Time compression

[bilbous]

Has anyone given any thought to changing the time compression factor to something that isn't evenly divisible into the real time measure? As it stands now it is something like 1:6 so that if the server stays up there is a regular correspondence between the time of day and the time in game. If it was 1:7 or 3:10, say then someone logging in the same time every day would have more chance of not always missing the same npc.

[Zalya]

I'd love to see it change as well for RP reasons. Right now I can literally spend a whole two in-game days just talking to someone. It makes little sense. What I'd like to see is different NPC's around that train the same thing, and offer the same services, so there is always somewhere to go. It would be neat if the ingame time was comparable to RL time in some sense. Maybe not the same to account for different time zones, but something like 19 hours to a day, or maybe just six light cycles per day, instead of six days per 24 hours. We have a unique setting anyways. It would not be going too far to change the way time is measured.

[Illysia]

I'm with Zalya. From a strictly RP standpoint, I think elongating the days would be nice. Having 12 Yliakum hours correspond to 24 of our hours would allow people to spend whatever portion of their RL day within either roughly day or night. If you miss one night cycle just wait one RL day and then that next day you have a whole day to take another shot at it. It would allow for the fact that your character's life has to go on pause while your real one goes on and it would also account for the fact that actions take longer to type than they do to actually perform. It may even get people to slow down a bit and not rush to get things done in a reasonable amount of IC time.

Also, I think that, usually, people end up using elongated timescales for their characters anyway. For instance, a character that is several RL years old often only ages a few years ICly or a character that has been talking across two Yliakum days like Zalya has only been talking over the course of a few hours ICly. Regardless, though, I think having secondary trainers that are around during the off hours is a good idea regardless of whether time is elongated or shortened.

[bilbous]

well you could go the other way and make a game time day take a real life week, that way there would be well defined day/night periods and people would be able to plan accordingly.

[Illysia]

Going farther would be interesting and opens possibilities for being able to manage your characters without RP dominating too much time in a day, but it might throw people. To be fair though, I would expect people to be irked by a 1:2 ratio of Yliakum days to RL days as well.

But if you elongate it enough to where working people and people with families aren't guaranteed to completely miss out when RL calls, you might be able to draw in more people. Might actually be able to give people outside of the normal MMO target demographic a shot.

[bilbous]

well the rate at which some quest dialog goes you can spend far longer than realistic just getting the information you need. Levrus is a  real blatherskite.

[Rigwyn]

I would much rather we pin the time to UTC and just leave it the hell alone.  As for days and nights, let there be x cycles of days and nights within a 24 period if you must, just don't go skewing time.. please.

The unavailable and miplaced/wandering npcs are far more annoying than nifty. The idea of screwing up time to fix the missing npc problem is a kludge. Better to solve the underlying problem than to bandage it with something just as annoying.

Just my 2 cents.

[bilbous]

Game time is already skewed. The calender is not our common Gregorian calendar, the minutes fly by at an astounding rate. Npc availability is just one system that would be affected. Having game time equal real time would make most players only ever see a small subset of the available in-game hours. Perhaps the concept of time should be completely removed from the game.

[Illysia]

Yeah I agree with Bilbous, the time is the underlying problem not the NPCs. They are a symptom of the fact that time is not only skewed, but skewed in such away as it doesn't match any of the gameplay. You actually need more not less time and like I said, for all intents and purposes, players have to elongate the time in their head anyway.

But eliminating time doesn't help either. Then timelines really get screwed up. I've noticed that in a certain other game I play that is basically frozen in time. Stuff progresses ICly but you can't really attach it to anything and with things like events or one off RPs you loose a common ground for marking the passage time which lets players get really out of sync.

[LigH]

Missing the same NPC at the same login time would only be certain if the server did not crash now and then. After a restart, the game time starts at midnight again.

[Bonifarzia]

Has anyone given any thought to changing the time compression factor to something that isn't evenly divisible into the real time measure?
[...]If it was 1:7 [..] someone logging in the same time every day would have more chance of not always missing the same npc.

Mhm, then a person who logs in every day at the same time will have seven in game days between two logins instead of six?
But I agree, taking something like 6.5 instead of 6 seems reasonable. Much a better idea than making the factor even (s)lower.
Oh, and NPCs unavailable during night times should not matter for this topic, at least for now 

[Eonwind]

this:

[...] someone logging in the same time every day would have more chance of not always missing the same npc.

this:

[...] logging in the same time every day would have more chance of not always missing the same npc.

will no longer be a problem since in the next update NPCs won't be invisible anymore during their "sleeping" time.

On the other end I really see no point in making time longer than now for "RP purpose"
would you stop RPing just becuase it's night and your char have to rest?
would you refrain from writing 10 lines to describe a 5 second action (in RT) just so you can stay in sync with the time?
do you ever consider time in your RP as you would in real life?

Answer is no you don't and if we'd change time you wouldn't as well, and you're right, why stopping a fun RP just because of an in-game time? no reason.
The in game time however is important for quest timeout, setting a lifecycle for yliakum and eventually the weather. Little things that can make the game experience more immersive.

[bilbous]

I never consider time at all when playing the game but I am not much of a role player either. The only time that matters to me is the real time and even that is mostly ignored. The reason for stopping a fun role play on account of the time is the much desired "realism" goal, if you are not taking the time into account you are role playing inaccurately. If that makes me sound like some kind of purist then I am in theory. As always practice differs with theory.

At any rate the purpose of this thread is to stimulate ideas and not to generate wholesale changes in the game.


Spurious argument for the sake of argument:
What other game extends time & space as opposed to compressing it? I can't think of any.

[Illysia]

On the other end I really see no point in making time longer than now for "RP purpose"
would you stop RPing just becuase it's night and your char have to rest?
would you refrain from writing 10 lines to describe a 5 second action (in RT) just so you can stay in sync with the time?
do you ever consider time in your RP as you would in real life?
Answer is no you don't and if we'd change time you wouldn't as well, and you're right, why stopping a fun RP just because of an in-game time? no reason.

Actually, Yes, I do. No, it is not universally ignored. I specifically starting doing that after the Night Rogue event run by Xillix. Characters were only attacked at "night" and that got me thinking about how the time of day would change my character's activities. And yes, I did spend "night" idling at times when my character was "asleep". I used the time to catch up on OOC stuff. If others don't care to that extent then fine.

The in game time however is important for quest timeout, setting a lifecycle for yliakum and eventually the weather. Little things that can make the game experience more immerse.

I can see leaving it alone for quest timeout, but all the rest wouldn't stop happening. You'd simply have more time  to interact with it, but maybe only I spent much time RPing with other characters on how the weather affected my character.

Either way, accept or not accept. I'm just volunteering a thought. I have no intent of arguing around here anymore.

Spurious argument for the sake of argument:
What other game extends time & space as opposed to compressing it? I can't think of any.

None that I know of, something which made me think earlier when I answered you. But I noticed that for players that keep track of time in their heads, they end up ignoring game time and creating their own. Typically elongating it while in RP and speeding it up in between to get to the next RP. Sometimes they may slow it down in between if they need to fit in several RPs in.

For instance, I was playing time juggling with a character a month or so ago. A string of RPs happened over weeks but most parts happened over the course of an "evening" in a bar or something. Some RPs started in between but for the sake of the story had to be reckoned as happening before the "main story" which had to be broken up over several days even though it was ICly the same day. Time often ran out in RL to do what was going on ICly.

[bilbous]

Quest timeouts do not have to depend on in-game time, they can rely on real life time, and probably should. Dakkru's curse lasts 1/2 hour real time spent in the game, no?