Day and Night cycles

[Luckmann]

Yeah, Roqua, I like it. I can't even really put my finger on why, it's really not that it's more immersive or anything, either, really. Like has been said, most games do it very poorly.

But as a blanket statement, is a game better if it has day/night cycles and such, rather than having none at all? Yes, absolutely.

Is it always worth it? No, probably not.

Is it infinitely preferable if it actually interacts with subsystems? Yeah, but it's not strictly necessary. Just (considerable) gravy.

 

[T. Reich]

Sup, Roqua.

I think that day/night cycle is fine if it's either purely cosmetic (to just add up a little bit of visual immershun and variety), or if it serves as a meaningful factor in a number of gameplay mechanics.
Otherwise it feels annoying and tacked on for the sake of feature bloat.

 

[YES!]

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!

Are you really equating day and night cycles with challenge? Or being able to find someone not at their shop with intelligence? Or the buying/selling system in FONV with a well done system that the devs put a ton of work into?

Lets take ultima 7. Lets say you are over encumbered. Lets say you are in a town you talked to everyone. Is there a reason to search the houses? No, because stealing is bad and you are good. Is there a reason to explore? No, because you can't take anything you can find. Is there a reason to do anything besides sell the couple items you have that someone will buy (top notch system according to you, having tons of shit that costs a fortune for you to buy but no one will buy it back or from you no matter the value)? No, there isn't. Well, yes there is. Drop all the extra shit you have besides the few items people will actually buy. Then just go and take a shit or read a book and wait until the shop that will buy your couple jewels and the banker lady who buys nuggets gets to work. Or, better yet, spend some money at the inn to rest twio hours game time so you can sell faster.

You can't. I don't know, actually go and play the game and explore new areas because you may find something to explore and that is fun and miss your small selling window when you are so close to it.

SO MUCH CHALLENGE!!!!

I like real challenge. Challenge that gets my mind to think. Not retard challenge for dummies that involves no thought and only requires you to be dumb. Maybe you consider keeping your helmet on and not licking windows all the time to be challenging too. I don't know. I do know that if I already explored the town (in games I can loot and steal I explore every fucking last centimeter) I have nothing to do but wait, or leave. The choice of wait or leave isn't a good choice. It isn't a challenging choice.

You remind me of the type of person that wants me to be forced to waste my allotted play time by running across the world to your stupid player house and buy something from your vendor in hopes of me checking out your digs. Buying something isn't the challenge I am looking for in a game. It isn't the fun activity I want to use my play time with. I want to do things that are actually fun to non-retards. Whenever a game has a huge time wasting system that makes something that should be simple a time waste it is always some fucking invalid living off my dime who has all the time in the world to do stupid shit like build houses and decorate them in game and cry to the devs so there will never be an consolidated auction house for easy buying.

People like you disgust me and since you don't have enough pride to work you want to waste the working man's time with your fucking nonsense.

I am from the old school and the way we play games are -

1) Explorer every nook and cranny.
2) Loot everything
3) Sell everything
4) Never not do steps 1-3

We don't build houses to play dolls and dress up and decorate or want other players to be forced to waste their time waiting for no good reason or to have to spend hours traveling to my shitty house to buy something. And it is the same time of retarded, non-working invalid that has also destroyed the real challenge that games had to offer and make all the actually good content all care bear and streamlined and dumbed down to child level.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I liked Los Angeles daytime during Vampire:Bloodlines.

The daylight section in VtM: Redemption was pretty cool actually. I wish they tried something similar in Bloodlines, but oh well. Maybe some modder will make a daylight mission one day. E.g. you get jumped by the Sabbath, and then you wake up at some construction site just at the break of dawn, and you have to fight/sneak thru some more Sabbath/whatever mooks while trying to avoid the sunlight which will do continuous damage to you depending on your stats, etc.

 

[Lacrymas]

While VtM:R's daylight mission was cool and inventive I don't know if it was very lore-friendly. I'm not sure just staying in the shadows is enough to not get hurt during the day, otherwise you can use an umbrella and ignore the fatality of the day entirely.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

While VtM:R's daylight mission was cool and inventive I don't know if it was very lore-friendly. I'm not sure just staying in the shadows is enough to not get hurt during the day, otherwise you can use an umbrella and ignore the fatality of the day entirely.

