How much should the world of EQ Next change based on time of day?

Vision at Night:
I feel that the "dark nights" of EverQuest 1 weren't actually all that bad. The only places it was quite prevalent were places like the Faydarks, which were inhabited by elves so this made sense anyways. Even Qeynos or Freeport weren't actually that dark.

The devs seemed to emphasize in interviews and other media that they didn't want to exclude players from playing the game at night because they couldn't maneuver. Perhaps my memory is bad, since I played EQ mostly as a young adult, but I don't recall this ever being an issue. Even for Humans and Barbarians.

Here's an example of night time outside of Qeynos in EQ 1 as a human:



Take a quick look through that, that can't possibly be looked as unrealistic. Perhaps that was made (note the new human model) after some work was done, but I recall it being about that dark every night. You can clearly see where you're going, even all the way to the zoneline. The only thing you sort of had trouble seeing is monsters until you got a little closer, which is fine...

Gamers are more mature now. They've been through things that may have been bad decisions by game developers, but one of the most common errors I see in game development is viewing hardships as a problem and removing or trivializing them as the solution.

Part of what makes a game really addictive is the feeling that your decisions actually matter. Not in the sense that's often thrown around right now (the common idea that "moral choices" exist within a game and that decisions impact the story), I'm talking about the decisions you make for your character. The decisions you make in how you play the game. Part of that goes into your race choice. Why shouldn't humans see worse at night than elves? There was another big emphasis on not "punishing players for knowledge they didn't have"--so why not tell them up front? You make these decisions with costs and benefits in mind. There needs to be reasons people pick a race over another race besides what they look like, unless it's entirely for roleplaying reasons which is separate and arbitrary in and of itself.

Darker nights were a staple of the game that made the environment feel both real and dangerous, and this is entirely ok. Don't be afraid of letting your players just sort of deal with ****. Make Humans and other races that can't see well at night just deal with it in however the game allows. Gamers in general will appreciate the respect of a "hands off" approach that's really lacking in game design right now where you constantly feel like you're on rails. Let me pick a human, let me deal with how poor their vision is, but give me a reason to want to.


Game Difficulty at Night:
This ties in, similarly, to the difficulty of the game at night. Keep in mind that one of the most recognizable aspects of EverQuest is Kithicor Forest. This was, undoubtedly, one of the most successful game design decisions that has literally ever been made. Every single person that's played EverQuest for some period of time, has a Kithicor Forest story about how terrifying that zone was and the incredibly fond memories of it.

That's not to say that this should be done everywhere, it's just that it really needs to be observed. EverQuest, outside of Kithicor Forest, didn't have an actual change in difficulty at night. It just often spawned the undead in some areas and whatnot. So I think for the most part you guys are on the right track with this. You've mentioned moreso that the game will be different, not necessarily harder, at night. And this is good. But don't use that as a blanket statement, maybe have a dangerous werewolf at night in an area, or a rogue who's been murdering people in the city.

It's ok to let your players be frustrated at the game, I can't think of any good games I've never been frustrated at. Trying to eliminate any possible frustrating or tedious situation will naturally lead to a game that is unfun because there is no challenge, feeling angry at the game occasionally is what typically generates the most memorable moments, not when your hand was held. You can use the nighttime to accomplish this in some areas.

For instance, besides (depending on your server) the incredibly huge trading post that was "The EC Tunnels", East Commonlands would be entirely unrecognizable without Sergeant Slate and that gigantic god damn Griffin that would randomly kill you. After dying to it a few times you learned fairly quickly whereabouts the Griffin pathed and how to avoid it. That is a totally healthy game experience, it makes the area unique and interesting and presents both an interesting challenge and a reason to revisit the zone later in your character's career. These sorts of things, similar to Kithicor Forest's night time shenanigans, are things that really need to be observed in the design of the content.

Furthermore, I feel like one of the difficulties at night, on PVP Servers, should be other players. I've always hated that stealthy characters portrayed "hiding" as essentially just disappearing from plain sight. Let them really bask in being stealthy. Characters and monsters nameplates or however they're identified should be harder to see at night depending on your race. If I'm a rogue and I want to gank people on some road, let me do it, and if you don't want me to keep ganking people on this road--push me out. Promote that social interaction, people will say they don't like these sorts of things, but it actually brings people closer together through overcoming a hardship. It allows people to create reputations, be hated, be loved, these are all things that are lost in some MMO's recently because it's just impossible to even have these interactions with another player. Again, it's another area where the night can be taken advantage of and present more immersion into the game.

I would give you two thumbs up for this masterpiece, but apparently I lost one of them in an online accident. Pity!

Here, you can use one of mine. That was brilliant!

Lots of undead at night please! Us clerics need some good hunting too

I'm all for different mobs, and day/night affecting crafting - some combines turn out better during the day, others at night. Those sorts of changes are pretty straightforward and felt by everyone.

The problem with using 'darkness' as a 'difficulty' slider is it is so easily overcome by just raising the gamma level on your monitor, either through the in game options, or through your display preferences, or even through a monitor's direct controls.

The last couldn't be blocked by the game, the display preferences through the OS might, but then you have issues with people who genuinely need a brighter screen to play in general.

The only way to do it would be to simply not render anything outside a certain radius, but that brings its own set of problems to the mix.

I personally am not much concerned with the light/darkness being used in that way. I want it darker at night for ambiance. If someone else wants to crank up their gamma (which usually makes the colors look weird) it really doesn't bother me. They're kinda cheating a little, but they're not getting any more of an advantage than someone with night vision. I just don't want a bright-lit night to be the default.

