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[Fast Jimmy]

And not just once, but multiple times, because you couldn't encounter every single bandit ambush *coughSPAWNcough* within a single run through an area (at least I couldn't). You had to go once, kill all the bandits, then return another time to kill off the last groups and get the quest to kill them off.

True. I had forgotten about that.
 

Isn't it more realistic than a toggle, though? I agree the thirty minute thing is bad, but a toggle is just absurd.

Well, I think he was lumping toggles Day/Night cycles in that, as well. I believe he is advocating for a set "event A happens at night, while event B happens during the day." Sort of like DA:O had it.

[yullyuk]

I see. It...it works, I guess, but I'd prefer a cycle myself.

it would be cool if when you go upto a camp and rest it became night time, or it was like grand theft auto and you rested for a certain period of the day

[In Exile]

Isn't it more realistic than a toggle, though? I agree the thirty minute thing is bad, but a toggle is just absurd.

 

A toggle is silly, but day/night cycles create pure lunacy. You have a world where in theory time passes in a realistic manner... except that it takes about as long for 3 days to pass as it takes me to cook dinner. It just kills the versimultude of the world, like how a pure open-world game actually creates an incredible tiny world with barely any people in it. 

 

Set pieces for time and "zones" the way DA:I is doing is, IMO, about as realistic as a game will get without a 24hr clock. 

[AlanC9]

Some NWN mods experimented with a clock set at 1:1 with real time or close to it. Of course, they needed devices to jump forward in time if the player needed to wait until nightfall for something to happen, etc. In practice this meant that they all played exactly like DA2 does. It was very unlikely that you'd actually ever see the day/night state cycle, since you'd always wrap up your business in any particular area within a few minutes.

[Fast Jimmy]

I personally could stand a full day--daylight, I mean, from dawn to dusk--being around five or six hours. So like half as long or something. I think that would work.

I'm not sure about this. If the game lasts 20-30 hours, you'd have the hero defeat the threat to the world in three or so days I would feel like.

[Fast Jimmy]

It had sure better last longer than 30 hours. Even DA ][ was longer than that.
 
But, your argument only works if you play without resting at all, and if the game does not have any predetermined *time passes* points, even if it's just from day to evening (they could do this for every main quest mission). It would be simple to drop hints that time is passing between big plot points.

That's fair. Although I liked how DA:O too place over the course of a year, according to in-game dialogue. You could beat Skyrim in around five (in game) days if you mapped things out perfectly. Such things seem a little silly to me.

But I get what you are saying - you could easily not solve the main quest in Skyrim for, literally, years. I just find the day/night cycles to demean the passage of time in my perspective, not enhance it.

[In Exile]

That's fair. Although I liked how DA:O too place over the course of a year, according to in-game dialogue. You could beat Skyrim in around five (in game) days if you mapped things out perfectly. Such things seem a little silly to me.

But I get what you are saying - you could easily not solve the main quest in Skyrim for, literally, years. I just find the day/night cycles to demean the passage of time in my perspective, not enhance it.

DA:O's timeline makes no sense. Seasons don't change, the world stays pretty static, there's no sense of scale in how much travel takes... it's just bizarre. 

[Thomas Andresen]

Well, I think he was lumping toggles Day/Night cycles in that, as well. I believe he is advocating for a set "event A happens at night, while event B happens during the day." Sort of like DA:O had it.

I think what they did in DA2 was pretty much the same as in DAO, with respects to day/night cycles. In that switching between day and night dictated which events could happen. Instead of the event triggered dictating the time of day. The thing in DAO, however, was that it was always night when you were in the camp. So that's something DA2 had better, I think. You can choose whether you're home during the day or during the night. And what happens in the meantime, as you switch between day and night, can easily be filled via head-canon. I mean, Hawke has to sleep sometime, for one. I also tend to think that the order in which I do things in the game doesn't necessarily have to match the order in which Hawke did the stuff.

I'm not sure about this. If the game lasts 20-30 hours, you'd have the hero defeat the threat to the world in three or so days I would feel like.

They've estimated 50 hours doing the critical path only, and 100 hours or more doing every possible thing. Which is significantly more than DAO(if memory serves, they estimated 60 hours of content(i.e., everything) for DAO). If I was a gambler, I'd wager on doing a completionist play-through in 80-90 hours being a good average. That doesn't diminish your point, however.

Personally, I don't think a dynamic day/night cycle(read: continuous) works very well in a story driven game such as the ones BioWare puts out. In the Assassin's Creed games, at least Black Flag and Liberation, it made sense in how day/night impacted game-play, but having it run continuously during normal game-play wreaked havoc on narrative continuity. I'll be convinced otherwise only if a non-player character gets mad at you for having kept them waiting for a whole day; time that passed while you, the player, was away from the computer while leaving the game running.

