Possible Day and Night Cycles?

J3mo's reply is as good as any. ^^

I've been wishing for this for quite some time and brought it up in Sardelac before. Since we spend so much time going back into the same zones and missions, this idea would bring a bit of fresh air and make it a little more interesting each time. If extended to towns, even hanging out in there would be more fun.

If day/night cycles were implemented, I agree a 4-6 hour cycle would be best. Through an average play session, you'd get to see some changes.

I think a day/night cycle would work well if it wasn't a 24 hour system. Maybe it could work as a 2 hour rotation instead so every other hour it was nighttime.
That would be nice.

As long as it's client side I don't care, I'll just turn it off

It would be pretty easy to implement code-wise but it would put more load on your gfx card, so yeah I would like to see it, but only if it was optional (my gfx card aint the beast it used to be).

Randomised weather effects would be excellent too, they could even have different mobs for different weather types on a map, just to stir it up a bit.

would be interesting if the nature rituals like winter actually changed the weather, though i can see how it would be pretty heavey on a gfx card. Also having different enemies appearing for day/night might be nice

I really think once you had a Day/Night cycle. ..you would then have to enable your characters to rest (like in Oblivion), you have to also emable your characters to eat and drink (like in EQ) . ..I'm thinking here too that it is *code, code, code* Unreal, far-fetched, and totally impossible (for THIS game) and then it would not be GW anymore.

Besides an auction house, I feel the 2 things GW could really do with are day/night cycles and weather. I can just imagine climbing the shiverpeaks at night in the thunder and rain . Now combine that with the idea someone had of capes becoming cloaks in instances in bad weather and you've got a winner . I thought a full GW day should last 16 rl hours so that people who always play at the same time after work aren't always stuck in permanent day/night. With 16 hour days it would alternate. But 16 hours is far too long and people would never see the transition. Either way, it should NOT be tied to rl day/night cycle and it's length shouldn't be (24/even number) hours, as that condemns regular players to permanent light/darkness. I suggest a full GW day/night cycle of either 9.6 hours or 5.3 hours, that way the same time one night (lets say 8pm wednesday) will be light but the same time the next day (8pm thursday) will be dark. 9.6 hour GW days would mean 2.5 cycles or 5 transitions per 1 rl day, and 5.3 hours would mean 4.5 cycles or 9 transitions per 1 rl day. I suppose it could go smaller if needed, to say 4.36 hour days providing 5.5 cycles and 11 transitions. You get the idea .

Personally, I'd love to see a day/night cycle. Some of the greatest game concepts of all time can come out of having such a simple idea in a game. For instance, during different times of day, there could be a different set of monsters out in some areas (forested areas would have night and day creatures, just like how it is in real life). Unfortunately, like so many people have said in other posts (and probably this one as well), if they haven't added it already, it's going to be too late. Still, we can dream...

Here is just an excerpt from SIGIL (ie makers of EQ from Sony) for the newest game coming out . . .VANGUARD

"Sigil has settled on sticking with EQ's 72-minute day/night cycle, but they've also added snow and rain, with simulated storms of differing size and accordant visual limitation."

I thought I would see what EQ's day/night cyle was. . .it is 72 minutes. That is your "24 hour day" game-time. So 24 hours in game is about 1 hour and 12 minutes long. (they also have changing weather in EQ and will in VANGUARD also.)

Oh that is freakin sweet! Can't wait! (been checking out Vanguard since it was announced)

cough*

It would be awesome if we have day/night cycles....tht will definitely motivate ppl to play or hang around longer...weathers too.....

Hmmm.....so far the most realistic game I have played tht has night/day,weather will defintely be elderscrolls.....Ragnarok online is kinda sweet too..

That's an odd quote, "...we don't have day/night cycles because the story takes place at a spcific time."

Wonder if she means "...at specific times."? Cause I can't imagine the entire game taking place in one day, and at one time. Maybe I'm taking it too literal.

I can understand, though. The way GW has worked so far, you arrive at certain cities (and are generally supposed to be present at certain cities) at certain given points in the story. Take Riverside Province as an example. You are supposed to do the mission at night, so the entire time, it's night.

To do a day/night cycle would mean to entirely re-do the way GW works, at least storyline-wise, and basic mechanics-wise. Now weather patterns... that could be implemented, methinks. They could even make it so certain weather effects happen at certain times for dramatic effect during missions. I could see that.

I think adding day and night would be wonderful. But I don't see why anet would want to do this, unless it added a new demension to the game itself, not just for fun. It would have to add monsters at night, or make certain things open at night (like bars).

Wouldnt have to go that far by any means. its purely visual, although I do like the idea of it affecting some mob compositions too. Its purely to spice up the over and over-ness quality of entering the same zones again and again in the course of continued play. Imho anyway.

"Rain? Oh no, I just dyed this armor!"

Rain would be nice....

personally i'd settle for night missions, weather effects etc. Borlis pass starts off in the dark as i recall, with a snowstorm. more stuff like that.

After reading what Gaile said, I don't see why they can't have it both ways. Explorable areas could have a day/night cycle and variable weather, but missions would always have the same weather and occur at the same time. But they could still use the new system in the missions by, say, always setting Borlis Pass at sunrise (but the sun doesn't set again) with heavy snow, wind and fog, regardless of when you attempt it. Or Riverside Province starts with the sun setting and it doesn't rise again until the mission end, at the conflict before the bridge. Once the system was in place all they would have to do in the missions is set simple triggers with duration values. I use those two missions as examples, but if they ever did do this I think there are technically sound reasons why it wouldn't be seen in any previous chapters. They would probably have to rethink mob layouts, redesign skyboxes, etc.

In fact I think it would help progress the storyline, as people would actually notice when a new day has passed. A similar system was used in Conflict: Desert Storm, if I remember correctly. It gave the sense that missions had lasted all night and into the next day. Pretty cool.

I wish day/night cycles (no real-time, maybe 12 hours or 6 hours) and also random weather changes. These would affect globally (except missions) at least in server territory. You can check the current environment status by looking around in outposts or towns. They will be same for every instance where you can go from there.

IMO, the most interesting effect would be that the PvE enemies gain and lose certain properties depending what is the current environment condition and what type of creatures they are. For example skale type creatures suffer when it is not raining (fire will become more powerful) but they gain suprise element because they are hiding from the sun. Maybe they just pop out from somewhere or simply gain a modifier which will increase their defense or attack against something. Human creatures wouldn't gain or lose anything.