ZFGC
ZFGC CP => King of Thieves => Topic started by: Zaeranos on October 22, 2012, 04:49:03 pm
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My proposal to get the discussion going again.
Day/Night and Lunar Cycle
In the game there is a passage of time. This passage is defined in 2 cycles. The first cycle is day and night. The second cycle is the Lunar cycle. There are no cycles based on the day of the week or on seasonal changes. These are the rules for the cycles.
1) The day/night cycle exist of 2 phases [day, night]. Each phase is 12 hours long and 1 Hyrule Hour equals 1 Realtime minute.
2) The Lunar cycle has 8 phases [first quarter, first half, first three-quarter, full moon, last three-quarter, last half, last quarter, new moon], Each phase is 1 full day/night cycle.
3) The item called the "Moon Pearl" allows the player to skip to the 12 o'clock midday or midnight phase. This also means a forward progression in the Lunar cycle.
4) Due to the lack of a sky dome in a 2D game the top of an hourglass will be displayed to show the progression of time.
5) Once in possesion of the Moon Pearl a moon icon will be displayed on top of the hourglass during the night phase.
6) Inside buildings and during mini-games time is halted.
With a couple of submission, the day/night and lunar cycle have been brought up. For example with MG's circus and Darlus. However to me it is still unclear how this will function. So before continuing this idea an accepting submission based on this idea, it would be better to solidify the concept. This to prevent conflicting concepts of various members accepted.
These are the first questions that I like to have answered:
1 ) How long in realtime minutes does a day/night cycle happen?
2 ) How many days are there in a single lunar cycle?
3 ) Are we also going to add seasons in the mix?
4 ) Will there be an item that allows you to manually change day and night?
5 ) Will there be an item that allows you to control the lunar cycle?
6 ) How is this visually going to be represented? A clock, a timer, an hourglass or something entirely different?
7 ) How is tracking of the lunar cycle represented?
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Just a couple opinions on this:
1) I believe Majora's Mask worked pretty reasonably with the 1 hour lasts 1 minute.
3) I think seasons would overcomplicate things. Especially because nights are longer in winter and stuff like that.
4) If there is a day/night cycle, we need an item to control it. It's so annoying to have to wait for things... Especially when some areas of the world are prettier in the day/at night, but you have to play through them in the wrong one.
5) See above comment, this would be cool, perhaps even the same item or an upgrade. We don't have an instrument yet, we could have a violin or something.
7) MG's saying that the Moon Pearl is an item that indictes to the player the lunar cycle. Don't know how that will work, though.
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You know if you guys need, I can get goodnight's clock for you, it can easily be modified to fit with KoT. Cpt.G has also added stuff like:
Slow down time, or bump it by 12 hours, in addtion, wetehr to check for real-time timing or not.
Just if you guys need, dunno what MG has in mind though.
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I hadny thought much about the lunar cycle, but what I was figuring was showing an icon on the map screen once the moon pearl is obtained. It would show what phase the moon is in for that night. In addition, there would be a marker on the map of where the circus is for the night. The circus is also the only idea I jave for the lunar cycle, but there could be others.
1hr == 1 min would probably work as it'll give the player time to do things during the night. With an item to go from night to day and vice versa there should be no issues.
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I hadny thought much about the lunar cycle, but what I was figuring was showing an icon on the map screen once the moon pearl is obtained. It would show what phase the moon is in for that night. In addition, there would be a marker on the map of where the circus is for the night. The circus is also the only idea I jave for the lunar cycle, but there could be others.
1hr == 1 min would probably work as it'll give the player time to do things during the night. With an item to go from night to day and vice versa there should be no issues.
:-\ Well you should check it out tho, it probably has what you need. But as for the moon pearl apearing on map/HUD, that needs to be edited with soem coding to fit however you want it to be.
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Please be aware that we are not using game maker.
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I don't particularly love the idea of an item to check the lunar cycle, and then another item to change it. The two should be merged. Checking it could be L1, and changing it could be L2. Just upgrade the single item. Maybe 'power the Moon Pearl'.
