Seasons
I have read bits and pieces of this idea across many different threads but this idea in general excites me.
In most games if there is a day/night cycle then there is most likely a day/month/year cycle as well. In EQ and other games you could actually see what in game month and year it was. As far as I have seen the only benefit has been to keep track of when festival/holiday events should occur.
With VR talk about climate zones I think it would be a huge missed opportunity to not combine the two.
My understanding of climate zones is that you could have something like a frigid climate zone in a snow zone which runs against your vs cold stat. If you want to hunt mammoths on the tundra you would need to gear up for the cold. Now what I am suggesting is to add a variable to the equation that takes into account the time of the year and the time of the day.
Let say for the ease of it we are talking about Everfrost(EF) as seen in EQ1( https://msu.edu/~oconne53/eqatlas/everfrost.html ). Now VR would add a frigid climate that encompasses the entire zone. In order to be unhindered you would need a cold resist score of 20 + (season variable). If we use earth months we could say the variable is:
Jan: 20
Feb: 20
Mar: 15
Apr: 10
May: 5
Jun: 0
Jul: -10
Aug: -20
Sep: -10
Oct: 0
Nov: 10
Dec: 15
So a player would need a vs cold score of 30 in April to stay unhindered (20 Base + 10 Month). In August you would be required to have a vs cold of 0 because it’s warm and during February you would need a vs cold of 40.
The seasons would also affect the chance of it raining or snowing. In my example above you might see rain during the summer and snow during the winter.
You could add a third variable of sun. This would help make it warmer during the day and colder at night.
The seasons could affect the animals we see. The orcs might be year round but maybe the rabbits and dear are more populated during the summer and more scares during the winter. This could affect pelt prices. Imagine players migrating to North Karana during the spring to take advantage of the faster respawn rates of bears to cash in on the lucrative pelt market.
Now the question might come up that this would suck to be a new barbarian player as you might start the game during the winter months. The remedy for this is the use of campfires found near town that would give you a short term vs cold buff. This would be immersive as it would make you have to warm up now and then till you can get your fur armor.
Now all this could be done in reverse in a hot climate with Vs heat….
This could even been done in non-extreme zones. Maybe the Common Lands has a base vs cold of 0 and only during the winter would you need a bit of Vs Cold and during the summer you need a little Vs heat.
Interesting Xonth, it would definitely pattern a world with actual seasons rather than areas that are always one way or another. I dont know what kind of developmental resources that sort of thing would take, but it would make the world feel more alive, and make you plan your adventures accordingly. I wonder if they plan to actually have snow/rain that accumulates or it will be just a graphical representation that doesn't really change the environment. Again, this sort of thing might just be beyond what can be done at this time, but it's a cool idea.
Given the.. design? layout? reality? of Terminus, I suspect such a weather system would vary dramatically from zone to zone, more than any seasons might affect it. Or put another way, unless they want to be shackled to Earth-like seasons, Terminus can and should be entirely unlike Earth, with respect to weather and seasons.
vjek said:Given the.. design? layout? reality? of Terminus, I suspect such a weather system would vary dramatically from zone to zone, more than any seasons might affect it. Or put another way, unless they want to be shackled to Earth-like seasons, Terminus can and should be entirely unlike Earth, with respect to weather and seasons.
I was thinking this also. Terminus could still have seasons similar to "Earth seasons" but also have seasons of their own flavor and design
What I am interested in seeing most of all is the use of color/aesthetics, effects and the overall implementation of seasons and changes that the developers create.
This is a very cool idea, but from modding skyrim i know that adding too many of these weather things can make the game clunky fast.
Although VR IS awesome, so if they did pull it off I'd be all for it.
BUT I would suggest not making noobs suffer from weather too much, maybe going till like lvl 5 before being effected so you can clothe yourself, or starting the game off with the clothing thickness you need (and monsters dropping it too).
Gonna second the Skyrim comparison. This is a good idea and is probably going to be something that's more practical in a few generations of game development, but it seems like an easy way to basically quadruple the art assets required, not to mention modelling, rigging the models, etc. I'd love to see it, but it seems like a big ask on top of making climates relevant.
The way I see it working is very simple. When the zone is first being designed you set up your 4 seasons each with a variable. Now when the game is live the zone will only load your zone in the one season. There would be no system computing behind the scenes other than just running scrips and algorithms pertaining to your current season. The vast majority of anything in the zone would stay the same besides a few creatures and environmental graphics. I could see trees having green leaves in spring and summer and colored leaves in fall with no leaves in winter. This would just require you to set this up on the tree graphic itself. You could log out on the last day of summer and overnight it could be patched so in the morning when you log in its fall. No need to blend the seasons or anything fancy.
