Seasons!? : V - Skyrim

» Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:53 am

my idea was to shorten the year, its a new game set in a new era and it is the northernmost province of the empire, i dont see why skyrim cant have a unique calendar.
i do agree that the length of day is too short though.

and why are the seasons themselves not practical? i see tons of reasons how they could effect the player, quest availability, npc behavior, anual events, seasonal alchemy ingredients. etc. the list continues.
also there are the more hardcoe elements of the different seasons. like animal behavior, temperature [maybe], and even travel.

hlvr, you think we need an immersion thread?

» Sun Apr 03, 2011 8:47 pm

my idea was to shorten the year, its a new game set in a new era and it is the northernmost province of the empire, i dont see why skyrim cant have a unique calendar.

Because calenders are based on celestial movement and events that have taken place have had no effect on that movement. And NO before you even suggest that they write in such an event.

and why are the seasons themselves not practical?

I think it was quite clear that I was referring to the season's implementation along side the timescale.

» Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:06 am

hlvr, you think we need an immersion thread?

Perhaps. It can seem like it

It would surely make quite a big list though.

Perhaps even so big that it would add almost too much discussion; like.... for things like fast travel system and such.
But about seasons and the effects of seasons, there is quite a big list (that you mentioned) that hasn't been discussed too much yet.
To include that in immersion thread would be nice. Although I can't think clearly atm what other things could be included in an immersion thread.
If you have more suggestions to put in some big immersion-list, then yes I think we might need it.

» Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:06 pm

Because calenders are based on celestial movement and events that have taken place have had no effect on that movement. And NO before you even suggest that they write in such an event.

The only actual effect a calender would have is its name in a game without seasons.

With seasons a calender would actually mean something. I don't have anything against to somewhat change that calender; it's reasonable due to the fact the day/night cycles are different up north.

In addition, I think shortening the number of days is quite good also. Not too much though, but to shorten them a little; I see no reason why not to, since they would otherwise have absolutely zero meaning.
The number of days for months have been changed in every single TES game so far. They've never been the same. So why not change them again but this time in order to practically allow a great new feature such as season?

» Mon Apr 04, 2011 7:26 am

well they said snow will FALL for real

so I guess seasons are going to happen, man that would be so AWESOME.

long winter, short summer/spring/fall man my social life will DIE on 11.11.11

» Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:25 am

The only actual effect a calender would have is its name in a game without seasons.

With seasons a calender would actually mean something. I don't have anything against to somewhat change that calender; it's reasonable due to the fact the day/night cycles are different up north.

In addition, I think shortening the number of days is quite good also. Not too much though, but to shorten them a little; I see no reason why not to, since they would otherwise have absolutely zero meaning.
The number of days for months have been changed in every single TES game so far. They've never been the same. So why not change them again but this time in order to practically allow a great new feature such as season?

im gonna make a thread

» Mon Apr 04, 2011 11:42 am

Though seasons are a great idea they just are not practical. At the current time scale (which is extremely condensed already) an in game year = 146 hours. Calculate in resting and waiting and a year might take 100 hours. Days are already too short and it will really show now with dynamic shadows.

I really don't want to see the timescale condensed any further nor do I want large chunks of time passing in the blink of any eye. I'd actually like to see the time scale increased from 24min=1Day to 48min=1Day.

If they increase the timescale significantly, then they need to increase the spacescale (made up word of the day), or it would either take unreasonably long times to travel somewhere and movement would be slowed or your character would be able to fit into a day an unreasonably large number of activities that would never otherwise be done in one day.

I'd think that they figured out how fast they wanted in-game time to be based on proportions and not arbitrarily. If game characters are about 1/60th the size of actual people (made up figure), then I'd expect game time to be 1 min=1 hour.