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Are you guys talkign about lunar cycles, as in the phases of the moon? Well one cycle is about 28 days, but it sounds too long a time to take advantage of.
Anyways, if you guys need to represent the day/night system, might I suggest using the system in Kingmob's ShadowGazer?
(http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/7657/z33ey4.png)
If you also want to represent the lunar cycle, you can have a different image of the moon (shown on the bottom) during the 28 days.
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Please be aware that we are not using game maker.
sorry mg, got carried away thinking evrything was made in game maker lol
Are you guys talkign about lunar cycles, as in the phases of the moon? Well one cycle is about 28 days, but it sounds too long a time to take advantage of.
Anyways, if you guys need to represent the day/night system, might I suggest using the system in Kingmob's ShadowGazer?
(http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/7657/z33ey4.png)
If you also want to represent the lunar cycle, you can have a different image of the moon (shown on the bottom) during the 28 days.
As for the lunar/and sun sprites I have ones that are close to it, similar to how KM had it.
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Something we might want to consider, night and day don't have to be the same length. I'm saying this because personally, I would like it if the game were set in summer so that the days would be longer than the nights.
MG, I'm digging your idea for a simple indicator on the map screen, it's beautifully simple. I think we should consider what all will actually depend on the lunar cycle before we decide if we need an item to change it.
But if we do decide on an item to change the lunar cycle, what if instead of a typical item, there was a place? Like, a small shrine you could discover that had an ancient mechanism which could manipulate the lunar cycle? I'm suggesting this assuming you wouldn't need to change the cycle too often.
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Okay these are my thoughts on the subject:
1 ) I have to agree that 1 hour is 1 minute just like Majora's Mask. Although I must say that nights are of equal length as days, so that night time events and enemies have equal oppurtunity and the player doesn't have to rush to night events.
2 ) I think the lunar cycle should have 8 days (new moon, left quarter, left half, left 3-quarter, full moon, right 3-quarter, right half, right quarter)
3 ) I don't think seasons are a good idea. The reason I brought it up is to nip it in the bud, for when some gets a submission inspired by OOS.
4) MG's idea of a moon pearl is something that could do the trick. Personally I think music and melodies are a bit over done.
5 ) I don't think that the lunar cycle needs to be controlled. I think as you change the day/night time cycle you also go forward in the lunar cycle, just as in MM.
6 ) Personnally I think a hourglass would be cool, or at least the top half. You see it empty as time progresses. When the day and night change, the hourglass turns around. On top of the hourglass is a sun or a moon representing day and night.
7 ) Once you've obtained the moon pearl item, the moon symbol on top of the hourglass could represent the period in the lunar cycle.
In addition I don't think it is necessary to slow down time, because there is no limit on days where you are send back, puzzles are reset and you lose inventory.
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Just about the day and night being of equal length, yes, ideally night and daytime events should get the same opportunity. However, the thing is that unless everybody stays out all night, the towns will be quiet at night, and therefore have a lot less to do, there will just be less people to interact with. The maps will feel a lot more empty at night, as NPCs will have gone to bed.
Secondly, night time events are only going to have less opportunity to be preformed if there are an equal number of night-specific events as there are day-specific events. Considering many events will involve NPCs, and people usually sleep at night, we're likely to have less night-specific events, unless we do so intentionally. Which we could, as thievery has to do with night. But unless we have something like thief missions for Link to do at night, I don't know why a shorter night would be to anyone's disadvantage.
Third, small, note, can we have some missions that cause a certain time of day to activate? For example, I know this was mentioned in regards to Niek's farmer subquest, Link might have to help someone escape from Castle Town. It'd be cool if when you agree to help in this quest, day turned to night so you could help them escape under cover of darkness. Some things like that. Anyone else have opinions on the story automatically manipulating the day/night cycle?
