Time

[Silent Bob]

Why is time set to go by so fast?  Why can't hours be longer?  Its seems like I just stepped out and the day is over.

[mansa]

Because it helps playability.

Ever tried to walk around in a In Game Sandstorm, for an HOUR RL?
It's death, and you would hate the mud and never play again.

Each day is divided into nine equal hours: before dawn, dawn, early morning, late morning, high sun, early afternoon, late afternoon, dusk, and late at night. Note that there are only two hours of sundown for every seven hours of sunup. One hour of Zalanthan time is roughly 10 minutes of real time, but this may change slightly without notice.

It helps time flow by.  It helps plots move, when the day is shorter.

[Gorobei]

Because then nights would last for fuggin' ever, and when you get lost in the dark without a torch and can't find your way back to a quit zone and it's still 'late at night' after the fourtieth fuggin' time you typed 'time' and your clothes are dirty and you character is about to die of hunger and thirst and all the people are laughing at you, you fuggin' know it... and you can't leave to go get a snack, because you still have to watch as 'Alas, you cannot go that way!'... then you'll realize why hours aren't longer.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Heh.

Have you ever noticed that this even happens in real life at times?

Answering the question: If time was not set to go by at the pace it does, there would not be as much story told. I think that considering the fact that one can get from Allanak to Tuluk in under a day, that you can make a sword in under 10 IC minutes, and so forth, time is set up quite correctly. You can actually have a character live for 20 years in a bit over a real-life year.

[Silent Bob]

I think thats way to fast.  It seems silly to age 20 years in one RL year.  How about 20 minute hours?  Its still fast it just is not so fast that if you say hi to someone an hour passes.

[Silent Bob]

I was rereading the above comments.  I have one thing to say about them.  Plan for the unexpected.  Take extra water, take extra torches, take extra food, etc.  I mean you are saying you can't learn from dieing once? This mentality contradicts what I have read in many other messages about this game.  Its hard, its rough, its Armageddon!  I say slow the game down for more roleplay and you say no its to hard.  I just thought it silly to have a RL convesation of an hour or so takes up a whole day in the game.  If the days have to be so fast let the races live longer.  The planet is spinning out of control, oh no who wants off the spinning tea cup ride?

[creeper386]

I played a MUD with a full 24 hour day, basically same hours as Earth has with 10 RL minutes per hour. Shops were set up to be only open during certain times, gates to cities and such only opened at certain times. And it boiled down to ALOT of waiting. It really sucks.

Now, it may have been more realistic and such, but it isn't really necessary. It's probably similar to why we don't have bathroom necessities coded and such, just not needed for the most part.

Anyways... How it is now, if things go wrong, it really sucks. A night lasts FOREVER while sitting out huddled in a circle after the strongest guy in your group just got chewed to pieces. Days out in the desert seem to drag on and on while waiting for reinforcements, or just kicking it in a tavern waiting for someone to show up. An hour in a half per day works out fairly well. Over all though, it can sometimes seem even to fast because you can't even play through a week in one sitting. And if your playing a character who really has nothing to do except the routine excercises on the week days it sucks very badly to log in at the beggining of the weekend. Or on the other end of the spectrum you have to go to those excercises and no other PCs are ever about... That day lasts forever... And yes, I've played in the Byn a few times.

[Silent Bob]

I was just looking at the PC I started with and it seems like just about the time you get in the normal cycle you are going to die of old age.  I would like to RP my PC longer.  If you dont want to change the the speed of the days going by let the pc's live longer, or let them age per the actual game time played and not the RL time that has passed.

[X-D]

Well, I don't know how long your char has been around IC'ly Silent Bob, but the odds on it lasting long enough that the imms might say something about it's age are extremly small. And you do not "die of old age" Your pc might be human and have started at age 50, when he is 68 he is not going to drop dead, when he is 90 (40 ic years, or 3 rl years) the staff may say something if you still have it running around the same as when it was 50, and if it were to make 120 or so (say 5rl years from now) staff may ask you to think about retiring it or something.

I like time the way it is, sometimes it passes too fast for what you are doing and other times way too slow, just like RL.

[Carnage]

I wouldn't mind seeing about five minutes or so added to each IC hour. Time goes by WAAAAAY too quickly.

