Time in your MMORPG

Mendel

Worlds exist within their own time, with only a loose connection to the real world.  Some are fast, with multiple days and nights flashing by within the span of a single gaming session.  Others drag by, hours spent in the dark of night, waiting and hoping for the relief of the day.

No matter which, the time that exists in a game is an abstraction, a decision made by the developers to scale the world into our real-world perception.  But, what do you prefer?  A totally realistic game, where an hour in game approaches an hour in real-life, or a game where you can comfortably progress a week or more of game-time in a reasonable session?  Discuss.

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My answer:  Game time for simultaneous games needs to be global (and constant).  That helps sync the actions of the players (and the world).  I think that immersion depends greatly on the scale of the game, for me, and this includes time.  I'd like to see some more games approach a 1 hour RT = 3 hours GT.  This would give you some variety as the days would slowly cycle by and if you played at 6pm each evening, you'd eventually get to experience a full day/night cycle.  Add in solstices and some equinoxes and you have a full calendar for the game world and a shifting day/night cycle.

LynxJSA

If nighttime has some related game mechanics or relevance, I'd probably like to experience at least one night during each play session. For me, the formula would be

Average Play Session Time / 3 = Length of Daylight 

So, if I normally sit down to play the game for an hour, I'd like about 20 minutes of that to be night time. If time lands me in a Night-Day-Night cycle for the session now and then, that's fine, too. 

Sovrath

I think I prefer a less realistic passing of time. Otherwise, it will take me many hours just to see the nighttime!

Dibdabs

Xodic said:

This made me think of how deep EverQuest really was. With games today, night is nothing more than what you described, but In EQ the day/night cycle was so much more. So many aspects were tied to time.

The reason I bring it up is because from what I've played in the last few years, time doesn't matter at all. I don't even think I realize that it's day or night, it's just so inconsequential.

The memory of night time in Nektulos Forest lives with me yet.  Other zones were scary at night too, of course, but Nektulos was a starter zone - and it was terrifying! 

cameltosis

I just haven't played any MMORPG where the day/night cycle had any relevance whatsoever, neither has the passage of time in general.

So, if day/night/time is going to remain irrelevant, then I'd like it to be daytime all the time. I prefer exploring during the day, I like to be able to see what's going on and appreciate those beautiful vistas.

If day/night/time is going to become relevant, then i guess it would depend on what there is to do at night, but in general I guess I'd want maybe 2 hours daytime, 20mins-30mins nighttime.

cameltosis

Should also say that whatever the day/night cycle, i would want it to be asynchronous with real day/night cycle. In other words, if I log on at 7pm every day, i don't want it to always be nighttime in game every single time, or always midday or whatever.

Amathe

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

AlBQuirky

Time.... flowing like  river,,,,

I'd like time to mean something. I'd like to experience days and nights passing. I'd like to notice a change in the time.

That means depth and we just don't have that anymore. Time can also cause problems for certain players. I'd hate to log in every day at the same time and have the game always be in a night cycle.

EQ was great with their day/night cycle. Those poor Drow & Halflings. Drow started in Nektulos Forest and Kithicor Forest was just outside the Halfling town of Rivervale. Scary, scary night time monsters in those places.

The other part of "time" that does not exist in video games is "years." Our characters never get older. They don't get gray hair (unless manually chosen), they don't get fat or slow down, and they rarely "settle down."

Lots of games have "time." In most of them, time matters not

KnightFalz

It doesn't matter unless to me unless it play relevant in some way. In SotA, it influenced both solar and lunar magic. Also, night time visibility is extremely limited when in the wilderness with no source of light, and still quite impeded with the light spell all characters are given at creation.

Po_gg

cameltosis said:

I just haven't played any MMORPG where the day/night cycle had any relevance whatsoever, neither has the passage of time in general.  

Odd, I remember you've played LotRO...

Ofc it was nerfed over the years (like numerous other things, sadly), but the day/night cycle had quite the relevance.

I believe exactly that relevance was the main reason behind the nerf as well... the number of "-That's awesome!" players was dwarfed (always them dwarrows... ) by the number of players with "-What, I have to wait 1 real hours until sunset, so I could continue this questline? Screw this game!"

The anniversary still has different events and quests during day and nighttime, and maybe a couple within the Bingo questline as well.

Other than that, day/night cycle only kept the bare minimum of relevance unfortunately. Mob spawns, behaviour and movement patterns change as the day goes by, but not their threat level (if you don't count the patrolling trolls in Trollshaws during night).

Night ain't even dark anymore, no change in view distance so the lantern feature is just for cosmetic/roleplay now - if even aware of that the first place, I'm certain many players don't even know there's the lantern...

kitarad

Amathe said:

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

This X 10. I felt real fear at night in Everquest. That is how it should be.

LynxJSA

kitarad said:

Amathe said:

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

This X 10. I felt real fear at night in Everquest. That is how it should be.

It's been ages since I played EQ, but I remember trying desperately to find my way back to town in the dark, mashing 'sense heading' or whatever the key was to see if I was going anywhere near the direction I wanted to head.   

