The weather is going to change whenever my Druid says its going to change damnit! :)
Srsly though... I absolutely hated when it rained in Greater Faydark and the visibility (that was already difficult with all of the trees and hills looking identical) got even worse. The ability of the druid to change the weather was one I would always ask for in chat. (This was before all of the fancy maps).
I'd like to see seasons and weather done well like everyone else, but I'm more concerned with the PvEnvironment effects than rain or fog on timers... unless that is part of the environmental challenge... maybe an artic area that has volcanic activity causing steam every so often that obstructs vision and releases toxic vapors... or maybe causes exhaustion from the rapid change in temperature or rapid change of oxygen and vapor levels. (Maybe Dark Myr would be less affected by that exhaustion due to their amphibious lungs/gills).
For me frequency should be related to severity. Maybe you get a light shower once per in-game day, but there is a major downpour once per in-game month. This would simulate real life a bit more. Also, the effect of the weather is important to me. Is it just pretty, or does it make a difference? How does your charcter move in a torrential downpour compared to a light shower? Maybe he moves a bit slower, or maybe your pathing is affected by strong gusts of wind. Maybe there are special monsters that only spawn for a short time during that torrential downpour. Maybe those monsters have special loot or are related to a quest. And how does the weather effect the landscape? Is it just darker, or do rivers widen or overflow if the weather is severe enough? Are there puddles that keep growing until the rain stops?
Xbachs said:For me frequency should be related to severity. Maybe you get a light shower once per in-game day, but there is a major downpour once per in-game month. This would simulate real life a bit more. Also, the effect of the weather is important to me. Is it just pretty, or does it make a difference? How does your charcter move in a torrential downpour compared to a light shower? Maybe he moves a bit slower, or maybe your pathing is affected by strong gusts of wind. Maybe there are special monsters that only spawn for a short time during that torrential downpour. Maybe those monsters have special loot or are related to a quest. And how does the weather effect the landscape? Is it just darker, or do rivers widen or overflow if the weather is severe enough? Are there puddles that keep growing until the rain stops?
A highly doubtful "add-on" to this is that it would be interesting if there was "triggered foliage" based on weather patterns. Living in the desert, I have seen where 90% of the time places are scrubby and brown, but right after a rainstorm, they grow green and bloom.
Kalok said:A highly doubtful "add-on" to this is that it would be interesting if there was "triggered foliage" based on weather patterns. Living in the desert, I have seen where 90% of the time places are scrubby and brown, but right after a rainstorm, they grow green and bloom.
This is what I want to see. Weather actually having an effect on the landscape.
Deserts go into bloom after a rare rainfall.
River deltas drying out in summer droughts, and swelling during the spring rains.
When spring hits the mountains and the snows melt off, have that water flow down to the base of the mountains and a dry riverbed becomes a fast rushing torrent that swells the banks of the river.
Kalok said:Xbachs said:For me frequency should be related to severity. Maybe you get a light shower once per in-game day, but there is a major downpour once per in-game month. This would simulate real life a bit more. Also, the effect of the weather is important to me. Is it just pretty, or does it make a difference? How does your charcter move in a torrential downpour compared to a light shower? Maybe he moves a bit slower, or maybe your pathing is affected by strong gusts of wind. Maybe there are special monsters that only spawn for a short time during that torrential downpour. Maybe those monsters have special loot or are related to a quest. And how does the weather effect the landscape? Is it just darker, or do rivers widen or overflow if the weather is severe enough? Are there puddles that keep growing until the rain stops?
A highly doubtful "add-on" to this is that it would be interesting if there was "triggered foliage" based on weather patterns. Living in the desert, I have seen where 90% of the time places are scrubby and brown, but right after a rainstorm, they grow green and bloom.
That could be awesome.
Just to add a perspective - not saying it's the right way to go (certainly not the best way), but the mechanics of might help us think about what the best way would be.
In FFXIV the weather changes (for the zone) every 8 game hours. (A game hour is about 12 minutes long, I think). The weather changes are randomly determined but mapped out in advance, so that the game "knows" what the weather is going to be up to 48 game hours from the current time. In NPC cities there are "skywatchers" who will give you a weather forecast.
Weather forecasts matter for fishing (some fish only show up in some weather conditions) and for certain (very rare) special mob spawns.
The other thing to note here is that the weather doesn't just include "sunny" and "rainy" - but it also includes conditions like "cloudy", "wind", heat waves", "gales", "thunder", "storms", "snow", and so on. Also, not every zone will have all the weather patterns. (It doesn't snow in the desert, for example).
Overall for a system that's pretty basic it's pretty well implemented. I think Pantheon should go further (some of the ideas in this thread are great!) but it seems like a good place to start from.
Weather effects really add a lot to immersion in my opinion, though I do agree that it rained a bit too much in EQ. As for how weather patterns should work: deserts should have sandstorms, mountains should be cold and windy, tundras have blizzards etc. some areas might have the weather effects going all the time, others it may be sporadic. I don't think there is any particular formula with something like this it is something that can be changed from zone to zone. Maybe one area rains a lot and another never sees a drop? A volcanic region may have clouds of ash, fire and sulfur raining down on people. My favorite environments are the foggy swamps and lakelands it really lends itself to being mysterious or even mystical. And I truly hope that the night in Pantheon is actually dark I am tired of perpetually well lit MMORPGs it never feels like night time ever comes. Having weather actually affect combat conditions would be awesome.
At the very least weather needs some basic randomness. Even if a zone has rain every day it should at least vary by a few minutes unless there's a very specific lore as to why it's perfectly predictable.
A bit more complex to implement would be actual weather generation. Create a "storm" then apply some basic guidelines and RNG to determine if it is rain or has thunder and lightning and how much, duration, wind, etc. Could be adjusted for things like seasons too. However I don't know how Pantheon's weather system is set up, so this kind of thing may not be feasible. Would be fun if it could be done, though.