View Full Version : Guild Wars in Real Time with Day and Night?
DarkWizard
05-07-2006, 04:06
Wouldn't it be a good idea for the entire GW world to experience day and night? I find that the world seems kinda boring when over half of the world exists only as day, and some places would look amazing if it was night instead. This may be an entirely aesthetic addition, or could include gameplay additions. Basically, I just want the GW world to operate in a day/night basis, both to add variety in the environment, and something to keep things interesting. Thoughts?
Ashberry
05-07-2006, 04:10
Yeah it would be cool, but I don't think it could work in the current way GW works, namely the storyline. Days would have to be much shorter though so nobody found themselves only around for one or the other.
Maybe in chapter 3, if its done in a none linear way it would then be entirely possible. The engine can already do it so thats not an issue.
several threads on this already or at least mentioning it, yeah i've been begging for it, it for ages, i dont think much is going to change maybe in a future chapter
THink about how day and night going to work.
Seriously think about it.
GW runs on Multiple Servers. So that mean that each server has to synchronise the time of day. Which server would be use as a reference?
Furthermore, GW has different zones. Is all the zone going to be the same time or has different time-zone e.g Lion-arch will be day, and Ascalon will be night.
In addition, the outpost and city are chronologically progressive unlike Oblivion. This means that if you are in LA you are technically in the future and Ascalon is in the past so it doesn make sense to have the time synchronized.
What purpose would day and night be in term of game play? Would be improve the game play or would it just be an aesthetic thing that requires alot of server work, coding etc.
Well I think it is a good idea and if all time is linear then i guess day in LA would be day in an outpost 2 days later at the same time...I also believe that obviously we arent going from planet to planet so tyria should be the same time area considering you can walk from one side to the next in a couple days...i cant walk to CA in a couple days and thats only an hours difference. Plus I think that GW would run on its own time...My vote would be for a condensed timeline...so maybe four GW years happen in one normal year....That way we could enjoy snowball fights, dragon arena, and pumpkin juice more times a year...I mean if you think about it 4 times in a year or even 2 times in a year would mean an event every couple of months...
I was actually thinking of something like a 9 hour system.
Basically, 4 hours of night, and 5 hours of daylight
and yeah.
This is simply to make it such that if a player can only be on at a certian time of the day, he/she can experience all the different "times" of guildwars anyway.
I think it would be cool if the Guild Wars days and nights were short, and not based on timezones- that wouldn't present too many problems. I think that Guild Wars Chapter 3 might have day and night since it's rumored to be named "nightfall".
the problem is some story mission require a specific theme and making it day or night can affect the theme.
/signed
I like how in World of Warcraft, if you play at night, it's nighttime everywhere. Day/night cycles would make GW seem more like a living breathing world. Certain classes, (such as assassins/necromancers) could get a bonus during the night... while monks and good-aligned classes could recieve bonuses during the daylight.
On that note, I'd like to see weather. Dynamic snow, rain, fog, et cetera, based on the seasons of Tyria/Cantha. I'd like to see dust storms in the desert, and heavy rain in the Denravi jungles. It's the little things that help immerse you in the game world.
The Experimentor
05-07-2006, 07:49
I was actually thinking of something like a 9 hour system.
Basically, 4 hours of night, and 5 hours of daylight
and yeah.
This is simply to make it such that if a player can only be on at a certian time of the day, he/she can experience all the different "times" of guildwars anyway.
Why a 9 hour system? Why not divide the 24 hour clock evenly between the 3 (actually 5) main servers? Each server would act like its own time zone: America, Europe, East Asia (Korea, Japan, Taiwan)?
4 shifts each: 10-hour day, 2-hour twilight (dusk), 10-hour night, 2-hour (dawn)- 24 hours in total.
the problem is some story mission require a specific theme and making it day or night can affect the theme.
For certain quests or missions that use a particular time of day (eg. Riverside Province is a stealthy night operation, so it's nighttime), the missions keep their specific times. It could normally be daytime, but when you enter the mission it becomes night. When you finish (or are dumped out after being defeated), it's back to normal time. Simple enough.
Edine Ailif
05-07-2006, 07:52
the problem is some story mission require a specific theme and making it day or night can affect the theme.
One solution to that might be to have day and night in the explorable areas and towns but not missions. Or alternatively, only cycle through night and day if it doesn't mess with the theme or consistency of the plot or what have you. Looking in the Topic Review, Experimentor beat me to that suggestion.