If you had the time you could really add allot with this season. Imagine running by the same farm at different times of the year. Sometimes it would have crops and other times it would be bare. Flower may show up in the plains and mountain passes.
Maybe rare spawns only show up during the wright season. The Yeti raid boss only spawns during the winter in the harshest mountain climate.
Organic Crafting materials would be more available during the summer where maybe inorganic materials would be more available during the winter.
I could go on and on about every cool idea related to this…
Xonth said:I could go on and on about every cool idea related to this…
That might not be too complicated but youd still have temporary weather effects (like rain), stacking on permanent weather effects ( temperatures of a certain area like a tundra which are generally cold no matter when), stacking on seasonal weather effects (like what you said), stacking on specific area temperature/climate (like that really hot forge area they found in the cold mountainous zone they explored in a recent podcast) effects, stacking on spell-climate changing effects(like the weather spells they seem to be planning for druids), stacking on any weather changes related to day/night cycle. It's alot to swallow.
Again your idea is very cool.
I'm all for reading your ideas, bring them on, VR usually seems to read through everything too once theyve gotten to it. I like the idea of a few rare spawns which count on a specific season to spawn. (but not all of them of course, we need some things to stay reliable, atleast outside of the immersion server).
The idea for changing crafting material availability is a little iffy for me, atleast until they have more areas in the game (after a few expansions) so the alchemists can head toward the equator in winter and the smithies can head north during the summer (so there's not a specific season for specific crafters to be feasable).
Seasons wouldnt be too overbearing if it used the already shortened in game day/night cycle. Are you suggesting a more realistic version where areas closer to the equator have less well defined seasons, and areas extremely north might have extremely long winters/summers (like game of thrones)? Or a more basic version where 365/4 in game days=1 season no matter where you are? Most games dont include both sides of the equator, but if this one eventually does, would you suggest flipping the seasons?
Very interesting idea, but who said Terminus had 12 months? maybe it only takes Terminus 8 months to pass around it's star. and maybe its axis doesn't wobble like ours.. no wobble? no climate change. :) So much we don't know about Terminus ..
I'm sure VR can at least tell us this right? does Terminus have wobble!?
Kargen said:Very interesting idea, but who said Terminus had 12 months? maybe it only takes Terminus 8 months to pass around it's star. and maybe its axis doesn't wobble like ours.. no wobble? no climate change. :) So much we don't know about Terminus ..
I'm sure VR can at least tell us this right? does Terminus have wobble!?
Very fair points, alas only VR can tell us, and probably only in their atlas threads=)
I’ll throw another one out. You could add in vertical axis in too. It could be colder the higher you go. Maybe two zones next to each other could have different temperatures based on how high up it is. Even in the same zone you could have it get colder as you cross the mountains over the pass which could be near impossible during the winter. I just did a drive over my States Mountain passes and one direction it was clear and easy and the way back was basically a blizzard causing us to take almost three times longer to do the same distance.
This could be the same zone just diffrent time of year.
Summer
Winter
I said something similar but not as detailed last year so I'll bring it up again here. I want to be flooded with a monsoon and have it affect travel, animals and even gameplay (no fires staying lit outdoors and lower areas being under water). In winter having a small outpost or village in the mountains get snowed in requiring players to dig them out and maybe certain NPCs are unavailable until spring. Rare sand storm in the desert areas causing merchants under tents to pack up and be unavailable until the storm passes. Visibility would be affected, travel speeds and types of travel affected, merchants and NPCs affected thus affecting gameplay. And then add the night cycle similar to Kithicor in EQ. In the day there are the meeker animals bunnies, deer, docile bears, etc. but at night there are hungry angry bears, tigers, and leopards (nocturnal hunters). There could be raiding orcs instead of camping orcs. A world that is alive until my party arrives to slay it. Just a thought again don't want to add to development unless it's feasible.
I really do feel like we are a generation or two away from these kinds of things. It seems to me that the first step is even having different climates and acclimatization, which I think is cool enough for now. Perhaps they can add stuff like this in future expansions...or their next MMO project 10 years from now in virtual reality.
