Well, I am basically having a big problem with effectively handling time in a multiplayer game.
I want to make proper use of time in this game, not just "it gets dark at [x] time and light at [y] time" and that is the only effect time has.
Time will have a large factor in the game, things such as shops and services closing at night, monsters will be different at day than at night, quest objectives only being possible at certain times of the day, stealth skills will be more effective at night, certain cities will enforce curfews and so on.
Even dealing with resting is a major problem due to the way I want magic in this game to work. Magic is really powerful, but you cannot shoot out fireballs like a machinegun and then pop a potion and be ready for another round. Magic healing items will be very, very rare in this game and magic powers will slowly recover over time (about a full day from none to full), faster (8 or so hours) if you're resting and very fast if you're sleeping (2 hours).
This all sounds nice, and in a single player game it would be easy to handle because time can easily be skipped forwards. But in a multiplayer game this isn't an option as time effects everyone.
Situations like "I'm ready for some adventuring! Just need to stock up on a few items... Oh poo! Shops just closed, have to wait for 12 hours for them to open I guess" are quiet likely to occur because of this.
The problem I am having is thinking of an effective way for time to pass. If time is too slow people are going to be sitting around for a long time waiting for things to happen, if time is too fast the time frame for certain things will be too small and they can easily be missed which ends up making players wait anyway. And as you can probably imagine, a game where half of the time you're doing nothing but waiting isn't very fun at all.
At the moment I have time set roughly 1 minute is equal to 1 hour in the game. This isn't too long, but it still means a full day is 24 minutes long and you only get 12 minutes to get to the shops before they close and you're forced to wait for another 12 minutes. Or you only have 12 minutes to fight than vampire lord before the sun rises and he goes to bed.
So, now that I've finished explaining the problem with trying to make use of time in a multiplayer game... (Haha, sorry, I always end up typing in way to much) What do you people think about making use of time in a multiplayer game and how would you go about handling it in an effective way that minimizes waiting times for players?
ID:265769
 Sep 6 2007, 6:34 am
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I played on a MUD once where a full day lasted about 4-6 hours. At night time, everyone pretty much flocked to the tavern to chat and exchange information. Since it was a roleplaying MUD, though, people didn't spend their time stocking up on items and leveling up. There were subtle plots happening in the background, mostly initiated by the MUD's staff. Some player or an NPC guard might be murdered during the night, or someone might break into the city, assassination attempts of the "higher ranked" players, secretive discussions at the back table in the tavern, etc... Occasionally even a party on the beach. Yeah, sometimes it got a little boring, but it sure felt neat when the sun finally came out and we could go outside the city again. (Technically we always could, it was just really dark and you needed to carry a torch all the time.)
But it sounds like unless the game's staff is going to be actively providing things for the players to do, instead of making it a game where players are on their own to go powerleveling as they please while the staff just sits around and boots/bans people, then the game probably won't be much fun at night. | |
Foomer wrote:
I played on a MUD once where a full day lasted about 4-6 hours. At night time, everyone pretty much flocked to the tavern to chat and exchange information. Since it was a roleplaying MUD, though, people didn't spend their time stocking up on items and leveling up. There were subtle plots happening in the background, mostly initiated by the MUD's staff. Some player or an NPC guard might be murdered during the night, or someone might break into the city, assassination attempts of the "higher ranked" players, secretive discussions at the back table in the tavern, etc... Occasionally even a party on the beach. Yeah, sometimes it got a little boring, but it sure felt neat when the sun finally came out and we could go outside the city again. (Technically we always could, it was just really dark and you needed to carry a torch all the time.) An ambitious designer could overcome this by developing a "plot engine" for the game. Essentially this would be like a mini life-simulator, creating little random events throughout the day and sometimes at night that would interest other townsfolk, who in turn would gossip about it. Events the engine could create might include:
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It is pretty hard to explain why, but the main reason for using faster time at the moment is to prevent magic from being too powerful.