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Just about the day and night being of equal length, yes, ideally night and daytime events should get the same opportunity. However, the thing is that unless everybody stays out all night, the towns will be quiet at night, and therefore have a lot less to do, there will just be less people to interact with. The maps will feel a lot more empty at night, as NPCs will have gone to bed.
Secondly, night time events are only going to have less opportunity to be preformed if there are an equal number of night-specific events as there are day-specific events. Considering many events will involve NPCs, and people usually sleep at night, we're likely to have less night-specific events, unless we do so intentionally. Which we could, as thievery has to do with night. But unless we have something like thief missions for Link to do at night, I don't know why a shorter night would be to anyone's disadvantage.
Third, small, note, can we have some missions that cause a certain time of day to activate? For example, I know this was mentioned in regards to Niek's farmer subquest, Link might have to help someone escape from Castle Town. It'd be cool if when you agree to help in this quest, day turned to night so you could help them escape under cover of darkness. Some things like that. Anyone else have opinions on the story automatically manipulating the day/night cycle?
For events we can have the time slow down and or stop it, if some quests are availble at night and or in progress during those times.
Also are we planning for the time to be on going like in Majora's Mask where when you are in a time time still goes or like in OOT/WW where times stops when you are in a town and or during a side quest?
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I was thinking on something like, carnivals? I mean, something that makes the player go and see around the town, go and play around, gather info, easter eggs. Things like that.
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Okay these are my thoughts on the subject:
1 ) I have to agree that 1 hour is 1 minute just like Majora's Mask. Although I must say that nights are of equal length as days, so that night time events and enemies have equal oppurtunity and the player doesn't have to rush to night events.
2 ) I think the lunar cycle should have 8 days (new moon, left quarter, left half, left 3-quarter, full moon, right 3-quarter, right half, right quarter)
3 ) I don't think seasons are a good idea. The reason I brought it up is to nip it in the bud, for when some gets a submission inspired by OOS.
4) MG's idea of a moon pearl is something that could do the trick. Personally I think music and melodies are a bit over done.
5 ) I don't think that the lunar cycle needs to be controlled. I think as you change the day/night time cycle you also go forward in the lunar cycle, just as in MM.
6 ) Personnally I think a hourglass would be cool, or at least the top half. You see it empty as time progresses. When the day and night change, the hourglass turns around. On top of the hourglass is a sun or a moon representing day and night.
7 ) Once you've obtained the moon pearl item, the moon symbol on top of the hourglass could represent the period in the lunar cycle.
In addition I don't think it is necessary to slow down time, because there is no limit on days where you are send back, puzzles are reset and you lose inventory.
Yes, the lunar cycle should be on the order of 8 different stages. 28 is realistic, but far too much. We need to be ideal here. With 8 stages, there won't be much need to really control the cycle itself (although I'm sure the women of Hyrule wish they had better control over their cycles...) As for what Max said, I don't particularly like the idea of having a place to go to change the day to night and vice versa because it can become an inconvenience for the player. I'm liking the idea of the hourglass as well. As far as the circus goes, we can use a marker on the map for their location as I said earlier and then use the hourglass to indicate the cycle and period of the day/night.
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Just about the day and night being of equal length, yes, ideally night and daytime events should get the same opportunity. However, the thing is that unless everybody stays out all night, the towns will be quiet at night, and therefore have a lot less to do, there will just be less people to interact with. The maps will feel a lot more empty at night, as NPCs will have gone to bed.
Secondly, night time events are only going to have less opportunity to be preformed if there are an equal number of night-specific events as there are day-specific events. Considering many events will involve NPCs, and people usually sleep at night, we're likely to have less night-specific events, unless we do so intentionally. Which we could, as thievery has to do with night. But unless we have something like thief missions for Link to do at night, I don't know why a shorter night would be to anyone's disadvantage.