"Please no snakes, please no snakes, please no snakes..." 

A genuine fear.  

cameltosis

Po_gg said:

cameltosis said:

I just haven't played any MMORPG where the day/night cycle had any relevance whatsoever, neither has the passage of time in general.  

Odd, I remember you've played LotRO...

Ofc it was nerfed over the years (like numerous other things, sadly), but the day/night cycle had quite the relevance.

I believe exactly that relevance was the main reason behind the nerf as well... the number of "-That's awesome!" players was dwarfed (always them dwarrows... ) by the number of players with "-What, I have to wait 1 real hours until sunset, so I could continue this questline? Screw this game!"

The anniversary still has different events and quests during day and nighttime, and maybe a couple within the Bingo questline as well.

Other than that, day/night cycle only kept the bare minimum of relevance unfortunately. Mob spawns, behaviour and movement patterns change as the day goes by, but not their threat level (if you don't count the patrolling trolls in Trollshaws during night).

Night ain't even dark anymore, no change in view distance so the lantern feature is just for cosmetic/roleplay now - if even aware of that the first place, I'm certain many players don't even know there's the lantern...

Weird, I have no memory of day/night making any difference in lotro!

Played from launch until near the end of Isenguard so i was there for the period you are talking about, but the most I can remember was the arbitrary few quests where you had to meet someone at night.

Maybe it's just a playstyle thing obscuring my memory. I hate leveling, so apart from my initial 3 months back in 2007, most of my time was spent in dungeons or in the ettenmoors. Moria was all underground (and took ~6 days to complete), Mirkwood was always shrouded in darkness (and took ~4 days to complete) so it's more than possible that I just didn't notice the differences in day/night.

One of my favourite memories of nighttime in lotro was the bug where rainbow's would appear in the middle of the night. made for some good screenshots :P

Mendel

Amathe said:

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

I'd agree that EQ1 did have the most likable scale.  It varied over the years, but I think it was usually around 1.5 RL hours to a complete Day/Night cycle in game.  It was, and is to me, the best implementation to date.

Where EQ1 failed with time is that there were simply no (or incredibly few) in game events tied to the game time.  There are several real life dates that we celebrate to some degree or another annually - Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Cinco de Mayo, and others.  Some of these are religious, some regional; some lasting a single day, others dominating a season.  Would it have been so difficult to flesh out the fictional game calendar a bit more to include festivals and other recurring in-game events?  Why isn't the founding of Kelethin celebrated with in-game festivities where merchants sell at a discount?  Or quests offered (and completed) only during the fall harvesting season?  It could have been much more than it was.

LotRO did have its seasonal festivals that were pretty good, certainly more of an attempt than other MMORPGs attempted.  But that is generally tied to the RL seasons, not the in-game seasons. 

This is one aspect of immersion I would expect to see in a true next-generation game.

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Theocritus

kitarad said:

Amathe said:

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

This X 10. I felt real fear at night in Everquest. That is how it should be.

I can't remember the name of the zones but there were a couple where spcial, and very dangerous, mosters came out only at night.....When it got dark you got the heck out of there.

Iselin

I think my favorite game ever for how they handled day and night was Dragon's Dogma. Night time was really dark and both the mob density and difficulty types increased a lot.

In most MMOs I've played night time is just a dark version of daylight with the same quests, sane open shops and same mobs and density, etc. Games like that just make night time a pain in the butt because there's nothing special happening but you just can't see things as well.

Even when they do things like give some merchants a day/night cycle (as in BDO) or have quests that must be done at certain times of day or night it just feels gimmicky.

Either do it right or don't bother, IMO.

Same with weather. Most games just add it for visual variety but it serves no purpose.

DeadSpock

FFXI during night time undead spawned and they were higher level than the mobs your party was fighting and aggroed from very far if someone had hp low, also crafting was based on time of day/night and moon phase and direction you're facing if you would succeed or higher chance of fail with higher chance of crit.

kitarad

Theocritus said:

kitarad said:

Amathe said:

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

This X 10. I felt real fear at night in Everquest. That is how it should be.

I can't remember the name of the zones but there were a couple where spcial, and very dangerous, mosters came out only at night.....When it got dark you got the heck out of there.

Kithicor Forest at night.

Sovrath

Iselin said:

I think my favorite game ever for how they handled day and night was Dragon's Dogma. Night time was really dark and both the mob density and difficulty types increased a lot.

Just playing this last week and marveling at the same thing.

I even decided to do an escort mission at night and "yadda, yadda, yadda, I failed.

Cause? Bandits in a narrow ravine in the northeast corner of the map. They attacked us from the shadows, we fought bravely but Cecily McButterkins (or whatever her name was) fell and subsequently couldn't get up.

AlBQuirky

Mendel said:

Amathe said:

However EQ did it, that is what I liked best.

I'd agree that EQ1 did have the most likable scale.  It varied over the years, but I think it was usually around 1.5 RL hours to a complete Day/Night cycle in game.  It was, and is to me, the best implementation to date.

