Day and Night Cycle

[Sorum]

Alright sooooo I've been thinking about this for an hour or so.

Wouldn't it be awesome to have night more often?

So, what I am asking is: Would it possible to have a day-night time cycle in game? I'd like for example to RP during the night, but the night ends really early in the afternoon for me (European) and I believe americans don't ever get to see the night (unless they stay up late and/or have sleeping disorders).

I know it was done on another server, has to do with PC's clock or something like that. The clock was adjusted in such a manner that both continents got to see night time more often.

tl;tr: More night please?

[MstrCorvus]

10/10 would like more night.

[Nick]

As a traditional, nocturnal Night Elf RPer I fully support this idea rather than have to come up with why my character would be out in the daylight (outside of Night Elf RP where one can disregard server time).

[Psychyn]

Admittedly, I just disregard the server time entirely and RP with what works for the stories and characters. Still, it is a minor change for me, I wouldn't mind it. Might be nice!

[Sorum]

Soooo @Kretol ?

[Rowgen]

Rowgen's Stamp of Approval.

[Grakor456]

A question to those asking for this: what would you consider a good day length for this purpose?

I've RPed in MUDs where the day/night cycle happened in only a few hours, but this led to some oddness for extended RPs, such as an RP where you go from noon to night in just a couple hours. Having a 12-hour day cycle might be workable, though may still be odd for longer RPs. Alternatively, an 18-hour day cycle would serve to stagger the day/night cycle, so you get a little more variety in time of day in a still somewhat predictable pattern and a more realistic passage of time.

I'm not going to comment on the technical feasibility of this, that is on Kretol.

[Vrahn]

Certain zones are dark all the time if you want to vary things up a bit until this changes.

[Ural]

When I consider traveling from one continent to the other, I think a shorter day would help with the time lapse. Generally, my RPs don't get more specific than a day at a time. Hmm, good food for thought at any rate!

Posted from my phone!

[Jonoth]

I like the 18 hour cycle idea @Grakor456 posed. Just enough for variety without the time passing too quickly or taking too long methinks.

[Nephos]

I would vote for a 12 hour one, personally.

[Sorum]

A question to those asking for this: what would you consider a good day length for this purpose?

I've RPed in MUDs where the day/night cycle happened in only a few hours, but this led to some oddness for extended RPs, such as an RP where you go from noon to night in just a couple hours. Having a 12-hour day cycle might be workable, though may still be odd for longer RPs. Alternatively, an 18-hour day cycle would serve to stagger the day/night cycle, so you get a little more variety in time of day in a still somewhat predictable pattern and a more realistic passage of time.

I'm not going to comment on the technical feasibility of this, that is on Kretol.

My issue is not how long the day lasts, it's how it matches the timezone. An idea would be to have the time set in such a manner that the night would being at early evening/late afternoon GMT (london time) which would also be when NA people seem to log in. I don't know when it would be a good time for the night to end tho, perhaps late central NA evening or maybe early morning.. I am not that great with timezones to be fair. The idea is that both, EU and NA players would have to chance to catch night and day, without having to wake up early in the morning or late during night (irl).

Another idea would be having night time during the EU afternoon-evening for a month, then changing it to day time after a month. This way both continents would experiment day and night.

Having a night cycle for example of 18 hours sounds good in theory, but if it's set in such a way that the night would begin early for EU players and end very late then it would lose the whole point of the change. We'd only have night time, instead of day time. But this can be fixed by going with the second idea I listed here, which would require the time to be shifted each month or so. Maybe week? I dunno.

I hope I made enough sense with this post, I literally just woke up.

[Reigen]

I may be wrong, but I believe the night cycle of the server is tied into the time it was set to. In this case, it's set to Kretol's time. So when it's daylight in that timezone [in this case, California], it's daylight in the server. So it may be possible to set the server time to a different timezone but...that would throw off everyone's calculations for knowing when events are/planning times for events.

Once more, I think only @Kretol can answer this one for sure.

[Grakor456]

I may be wrong, but I believe the night cycle of the server is tied into the time it was set to. In this case, it's set to Kretol's time. So when it's daylight in that timezone [in this case, California], it's daylight in the server. So it may be possible to set the server time to a different timezone but...that would throw off everyone's calculations for knowing when events are/planning times for events.

This is true. Changing the time would, apparently, involve changing the computer's clock itself, and would change the OOC server time display.

While a nice idea, I'm doubtful as to its feasibility, and may cause other issues.

[Sorum]

I may be wrong, but I believe the night cycle of the server is tied into the time it was set to. In this case, it's set to Kretol's time. So when it's daylight in that timezone [in this case, California], it's daylight in the server. So it may be possible to set the server time to a different timezone but...that would throw off everyone's calculations for knowing when events are/planning times for events.

This is true. Changing the time would, apparently, involve changing the computer's clock itself, and would change the OOC server time display.

While a nice idea, I'm doubtful as to its feasibility, and may cause other issues.

I personally don't see the issue in changing the server time. Why not just use a particular GMT time for events and the alike.. Just let's say use GMT 0 (london time), put a clock somewhere on the forums or the side which displays that time and don't care about the ingame clock ever again.. Just an idea.