further consideration, there are practical reasons to do it this way. There will be many people who play their respective P&PRPG games in Golarion (as noted elsewhere by some who claim to play 4th edition using the Golarion source books). So, there will be players who know how long in days it should take to run from place to place. I think strongly that at minimum this feel of Golarion should be maintained. I hope we can use the source books to find our way about in the world.
Probably no word yet on how much of the river kingdoms we are talking about to begin with, right? I saw one other recent new game say that it was aiming to have three areas that can be traveled between, and each is 8 square kilometers. Not sure how big (or if the comparison can be made) Skyrim's land mass is. I liked the whole island feel of Morrowind, but it was almost nothing next to Oblivion.
How much land is feasible? I know Kingmaker AP states that the stolen lands are the size of the state of Maine here in the US.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
You will not see zones that are anywhere near the size of their P&P/real-world counterparts.
Also RD said that they would start "small" and add new zones later for new players to have a chance to forge their own realms.
But I guess that we will see zones that are a lot bigger than what is standard in themepark MMOs, which is usually about a square mile per zone, sometimes (Aion) even smaller.