How long should a day be, in game that is. Options

[njpaul]

Moderate (college students): 3-4 days/week -- 3-4 hours

I sure wish I, as a soon to be former college student, had 9-16 hours free a week to play games. I'm lucky to get 3 hours on Saturday nights.

[RicoSuave]

I know... it was a weak example. I was just ballpark'ing it (I guess I'm used to playing in bigger parks )

I also noticed I seemed to categorize them according to age. That was unintentional. I was just using my experience that I seemed to have played more video games as a child and am having far less time with my hobby nowadays. Raising a family has become my focus these last few years and will probably remain so from here on out until retirement.

For those that have read many of my previous postings, you can probably extrapolate that I'm in the Moderate/Casual category... but I do enjoy playing games, a lot! Which is why I liked Wish so much. I could immediately jump into the action without the required "Grind" that all MMORPGs seem to have these days.

It's going to be extremely difficult to conceptually design PW such that we are able to have a game where the learning curve isn't too steep or shallow, where grinding is done away with yet advanced players can excel, where 'challenge' is as much of a part of the game as 'adventure,' and where a "Brains bests Brawn" mentality will hopefully deminish overseas farming affects. Yes, it will be very difficult.

However, I'm more than just hopeful that we can succeed. As we take a look around at our community here on the forums, we see a myriad of ideas, desires, and expertise. We have great Project and Team Leads that are pulling us together and guiding us to ever-approaching milestones. We have experience and sense. We have the drive and the skills...

Now, if only we had the time!!!

[Pandra]

Someone pointeed out that Dwilf's game years didn't add up to a full 365 days that we commonly associate a year with.

Our game year doesn't necissarily need to equal 365 days. Now personally I don't want to go more than 5-7 game years in a real years time, I'm not sure what the day lenght break down on that would be. But 10+ games years starts feeling a bit rushed to me, like I gotta hurry up and get x done before my character ages too much. We want a design that gives people opertunities to play in diffrent periods of light and darkness but we don't want them to feel time crunched while playing.

[Dwilf]

There are a ton of ways to mess with the numbers in my previous post.
This day/night cycle and the passing of seasons and years is something that will probly need altering and messing with during the testing phase when we can get a real idea of how it plays.

Having world tilt and location on surface affecting light and dark periods would be very cool.

Here is another set of figures, with slightly longer days and seasons, that result in less game years per real year:

An 11 "real hour" "game day", 5.5 hour light/dark split at the equator
A 24 "game day" "game season".
A 4 "game season" "game year".

We get:
2.2 game days per real day.
8.07 game years per real year.

A game season lasts 11 real days.
A game year lasts 44 real days.

[Alexander]

Seems to me that everybody is fixed on the illusion you'd need days in a game...

Haven't you ever imagined a world without day and night? Or a planet that has three sons where it is only dark underground. Or perhaps a world where the sun sits at a fixed place and the world doesn't turn, one side will be forever dark and the other forever light. What about a world in perpetual darkness where the only light comes from magic? What about an inward turned world where the big light source is in the middle of the planet and we live on the inside of this hollowed out space, would be cool to see other people walking around up there on the other side.

Though I'd love to have real time days and night just for the fun of pissing some people off that only get to play during the night and hate it. I'd love to see that happen, wouldn't have a problem with it myself.

[Jerky]

No, Alexander, again don't flatter yourself. Don't think you are the only one who has ever thought of ideas like that. We all have. The reason why we aren't discussing it already mentioned in your own post.

a) It would tick players off. That may sound fun to you, so its a good thing you aren't making this game.

b)Perpetual light or dark is boring. It severely limits what we could do if we had a day/night cycle. Graphic-wise, quest-wise, world-wise, its just limiting; ergo stupid.

[Alexander]

Bollocks! Standard days and nights are boring, use your imagination and fantasy for once Jerky.

[Minthos]

Do not mistake good judgment for lack of imagination or fantasy.

[Jerky]

Who said anything about "Standard" day-night cycles? Not I. All I was saying is you aren't the first to think like that, so quit acting like you are. Second of all, quit making judgements based on nothing. Most people who come here don't think they know more about the game than the devs do. You seem to be the first.

Just because I argue against your idea doesn't mean it doesn't have any merit. You stated in your own post that it would tick players off. That is true. So propose a way of doing it that wouldn't tick them off. Answer the question: why would it tick them off? You need to help us follow your line of thinking if we are going to listen to it.

[John]

Yeah... erm... About as imaginative as not having days and nights really, Alexander.