Season changes happened once every four days..in a game called Saga of Ryzom now known as Ryzom. (released 2004ish) During that four days..special harvests popped up that only popped during say spring..or summer for example. Would keep the harvestors busy for sure. Same with the migrating animals idea...if you attacked one of the pack or herd, you would have the whole herd or pack after you unless you were wiser in how you did it. :) If it was done back in 2004, I'm sure with the modern tech that it could be done again. All depends if it fits with what VR wants to do with their game, timewise and finance wise. :)
Xonth said:I’ll throw another one out. You could add in vertical axis in too. It could be colder the higher you go. Maybe two zones next to each other could have different temperatures based on how high up it is. Even in the same zone you could have it get colder as you cross the mountains over the pass which could be near impossible during the winter. I just did a drive over my States Mountain passes and one direction it was clear and easy and the way back was basically a blizzard causing us to take almost three times longer to do the same distance.
This could be the same zone just diffrent time of year.
Summer
Winter
We saw this in the last stream. Avendry's Pass is primarily temperate, but it gets colder and snowier the closer you get to the entrance to Amberfaet, which is up a mountain. The zones are plenty big enough to house different climates. And then of course the Frigidity gets even more severe as you get deeper and higher through Amberfaet itself.
I am trying to remember if I saw in an old Pantheon clip (might have been a different game) that as it snowed the ground got whiter. The particles falling where not sticking like it would in real life but the ground texture would slowly get replaced by one with snow on it. So if it snowed in lets saw The Common Lands you would just replace the grass texture with a snow one for a temporary amount of time then it would turn back to the normal ground texture. No need for anything more complicated. Same with trees, Every time you create a tree in the lab just create another with snow on it and slowly fade from one to the other.
I do know 'Dynamic weather' is something they are working on/towards!
Kilsin said:... We can have dynamic snow that falls and builds on the ground and also affects your character and we can control the seasons but more on that later ;)
My speculation:
Having read a few threads by Monty on such things as 'Do rocks have a top?' and 'putting stuff on the top of rocks' (I am paraphrasing from memory) it seems it is technically possible (but I have no idea if worthwhile, effective, or even 'possibly planned') in many game engines (perhaps including Unity) to have a base terrain (or a rock) texture and then add a variable height of snow on it! That way, in summer you set 'Snow_Height = 0' so you can see the grass/mud/rock texture, and in deepest winter you can set 'Snow_Height = 30' so all you see if lotsa deep snow!.
My own suggestions:
Evoras said:Things I would find fantastic....
1. SERIOUS weather aspects!
A. Can you do snow 3 feet deep (low inertia, high surface tension - ie clumpy) so that moving through the deep snow is like pushing through 3-feet of thick undergrowth (possibly use 'powder' version of water) with few ripples, but some splashes of snow as you tromp through it! PS Even a Ranja could track you through this!!
B. Serious rainfall and snow effects. Massive drop in lighting and view distance from torrential rain ... loud enough to mask stealthy footfalls.
C. Not spot the undead standing stock still until it attacks .... because it is covered by a snow drift.
D. Aradune required to hit the start button on his Fiery Avenger more than once to get it started in the cold wet weather!
2. IMPACT between PC and the weather...
A. Cold diminishing your Fire spells ... Fireballs vaporising huge circles of snow into slush ......
B. Rain reducing your Archery (Bow + Water = bad)
C. Ice making keeping your footing hard work...
D. Actually SEE the rain turn to steam as it lands on my Fire-Pet..... see the snow melt as my fire pet moves through the virgin drifts....
E. Watch as the Froglock gets its tongue stuck frozen on the Tank's chainmail bikini!
I'm a bit late to the party *looks at watch* but here nonetheless! I would absolutely LOVE to see this, though some of this is pretty high demand...Regardless, I'd totally be interested in seeing different seasons pass through the lands (at different times, cause I doubt that on the far ends of the land will be as bad, or maybe even the same season, as the one on the very far other side), and the stats that would effect your character and possibly even the environment! It doesn't even need to be something that they start working on until after the games release, implementing this would be amazing to experience and would make Pantheon all the much more unique. Very few games focus on making their MMO world immersive, where everythings always the same, or maybe only goes through a day/light rotation. But very few, or perhaps none (as far as I know of, the MMOs I've been involved in over the years is somewhat limited), has gone as far as to make their world controlled by all sorts of different variables, such as the season.
It'd also be nice to see Terminus slowly drift into the season, and slowly fade out of it, rather than seeing it be something that happens overnight. And perhap use a number generator to determine how bad each season will be and how each season will last, generally being within the same range but sometimes it may be worst than it is others, much like how it is in real life. Sometimes certain seasons might last a bit longer than it did the year before, or more specifically meaning that the decline/increase of the temperature is slower than times past, or colder/hotter at it's prime and thus it will take longer to decline in temperature.