In games taking place in the natural environment(not in a dungeon,a building or in space) weather is not treated the same for every game. There are three different states of weather implementation: 1)The Weather is abscent Well in some games weather is abscent or is the same all over the game.In these worlds it never rains or snows ,it is never windy and atmosphere has no effect on people,animals and plants. It is mostly sunny in order to see more clearly the game colors . 2)The Weather exists but only for your eyes (.) (.) In these worlds it rains or even snows but this has no effect on the environment or the characters and is just used for beauty. The characters walk on the soft ground under heavy rain as they would walk in sunshine! 3)The Weather is present and has an effect too! Weather has a real effect in the game''s world and the characters are affected by it. The soft ground becomes mud when it rains and you can''t walk on it,the cold is removing "health points"(well,i don''t agree with "points" about health and other stuff but that''s another story) when it snows and makes walking harder,etc. Weather changes according to the year''s period(winter,summer,etc.) and according to the place you are(valley,mountain,etc.). ----------------------------------------------- These states apply for real time games mostly. Though the last sstate is the most realistic but i''ve never seen that really implemented mostly because it is very hard to program. Now it comes the big question: Easiness or realism? What would you do about weather in your game? Voodoo4

More variables, more work...

Do you really think we have time (non professionnal dev) to put all of this into a game ?

Yes weather is cool, the fact that you have different weather is nice on its own.
You want it to affect you ??
How ?

Slow you if strong wind, ok I did it.(In the Design)
Change your clothes color to reflect that they are ''watered'' because it was raining, ok I did it.

Make you sick ?
Well, don''t do it, it''s not fun, it doesn''t give you a best gaming experience.

Although I think that I''ll make you ''atchoum'' when their is much smoke/arsh in the air.


-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

I like the idea that a heavy snowfall could seriously compromise transportation. You''d have to make entirely separate character animations for trudging through snow, but it would be impressive. You could probably use the same motions as for (deep) mud! Hey neat!

In MMORPG, it might be neat to have pre-defined weather settings, and just have the server switch over to whatever the area weather is. So if you flick on the game at 3:00 AM in a snowstorm, the same weather and time will be in-game! Whatever. I know... "hard to implement..." So what if i''m an idealist!

I think weather is a very important atmospheric effect. One idea is for weather to affect the how slowly wounds heal unless the player has shelter at night.

Perhaps weather can make the player tire more quickly if he/she doesn''t have adaquate clothing to keep the player warm.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

Anyone ever played Panzer General I ?
Moscow Scenario ?
Where you thought it was easy, until a pouring rain
transformed the fields into swamps, making all your
vehicles burn unbelievable amounts of fuel. Where
a fortification seemed easy to storm, until you noticed
your airforce was still at home, because a heavy snow
storm downed every single aircraft. Where you thought
your supply and artillery was save, until some russian
tanks came storming across a frozen and formerly
impassable river...

Yeah, without weather, it would have been good. With
weather conditions to observe, it became great !

Go for weather !!!

-nv

As a side-note, I like it when night/day has an effect on a game too. Like, it''s easier to get away w/ crimes at night. City gates & shops close at night. Etc...

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
In MMORPG, it might be neat to have pre-defined weather settings, and just have the server switch over to whatever the area weather is. So if you flick on the game at 3:00 AM in a snowstorm, the same weather and time will be in-game! Whatever. I know... "hard to implement..." So what if i''m an idealist!

Not THAT hard to implement, you know!
If XML takes off, it will allow the inclusion of "data type" tags in HTML code. Now couple that with a few good weather sites, using XML, and a client that knows how to retrieve those values. Hey presto, the real world has just provided you with the best weather system simulation ever - REAL LIFE!

( damn, that idea is better than I first thought it was, Anonymous... it''s actually a great way to do weather! )




Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
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Given time, money, research grant I think that putting real weather into a game would be kewl.

You could do kind of a mix, have the option where weather does not effect its surrounding BUT have weather be of that time of year??

-----------------------------------------------
All messages are of my own personal opinion and
not meant to offend. But if they do - tough :)

Neuro.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
In MMORPG, it might be neat to have pre-defined weather settings, and just have the server switch over to whatever the area weather is. So if you flick on the game at 3:00 AM in a snowstorm, the same weather and time will be in-game! Whatever. I know... "hard to implement..." So what if i''m an idealist!

One problem I see with this is that you are usually simulating an area much larger than a city. In our case, I think we will be simulating a continent. So.... if its snowing in Kressilacston, then chances are 150 miles to the south, in Dakstonia, it''s not.

Good Ideal... one step farther. If you set your world and then map points of your imaginary world to points in the real world then grab the weather conditions... You got game



Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

quote: Original post by Ingenu

Make you sick ?
Well, don''t do it, it''s not fun, it doesn''t give you a best gaming experience.

I didn''t intend to get so far!
Although sickness is a consequence of cold sometimes, it is not something that should be implemented in a game.
And if i did then i would be oblidged to write code about cancer or even plague!

quote: Original post by Nazrix

As a side-note, I like it when night/day has an effect on a game too. Like, it''s easier to get away w/ crimes at night. City gates & shops close at night. Etc...

Yeah.Alternation of day and night is really neat for real time games.

It could also be done in "real" hours,i mean the game should have an internal clock that stops when the player exits the game and starts over again when he plays the game at the time it had stopped.So day and night should alternate "smoothly" every 12 hours.
And the player''s actions would depend on if it is day or night.

For example at daylight you can see more objects than you do at night and at night you could easier escape from your enemies than in daylight.


Voodoo4