Actually, I wish they would just implement moving moons that give off light. Ideally with phases so that it varied from night to night. That would be incredible...a couple bright-lit full moon nights a month, a bunch of adequately lit nights, and a couple of bloody DARK new-moon nights

I would like to see a world where the local fauna and flora change with the day/night cycle. I'd also like to add, that I'd be for adding creatures to the environment who would be attracted to you in different ways. Such as seeing through invisibility/illusions, undead being attracted to the living, fauna attracted by footfall, certain magical creatures being sensitive to magic and thus come to investigate and so forth, even certain creatures tracking players through odor would make the world a much more interesting place to play in.

The first two options both sounds very good, actually. I had a hard time choosing. I feel like the first two questions both have a lot of merit and potential in them. Even the aspect of the third option, the idea of the environment changing, has potential that shouldn't be entirely ignored.

Imagine open dungeons and world content that actually required you use a light source to navigate, and imagine actually having to sacrifice a hand that could hold a weapon or offhand, in exchange for light, as an actual game mechanic and manner of augmenting difficulty. Lots of potential there.

Liking that idea, maybe for foreign areas your race will affect aggro range some. Or even cooler have mobs that might be aggressive, but on an offensive scale.

Instead of the millers in qeynos hills being druids at a campfire and depending on your level/faction they aggro if you get too close. Make it so animals wounded will try and escape to them for healing/help, and if one makes it then the millers go out hunting... once they cross the actual path you took they will follow your "footprints" and track you. Making it so you really have to pay attention to your surroundings, or if you are in an area you shouldn't be then you know you are pressing your luck by staying too long.

Maybe an orc can't distinguish a troll or ogre smell much from their own filthy kind, but a halfling with all of his food and greasy cooking habits will draw out an orc hunting party if they wander too close to a camp.

More crooks at night. Brigands right outside the city limits ready to jump you to steal your stuff. Full pubs. Brawls. Nasty drunk people puking and urinating in the streets. The usual?

I apologize as I am just getting into reading about EQ next.. if its been mentioned again, I apologize. I would really like to see invasions on towns. Be it at night or in the day. Earthquakes or storms of some sort as a warning or precurser would be a good way to tell people theres an invasion coming to this area. That I think would keep any lower levels from being overwhelmed... The idea is for high levels to have a reason to stay around towns or come back to town more often not just to go out to find adventures. To be able to set up a baracade or something to assist with mobs coming in and a possible cleric party fortifide behind the players keeping the baracade up and the mobs at bay.. What do you guys think?

At SoE Live there was an example of, I believe, Orcs invading a town. I am certain more mobs will just do this based on their likes and dislikes. However, I don't really want to have earthquakes or storms warning us of there being an imminent attack. An attack being imminent should simply already be clear if you see mobs amassing in particular areas they weren't in before. Lower levels, if there are truly lower levels in a sandbox type of MMO, shouldn't get too far away from the safety of civilization. They shouldn't venture into the frontier. So this way they already can't get overwhelmed.

I want the world of EQN to make sense. I want it to be as realistic as possible. If that means that new players could get overwhelmed if they venture too far, so be it. It teaches them that this not just another themepark MMO but a world game. A game which could once again be called an RPG.

Not sure I agree with this. Cities and towns being destroyed at 4am when no one is on to defend them would cause massive frustration and anger.

Take Kaladim (sp) the dwarf city. My RP guild and I spend most of our time improving the city in order to make it the best city of all. Overtime we put a massive amount of effort and resources into the city including creating alliances with guilds. Then comes an orc army with no warning and destroys Kaladim because its 4 am in the real world and everyone is asleep. I would probably never attempt to put any time/resources into another structure again.

There needs to be a build up of enemy forces with enough time to mount a proper defense depending on the size/fortification/etcs.

I don't think a city will be able to be destroyed in a few hours.
I think it will require many, many hours even to be occupied by invading forces.
Players will have time to defend.

But that is what I said. You will see the mobs amassing somewhere before they even attempt an attack. It is not something which happens out of the blue. However, if players forgo in scouting the areas surrounding towns and cities they want to keep, it is the problem of the playerbase if those towns and cities fall. If you don't deal with the mobs before they attack something you hold dear I think these attacks should be able to happen around the clock. And even then a proper made city shouldn't fall within a short amount of time anyway, due to already existing fortifications.

I really hope we can build camps out in the wild. I really want to be able to be out in some remote area exploring and seeing nightfall with all its dangers creeping in, setting up my campfire and other cosy things around it to make a more secure, cosy place during the dark dangerous night.

The night time in many ways is always more stress full either its a feeling of being scared of the dark or a uneasiness from not knowing what is around you. I like this -sometimes- when I am walking through a haunted house I am asking to be scared, spooked, & startled. When I a trying to read a book or play a board game with my friends sitting in a dark room is more a annoyance. Having races that can see in the dark better would be nice for a change, as with older EverQuest games races have had Infravision or ultravision to see this in a game may be new to some people but I have always liked it .... the "I can see you" ....."but you cant see me" BOO hahaha

In short I would have fun either way I would like it if the dark was DARK an the DARK to have more unknown terrors: example having unholy grave yards have ghosts or undead wandering around in them or spiders that burrow out of the ground only at night to feed on sleeping animals or............. people

LoS should be affected by lack of light and more dangerous creatures should spawn. Dark Elves should benefit from their vision. In EQ1 it was a pain in the neck when night time came in the starting zone. I made sure to be Close to the guards and their torches.

I'd love to see changes in the game world based on time of day and even weather, such as different NPC behaviors and different types of creatures roaming about. I also think that certain areas should be more dangerous/difficult at night, but not necessarily all areas.

Oh Kithicor Forest, what fun and doom thou were.