And the no night thing.. Yeah, I've played Guildwars, the lack of something really didn't seem to me to boast of a powerful imaginative mind at work... Then theres Arx Fatalis, great game, under ground in caves and dungeons! - how non-cliched. Awesome for a first person rpg though working inside technical limitations.

Theres a lot of depth to this subject thats yet to be touched on, it'd be nice to see something valuable added soon, rather than nay-saying and spare of the moment comments that lack objective analysis.

[RicoSuave]

Perhaps we can use some of Alex's ideas still. Most of us have probably heard of Moses and Pharoah and some of the plagues that befell the Egyptians. Darkness in one area and light in the other isn't that hard to imagine and doesn't necessarily have to be caused by magic or some mysterious force... maybe just something in or out of NPCs' comprehension.

We could have anything from a volcano perpetually spewing forth ash blocking out light from whatever source fancies us, to some type of shift in the world's magnetic field causing extra, blinding light in certain areas.
Those are some ideas for perpetual Light/Darkness.


I wouldn't mind at all having an entire section of the map be underground. TSR used Drow living their entire lives underground, right? *Reminisces about Baldur's Gate* We can make many different types of land, but I believe we should stick with a changing light environment (having days & nights).

I work with way too many nay-sayers at work to do so here as well. Let's see how many ways we can actually say Yes to something... to find ways to make it work.

[Jaramar]

I've noticed a lot of talk about 4 and 6 hour days and have to say I'm against it. You see, while days like those are convenient it also means that anyone who can log in only between 4-5PM every day will end up ALWAYS playing at the same time of day in game. I would actually suggest we use a 7 or 9 hour day (day being a 24 hour day and night) instead so that days are a decent length and also so that people will be able to log in to different times of the day ingame even if they are stuck to one certain log in time in RL.

[Alexander]

*sigh* Pretty much everything everyone has ever thought up has already bin thought up by others Jerky, nothing is really new, some stuff is just more popular and well known. And just like the original Wish some ideas don't make it the first time. My acting is all in your head Jerky, go play with it in your fantasy.

As why it would tick some players off? Easy, you can't make everybody happy, it’s the simple truth that some people will always hate what you make no matter what you do. Just as some people will be whiners over always having to carry torches with them just to be able to see (in case they have no darkvision.) Basically people start to whine when something is taken away from them because they can’t see what is actually given instead. In other words, people are generally whiners, losers, and dim-witted idiots. But that’s just my opinion, one that is surprisingly shared by just about anyone I’ve ever met… Do I run with the wrong crowd or is it also a quality of people to say bad of others, even though they know less to nothing about those they insult? But Jerky, do you really need to ask me for answers you already know? Don’t answer that one.

But enough of boring rants, My stolen (DUH!) world examples:

Myriad Cosmology

The world is a immense chain of lose islands floating in midair. They are the only ground for below as far as the eye can see there are only more islands both big and small descending down darker and darker as the upper islands block more and more the light falling from the sky above. Not that the light has a source, the sky above continues endlessly and fewer islands exist there until nothing but sky and eventually only clouds can be discerned, light falls from the sky as if it was part of its very essence, part of the air and the clouds like rain it falls endlessly and unfailing blessing all life with its magical warmth.

Actually above the great deck of clouds lies the rift of creation, from it falls existence in its brilliance just as far below the islands the rift of destruction eats away at all that exists. The Cosmology in any other direction goes on for infinity and none have ever seen the end. Still myth tells of a god wall that surrounds all that is from all that lies beyond it, here the gods themselves have their seat and look upon their creation to judge and observe.

Though the sky is beautify to behold for all its colours know that these are the very elements of creation that must one day come to rain their power upon us. From the rift of creation all matter is spewed forth and just as soon the rift of destruction grabs its strangling hold, all is doomed from birth, all must end just as all must begin anew. Element storms are common on the top islands and all others not protected by those larger and higher flying islands. Fire (both small bolts and exploding balls, Water (rain or entire large lakes of water and even acid), Earth (mostly debris but also entirely new islands) and Air (including suffocating dust clouds and poisons gasses.)

The lower you go the darker it becomes until no light penetrates from above at all, now you come close to the rift of destruction and falling in is an actual danger. The lower you go the more life and its positive energies are drained from you and the surroundings, here the mockeries of life ‘live’ and negative energies run rampant giving second birth to the strangest monstrosities.

In the Myriad Cosmology you have no day and night cycles yet light and darkness exist.

