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

Hopefully night brings dangers that are there not only because you are more likely to run into something you don't see until it is too late, but also dangers that only spawn during night. I think in general monsters and events should happen based on day/nigh, but also weather and such. Some rare spawn might only come out during foggy weather which happens more frequently in the mornings, and another likes blizzards and so on. It makes not only for unexcpected situations, but also a lot more fun and rewarding when specifically hunting for them.

KITHICOR FOREST!!! Loved it. Not saying that ever zone should be that way but some should. what would be great is to have some areas that are particularly haunted like loping planes and Kithicor forest to have an almost unnatural darkness; something thick or even foggy. that would rock.

I first experienced true fear in EQ1 when I found myself in the middle of that zone when night fell.

Differences between day and night, both in what NPCs appear and how NPCs act/react, go a long way to increasing immersion. More things which deepen my immersion into the game translates into a greater willingness to spend more money/time on the game.

I enjoyed the night in Everquest 1 very much, but starting a human just wasn't fun because that was TOO dark. The visual acuity shown by classes with infravision was excellent.

More dangerous a night, more increased mob traffic such as orcs and bandits watching the roads, less guard patrols.
think it would be cool to also raid a sleeping camp of orcs and etc farther out from the roads in the wilds. also such sleeping camps have traps set about so you cant just walk up and kill them without a fight. (trip wires, bear traps, guard dogs)

YES please let the AI make distinctions in night/day cycles.

One of the things that's always made me chuckle is that you can go into town and that NPC is still standing there hawking his wares at 3 AM. NPCs need to sleep sometime. Make the vendors go to bed at night. Your only options to do any business in Qeynos at 3 am is a shady pawn shop or a tavern that's open all hours.

And oh please yes, let the werewolves and vampires and undead come out to play in the light of the moon.

The AI definitely should take day/night into account.

I would be nice to see them go about their business during the day and closing shop when the day draw to an end. Camps and campfires being setup, animals looking for shelter in caves, etc. Therefore I like the fact that the day/night cycle will be significant time wise. It makes a game so much more dynamic.
Personally I don't really want it to be more dangerous to go out at night though, but seeing different types of mobs arounds would be very cool.

I live the idea of having a "special night" alá Blood Moon Night, like every 4-5th night. Maybe this could open up some interesting events in the world, like special boss attacks on towns etc?

I want ALL the options but not so much it would make quests impossible to do based on time.

Things changing at night:

- Colder/foggy/darker/change of music/different items available/rare woodcart merchants traveling through the night.
- Easier to spot people if they hold a lamp or a torch, at the same time not easy If they don't.
- Easier to find precious stone that shine more colorful and vividly at night.
- Easier to spot lava.
- Having little faries around waterfalls shining at night (for healing)
- Getting hurt by the gases emitted by mushrooms in the forest.
- Sandcrawlers in specific locations.
- Cheaper theft merchants at night, selling you great items at lower prices, at the same time not knowing if it's fake or bad/good quality. A shot in the dark (literally) a game of chance.
- Different enemies
- The weather affecting the world.
- Players needing a torch and some challenge/adventure getting through the night. Seeking shelter/Making a simple shelter.
- Occasional thunder/rain/gorgeous sunsets/rainbows/snow. AI enviroment/weather.
- Animation of dust clouds from sand,snow,gravel. Immersive world that reacts to us.
- More lore and stories at night by travelers.
- Unique characters of people roaming the bars, streets and roads.
- Some orks only travel by night. A more vicious and stronger group perhaps.
- Birds/ravens occationally dropping/losing loot from their claws which they've stolen: Gems, coins, little rarities.



AI enviroment and weather:
Footprints.
Water ponds splashing if you run in it.
Dust clouds: Snow, sand, gravel.
Gold chests on top of rainbows. You'd have to travel far to get to the rainbow, a long journey trying to get there first!

An immersive world that reacts to us. A world we need to use as a tool. Not just static sitting there being useless.

Night and day have played have played a part in all MMO's since MuDs. Environment has always played a driving factor in strategic re-enactments across the board. EQ has always been based upon environment driving events as well as a link to divinity lore. No one wants to see the lich sunbathing on the ramparts.

I think options one and two complement one another. Night time could be more or less dangerous depending upon one's location and likewise what one is.

I feel that this is somewhat VERY important...

Lets say James Smith only wants to play games from 10:00pm to 11:00pm
James Smith plays Everquest Next and he wants to experience both day and night cycles
If Everquest Next strategically places the day and night cycle to be the opposite every other day (just simply put an odd number of day or night cycles in 24 hours) then James Smith will be able to experience both, even with his very tight schedule

Whats even better, is that there are 7 days in a week, so lets say James Smith can only play 1 hour a week now , he can STILL be a part of both day and night because of the beauty of odd numbers

Please consider this though, as some people actually have strict schedules and I don't want to miss out on anything the game has to offer, especially if Everquest Next is going to take day and night very seriously

I like an option of both the first two. I dont want all areas to be horrible but I did get a kick out of ol EQ1's newbi gnome area at night.. oooo the corpse run memories there..

On the same note.. Since we're talking about darkness...... I would like to see nighttime affect player vision .. why have infravision if the human next to you sees the exact same thing. Give us immersion by showing elven low light or infravision at night.. dark elf infravision at night LOOK like infravision!.. or Ultravision! That'd be Awesome. Course.. this does factor in... how to do vision changes immersively without killing the graphics cards of your subscribers.. shoot.. Make Lightstones mean something again in the hands of those that cannot see at night. Make night a bit more dark .. not to say horribly dark but still.. would be nice to toggle a night stone in my pouch to have a light source around me if i were human or a halfling, halfelf, elfs' eyes adjust to darkness as the sun sets to visually SEE how they do. Wow.. that'll steal wow players I will tell you.

Anyone remember lvl 30 zone in day and lvl 50 undead mobs at night?

Random thought, Norrath is a planet, right? So the day/night cycle should be different throughout the continents. You could chase the sun by advancing in the right direction, the poles would have shorter/longer daylight based on seasons... etc...

Unless of course Norrath is flat, standing on 4 elephants riding an intergalactic turtle... then it's fine to have consistent daylight everywhere.

Just a random thought and maybe I just haven't gotten to the thread for this, but wouldn't NPCs get a little crankier later in the morning if they hadn't had sleep? I can see giving NPCs sleep cycles, but trying to force characters to sleep might be disruptive to play.

Love the thought about the world being round and chasing the sun. I agree with that if the world is actually big enough. It can be tricky trying to scale that kind of thing though...

While the idea of humans not being able to see at night was cool, the reality of it sucked heavily. It ended up making being human a huuuuuuuuge handicap. A better balance would have been to have the races that had good night vision to be blinded during the day, but I am digressing a bit off topic here...

If the storybricks AI is as powerful as we're led to believe, then that system will already be in place.

As for the size of the world, it's procedurally generated, so it is potentially limitless in size.

during the daytime nature magic should be stronger nature magic like casters pull magic from nearby plants 20 mana per cubic foot of plant material and recharges during the day and dark magic weaker.. during the night just the opposite corrupted tree's, and undead get power from the moon..

i like the idea of races vision being affected... but instead of humans being blind perhaps they just cant see as far like 20' or so.. or losing lots of detail. certain races having sun blindness being just the opposite.