And I'd kill for weather like Domino mentioned. Well, I might slap someone lightly then run away. But still: weather. :heart:
DarkWizard
05-07-2006, 08:04
And maybe to reduce farming, they could make it so that during nighttime, you have a 50% chance of missing with any attack, and the only way to prevent that is to have a second player/hench as sorts of a torchbearer.
Why a 9 hour system? Why not divide the 24 hour clock evenly between the 3 (actually 5) main servers? Each server would act like its own time zone: America, Europe, East Asia (Korea, Japan, Taiwan)?
4 shifts each: 10-hour day, 2-hour twilight (dusk), 10-hour night, 2-hour (dawn)- 24 hours in total.
...<snip>
I see the reasoning for the 9 hour system is time would shift slightly each day so a player that can only play 1 hour say 7pm-8pm each day would still get to play in both day and night. Also it alleviates the issue of where to synch the day night cycle to as it is a worldwide game. Would the 24hour cycle match Pacific time where Anet is located? Even if the servers were individually synched there's still a huge time difference from the east coast to the west coast in the US, and there are Aussies playing on the American server too, imagine the difference there..
Hmm so what happen in the international district?
What time should we base it off?
Like I said, in order to implements what you all have in mind, you would first need.
1. Universal Time Server to synchronized all world wide servers
2. Change the game play system so that Night and Day would actually make sense other than just a visual feature
3. More CPU processing power especially with the weather patterns.
I guess the idea of the game is to focus on the COMBAT of the game rather than the RPG aspect of it. If you would like the RPG than there is definitely much better RPG out there, take Oblivion for example.
I'd rather ANet worked on more substantial features.
GW runs on Multiple Servers. So that mean that each server has to synchronise the time of day. Which server would be use as a reference?
[quote]
Not a problem at all, this has been taken care of long ago and it's called Network Time Protocol or NTP (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1305.txt). Gametime and Tyrian history would be more of a problem, but then ... story continuity is never considered an issue anyway
[quote]
What purpose would day and night be in term of game play? Would be improve the game play or would it just be an aesthetic thing that requires alot of server work, coding etc.
Just for the atmosphere and it would< I assume, not require much server side coding, it's more on the clients gfx side.
Yeah, condensed timeline for freely explorable areas, but I can imagine some missions be always done in night, during sunrise or something, like it already is done on some missions.
FourthVariety
05-07-2006, 09:43
Under the current system the devs can use day or night time as plot element. They do it scarcely but I wouldn’t miss it. Just like in real life some places only look best during certain times of the day. The sun rising in alignment with the river can be breathtaking, but for the next 23:30 minutes it’s going to be the same boring river again. As Earth moves on in orbit the same sight is totally gone 3 months later.
Would you like to hear tales of how cool the games looked, see screenshots of magnificent beauty, only to log on at the wrong moment and do the battle against the undead army at noon?
I played the RPG Sacred a lot, which uses condensed time, even has some game play elements like shape shifting linked to it. Neither did it make the game better, nor did it make the landscape more beautiful, after a while I was just totally indifferent about it.
Eladain Windshear
05-07-2006, 09:52
I'd love it. I love it when I play WoW and I think i'd love it in GW too. It might be a bit tricky to satisfy everyone (in WoW I end up playing mostly during the night cycle due to my timezone...) but if pulled off well, it would greatly add to the atmosphere. Now about a real time weather patch...... :D
/No.
Night = Dark = Low on screen light levels =
(a) Additional light giving mods for armour &/or weaponry (and I mean additional i.e. a third or fourth line or something achieved by quest like infusing). In which case maybe your agro circle diameter should be increased because you're now a radioactive isotope and you glow in the dark :)
or
(b) Skills like infravision are added maybe as spells. Whole screen portrayed in eerie green light - hmmmmm.
or
(c) Crank the gamma levels up to effectively negate the effect of night - so why have night.
There are also people with less than 20/20 vision for whom the lower light levels could be a real hinderance to game play.
At the technology level of this game world most day to day activity would be daylight based. Some specific quests might require night-time operations - might be an ineresting time limit on a mission - complete the quest before sunrise.
Just my thoughts
Ten Blue
05-07-2006, 10:10
For the missions that need to be done at a specific time, i.e. day or night, couldn't they just add 'We leave at nightfall' or 'We will attack at dawn' or something like that to the mission description?