[Silent Bob]

I am just looking to enjoy my character longer.  I would like the time to pass slower.  Some dont like that.  I thought ok let me live longer, or let me age according to how much I get to play.  I don't want to make the game less fun for someone else.  I want to make the game more enjoyable for everyone.  I can see relating the time aged linked to time played and also pay.  You can be paid a small wage for food and just show up to collect your food wage which you never spend because you are never on line long enough to have a desire to eat being used to buy super armor.  But if you are paid based on game time played you can't do something like that.  I don't know of anyone here doing that but it just occured to me.  It also means being old and well known makes you something not to be messed with in the game.  Unless you started out old.

[creeper386]

I am just looking to enjoy my character longer. I would like the time to pass slower. Some dont like that. I thought ok let me live longer, or let me age according to how much I get to play.

And you were just told, even if you started at a very old age, like, around 50, it's probably going to be close to a RL year before you get to the average death age... I know I've played a character for two-three months and barely put four IC years on him I think? Something like that. You aren't going to die of old age even in a RL year. And the number of characters who even live for that long.. Isn't a hugely grand number. Shouldn't have to worry about dying of old age before your character gets "into the flow of things" whichever you mean by that. I've been tossed into some wild mixes right from hour one... Longest time I've never really been involved with too much was when I was purposely avoiding it and that only lasted a week or so... So you kind of lost me on what your point was.

Five minutes per IC hour... That'd be another 45 minutes... And even that would really suck. Some people don't have the 10+ hours a day, I know when I log in and only have about two hours, time already goes by ridiculously slow. I know when I'm playing all day it seems to go by alittle fast, but if you slow it down, you end up hurting people that can only play an hour or two at a time. It really sucks when you can barely play out ONE DAY of your characters life every week.

[Rindan]

Aging according to online time is just a bad idea for continuity.  If a kid vanishes for a few IC years, he shouldn't show back up still a kid.  It just makes no sense to the people who know him.  People who are logged on longer shouldn't get old faster.

I don't really see the large issue.  1 RL year is about 15 IC years.  If you start a character at 20, then in 2 RL years you are only 50.  A 50 year old veteran warrior doesn't have to give up his day job.  Sure, he bones might creak a little more, but he also has 30 years of experience that make up for the occasional rusty joint.  Most characters are short lived.  The rapid pace of time is what keeps people from knowing a dozen people who die over the course of a RL week.

The rapid pace of time also keeps movement across the desert at least somewhat easier to swallow.  If you are pushing at full speed you can make it from Allanak to Tuluk in an IC hour or two.  If you are taking your time you can take a day or two.  While still a little fast, this is a lot more reasonable then people being able to make the trip in an IC hour.

The speed of time as it stands also allows for grand sweeping events.  You can have a 40 year occupation like in the case of Tuluk and have a chance of having a character living through the entire thing without dedicating 5+ RL years to a single character.

[Hoodwink]

I too am in favor of extending time on Armageddon.  In fact if I were to write a critique on the MUD, one of the few negative points I'd make would be relating to how fast time goes by.  While I'm not hoping to have my character live from age 16 all the way until she's 90 there are still the years in between which transpire at, seemingly, a startling pace.  Make a child character and if you find yourself offline for a lengthy period of time the next thing you know your character is an adult and you've missed the opportunity to truly sink into that role.

And if nothing else, I still agree that it's odd to have one conversation last an IC day.  I'd rather see gates left open at night for playability issues in order to compensate for longer time than for the Armageddon clock to spin as fast as it presently does.

[Silent Bob]

I went to an in-character event once.  It took 4 rl hours.  So I ask does that make sense?  If it took place in RL it would have taken less than a day so I think its not realistic that it took 4 days.  Now if you all would just type at 1500 wpm and the game link worked that fast as well ... It still would not make sense to me I can't read that fast and my screen buffer would be dumping.   Besides how can I ever leave the keyboard to go to the little boys room when time goes so fast?  I feel I missed something!

[Armaddict]

You have to balance playability with realism.  Don't get stingy with every detail, or you'll spend all your time thinking about how wrong it is instead of just playing the game.

[crymerci]

I'm pretty happy with the way Zalanthan time works as it is. I do like to see my character mature more than a month before I manage to kill it, and the points others have made about how long nights & sandstorms will last are important too.

Hey, at least the speed of time is consistent...it could be worse.  We could be operating off soap-opera time.

[Anonymous]

I don't mean to be a bastard, but I couldn't help thinking 'great, now instead of people travelling the length of the known world in a day, they'll do it in half of a day.'

The quick passage of time makes things like the abundance of NPCs or the minor delay riding/running through HUGE rooms make sense.

