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January 14, 2013

Comments

lani

WOW Vanilla was the first major MMO to do the faux-night thing.
Today you'd have to go places like Fallen Earth, Vanguard or the two you already mentioned for a good night time experience.
Vangaurd especially can be very dark.

Sarzan

Bah, wear flip shades and create your own nighttime atmosphere :p

Sarzan

Iirc EQ1 also had a genuine night cycle as well. I can recall never going into Kithicor Forrest at night and paying a dear price for doing so...

Alysianah aka Saylah

Vanilla WOW nighttime was at least some what dark. Here are some pictures from an old post. It at least looks like it's night.

http://notadiary.typepad.com/photos/new_years_eve_on_wow/a.html

Alysianah aka Saylah

LOL. No exactly the resolution I'm hoping for. :p

Alysianah aka Saylah

I hear ya. Night on EQ2 PVP server Nagafen was terrifying which was part of the thrill.

Green Armadillo

It's a tough balance between good atmosphere and players not having fun because they can't see for crap, especially if you're playing on a sub-optimal monitor in less than great room lighting conditions. The problem is only exacerbated if your game does long - or 24 hour long in WoW's case - day night cycles because then you're condemning players who are always on at a specific time of day to always suffering through poor light conditions. My wife specifically cited this factor as something she did not enjoy about Vanilla era WoW (her only real MMO experience).

Alysianah aka Saylah

Agreed. I think there's something in between can't even tell it's supposed to be night and the pitch black night cycles in EQ1/2 and LOTRO.

I find it odd that in a game where you can't tell it's nighttime, they've included content that only appears at "night".

Sarzan

Well at least the racial sights in eq1/2 had real benefits. Elves with IR to Ratonga with sonic vision...

Capn John

I think others have already hit on it here, that there's a fine line between a dark-but-still-enjoyable night-time environment versus a screen being so dark you not only can't see your hand in front of your face, but you can't see the Mob that's chewing on that hand :P

Night time shouldn't have to mean it being pitch black and unable to see 3 feet in front of you.

I always thought the original Diablo did darkness very well, where you had a lit area extending out from your character, which dimmed & darkened beyond a certain radius.

Thinking of the instances in WoW...why can I see clear across the cavern at the end of Deadmines? Where is all that light coming from?

Sure, people want to be able to see, that's understandable. But we don't need to be able to see in the dark as equally as well as when it's daytime. But what's wrong with our characters using lanterns?

Whenever it's night time or our character enters a dungeon or a cave or some other dark area...have them equip a lit lantern. Have it hanging off their belt so their hands remain free, but give them a source of light. Have that light extend outwards a certain radius from their model (perhaps half the max distance of their ranged spells/attacks), beyond which it gradually dims until all they can see further out are almost-black shapes on a black background.

Alysianah aka Saylah

I like the idea of equipping something. You had the lanterns in EQ. As you've said, the game could generate a bit of light around the character. We didn't equip anything in the personal story / whatever it was called in Age of Conan and could see just fine.

I do understand people not wanting to always be in a night cycle if they play certain times of the day but that's easily adjusted by the duration.

SJ

Does anyone know where I can get some cheats for this?

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The Smithes

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