Day and Night cycles

[YES!]

I think the people that really like day/night cycles are a vocal minority that just yell load. I don't think most people like it as it is usually implemented just to be a hassle and serve no other function. Very few games have done it in a way that it actually enhances the game in my opinion. Quest for Glory 1 did it very well. There is a ton of content but the areas are limited and greatly impacted by time. In ultima 5-7 it didn't do much besides cause you to waste time and be annoyed, as it does in most games. But I think most modern games go for either content bloat or no content. There is either too much to do or nothing at all to do.

I am voting for I hate it since the waymodern games are made there is almost no chance if it being done well. Its just done to appease the vocal minority, or because the devs actually think normal people can somehow get immersed in a game where it takes less than a second to take the plate armor off of someone. Only the weirdos that want day and night cycles for no reason can get immersed in something that throws up huge flags literally every second or two screaming at you, "This is a video game!"

If it is done in a way where it really enhances the game, and isn't just a hassle I am all for it. I know people love how Bethesda does it for the stealing, but their games are great examples of bloat. You don't actually learn an area or stay anywhere long enough for it to enhance anything. In QfG 1 you learned every single map very well and there were usually hints about if it was important to check an area at a different time.

Anyways, cast your vote and lets see if it is a vocal minority or something most people really want.

 

[octavius]

Hi, Roqua.
Depends on how abstract/gamey vs how "realistic"/simulationist the game is.
Doesn't matter much in blobbers, for example.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Anyways, cast your vote and lets see if it is a vocal minority or something most people really want.

Hi Roqua. Depends entirely on the type of game, of course. If you're making some attempt at a functioning world like Ultima 7 then it's mandatory. If cities are just places where you can trade in between dungeon crawling it's an annoying waste of time looking at your watch while waiting for the lazy bastards to get out of bed (Skyrim).

 

[oldmanpaco]

Hi Roqua. I liked Athkalta at night.

 

[Sykar]

I liked Los Angeles daytime during Vampire:Bloodlines.

 

[Falksi]

Hi, Roqua.

As a pure aesthetic I think it's fine.

When it ties in with gameplay mechanichs it's usually more of a ball-ache than fun. Your examples are good ones to use it for, such as theivery, but the whole "go to dungeon/place, loot, sell repeat" is boring enough without having to stand in one spot for several game hours to trigger patterns which are needed to do some of that. And manipulating time for merchants & suchlike may be realistic, but it's also fucking annoying.

 

[Grumpy Grognard]

Ultima 4 & 5 had my favourite day night cycle mechanics. Affected the moon phases (and in turn the availability/destination of gates), certain reagents could only be picked at certain times, full, detailed NPC schedules (in 5). Can't think of a game that's done it better.

 

[Wysardry]

It's tough to play a vampire when it's always daytime.

 

[Visbhume]

I love day/night cycles as long as I have a "wait" button. (I loved them in Ultima VII even without it.)

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I can't say that I cared much for day/night cycles in RPG, it usually boils down to resting/waiting for a while, as in like, ten seconds real time, until target hour. It doesn't bother me, but doesn't really add anything either.

In more tactical games, OTOH, like X-Com or Jagged Alliance, it gets pretty important and can completely change a mission.

 

[Mustawd]

Hi Roqua. I prefer games that give it a purpose.

 

[undecaf]

Hi, Roqua

There's good potential for exclusive and interactive content and reactivity in day/night cycle, but it's just too rare that anyone bothers to go throught the whole nine yards with it.

If it is reduced to just changes in lighting, it shouldn't bother anyone as it does nothing to the game. Though it is then also a pretty useless feature.

 

[Mark Richard]

The day & night cycle is a supplement to enhance other features, it's generally not a worthwhile feature on its own. Throwing one in just to dictate when the shops close would be awfully wasteful.

 

[Gosling]

Ultima 4 & 5 had my favourite day night cycle mechanics. Affected the moon phases (and in turn the availability/destination of gates), certain reagents could only be picked at certain times, full, detailed NPC schedules (in 5). Can't think of a game that's done it better.

Dragon's Dogma had it too - some monsters and reagents only appear at night (and in general the nights are very dark and more dangerous), many npcs have schedules, some areas accessible during the day are guarded at night and there are quests that can be done only at night.

It also featured combat skill enhancements that could only be activated at nighttime.

 

[mbv123]

I love day/night cycles as long as I have a "wait" button. (I loved them in Ultima VII even without it.)

This
It rarely bothers me if I can just wait it out and pretend my PC is sleeping. If there's not a "wait" option and I need to spend real time waiting for daytime then you can just fuck off with your shit game design.

 

[Freddie]

It depends of the setting and how it ties in game experience. Like others pointed out, Vampires and Werewolves and quite a few other things aren't excatly day creatures. In tactical sense even in typical fantasy trope settings, it wouldn't be plausible that zombies had any advantage (due silence) during day time.

