Travel time passage

Okay, so this is the idea that came up on thread suggesting stat fatigue. Some seemed to be interested in it, others didn't, and I don't know that the devs are interested at all; they probably have their own ideas of what's going on and might think this is stupid. But I thought it was worth exploring some more anyway.

* * *



* * *

Basically, the point would be any type of stat fatigue -- affecting hunger or sleep deprivation -- would be most compelling have in the game while travelling, when you would need to specifically set up camp in the wilderness. It wouldn't be that important while you're in a location map and are maybe just talking with some townspeople or gathering a few herbs. So you'd probably want it to accumulate more during travel.

I also generally have an issue with the fact that if time on both maps pass the same, travelling will feel like it'll take a really short amount of time, like it's no big deal game-wise. I want travelling to feel like a really big deal. I want camping to be a normal part of travelling. That's just my preference.

The night and day cycle not being on the server might also help with some NPC-player issues. I know the devs would like schedules if they can have them... But that would mean you'd have to wait a half hour for morning so the shopkeepers get out of their shops so you could buy goods, or wake them up in their houses in the middle of the night.

Obviously, you'd have to deal with day-night syncing. One way to do that would just to ask if you want to join your friend in that hex, and if you do, the game fills in the gaps for you and says you waited until a certain time to meet him.

Notice -- this type of thing will happen in the game world anyway -- if you log out and log in a half hour later in real time, your character will be in the exact same location but suddenly it will be night. If you stop playing for a longer period of time, you could log out during winter and log in during summer. The only difference here is that the time jump will be "helped" a bit.

 

The problem with this is that the moon phases cycle over a course of weeks, and everywhere has to be seeing the exact same moon at the exact same phase.. each day, the phase changes on the moon, and so everywhere needs to be the same time, same day, where ever you are on the map, or in the map..

 

Not to mention astronomical events. If players are supposed to be able to predict them with say.. the moon dial.. the flow of time has to remain consistent.

 

Could astronomical events happen on server time while the day-night cycle is on player time? I was thinking the seasons would. I numbered the days, but not to represent the fact the player will jump forth a certain number of days, just to show the time passed for each player.

If the actual numbered days matter, then this system might have problems. But the moon is broken and so on which can explain a wacky dissonance between the planet and astronomical events.

 

As far as sleep in the game I think most of that should be done while your offline.
Meaning find an inn, use a bed somewhere, set up camp before you log off.
Within a few hours your rest should go from none to full.

 

If that were an actual means to rest and recover stat fatigue, I think that it would sort of be meaningless, because you could just log out and log in again and be rested.

But I like the idea of travelling both taking a toll on you, and also requiring you to deal with night time, so that's one of the motives behind this. Possibly, camping could just center around hunger and not tiredness and just heal wounds, like in earlier Ultimas.

 

What better time to rest then when your logged off.
Nobody wants to watch someone sleep.
Eating on the other hand I think needs done frequently to keep you from starving to death.
I'm good with the hit point system used in most games.
And another bar for wounds which effects hit points sounds good.
Camping or sleeping should help wounds go down, maybe even needs a doctor.

 

I wouldn't propose making you watch the character sleep for the whole night cycle anyway, so I wouldn't make that the central issue.

But let's say the stick penalty for sleep deprivation is out, but for hunger its in, so you don't have to worry about sleep. -- I'd still want to discuss a time difference between location maps and travel maps, because I think it would help the game in two respects : The first, is that it would make travel time seem longer and make the player face night time when he's traveling; the second, it would help with issues around NPC schedules.

As for the wound bar you're suggesting .. what would you think of using the stat capping system I suggested for hunger and sleep deprivation, applied to bleeding damage like I suggested in the blunts vs. sharps thread ? Perhaps this could apply to some blunt-damage injuries too, with the exception that the blunt-damage doesn't accrue over time, it just stays until it's healed.

 

Not sure I can put my finger on it at the moment.. lack or sleep.. weird time of day or what have you.. but I seriuosly prefer that everyone's day/night cycle be synced. If it's a battle between the unrealitic I prefer the one least likely to break immersion for me.. and the time of day skipping for me and not for someone eles would really get on my nerves. Sorry I jut don't see how it would work for me. Maybe if I give it a bit more thought.. it just seems to cause unnecessarily complications.

