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RPG and day/night cycle...annoying?

Started by March 06, 2003 01:36 PM
10 comments, last by Hoser 21 years, 10 months ago
Hi all, I just wanted a bit of feedback on RPGs, and a day/night cycle. In general, what are your thoughts about inforcing a STRICT day/night cycle in an RPG game? During the "night" cycle, most shops would be closed, NPCs are home for the night...about the only shop open would be the local tavern. Now this should all be taken in the context of a small multiplayer game (~100 players or less). What I''m worried about is the following situation. A player logs on...it is night...so they are unable to sell any goods or purchase provisions. The night cycle may last longer than they wish to remain online (say 1 hr for arguments sake). Overall, would enforcing a day/night cycle prove to be more annoying than anything else? Any input/insight would be appreciated.
I think it would be interesting you made it so there still was stuff to do at night. Maybe have the ''black market'' to sell to/buy from at night where they won''t pay as much for something but they will buy stuff the normal stores wont, and they have more money to dish out when you find something really valuable (like the uberitems would be too expensive for most stores to buy).
Also, if the world is persistant and always running, you might want to let one or two players be ''vampires'' that are nearly invincible(very very strong, not unkilable by powerfull characters though) at night (but with restrictions, like cant enter a building unless the door was left open or somesuch) but make them very vulnerable in the day, to add some excitement to the night.

If you have nights, there has to be something to do during them, but the day and night should offer different things to do for different risk/reward etc.
"Walk not the trodden path, for it has borne it's burden." -John, Flying Monk
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I agree whoeheartedly with Extrarius. Penalizing a player because they can only play during an arbitrary day/night game schedule wouldn''t make it very fun for them unless there were certain activites that you could only do at night. Of course if that player could only log in during the game''s "night" time, then they would never be able to experience the other "day" side of the game.

If your game has international players, their different time zones wouldn''t coincide anyway with a North American time setup.



Nathan Fahrenthold
Gamemaking.com: Free tools for game making!
Nathan FahrentholdGameMaking.com: Free tools for game making!
"If your game has international players, their different time zones wouldn''t coincide anyway with a North American time setup."

No, he said it would last around an hour.
So, 1 hour daylight, 1 hour nighttime.

-Hyatus
"da da da"
If days and nights only lasted an hour or some other short time, it wouldn''t matter what time zone you lived in. Even if you could only play 30 minutes a (real) day, you could adjust when you play to get to play during the day and night cycles =-)
"Walk not the trodden path, for it has borne it's burden." -John, Flying Monk
I would have to agree with the other in that there could be other things that could be done during the night, however one thing that I would suggest is that you work out a way that if you have a player that could play 1 hour a night, then you could design the system so that if they played during the same time each day they wouldn''t always have the same day:night situation, that way if you could only do certian things at certain times then you wouldn''t always be stuck with the same schedule..

it sounds like a really interesting idea.. it would probably add to the game alot if done in a well balanced way
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Why not implement a system that is similar to real world, implement time zones into your game. I think the original idea of having shops closed at night, and only certain things available at night is a cool idea. So one way around the problem for those people that log on at the same time everyday, is to always have a place in your world where it is day-time. If they are playing a crafting character, they could just always log out at the same place that is day when they log on. You could create many crazy twists with a day night system, like certain skills could be enhanced at night (ie. Stealth of a thief, archer would be enhanced at night).
just balance the 2 time cycles.. u can put some rare monsters that only come out at night, open new areas such as temples or caves, and introduce new game elements (such as fight clubs or what not) all this will keep the player busy untill morning...

also, u can put 2 servers for each continent... one for north america, another for asia/Europe
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I don''t think it would.

I''ve thought a little about this for a game I have been designing. I finally decided upon making a time clock that does not directly coincide with our 24 hour day cycle. By staggering the game day length with Earth''s day length, you get a rotation. Now, no matter what time people play regularly, they will get to play all facets of the game.

For instance, 10 hour days...5 hours of light, 5 hours of nighttime. If they play at 8pm (20H) every night then:

Monday: 0H
Tuesday: 4H
Wednesday: 8H
Thursday: 2H

etc...

The Tyr project is here.
The Tyr project is here.

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