/signed
I like how in World of Warcraft,
Go back playing it then - this game has little in common with WoW
"/signed" is a childish demand thing grabbed from WoW forums, I guess well see a fair share of "first", "FTW", "Orly" and stupid chuck norris stuff here as well soon.
"Real time"? Based on which timezone?
Some missions are at night, that annoying one with all the towers. Otherwise they default to day. I'd like to see more night missions, but think a day night cycle would be needless coding.
AngelsThanatos
05-07-2006, 12:49
Go back playing it then - this game has little in common with WoW
"/signed" is a childish demand thing grabbed from WoW forums, I guess well see a fair share of "first", "FTW", "Orly" and stupid chuck norris stuff here as well soon.
Wow…. I guess apologies are due to Moklar for the temerity of comparing 2 multiplayer RPGs and discussing suggestions in a discussion forum. Maybe we should all shut up now and leave him in peace.
Everybody remember not to use "/signed" in case it offends with it's childishness......
the bomb
05-07-2006, 13:55
there should be night and day for better rpg. There should be night creatures and then day creatures. We should be able to use the in game clander.
AngelsThanatos
05-07-2006, 16:18
Different monsters for day and night might have some side effects. People might only attempt certain quests/missions/areas at certain times of the day in order to farm/avoid particular monster types.
Also - if it followed a 24-hour real time system - if I only play at a certain time of day in real life, it would mean I'd only ever see the map (and monsters) at that time in the game too. Could end up with perma-darkness or perpetual daylight.
Traynor Dragonblade
05-07-2006, 17:19
And maybe to reduce farming, they could make it so that during nighttime, you have a 50% chance of missing with any attack, and the only way to prevent that is to have a second player/hench as sorts of a torchbearer.
:rolleyes:
Well I'll just use SoJ, or 2-Man with an SS so wouldn't effect my farming :wave:
Seriously though, huh??? I could enjoy seeing night and day maybe, though there are more important things I would like to see the coding/development time spent on. But the above would make me absolutely hate the entire concept. If it is done it should be done for looks only. Classes should not get bonuses during day or night, and there shouldn't be altering effects like missing half of your attacks.
:sunny:
BastDawn
05-07-2006, 21:51
Ugh, no thank you. Day and night cycles wouldn't go with the Guild Wars story at all. It would also add in a lot of complicated, potentially buggy programming and offer no real improvement in gameplay. It's a cute addition for some games but I really don't think it belongs in this one.
Eladain Windshear
05-07-2006, 22:25
Go back playing it then - this game has little in common with WoW
"/signed" is a childish demand thing grabbed from WoW forums, I guess well see a fair share of "first", "FTW", "Orly" and stupid chuck norris stuff here as well soon.
A) The idea of day/night cycles is a purely aesthetic one and does not affect gameplay, so it doesn't matter what the games don't have or have in common.
b) have you even BEEN on GW for the past month? Nothing but "FTW" and stupid Norris jokes.
Don't get on someones case just because they play both GW and WoW.
DarkWizard
05-07-2006, 23:36
Okay, maybe my last idea was a bad one, but certainly if the GW world operated on a 12-hour day of sorts, they can implement different missions. They can even implement another elite areas like FoW or UW based on time instead of favour. Maybe having day/night cycles that directly affects gameplay was a bad idea, but having it affect avalible quests based on time, or different monster appearances based on time could make things a bit more interesting.
Wouldn't it be a good idea for the entire GW world to experience day and night? I find that the world seems kinda boring when over half of the world exists only as day, and some places would look amazing if it was night instead. This may be an entirely aesthetic addition, or could include gameplay additions. Basically, I just want the GW world to operate in a day/night basis, both to add variety in the environment, and something to keep things interesting. Thoughts?
Tyria (the world) is flat and it doesn't rotate on an axis nor it revolves around it's sun. It's a stationary world. The inhabitants of this world migrates not due to the change of weather rather if they want to experience daytime and nighttime. Since Tyria doesn't revolve around it's sun, the season never changes unless the gods enveloped an area with their magic that can cause Lion's Arch to experience nighttime even though it is broad daylight in North Kryta Province.
So to ask the gods to give Tyria an axis and start rotating it and make it revolve it's sun will be a catastrophic event. Tyria will cease to exist as we know it and we'll do our missions in The Mist. :laugh:
Isioviel
06-07-2006, 02:15
Wouldn't it be a good idea for the entire GW world to experience day and night? I find that the world seems kinda boring when over half of the world exists only as day, and some places would look amazing if it was night instead. This may be an entirely aesthetic addition, or could include gameplay additions. Basically, I just want the GW world to operate in a day/night basis, both to add variety in the environment, and something to keep things interesting. Thoughts?
