[POLL] How did you feel about the length of the day/night cycle in Pre-Alpha Release 1?

I agree with Vaulttarn, couldn't have said it better. I think 2-3 hours per cycle would be about right. IMHO

Also, if it were longer it should be somewhat staggered. That way if I always play at a certain time of day, like after work, I wouldn't always be adventuring in the same cycle. Make sense?

 

That is exactly what I have been saying. The night was my favorite so far in any game where such a thing exists but it seemed a little short and I think a near pitch black night (at least some times) is necessary.

On a side note, I think that dynamic days and nights will leave the way open for crafted items of varying quality and strength of effect... To lessen the darkness, or maybe make resource gatherers clothing that enhances the ability to spot resources at night and gives a small bonus; adding to the risk and reward.

I thought the addition of torches was genius but thought that they would be better with a slightly larger radius or brighter light (or some combination of both).

 

I think it should get dark but then lighten up as your eyes get used to the dark. Once a persons eyes get used to the dark they can see pretty well.

 

Now that we've had a chance to experience the day/night cycle in mulitplayer, the nights are definitely too short. They changed it to a 45/15 (day/night) split in R2 and it was short then but now it definitely feels lacking. While exploring around the woods outside Braemar with others, there was barely enough time to even experience the night. The environments felt mysterious, the cemetery was spooky with the mists....and then it all just ended far too quickly. Also, while hanging out at FireLotus Tavern at night, quite a few folks complained that the night was too short as it killed the atmosphere as it got brighter and people still wanted to party at night.

I hope they address this in R4+. I don't think they should revert it back to 30/30. 45/45 is a good split to try out in R4. And whenever they implement seasons, would be interesting to see how they factor that into the day/night cycles.

 

I voted the way I did as I was not able to stay on a lot until last night but I never have been a fan of nights on any game. I used a lot of Night Sight potions in UO.

 

Agreed the cycle was unnervingly fast in R3. I'd like to see longer (days and) nights (that characters can sleep through if they choose) with an impact on gameplay (availability of vendors, creatures, different and shadier NPCs in towns, availability of gatherable items) and ambiance (different light levels, different sounds, different music). Perhaps some overland travel can even be impossible at night (or at day for that matter, e.g. only way to get through is to sneak through at night).

Night is the opportunity to use moon magic skills like night vision.

Also overland travel should take time into account and the father you travel the farther you push through the day/night cycle (so you might "pop out" at day or nigh as determined by the clock and geography/season). This might be an incentive to take "shorter steps" overland so as not to pop out in an undesirable area at night. Also maybe you might be forced to pop out at night or day in some overland travel areas.

 

This would be appropriate for the offline game since the game doesn't need to take into account a persistent world with other players. In the online game, there is only one global clock so time can't move faster or slower just for you. But I do agree that for the offline game they should factor that in for overland travel, since it is a fast travel mode and not a gate/recall spell.

 

Good point. So no sleeping through the night either.

 

Yea, the speed of time walking on the travel map will be the same as on the local map, which will be really strange. A while back, I suggested a way they could manage time differences (syncing) but it would probably end up being complicated with a lot of oddities :/

 

Personally I like a faster day/night cycle, but I think 30min is too fast. I would prefer a bit slower, like 45min to 60min max.

They should keep it lowish though as I want to be able to log in to play for 1 or 2 hours and get the full cycle. There will be a lot of players who have a couple of hours spare in their evenings to play the game so would work well for that.

 

p.s. They will need a SOTA Time Clock somewhere on the website so people with 'moon magic' or 'sun magic' know when is best to log in and work their magic

 

The only other way they could make it seem like time has changed is if they took into account time zones, which I don't think they are planning to do but something I've lobbied for in this thread and others. Currently it's the same time across all of Novia, even though the continent is big enough to support it (the longitude lines are far enough apart on opposite ends of the continent).

Then again, it's been said it would take you 30 real time minutes to traverse from one end to the other on the overland map, so that's essentially half a day in Novia terms.

 

Still a pretty small world. At a steady speed of 3 mi/hr walking, it would be around 18 miles for half a day. I wonder how time zones would affect the astrology of the world and moongates.

 

Given the current longitude lines of the Novia map, I'd say it's more like 2900 miles

(assuming an Earth size planet....)

 

Then avatars must walk pretty fast