Other advantages are thieving, say robbing a bank vault, stealth mission in major NPC manor, warehouse or something, where it just makes more sense to me that player gets the idea that it might be a better idea to break into a vault during night time when there's no traffic between it and clerks / customers / service staff, whatever, instead game pandering it to players.

I don't recall I have played a game where using Wait button / command has been issue for me. That said, I don't play that many games and if it's like such commands doesn't exist in games any more and / or player is instead forced to move himself and his possible party distance where rest command or equal could bu used instead, it's just shit design choice from the developers instead of fundamental issue regarding night / day cycle.

If we step out of fantasy to cyberpunk or something, there shouldn't be necessarily issue with this at all. I don't actually remember if stores in Shadowrun: Hong Kong were open 24/7 but anyway. Why at least some store services weren't provided by automatons and robots at least in night shift? That could also partially solve fluff problem, choosing mere store functions instead of lore dumps which would be available from NPC's in dayshift, which some part of the RPG players absolutely need to read anyway, no matter how optional they are, for their complete experience and then whine about it.

Then there are many sort of RPG's and I don't think day / night cycle necessarily serves anything in dungeon crawlers, unless there are hooks for it, certain monsters, etc. in jrpg's like Final Fantasy series (that I don't really know that well) I don't see it necessarily matter much either besides aesthetic and atmospheric values, or some stuff to make game world look less dull.

 

[DraQ]

PWas Oblivion a better game because it had day/night cycles? Fuck no.

Funny that you mention it, but Oblivion was actually a much better game precisely because of that.
Of course "much better" still meant abysmal in this context, so it didn't really help, but that was about the only feature in game that more or less worked as advertised, was an improvement over Morrowind and even injected a little bit of sickly, fading life into the unsalvageable gameplay.

That said, while I generally do enjoy day/night cycles in games, the butthurt ITT is completely lost on me.
Day/night cycles are curious beasts that generally fall somewhere beyond two extremes:

• Purely cosmetic lighting/sound/music change
• In-depth implementation befitting a living world

The latter can be very rewarding and open a lot of interesting gameplay opportunities, but the catch is that it's an all or nothing feature - once you decide to have it, you have to live with it and it touches pretty much every part of the game - every NPC now needs a schedule, which needs to be designed, implemented and tested, npcs that have scripted interactions now also need testing of how their schedules interact with each other, especially when additionally perturbed, now quests also need additional scripting and testing to account for all sorts of things - suddenly you have a huge amount of snowballing complexity on your hands and it all depends on how prepared you are to try and fail at tackling it.

The former is easy to implement, but that's deceptive. Even cosmetic things have gameplay impact - players may prefer day or night for ambience or practical reasons (like seeing details or hidden items better, or exploiting the tell-tale glow of distant lightsources when it's dark) so they will want a wait function, which is non-obvious to implement in a coop game and, as it was already mentioned, it won't let you fine tune the ambience to the degree it's possible otherwise.

All in all I think day/night cycles are only obviously beneficial in massively open world games, otherwise it's not at all obvious if they are desirable and if they are, their impact is small.

 

[Master]

It was cool in Witcher 1. Nighttime had some "scary" music that i still remember. Some monsters spawned only at night and in the city Salamandra gangs would gang up on you. Or was that part of some quest?

 

[YES!]

Please see signature and stop calling me that please everyone

I liked Los Angeles daytime during Vampire:Bloodlines.

VtMB is a great example of a modernish game that had focused content and even though you had multiple areas you lived in you learned them well. Since it was a vampire game the main point is besides the point but great example of focused content.

Anyways, cast your vote and lets see if it is a vocal minority or something most people really want.

Hi Roqua. Depends entirely on the type of game, of course. If you're making some attempt at a functioning world like Ultima 7 then it's mandatory. If cities are just places where you can trade in between dungeon crawling it's an annoying waste of time looking at your watch while waiting for the lazy bastards to get out of bed (Skyrim).

Ultima 4 & 5 had my favourite day night cycle mechanics. Affected the moon phases (and in turn the availability/destination of gates), certain reagents could only be picked at certain times, full, detailed NPC schedules (in 5). Can't think of a game that's done it better.

That's also one of the games prompting this post, along with 6 and 7. Hell, even SotA. Magic being impacted by the moon is neat but not significant. You cast heal or light when you need heal or light, and hoard regens for tough fight burst. Picking reagents at certain times is neat if you didn't also have to sleep, and there isn't a ticking clock for quests or game completion.

I like NPCs staying where they should be for my convenience. If the Ultima games didn't have karma I could use night to be a thief kind of if there were normal fucking stores. I'll overlook shit that wastes my time if I really like the game, like the restricted selling in Underrail, but Ultima 4-7 just didn't have the rpg mechanics such as good combat, good chargen and chardev, to justify the hassle.