The Realm of Dreams

Ever wondered what it’s like, that land of dreams? But what if you where unable to wake, an exile from the real forced to dream endlessly? What would you discover in this new realm if you had all the time of your life?

All dreams are but soup bobbles flouting and drifting on who knows what essence that is the aired foundation of dreamstuff. Once you can escape your own dreamscape learning that gravity only has grip on dreamers if they believe in it you join the dreamscapes in their eternal drift around the storm that is the dreamheart. Like soup bobbles glowing brightly or dimly like planets forming their own small galaxy. While the only features of the realm of dream are its airy dreamstuff and the formed dreamscapes there is a third, the dreamheart. The largest cluster of dreamscapes storm violently amongst volatile energy of dream like an infinitely large spiralling vortex which is perhaps the only discernable feature of the plane that can serve as a point of orientation, the very centre of the plane and none know what lies at the heart of its heart.

But the capable dreamer is able to enter those dreamscapes of others but what lies in them is known only to those that dare treat them for each dreamscape is the landscape and world of the dreamer who dreams it. And alto it may seem as real as the world you once called your waking world know that this is the realm of dream and nothing here is what it is, the dreamer, any dreamer, can take charge of the dream and make it to his liking. Beware then a hostile dreamer for his small world is the embodiment of its will and your enemy.

Yup the ream of dream, truly a place of possibility where everything can happen and the next world is but a dream away.

The Plane of Mirrors

Simple concept. Two worlds, almost free travel between them in the form of permanent ancient portals and simple magic. Both follow the same day and night cycle but are always at the opposite end of the other. This way players can choose to play in the light or dark at pretty much any time they want. And cool stuff can happen like if one builds a house on one side a duplicate one is placed on the exact same spot on the other world but opposite like Rich/Poor or Big/Small or New/Old (on one world a house ages reverse, getting newer as the other gets older then suddenly crumbing altogether as the original is finally destroyed.)

The Inverted Planet (already named but now with extras)

The planet can be covered in three layers; the inner world of light layer, the middle layer of stone and dirt tunnels without any light, and the outer surface of the planet which is not seen as the hell of the world, the lowest side of the outerdark, a realm of deadly elements.

The inner world is the safest place as this side is where the largest colonies of the livers in the light are build and maintained. Sure there are wild forests and beasts but at least the elements are calm compared to what lies over their doorstep. Where the light comes from can be either known or unknown, perhaps the magic of their world is infused in the very air and no shadows exists. In the middle layer the magic strays to far from its centre source and light grows dimmer until there is only darkness, utterly complete darkness and tunnels endless caves until finally the outer crust is breached. There on the crust no atmosphere protects this poor planet, the rays of its far to close sun scorn the planet so severely that its skin explodes in heat. (Try the movie “The chronicles of Riddick”, the prison planet is a good example) This realm of fire, explosions and pure heat is everlasting where the rays of the sun burn the surface and so slowly moves over its entire hide. But so as heat is unbearable on its light side the cold of the night is equally unbearable. Everything freezes to near zero in mare minutes after the light of the sun has passed but even in those two conditions there is life. The water in the little atmosphere that does exist falls quickly in form of huge hail storms forming glaciers. But where the hail touches the burned surface it melts again and heats but remains trapped by the thick upper ice. Here in this ever moving ocean, life can exist. Just as Couatl beings immune to the heat of day fly between the ash clouded sky and the fire spewing ground without fatigue. However harsh the elements life prevails and ground can be crossed.

Who knows why people live within and why the outside is extreme? Who knows the history of the provider orb at the very centre of the inner realm from where magic and light flow abundantly? (the inner world need not be completely free from shadow or weather, you can easily add clouds and rain and storms if you want)

The Less Extreme World

So why not vary rapid days? With multiple suns and moons? Absurd cycles!

Basicaly you can have one sun that runs along the sky on our humble speed, a day is a day. Add to that one that runs twice that speed and a third that runs three times the normal speed. Throw in a whole lot of moons that cross with the path’s of the suns lots of times both long and short.

For one it would be a real spectacle and would sure make for an interesting sky. Downside is that only a computer simulation can tell you the day and night periods and their length without going mad with calculations. Cool thing is that you can be pretty sure nobody will even have to worry of only seeing either light or dark nor can they predict how long it will last. If you tinker long enough with the numbers and cycles you can figure out which you like best, one that offers the most for both light and dark.

[greendots]

holy crap!

[Pandra]

you took the words right out of my mouth Green.

[Alexander]

What... Now that's an response I really can't do anything with.