Third, small, note, can we have some missions that cause a certain time of day to activate? For example, I know this was mentioned in regards to Niek's farmer subquest, Link might have to help someone escape from Castle Town. It'd be cool if when you agree to help in this quest, day turned to night so you could help them escape under cover of darkness. Some things like that. Anyone else have opinions on the story automatically manipulating the day/night cycle?
Well, I have no problem with shorter nights per se. And I am fine with stopping time in towns and such, which would leviate some of the time constraints. How lively the town is at night depends on how lively we make it. We could make it a Las Vegas or some other city that bursts with activity around the clock. And even at nights people could still be awake in their homes.
Max, my biggest concern is how you will represent the passing of time and day/night in the HUD. It should fit well with the division of longer days and shorter nights.
I don't think the story should manipulate the time, especially because the player can do this himself. And maybe waiting for night to fall or the sun to rise can be part of the narrative.
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Does the day/night cycle really need to be represented on the HUD? The only Zelda game I can think of that did this is Majora's Mask, which needed to because that's what the game was all about.
If we do, however, go with a simple hourglass in the corner, it could just empty/fill up faster. Unless we're right on the summer solstice, maybe we could set it as 15 hours of daylight to 9 hours of night, assuming Hyrule is at a latitude of like 50 degrees and the world is similar in size and distance to the sun and everything to earth.
Instead of the top of the hourglass becoming 1/4 empty every 3 minutes during both day and night, which would be a 12-12 split, we could have it become 1/5 empty every 3 minutes during the day, sunset starting like a minute or two before night, then once the sun sets, the hourglass would turn over and empty 1/3 of the way every 3 minutes.
So if we had the graphic change in steps of 8ths (there would be eight different hourglass icons of varying sand levels), during the day, there would be 112 seconds between icon changes, and during the night, 68 seconds between icon changes.
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Just a thought on manipulating the days.
Why not add a Skyward Sword type of feel where you can sleep until sun up or sundown? Although instead of Link being disrespectful and sleeping in people's homes, you have to either find a tent outside of town, or pay a few rupees to stay at an inn?
As for the amount of time, I think MM did it a bit too quickly. I know 1 minute was near an hour but that was only with slowed time. I would personally like something more like 2 minutes was one hour. That gives a bit more time, so it doesn't just have the lighting changing rapidly enough for the player to just sit there and say man... the sun is moving so fast! (I did in OoT, watching the moon move through the sky at a blistering rate.)
As for the events that skip time automatically, there could be a prompt that asks, "Are you ready?" or something. Every other game (aside of MM) does it in the series even though the time shifts back to normal afterwards in some cases.
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Okay I changed the OP with a proposal to get the discussion going again.
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Your system in the OP seems pretty nice and simple.
I mean, I still like the idea of days being longer than nights, but honestly, it's a little confusing and technical, even if it is more realistic. Of course, it's only more realistic if you assume Hyrule is similar to earth, and who knows, maybe it's smaller or larger or has a different orbit! :s
Anyway, two points:
1) Why, when you use the moon pearl to skip from day to night or reverse, should we have it skip to midnight or noon? Why not sunset or sunrise? It seems like if you wanted it to be night so you used the moon pearl, in most situations, you'd want 12 minutes of night as opposed to the 6 minutes if you warped right into the middle.
Of course, I'm assuming sunrise/sunset are at 6 and 18, but that makes the most sense.
2) Should time be halted only inside buildings, or should it stop when you go into a town as well? OoT at least stopped time when you went inside a town. Which was cool because you could freeze time as the sun was setting and enjoy the twilight lighting for longer :D
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I personally think that if time plays a major role in the game then it should only be stopped inside houses. It seems reasonable to spend a night running around town, but not very much to spend a night walking circles in someone's house.
Also, I think it could add to the immersion of the game if it sort of pressures you to make the most of each night instead of entering a village and speed-running all of the night quests in the same night. It's much more fun if you can't blitz through it and have to spend each night dedicated to a specific quest.
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Seems like a good point, dude.