When I was a kid I thought deciphering the words in game was kind of neat for the first couple times, then it just became a pain in the ass. Same with npc schedules. the RoA trilogy is another example of games I love with a lot of hassle and pain in the ass mechanics, but it had the depth and combat and rpg mechanics to balance it. I have a hard time playing some older games now. I love the Buck Rogers games but having to get a big chunk of the story from the manual instead of being able to access it in game is very, very annoying.


Also, check out the original QfG (the non Claymation remake)to see a game that did it way, way better than the Ultimas.

 

[Lacrymas]

The latter can be very rewarding and open a lot of interesting gameplay opportunities

Good thing you summoned me from the depths for this silly thread, I don't know why I didn't catch this the first time you quoted me. Like Wikipedia is going to say, those are weasel words. What interesting gameplay opportunities? Outside of thieving made easier. The only game I can think of that made use of NPC schedules (the night and day thing was incidental in this case) for a very interesting effect and gameplay twist is Majora's Mask. Simply waiting around for an NPC to get to their post in the appointed time is tedious and isn't a good addition.

I'm also going to quote my post from literally the same thread we had a while ago -

People seem to be misunderstanding what "atmosphere" is when talking about day/night cycles (or maybe in general). I don't even know if that's a real thing that exists when talking about video games, at least not in the way people are going on about it. What seems to be the "narrative" is that night + undead = creepy (and any variation of this equation), and that that is "atmosphere", which is pretty ridiculous. People are confusing aesthetic intent and substance with this abstract concept of "atmosphere" that doesn't say anything. When we are talking about Diablo's (because someone gave it as an example) creepiness and undead + night = atmosphere, we really mean that the aesthetics are powerful enough to induce fear or fascination with the macabre. This, however, is intentional and controlled, it's not something that merely happened on coincidence and you interpret it as "atmospheric". Day/night cycles which are just there are contrary to that notion of control and can actually detract from aesthetic pleasure because of their randomness when taken into account player interaction. Diablo would be ruined if it got sunny and happy-go-lucky at intervals.

I don't even know what I'm trying to say, because this thought of "atmosphere" (in gaming, there is a concept like this in architecture, but is ultimately as unsubstantial) is so abstract, vague and meaningless that I can't understand what I'm trying to criticize about it. What I do know, however, is that day/night cycles don't add aesthetic quality simply because of their existence, just like anything else without control and intent. Was Oblivion a better game because it had day/night cycles? Fuck no. Swen is right that they have to serve some kind of purpose beyond a palette swap and unlock triggers for quests. Lacking day/night cycles because you want them to be meaningful is not laziness, it's understanding basic concepts in aesthetics.

I feel like we've already talked about this and someone was saying that they can't enjoy RPGs without day/night cycles (which is obviously a call for help and therapy). What can be done is to have specific moments be in night/day-time to accentuate the idea of those moments. I'm pretty sure we are going to see something to that effect in D:OS2, I think one of the towns in D:OS1 was in perpetual night.

 

[Mark Richard]

One reoccurring use of day & night cycles is that creatures gets more dangerous at night. In Dying Light a powerful infected called the Volatile only emerges at night. Pathologic has streets teeming with muggers. Castlevania II Simon's Quest makes enemies harder to kill. I've never tested The Witcher, but supposedly certain creatures like the werewolf are more powerful at night. These games don't merely present blackness and go 'oooo scary.' They make you associate the night with danger by unleashing evil things into it. That's something tangible at least.

 

[gestalt11]

I need to add the caveat that for truly 3d games it can be very immersive when its not just purely cosmetic and is actually night. But for 2d/isometric/etc I rarely care.

 

[deuxhero]

One small thing I liked about Xenoblade Cross (I played the Nipponese version) was that waiting in town was done by activating otherwise unimportant buildings (like shops selling "normal" goods instead of armor and weapons) instead of the characters standing still for several hours.

 

[Iznaliu]

I know people love how Bethesda does it for the stealing, but their games are great examples of bloat.

I haven't hard that mentioned at all on here.

 

[Neanderthal]

But..but what if I want to sell all the crap i've hoovered up from the straight corridor they call a dungeon, is the game expecting me to do something else or partake in some other activity for five minutes, thats just terrible! Baby want everything now when baby want it, game should cater to my every whim an never present me any challenge or impediment, an wipe me arse an burp me an all. An what if I can't find somebody cause I haven't got patience or brain to (gasp!) familiarise meself wi me envrons or even worse use a bit o common sense? I could be frustrated.

I think what we need is some more streamlining an feature stripping, after all theres been very little of it over last few decades, an boil it down to three screens: Gobshite an quest screen, kill screen, an you've got more random crap/sell screen, an begin again.

In Fallout: New Vegas in order to change money I had to...wait for it...click the mouse a few times, I still have nightmares about all that busywork, the horror, the horror. Thats the kind of situation that developers doing a bit of work on their gameworld can lead to!