The vampire lore in fantasy is kinda corny tbh. What prevents a vampire from simply covering his whole body with clothing for example? Or an armor suit?

Real-life porphyria (the origin of vampirism myths) works like this:

The pain, burning, swelling, and itching that occur in erythropoietic porphyrias generally require avoidance of bright sunlight. Most kinds of sunscreen are not effective, but SPF-rated long-sleeve shirts, hats, bandanas, and gloves can help. Chloroquine may be used to increase porphyrin secretion in some EPs.[15] Blood transfusion is occasionally used to suppress innate heme production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria#Erythropoietic_porphyria

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

The OP could be summed like "Waaaah, stores aren't open for me at 3 AM and NPC X doesn't stand in his spot 24/7, I had to spend 20 seconds in a small nod towards realism by resting at the inn."

So no, people who like it aren't just some small "vocal minority", especially when it is tied to additional mechanics/content like stealth, (ranged) combat difficulty, different npc schedules, special encounters, quests, items and creatures that can only be met at night etc.

 

[Lacrymas]

The vampire lore in fantasy is kinda corny tbh. What prevents a vampire from simply covering his whole body with clothing for example? Or an armor suit?

It's not vampire lore in fantasy or in general, it's the World of Darkness specifically. While I have all the books they made available in a Humble Bundle I haven't checked this particular thing. I've always assumed the VtM:R mission to contradict the lore.

 

[Iznaliu]

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.

Why do you need three screens we need more simplification, refinement, and streamlining. Have one screen reading "YOU WIN!"

 

[almondblight]

I can't say that waiting until night to steal or pick up a reagent is a particularly interesting mechanic. It's not really increasing the amount of gameplay options, just the number of steps - "You want to steal? Hit the rest button until night, then steal. Want to sell the stuff you bought? Hit the rest button until day, then sell it."

QFG1 (haven't gotten to the others yet) had a decent day/night cycle, though. Night was actually dangerous, and if you were caught outside you had to run through a lot of deadly wilderness searching for shelter. Sometimes you needed to be out at night, and sometimes you were caught there because you had gotten lost while exploring or stayed in some hermits house for too long. And even if you did make it back to town in time, staying at the inn was relatively expensive.

I wouldn't miss the day/night cycle in QFG1 if they removed it, but at least it seemed to have more of a purpose than in most games.

 

[YES!]

I can't say that waiting until night to steal or pick up a reagent is a particularly interesting mechanic. It's not really increasing the amount of gameplay options, just the number of steps - "You want to steal? Hit the rest button until night, then steal. Want to sell the stuff you bought? Hit the rest button until day, then sell it."

QFG1 (haven't gotten to the others yet) had a decent day/night cycle, though. Night was actually dangerous, and if you were caught outside you had to run through a lot of deadly wilderness searching for shelter. Sometimes you needed to be out at night, and sometimes you were caught there because you had gotten lost while exploring or stayed in some hermits house for too long. And even if you did make it back to town in time, staying at the inn was relatively expensive.

I wouldn't miss the day/night cycle in QFG1 if they removed it, but at least it seemed to have more of a purpose than in most games.

I agree it was extremely well done in QFG1. The amount of content tied to it, and the sensibility of it, were amazing. You played the correct version, right? The version where you type in your words and not the Claymation shitty remake? A decent day/night cycle with content and mechanics tied to both was supported through the rest of the series, but not as well done as with the first game. It was probably done second best in the Russian/Scandinavian one, part 4.

 

[Luckmann]

[...]

I am from the old school and the way we play games are -

[...]
2) Loot everything
3) Sell everything
4) Never not do steps 1-3

[...]

I think you're confusing "old school" with "legitimately autistic", Roqua.

 

[YES!]

[...]

I am from the old school and the way we play games are -

[...]
2) Loot everything
3) Sell everything
4) Never not do steps 1-3

[...]

I think you're confusing "old school" with "legitimately autistic", Roqua.