Where EQ1 failed with time is that there were simply no (or incredibly few) in game events tied to the game time.  There are several real life dates that we celebrate to some degree or another annually - Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Cinco de Mayo, and others.  Some of these are religious, some regional; some lasting a single day, others dominating a season.  Would it have been so difficult to flesh out the fictional game calendar a bit more to include festivals and other recurring in-game events?  Why isn't the founding of Kelethin celebrated with in-game festivities where merchants sell at a discount?  Or quests offered (and completed) only during the fall harvesting season?  It could have been much more than it was.

LotRO did have its seasonal festivals that were pretty good, certainly more of an attempt than other MMORPGs attempted.  But that is generally tied to the RL seasons, not the in-game seasons. 

This is one aspect of immersion I would expect to see in a true next-generation game.

This is good. Most MMOs just mimmick "Earth Holidays" with campy events. WoW also had some "lore based" events like Dark Moon Faire, though that could just be Halloween in WoW clothing.

But a rural, agricultural area could easily make holidays around planting, harvest, the dark of midwinter (if the area even has seasons).

And this brings up another factor with time: Seasons. I know not every land is temperate and on a tilted axis like Earth, but I have not experienced many (if any at all) seasonal changes in a land. I can certainly understand why as that incorporates a LOT of extra coding that many players will not even notice as they run to their next fight, let alone appreciate.

So much could be done. So little actually exists...

AlBQuirky

Iselin said:

I think my favorite game ever for how they handled day and night was Dragon's Dogma. Night time was really dark and both the mob density and difficulty types increased a lot.

In most MMOs I've played night time is just a dark version of daylight with the same quests, sane open shops and same mobs and density, etc. Games like that just make night time a pain in the butt because there's nothing special happening but you just can't see things as well.

Even when they do things like give some merchants a day/night cycle (as in BDO) or have quests that must be done at certain times of day or night it just feels gimmicky.

Either do it right or don't bother, IMO.

Same with weather. Most games just add it for visual variety but it serves no purpose.

"Serves no purpose" is the bane of any "feature" in video games, in my opinion. Why bother of you don't USE that feature in any meaningful way. That may be the answer to why MMOs (and video games in general) don't even bother

Po_gg

cameltosis said:

One of my favourite memories of nighttime in lotro was the bug where rainbow's would appear in the middle of the night. made for some good screenshots :P

I believe that's still in the game, or was 1-2 years ago when I've last seen it

Another favourite was the Forochel fog bug, which is now fixed for certain - a shame, was great for moody screenshots, and a sense of danger since you barely could see farther than your nose. When it happened at night, the lights from lamps on the road or from the windows of houses loomed through the mist... spooky.

Mendel said:

LotRO did have its seasonal festivals that were pretty good, certainly more of an attempt than other MMORPGs attempted.  But that is generally tied to the RL seasons, not the in-game seasons. 

That's Tolkien's fault in a sense, he built Middle-earth alike to Earth with 12 months, 30 days, 4 main seasons, using the old celtic definitions

One can say LotRO's festivals follow that instead of the RL seasons, which was a great cop-out for Turbine when they slip up... like when the spring festival started in June once.

There's only two events in the game without lore ties I believe, the anniversary (obviously, tied to the game's launch) and the shipwrecked mariners which is around the int. Pirate day and probably was started as a joke.

Wizardry

The design needs to balance with common sense.It is perfectly fine for the day/night cycle to be like a real life timeline but other factors imo must scale faster.

It is funny seeing this topic,almost scary because just 15 minutes ago i was messing around with my server settings on just this very topic.

I make the day cycles 4x longer than night and i make an entire day last 2x longer than real time.This means i age slower and the sun stays out much longer and the nights go by faster.

One thing that does bother me is when people cry foul on realism yet if they see something that looks real stupid they complain.Why would you complain if you were forced to ride around on pink Unicorns all game,it's not real right?Thing is every single one of us uses real life to judge ideas in game so it most certainly does matter if a game carries plausible realism.

I can even stretch it one further,we hear a LOT about difficulty in games,well what if it was easier than an ARPG,what if you just press the space bar and the entire game dies?Automatically you are going to say "this is really dumb".

So this topic comes up way more with survival games as mmorpg's tend to have very little depth.So i heard a lot of crying about hitting trees with your fists,how often you need  to eat or drink etc etc.These settings are where common sense comes in and often the developers have very little or a bad pvp combat design forces them to make poor decisions for the rest of the game.

cheyane

I too enjoyed well enjoyed isn't quite how I describe night as an Erudite in Everquest but it was the time you genuinely felt wary and oft times scary because mobs literally jumped at you from the dark like a horror movie. That damned werewolf in Karana would scare the bejezus off me when I least expected it.

LynxJSA

cameltosis said:

Weird, I have no memory of day/night making any difference in lotro!

From lotro-wiki: 

Some quests may only be available during certain times of day (or night).

Various creatures in Middle-earth tend to have different spawn patterns, such as certain trolls only coming out at night.

In smaller towns, craftspeople not required for quests go to bed (disappear). Towns where this occurs include Duillond and several in the Shire.


I thought it was much more than that but it seems like it's a feature that one could easily never experience or notice it based on their playstyle.