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[Majestic Jazz]

The "reveal" video for the new Bioware IP suggest that day and night cycles will be in the new IP. The Witcher 3 will have them and DAI might have had them had it not been held back for parity because it had to be released for the PS3/X360. Do you think we will finally get dynamic day/night cycles in a Bioware game with ME4? Or will Bioware remain with the each location having a set time of day to give it a "mood" or personality?

Most likely Fallout 4 will be revealed at E3 and we know it will have day/night cycles. Witcher 3 has them. So those are 2 big name current gen open world RPGs that will have day/night cycles. I hope ME4 follows.

[Mcfly616]

Won't be much point in having a day and night cycle when we'll be planet-hopping instead of staying in one place for an extended visit. Not to mention each place would have to have a different length to its cycle due to the variations in orbit.

[KaiserShep]

Won't be much point in having a day and night cycle when we'll be planet-hopping instead staying in one place for an extended visit. Not to mention each place would have to have a different length to its cycle due to the variations in orbit.

Pretty much. All I really need is an animated skybox. Now perhaps this is asking for much but having any planets in the sky move as well would be grand.

[RoboticWater]

There's really no need. In reality I don't think the solar pattern on most planets would be noticeable during short expeditions.

 

It's probably better of BioWare to save the processing power of global dynamic shadows and hand craft the mood themselves. Hyper-immersion was never BioWare's thing and unless time of day actually affects the gameplay (for stealth or whatever), it's just a pointless gimmick.

 

Furthermore, I don't think it's necessary to implement a system just because other big titles are doing the same. BioWare's not going to get anywhere simply following the coattails of other developers and sprinkling in a few well written characters. I know day/night cycles aren't a destructive trend, but it seems like all the recent EA games have fallen victim to some sort of industry fad whether it be Dead Space 3's uninspired crafting or DA:I's poorly fleshed out open world. 

[Malanek]

You could use it to show off some real diversity of different planets and moons. Short cycles, long cycles, massive planetary eclipse for a gas giants moon etc.

[JeffZero]

TW3 isn't being released on PS3/360.

[fraggle]

While this is a nice idea I don't particularly need that to happen. I'd rather have them focus on story, characters and choices/choice resolution.

[MrFob]

How about a compromise: They could only implement properly behaving day/night cycles for tidally locked planets.

[Vazgen]

That would probably open a whole new can of worms with the different day/night cycles on different planets. It'll also require the player to spend enough time on the planet to experience those cycles which will probably not be the case (judging from the Mako speed in the alpha footage).

I'd prefer for the game to acknowledge star systems we're in (maybe change the lighting and visuals visible from the observation deck) and physics on different planets, like higher jump height on planets with low gravity etc.

[N7Jamaican]

I wouldn't mind this during missions or even just going from one uncharted world to another.  I think they can do it.  World of Warcraft has been around for 11 years and they have Day and Night cycles.  

 

So I don't see why ME4 won't...

[Torgette]

Realtime day/night cycles and moving skyboxes would be awesome if they already had that in mind from the beginning. It's not something they could just throw in at the last minute, especially with a breadth of worlds to explore. I do think a variation on lighting would be great, ie: Crestwood in DAI going from night/rain to sunshine after you close the rift was neat.

[MrFob]

I wouldn't mind this during missions or even just going from one uncharted world to another.  I think they can do it.  World of Warcraft has been around for 11 years and they have Day and Night cycles.  

 

So I don't see why ME4 won't...

 

Like with everything else, it's not a matter of "can they do it" but rather a question of whether it makes sense or not. IMO it doesn't, not for Mass Effect. If it plays anything like the previous games, we won't spend more than a couple of hours on each planet, before we hop over to the next. This is short enough, not to make me miss that day/night cycle.

The main problem with a day night cycle is also not that it's tough to make a rotating skybox and change the light levels over time, the problem is that you need to make sure your map still looks good no matter if it's day, night, dusk or dawn. This can be rather non-trivial and often is customized a lot for different objects on maps. It's a design commitment more than a technical commitment. If you want your level to look good in all these stages, you have to check, re-check and adapt, which can take quite a lot of man-hours to do. The effort may be worth it, if you want to create one persistent world. But I think, since ME with it's space travel doesn't have one persistent world by definition, doing this consistently, it would be a waste of time a resources, better spent elsewhere.

 

That said, it would be cool to have the effect of changing ambiance on occasion, when it makes sense. For example, how about a level on an asteroid, hurling through a system, rotating fairly fast. Even during the short time span of one mission, you may have different light levels, depending on it's relative position to the system's star. Or how about a mission during a solar eclipse? How about solar flares happening somewhere, doing crazy stuff (auroras in the night sky, etc.)? You could also have a mission where the protagonist get's knocked out for a couple of hours and the light levels and ambiance change drastically. How about a tidally locked planet, where your mission area is the terminator zone and you have a fairly dark area on one side of the map and burning hot, bright conditions on the other with all shdes of twilight in between.