[Fast Jimmy]

DA:O's timeline makes no sense. Seasons don't change, the world stays pretty static, there's no sense of scale in how much travel takes... it's just bizarre. 

 

Given that you walk the length of an entire country multiple times (including underground, which I would assume is not a flat plane but includes some up-and-down distance grades), it makes sense it would take an entire year. But I agree - its not exactly felt.

 

Although... does Thedas have seasons? I can't remember an instance where they discuss winter, spring, summer or fall. I've never heard any of them call.

[Thomas Andresen]

I think the thing of it is, time is passing either way. Some people feel that the day/night cycle is too obvious, and breaks the world. But I would argue that it isn't breaking anything that isn't already broken, and that it's fixing minor things (like the lack of any in-universe time mechanism).

I think that people have wildly different perspectives on what makes something believable in a game.

While i'm not disagreeing about DA:O, literally the only place I recall mentioning that is Wynne's conversation. Which is just weird. Like In Exile said, there are no other signs of passing time. I'd argue that a day/night cycle allows that.
 
And I might not have been clear enough with my example about *time passes*. What I meant was, you could have a certain mission that ONLY happens at night. And thus, whenever you start the mission, you either have some kind of fade out/fade in to the new time, or an actual scene of time passing. This shows that time has moved, and allows the game to (albeit somewhat artificially) extend the actual play time beyond three days.
 
You could also do it with bigger plot points. After, say, resolving the Templar/mage conflict in an area, when you begin the next main quest, a character could reference that event as being in the past. "It's been a month since we resolved the conflict in the Hinterlands, Inquisitor, and [the mages/Templars have not caused any trouble] / [the Templars and mages are working together]."

I agree that the passing of time could be made more obvious through the narrative, but I also think that the narrative should be, at least primarily, dictated by the narrative. A day/night cycle that is connected to real time in any way only would work if it was consistently recognised by the narrative, which is what I don't think would work very well.

[AlanC9]

I think the thing of it is, time is passing either way. Some people feel that the day/night cycle is too obvious, and breaks the world. But I would argue that it isn't breaking anything that isn't already broken, and that it's fixing minor things (like the lack of any in-universe time mechanism).
 

And from where I sit the cycles make things worse. They confront me with the game clock rather than abstracting it away.

[In Exile]

Given that you walk the length of an entire country multiple times (including underground, which I would assume is not a flat plane but includes some up-and-down distance grades), it makes sense it would take an entire year. But I agree - its not exactly felt.

 

Although... does Thedas have seasons? I can't remember an instance where they discuss winter, spring, summer or fall. I've never heard any of them call.

 

We can actually do the math because of how long it takes to travel from Redcliffe to the Circle Tower. It just doesn't work out to more than a few weeks of travel. The Deep Roads would have to lead to the other side of the continent for the game to take a year. 

 

We've never seen confirmation of seasons, though, IIRC. It's just... there's never been a world without then. Where the seasons are wonky, e.g. ASOIAF, that's a prominent plot point usually. 

[Schreckstoff]

I suppose that would depend on what "recognized by the narrative" means. But I get your point.


I suppose that's fair. I guess I hate the idea of a toggle for something like that.

Do we even know if they're putting a toggle? I think a system where each place was a static time would be preferable, at least to me, to two different versions of a place, a night version and day version (the toggle version).

Every game with a day and night cycle has a toggle except maybe survival games.

Most commonly it is the option to rest.

In The Witcher 1 it is so annoying having to rest all the time to get to the specific time of the day were a NPC is at a fixed location. I could very well do for only changing time of day plot related.

[AlanC9]

Do we even know if they're putting a toggle? I think a system where each place was a static time would be preferable, at least to me, to two different versions of a place, a night version and day version (the toggle version).

My understanding is that it's closer to DA:O in this regard. Most areas only have a single lighting state.

[savitar17]

A fortnight?

 

On topic: The problem with Skyrim and Dragon's Dogma nights is that they were too dark. It was annoying to wander around in pitch black, especially with enemies around. Now I know it might be more realistic that way, but I myself can discard some realism to make way for ease of playing. Two Worlds for example had a much more comfortable night setting - usually with a moonlight to provide light, but still a very distinct mood.

 that was the point of dragons dogmas night to show the world was dangerous and discourage low level players from exploring at night the game practically started a curfew be back at the city by night or youll be stuck in the dark surrounded by monsters

[savitar17]

 

 

Although... does Thedas have seasons? I can't remember an instance where they discuss winter, spring, summer or fall. I've never heard any of them call.

yea they have a winter tevinter has a wintersend festival to commemorate the end of winter

[caradoc2000]

that was the point of dragons dogmas night to ... discourage ... players from exploring ...

I know - it certainly did discourage me. I stopped playing the game after reaching Gran Soren.

 

I apologize "omitting" certain things in your post. Do have fun with the game, I didn't.