In the game I want magic to have a lot more functions than just for combat. Though there is a lot of combat related magic and it is pretty cheap to cast it is the magic that's main purpose is for roleplaying that I am trying to make not as powerful. Low level spellcasters for example will get silly spells that aren't much if any use in combat. One example is a gender changing spell, it has no practical use in combat, but it is designed for roleplayers. For example, if that brutish barbarian knocks you down without apologising then you get revenge by turning him into a girl. The cost of casting this spell is high for someone low leveled so you can't turn everyone on the planet into a girl, and it is temporary, lasting about a day unless it is cured before then. But at a low level only being able to cast this spell once or twice and then being out of magic 4 hours would make combat for a spellcaster hard unless they ignored the spell (which defeats the purpose of it), and the player playing as the brutish barbarian would probably be annoyed at being a girl for so long. And I don't want to make magic healing items common because a poweful, but evil mage that can summon demons (maybe 4 before being totally drained) could stock up on them, walk into a town and literally summon an army of demons that over run the town (in truth, I want things like this to be possible, but not to the extend that they make the game unplayable for other people). So, what I might do is make two time scales. One is the ingame time, maybe a day will be a few hours long and will effect things like what people are around town, what shops are open and what monsters you'll run into. But I'll make a second time scale that will be a lot quicker but will be used for things such as how long it takes to regenerate magic and how long a spell lasts for to make them useable but not abuseable. As for the towns in the game. I actually took a lot of inspiration from Radiata Stories. If you've never played the game there was basically a single town with something like 100 or so inhabitants, all of them were unique and had their own personailites and daily routines and you could literally follow a person around for the entire day to see what they did. Though I doubt I could do things to that extent I want to make the game as close to possible as that. Which means there will be things like a nightlife and so on. | |
The Magic Man wrote:
It is pretty hard to explain why, but the main reason for using faster time at the moment is to prevent magic from being too powerful. Wouldn't this argue for slower time, then, since you could have magic recharge at a given rate per day? Low level spellcasters for example will get silly spells that aren't much if any use in combat. One example is a gender changing spell, it has no practical use in combat, but it is designed for roleplayers. For example, if that brutish barbarian knocks you down without apologising then you get revenge by turning him into a girl. You could simply limit the duration of the spell to something lower. Really this is more of a balance issue; you can get anything to suit the ideal time cycle but the time ratio is far more critical to get right. At any rate I think it's totally fair that a low-level caster using an expensive spell will have to wait before using anything else. And I don't want to make magic healing items common because a poweful, but evil mage that can summon demons (maybe 4 before being totally drained) could stock up on them, walk into a town and literally summon an army of demons that over run the town (in truth, I want things like this to be possible, but not to the extend that they make the game unplayable for other people). This is exactly the right choice; just make magic effects wear off sooner and magic regnerate faster. Lummox JR | |
Time is one of the most annoying things that can be added to your standard ORPG. Why? Because it usually translates directly to waiting. No matter how it's handled, how many alternatives you give them, they're always going to find themselves annoyed because they can't do what they want until some randomly marked point in time.
The most effective solution I've found is to make some areas effected by time while others live in bubbles where it's always day/night. Ie, City Town is always day. Monster Forest changes between day and night because there will always be monsters, time only changes what type of monsters. It still leads to waiting when you're after a specific monster, but it's not so bad. | |
Lummox JR wrote:
An ambitious designer could overcome this by developing a "plot engine" for the game. Essentially this would be like a mini life-simulator, creating little random events throughout the day and sometimes at night that would interest other townsfolk, who in turn would gossip about it.
This sounds like a really awesome idea. What could make it even better would be if the player themself could intervene in the plot engine's... well, plot. Like for example "A wagon or other small party traveling between towns is attacked (by bandits, monsters, etc.)" what if you were on the road as this was happening? Then you could help defend from the monsters and become part of the local gossip yourself. Or to look at it a different way, what if YOU the player decided to steal from the shop? Maybe the police would come to stop you, maybe you wore a mask to hide your identity, the possibilities are endless here. | |
Body wrote:
This sounds like a really awesome idea. What could make it even better would be if the player themself could intervene in the plot engine's... well, plot. Like for example "A wagon or other small party traveling between towns is attacked (by bandits, monsters, etc.)" what if you were on the road as this was happening? Then you could help defend from the monsters and become part of the local gossip yourself. Or to look at it a different way, what if YOU the player decided to steal from the shop? Maybe the police would come to stop you, maybe you wore a mask to hide your identity, the possibilities are endless here. The most interesting thing, I suspect, is to set up situations that the players themselves could cause if they were there to do it, or that players can intervene in. This basically involves having some autonomous actors in play. The game could somewhat balance these events by looking for things that could be happening but aren't, and choosing from those as the most likely events. For example if a player is out attacking wagons, that would stimulate a response by guards, and so other thieves are gonna wait till the heat dies down before doing anything themselves. Of course not all such events need to involve players in any direct way. Some can be at high levels like intrigues in the halls of power, which few if any players could ever get involved directly in but from which they might learn of an interesting opportunity. Lummox JR | |
Lummox JR wrote:
The most interesting thing, I suspect, is to set up situations that the players themselves could cause if they were there to do it, or that players can intervene in. This basically involves having some autonomous actors in play. The game could somewhat balance these events by looking for things that could be happening but aren't, and choosing from those as the most likely events. For example if a player is out attacking wagons, that would stimulate a response by guards, and so other thieves are gonna wait till the heat dies down before doing anything themselves. Yes! A game with this sort of system sounds like a good time. Of course there would need to be proper cause and effect for everyones actions to maintain a balance. Otherwise people would knock over wagons and shops constantly. Maybe if there were some sort of a black list of players that have recently been involved in criminal activity. Man, I wish there were a game out there like this. | |
I'm rather fond of a 1:24 time scale, with all game movement and distances scaled accordingly. For instance, if human walking speed is between 1.2 metres per second up to 1.5 metres per second, then at a 1:24 time scale human walking speed should be between 30 m/s and 36 m/s. Obviously, this would be much too fast in a game context (2 metres per tile is a pretty common standard), so you scale down distances between villages accordingly and leave human walking speed at a normal rate.