 

I really like the idea of taking rests, and different damages or hits to stamina. And you're right, there would need to be a way to make overworld travel feel like you're actually taking time to get from place to place.. If you know you can zoom in on any hex tile and it takes a good minute to run all the way across it, then perhaps there should be some way of showing just as much time is passing as you travel across each tile on the map, or perhaps some reason for faster travel if that seems to be the situation.

My problem with the astronomical cycle being unrelated to the days is personal. On earth, one rotation of the earth is a day, in 7 days, the moon changes quarters, which is where we get our 'week'. Every 4 quarters the moon cycles from new to full back to new which is where we get our lunar month, which is about 28 days.

I don't expect New Britannia to use the same 7-day week, 4-week month system. But i do expect to it to have 'a system' based on its own astronomical events with both the sun and the moon working together. And it should be something we can observe just by looking up at the sky at anytime. As long as we can design around this, I'd love to figure out a way to represent taking a rest, stopping for dinner, building a camp.. etc.

Hey, maybe a special 'dragon's blood' energy drink, or darkling chili, could be used to revitalize you..

Oh! What if while on the overhead map, your energy levels drop faster as you travel, to represent the fact you're moving super fast, and therefore will get very tired and hungry more quickly?

 

Do we have a confirmation of how quickly time passes in New Britannia -vs- here on Earth?

 

No firm answer. That's something they're planning to play with and decide once we get an alpha, I think before Christmas.

 

Thanks, I was actually going to start a post about time til I found this one.

In Pagan, RG created new hours for the day, it would be cool to see that sort of thing here. I agree that it should be based on the celestial bodies or other rhythms. I would be very very excited to see day/night length vary depending on the seasons, as in real life.

 

This would be very cool I've thought about it a few times myself but I guess I just assumed the day/night cycle would be static as it seems to be every other game. If it were variable that's be pretty sweet. It would also make some very interesting dynamics since more baddies come out at night and they've given harvestable examples like "at night in the marsh during a full moon".

If you wanted to get crazy with it you could further influence the cycle by how far north or south you are but I wonder if that would make a difference significant enough to notice?

The problem is that you would have to track the movement speeds of the sun & skybox per individual player and set those rates locally.. though I guess that shouldn't be too hard.. in theory.

 

Good chance this is already in the works. Richard has brought up astronomical phenomena over and over again. It is interesting the number of planets was downgraded in the Darkstarr Moondial. I wonder if those planet still exist and just lack representation there. It seems he is thinking about these things a lot.

I think the natural rhythm is something that is lacking in most virtual worlds. Time is a construct, and we recognize that when we count ticks and put on a different set of gear to raise our mana regeneration rate. Periodic time is the result of the observation of recurring events.

So in order to tell meaningful time, we need to ask ourselves what important events occur and what the interval is between them. Sunrise, Sundown, Midnight, Full Moon, New Moon, the Seasons. Migrations. Planting, Harvest. The first flowers of Spring. Leaves turning. Can we create some new ones?

 

I Whole Heartedly Agree With The OP. If You're Traveling Hundreds Of Miles On The Overhead Map And Only Thirty seconds Pass In Game Time...That's An Immersion Breaker. I Just Don't See A Way Around It Though If You're Playing OPO. Now, SPO is A Different Story.

 

Sometimes immersion must give way to playability. When it comes to the passage of time there is no perfect solution. If we're saying time passage while traveling the overland map is an immersion breaker then technically so is a day/night cycle that isn't 24 real hours long or the fact that an entire world is being condensed into such a small space that can be traversed within x number of game hours. It's just in this case we have a 2 tiered map..

 

It would be nice if there could be some passage of time that correlates with traveling such a distance on the overhead map... but... I realize that's just not feasible. It may be a bit of an immersion breaker.. but it's certainly not a game breaker for me. Like you said: sometimes playability has to win out and this is one of those times. So be it!

 

Its not unfeasible, I described how it would be possible in the original post, even though its not a perfect solution. The question is whether its the better solution or whether doing it the other way is the better solution.

 

I think consistency is better for player perception. Once you get used to it you forget about it and it's not as destructive to immersion. If it wasn't a dual scale map it's unlikely we'd even be talking about it. But if it's not consistent then I feel like it's just constantly throwing it in your face that something is off.