Whichever way we decide, time-impacted quests will have to keep it in mind. Ie, what if you start a quest available at night, and then it turns into morning? Actually, it probably won't be a problem. We'll just take it as it comes.
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2 options I see in that case:
1. Drop the quest and the player has to restart it.
2. Save the state of the quest and put it on hold until the correct time passes again.
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Seems like something we should consider on a quest by quest basis. We might be worrying about it way more than we have to.
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Alright, so I'd say then that Niek's OP does a pretty good job of summing this system up.
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Sorry for my late reply, guys.
1) Why, when you use the moon pearl to skip from day to night or reverse, should we have it skip to midnight or noon? Why not sunset or sunrise? It seems like if you wanted it to be night so you used the moon pearl, in most situations, you'd want 12 minutes of night as opposed to the 6 minutes if you warped right into the middle.
Of course, I'm assuming sunrise/sunset are at 6 and 18, but that makes the most sense.
Your assumption is right. Why I put it at midnight and noon, is to make it more rewarding to take the long way around. Because we have a time unit, we can also have events that happen at certain hours. A very good example is Dampe's Gravedigging tour in OOT. That only happened from 9 to 12. So when you used the sun song in the graveyard you would skip to midnight and the tour was over. This made it rewarding to wait for sunset and sunrise instead of rushing to it with the Sun Song.
Here it could be similar, not to mention that you get more time during the night to do night events. Thus patience is then rewarded.
2) Should time be halted only inside buildings, or should it stop when you go into a town as well? OoT at least stopped time when you went inside a town. Which was cool because you could freeze time as the sun was setting and enjoy the twilight lighting for longer :D
Well, I had been pondering whether to let time continue inside buildings. But the reason against it is that buildings can be closed and opened during night and day. Thus when a building would close and Link is still in it, would he be kicked out or be locked in? What about the people that inhabit those buildings. With towns and the overworld this problem does not really exist, because they are always accessible.
Why I still think that time should continue in towns is because it gives pressure on night time and daytime events. You could save, but you could also restart these events. It just gives a gameplay challenge. And I think stretching the twilight ambiance is kind of a none issue. I don't know how day and night will be done, but I preffer that it is done by a palette swap, with a palette for day and a palette for night, instead of an overlay that gradually becomes more opaque. The best example would be King Mob's Shadowgazer project.
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2) Should time be halted only inside buildings, or should it stop when you go into a town as well? OoT at least stopped time when you went inside a town. Which was cool because you could freeze time as the sun was setting and enjoy the twilight lighting for longer :D
Well, I had been pondering whether to let time continue inside buildings. But the reason against it is that buildings can be closed and opened during night and day. Thus when a building would close and Link is still in it, would he be kicked out or be locked in? What about the people that inhabit those buildings. With towns and the overworld this problem does not really exist, because they are always accessible.
Why I still think that time should continue in towns is because it gives pressure on night time and daytime events. You could save, but you could also restart these events. It just gives a gameplay challenge. And I think stretching the twilight ambiance is kind of a none issue. I don't know how day and night will be done, but I preffer that it is done by a palette swap, with a palette for day and a palette for night, instead of an overlay that gradually becomes more opaque. The best example would be King Mob's Shadowgazer project.
I more or less agree with this, I'm thinking depending on the building will depend if you get locked in or kicked out like you mentioned, I mean if you were a shop owner you'd most likely close down the shop after making sure everyones out right? So I guess time could still pass even when your inside buildings/dungeons, I think it'd give a little bit of strategy to it so theres a little bit more thought into what you do. King mob's example with shadowgazer is probably a good idea, it'd give it a more of an amience and make it kinda visually attractive, but not be overly distracting
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Kami, I think you misunderstood me. I don't think that time should continue inside buildings, because of those reasons. I think that inside buildings time should be halted.
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In Majora's Mask, you were kicked out of the shop if you were in passed closing time. However, time in Majora's Mask was a much more sensitive element and therefore needed things like that to happen. We don't have that restriction here and so we really don't need time to pass indoors.