Whose day and night would they focus on then?
Which timezone would be the timeline for the changes in day/night?
Its simply too big of a decision.. Personally I wouldnt care being opposite but Im sure many out there would. Weve had posts as silly as complaining how the henchmen in guild halls dont look good enough, so Im positive people will get their backs up over this.
the bomb
06-07-2006, 02:37
they should add seasons too!
Seeker of Something
06-07-2006, 02:41
Whose day and night would they focus on then?
Which timezone would be the timeline for the changes in day/night?
Why pick a timezone? Just because WoW uses server time doesn't mean that's the only way to implement such a feature. If the only difference between day/night is visual then it's just rendering, right? So the server wouldn't even have to care, the client could just render the scene as day or night depending on your local clock. Done that way it could even be an optional feature so people, like me, who hate playing in the dark can turn it off.
Dallcingi
06-07-2006, 03:09
The bad part is that I get to play during the nightime only, so that would mean it is always nighttime when I play, which can get boring if day/night each has their own benefits. And I wouldn't be able to expierence day lol.
the bomb
06-07-2006, 03:14
The bad part is that I get to play during the nightime only, so that would mean it is always nighttime when I play, which can get boring if day/night each has their own benefits. And I wouldn't be able to expierence day lol.
your now talking like a true rpg player :azn: :wink:
Wait... how many timezones does the continent of Tyria cross anyway? For all we know, the characters have to set thier tiny digital watches ahead 14 hours whenever they port to Ring of Fire.
On a side note, do they get Jet lag when we map back and forth between Elonas and Maguuma to buy a capture sig? Maybe frequent travel has rendered them unable to tell the difference between night and day. hmm....
DarkWizard
06-07-2006, 05:19
Well for the players that would be concerned that they'll only experience night or day due to real life commitment, the GW world can operate on a 12 hour system, where 1 GW day is 12 hours, so each real day is equal to 2 GW days. And as for where to base the time? American districts would be based on the timezone of the ANet HQ, and international districts would have their timezone based on GMT.
Real time day and night is a bad idea IMHO. Just make the time past faster, rotate day and night on a 30 or 60 minutes interval. But I think if Anet want this feature in Guild Wars they would have addded it from beginning, since its quite simple programming.
The Experimentor
06-07-2006, 16:16
Go back playing it then - this game has little in common with WoW
"/signed" is a childish demand thing grabbed from WoW forums, I guess well see a fair share of "first", "FTW", "Orly" and stupid chuck norris stuff here as well soon.
No. "/signed" is a staple of many forums. And there's nothing childish or wrong with it. It's forum lingo that merely states assent.
And "first", "FTW" and Chuck Norris stuff is already present in these forums and GW.
Honestly, between that kind of "childishness" and your brand of arrogance and rudeness, I'd rather have the former, as the latter is much worse.
Domino's post was thoughtful and constructive. As far as comparison and the supposed rivalry between GW and WoW is concerned, Domino's point was merely to enhance the immersiveness of GW, to make it a better game. That's commendable and blameless.
Now, back on-topic...
Rush Rocks
09-07-2006, 19:24
I'm kinda suprised no one has brought this up yet (If you have i missed it, sorry!)...well the next chapter is supposedly "Nightfall" is it not? It's possible that a night/day cycle is in the works, or maybe it's just night?
Masterpyro Reborn
12-07-2006, 22:22
I would love to have seen the main lands in GW:P during the night. it would have looked so kool. i vote for this 100% and i dont think that would take to much reprogramminging..just some script for timing and some different images..but im not a programmer so ya...
BahamutKaiser
14-07-2006, 02:17
Exsisting missions are already plotted for a certain time of day or night, they are instances which can be redone, which basicly overlooks the flow of time, I don't think day and night cycles apply, and they would probably be disfunctional in exsisting chapters.
But, I think new mechanics and additions in future chapters would be nice, they could add this to new chapters or to certain areas. But then again, it may just be a troublesome hassle which really doesn't improve anything, and I would perfer more direct interactive changes to the game rather than "light and dark" cycles.
They could certain use more locations and missions with a night time setting..... But isn't the next chapter going to be "Nightfall"?
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