No, this was the only way to beat old school games, by being completely thorough and somewhat of a pedant, the minor details focused part. This really is more fact than opinion. I'd say most rpgs until the late 80s had to be played a specific way if you wanted to win. Step 3 should be "sell everything you know is safe to sell." If you played games like that for years it sticks with you. I can't not loot that barrel - it might have the thing I need 80 hours from now to get through a gate. The only other way was to buy a game guide thing, and I've never done that once. I was very tempted to call the hint hotlines a couple times but my mother would have killed me.

 

[buru5]

What's the general opinion of the day/night system in Grimoire? From what I've played it seems pretty irrelevant, as if it was only included to make Vamprys worse during the day. If this has already been discussed, sorry, but hey I'm not reading this whole thread.

 

[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!

Are you really equating day and night cycles with challenge? Or being able to find someone not at their shop with intelligence? Or the buying/selling system in FONV with a well done system that the devs put a ton of work into?

Lets take ultima 7. Lets say you are over encumbered. Lets say you are in a town you talked to everyone. Is there a reason to search the houses? No, because stealing is bad and you are good. Is there a reason to explore? No, because you can't take anything you can find. Is there a reason to do anything besides sell the couple items you have that someone will buy (top notch system according to you, having tons of shit that costs a fortune for you to buy but no one will buy it back or from you no matter the value)? No, there isn't. Well, yes there is. Drop all the extra shit you have besides the few items people will actually buy. Then just go and take a shit or read a book and wait until the shop that will buy your couple jewels and the banker lady who buys nuggets gets to work. Or, better yet, spend some money at the inn to rest twio hours game time so you can sell faster.

You can't. I don't know, actually go and play the game and explore new areas because you may find something to explore and that is fun and miss your small selling window when you are so close to it.

SO MUCH CHALLENGE!!!!

I like real challenge. Challenge that gets my mind to think. Not retard challenge for dummies that involves no thought and only requires you to be dumb. Maybe you consider keeping your helmet on and not licking windows all the time to be challenging too. I don't know. I do know that if I already explored the town (in games I can loot and steal I explore every fucking last centimeter) I have nothing to do but wait, or leave. The choice of wait or leave isn't a good choice. It isn't a challenging choice.

You remind me of the type of person that wants me to be forced to waste my allotted play time by running across the world to your stupid player house and buy something from your vendor in hopes of me checking out your digs. Buying something isn't the challenge I am looking for in a game. It isn't the fun activity I want to use my play time with. I want to do things that are actually fun to non-retards. Whenever a game has a huge time wasting system that makes something that should be simple a time waste it is always some fucking invalid living off my dime who has all the time in the world to do stupid shit like build houses and decorate them in game and cry to the devs so there will never be an consolidated auction house for easy buying.

People like you disgust me and since you don't have enough pride to work you want to waste the working man's time with your fucking nonsense.

I am from the old school and the way we play games are -

1) Explorer every nook and cranny.
2) Loot everything
3) Sell everything
4) Never not do steps 1-3

We don't build houses to play dolls and dress up and decorate or want other players to be forced to waste their time waiting for no good reason or to have to spend hours traveling to my shitty house to buy something. And it is the same time of retarded, non-working invalid that has also destroyed the real challenge that games had to offer and make all the actually good content all care bear and streamlined and dumbed down to child level.

So gi it to me straight: Do you disagree wi me or not?

 

[Magitex]

Having a day/night cycle always lends a stronger atmosphere to a game, but there's no real reason to restrict vendor hours; unless you have proper NPC scheduling (preferably more than just disappearing from their store) and/or a good reason for doing so. It should never be an isolated decision, you should have a good supporting mechanism for doing it - especially if your game revolves around loot and limited inventories.

In the case of theft mechanics, so long as NPCs aren't teleporting around to fulfill their day/night schedules, it can make for great procedural/emergent gameplay scenarios which are far more interesting than static challenges (assuming appropriate AI is in place to deal with it). The same goes for day/night difficulty mechanics and schedules (bandits moving to roads, ghosts in cemeteries, etc). Basically the more emergent gameplay systems you have in place, the more lively and replayable your game world is likely to be.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Fuck off back to Obsidian forums, Gromnir.