For instance, if it takes 1 hour to walk to a village that is 4 km away, that's a distance of 2000 tiles (2m/tile). At a 1:24 rate, just divide that distance by 24 to get a more-manageable 85 tiles of wilderness between the leading edge of the village and the trailing end of the city you're leaving. Then all tiles are considered to be an abstraction of 48 metres even though they're actually scaled back to 2 metres for ordinary purposes. It can get very complicated to keep scale in mind, but I figure it's important to balance speed with distance and time. | |
Body wrote:
Yes! A game with this sort of system sounds like a good time. Of course there would need to be proper cause and effect for everyones actions to maintain a balance. Otherwise people would knock over wagons and shops constantly. Maybe if there were some sort of a black list of players that have recently been involved in criminal activity. Man, I wish there were a game out there like this. You don't even necessarily need to resort to a blacklist if you consider a few possibilities:
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I've always had a particular affinity for games that had a "heat" variable -- I know I've fleshed it out in some rather serious detail in my Haven design notes (not implemented yet, of course).
Essentially, when you commit a non-violent crime that no one sees you do, you don't gain any heat. When you try to sell the proceeds of that crime, you gain a little heat and the person you're selling it to gains a little heat too. If you commit a violent crime, you gain a lot of heat. If you commit a violent crime in full view of everyone, you gain an exorbitant amount of heat and NPC organisations receive "kill on sight" orders. In Haven, I wound up classifying six categories of criminals: Pickpockets Burglars and Thieves Robbers and Bandits Organised Criminals Pirates Raiders Pickpockets are people who use anonymous, non-violent crime in the middle of public places in order to make a living. Burglars/thieves are people who invade homes, making them inherently more dangerous than pickpockets, but who do not want to be caught and who employ non-violent crime in order to ply their trade. Robbers/bandits are people who stake out locations and use threats of force in order to separate people from their valued possessions. However, if the people cooperate, the robber/bandit leaves happily. Organised criminals are people who treat crime as a business, but who are mostly engaged in loansharking, prostitution, trafficking, armed robbery, and protection. Pirates are like robbers/bandits, except instead of staking out locations they actively seek caravans and shipping to attack. If the caravan cooperates, the pirates take only the valuable cargo and leave the wagons, the personal effects, and the people well enough alone. If the caravan doesn't cooperate, the pirates bring death to all and take everything. Raiders are people who do not attempt to parley at all and who will engage in pure violence, wantoning slaughtering everyone in order to take everything. Raiders do not (and cannot afford to) discriminate or have morals. They attack at the weakest guard shift by surprise and slaughter everyone they can, minimising risk to themselves. This list is also in order of how responsive the NPCs will be to the group. For instance, if you join the local mob, you're guaranteed to be visited by the guards for routine shakedowns. If you're a raider, expect to be hanged even if you come flying a flag of truce. If you're a pickpocket, you can expect never to be caught except by the person catching you in the act. | |
This heat concept is pretty good, although I think having random NPCs be able to observe the crime also increases the danger of that sort of occupation. My own concept in particular though dealt more with increasing general awareness, maybe having more guards, more armed resistance, and possibly more witnesses in the sorts of locations a thieving player/NPC will hit.
Lummox JR | |
Lummox JR wrote:
This heat concept is pretty good, although I think having random NPCs be able to observe the crime also increases the danger of that sort of occupation. My own concept in particular though dealt more with increasing general awareness, maybe having more guards, more armed resistance, and possibly more witnesses in the sorts of locations a thieving player/NPC will hit. Yeah, I notice I didn't mention that explicitly, although that was part of the original plan -- the more crimes that would be committed, the more wary everyone would be, especially of people fitting the profile of persons who have high heat but who were not specifically identified. However, any sort of system which can be influenced by players can be notoriously difficult to keep from spiralling madly out of control, so obviously it exists in theory form only. | |
Jtgibson wrote:
However, any sort of system which can be influenced by players can be notoriously difficult to keep from spiralling madly out of control, so obviously it exists in theory form only. True, but couldn't that be solved by beefing up security in problemed areas to prevent the players from causing mass chaos? When I said before about the blacklisting, what I meant was a sort of FBI most wanted list type of system where repeat offenders who have been seen comitting multiple crimes will sort of be the first suspect when something happens. Then as their notoriety builds they become sort of banned from getting serviced in town or whatever. Of course this could all be nixed if they start bribing police officers and create a mafia esq group that run the city... oh the possibilities... | |
Jtgibson wrote:
However, any sort of system which can be influenced by players can be notoriously difficult to keep from spiralling madly out of control, so obviously it exists in theory form only. Meh, I've been spending the last two weeks working out a way to ensure that the game's storyline is influenced mainly by player action. But yeah, it's hard to come up with a system like that and keep it from being abused and under control, as well as to make sure that players have a reason to be where they need to be to cue the advance. | |
Interplay's Lord of the Rings had fast day/night cycles but that was because those controlled how often you could gain healing from food. Time didn't otherwise affect anything. Since you're obviously using time to great effect in your game, 60:1 is way too fast for it to be helpful.
As far as passing time at night, why not give your town a nightlife, like taverns where you can learn valuable quest info by interacting with the locals or with visitors?
Lummox JR