There is tons of things you can do and I think stuff like this, custom made for different maps, would be much more intriguing than just implementing some random day/night cycle on all planets.

[L. Han]

Unless it's expansive and the game calls for NPCs to have routines, etc. There is very little reason to put more hurt on the team to make sure everything looks nice at day and night.

[Andrew Waples]

Won't be much point in having a day and night cycle when we'll be planet-hopping instead of staying in one place for an extended visit. Not to mention each place would have to have a different length to its cycle due to the variations in orbit.

You know, this is a video game and not a science lesson. They can take a few liberties here in there. A day/night cycle, I don't think would work anyway given that they'll be multiple planets to explore. If there is sort of a main planet hub (I know they'll be a normandy like ship) where you jump towards different missions then a day/night cycle would make sense then yea.

[Larry-3]

I do not much care for day and night cycles. I do like nightlife and night times areas, however.

If I could control lighting, it would be the brightness level on my ship. Level one would be dim, level five would be bright. I would probably keep the lighting level on level two sense I enjoy low lighting. One of the things I enjoy about my cabin on the Normandy is the glow of the fish tank and the low lighting.

In my opinion, Mass Effect one and three possess the best versions of the Normandy.

[Patchwork]

I don't really see the point, we're in a ship and planet hopping- if a missions needs to be at night then land at night, if the sun needs to be so bright that it's difficult to see then do that.  

 

The only place I can see it kind of working is if the Ark is our hub world but even there it seems like a lot of work for little gain.  

[Heimdall]

What others have said: it seems like a waste of resources when we'll be spending only (Probably short) portions of the game on individual planets.

[Degrees1991]

Aren't we on like Space Stations for a good amount of time anyway?

Imo no point of day/night cycle if you have static NPCs.

[Nitrocuban]

Day-night cycles plus dynamic weather effects while exploring  an unchartered planet could be awesome. And I think with Frostbite engine it isn't even so hard to do.

[x Raizer x]

I predict not.  It seems day and night cycles (at least good ones) take a lot of assets to utilize and run properly, assets and time that most developers want to spend elsewhere in the game development process.

This could have changed with recent improvement upon game engines, however I think the next Mass Effect is running on the same engine as Inquisition.

Maybe sometime in the future.

Personally, though, I feel day and night cycles could take away from immersion if they are not set to a realistic time scale.  If its only day for 15 minutes and night for 15 minutes, it makes the experience feel off.

Also, not every planet would be on the same day and night cycles as day and night lasts a different amount of time on different planets, depending on a plane'ts distance from its sun, and the speed of its rotation as it orbits.

[Golden_Persona]

I say save the resources, and just make sure each planet looks unique beyond the skyboxes. Anything like ME1's planet design would be horrendous.

[SpacePirateRegis]

I predict not.  It seems day and night cycles (at least good ones) take a lot of assets to utilize and run properly, assets and time that most developers want to spend elsewhere in the game development process.

This could have changed with recent improvement upon game engines, however I think the next Mass Effect is running on the same engine as Inquisition.

Maybe sometime in the future.

Personally, though, I feel day and night cycles could take away from immersion if they are not set to a realistic time scale.  If its only day for 15 minutes and night for 15 minutes, it makes the experience feel off.

Also, not every planet would be on the same day and night cycles as day and night lasts a different amount of time on different planets, depending on a plane'ts distance from its sun, and the speed of its rotation as it orbits.

 

Seems legit.  Makes sense too if you think about it from an industry point of view.  Btw I've seen your vids before dude, they're awesome!!  Actually inspired me to join forum

[x Raizer x]

I say save the resources, and just make sure each planet looks unique beyond the skyboxes. Anything like ME1's planet design would be horrendous.

 

Yeah, the only planets that had any sense of actual identity were ones that had missions on them.  Beyond that, all the "side" planets seemed to just mostly be reskins, with different skyboxs and particles effects floating around.

I did enjoy it though, but it left me wanting more.

[Golden_Persona]

The skyboxes were the only things that could be breathtaking. I forget the name, but there was a red planet you'd land on and once you'd look up you'd see this breathtaking red moon in the sky, with amazing detail. I'm having a artgasm just thinking about having each planet with its own unique beauty, but beyond the skyboxes.

 

As someone who can't stand ME1's planets, part of me really does want it in the next game, if only so they can be done right.

[Nitrocuban]

There are fanmade mods for Fallout 3 that change lightning moods, weather and night sky.

I don t think it is that hard to do.