[Gorobei]

... my screen buffer would be dumping.   Besides how can I ever leave the keyboard to go to the little boys room when time goes so fast?  I feel I missed something!

(unrelated to the topic) If this is a problem for you, download SimpleMU.  I don't know how many fancy features it has, because I've never gone looking for them, but it's free, works well, and has an infinite buffer.  This is great for when you want to log and forget to hit the log button.

[Flying Erdlu]

Silent Bob: How many IC years do you think is reasonable to have your character age in a RL year?

[drunkendwarf]

I agree that you really can't be as picky as some of you are about time passage...IT'S JUST A GAME. I think time passage is great just where it's at.
Case in point: I work in a computer lab, and often have shifts lasting only an hour or two. Being the addict that I am, coupled with the fact I'm currently playing a quit-anywhere-you-like ranger, I'll pop onto the mud and see what I can manage to accomplish in those two RL hours. First thing I do when i jump into the game is 'time'....even with as fast as the time passes already, I'm fairly annoyed when I get 'It is dusk....' or even 'Late afternoon'....there's 30-40 mins of my two hour gap eaten up already. I'm sure as hell not going to go wandering through the scrubs at night, and my char often times does little else. I quit out, and wait for dawn. It'd -really- suck if waiting for dawn meant 1 or two rl hours...those of us non-city-dwellers would get quite screwed.

Forgot to mention the 'only aging while playing'. I agree this would make absolutely no sense IC, and cause for some very strange situations. Two players make chars at the same time, the same age. One plays three times as often as the other. Suddenly, he's aged 3 times as much? That's some funky wicked magick...or he's a dirty dirty defiler! Kill him kill him!
:?

[Angela Christine]

I've never been on a MUD or MUSH where time was ideally set for all situations.  Probably because the ideal time setting changes depending on what you are doing.  

During social events like conversations, parties and sex the time setting seems absurdly fast. Especially durring sex, even a few "quick" emotes and a fade to black can take 10 RL minutes, an hour IC, so Zalanthans must have amazing stamina.    Most people speak faster than they type: a short conversations might take 5 minutes to speak but 10-15 minutes to type, maybe longer if you take time to think up good emotes.  So even if time were running the same speed as real time these things would take longer than they should.

On the other hand, for many things the time is already set to go by too fast.  Like if you are marching an army from Allanak to Tuluk you will probably get there in a day, even if your army includes infantry and undisciplined, rag-tag bands of volunteers.  No worries about organizing supply lines, you'll be there before anyone gets hungry.  :roll:  Any sort of travel takes less time then it should.  That makes sense for playability though, if it took several IC days just to get to the target it would be hard to get the mission done in one session, and multi-session missions are a real pain in the ass on a MUD (table top games are better for that, since everyone starts and quits at the same time).  Likewise, if you are sitting and waiting for something to happen at a certain time the time seems to pass unnaturally slowly.

The days pass quickly, but Zalanthan days are only about half as long as Terran days so they really do go by quickly.  I think the time setting is ok the way it is.

AC

[Kalden]

The general policy that I've RPed with is that time slows down during scenes. Of course, this gets tricky when night falls and you're in the dark, but I still hold that time slows down to real time when you're doing a scene. You don't talk super slow... your conversation didn't actually last an entire day.

It's one of those things you have to gloss over and try to ignore, like the fact that people tavern sit during the night and don't sleep. Like the fact that if everyone actually did sleep in our "boarding" rooms, they'd be robbed blind nearly every night.

[My 2 sids]

Is it just me or are their two separate issues here?  What if we kept the hours and days the same, but added more days or months to the years?

[Wintermute]

Or, alternatively as was suggested, lengthen lifespans for all races.  Considering the number of people that actually will die of old age this wouldn't be a major impact on the game.. but would allow those that get there that extra time 'to enjoy their character' that everyone's seeking.

[Xanous]

Also remember that long term time speed (17 years per rl year) and short term time speed (1 game day per 90 rl min) are 2 different issues, since the game clock resets itself every time there's a reboot.

In my opinion, both speeds are about right as long as you think of time as being a bit relative.

A trip from Nak to Tuluk and back takes about 2 RL hours with a medium sized group, which usually runs from dawn of day one to dusk of day 2.  This seems about right to me for a "major" trip.

On the other hand you can start a character at age 13 and after 5 RL years he'll only be 98 years old.  Even if you're one of those guys who loves paying teenagers, you still got 7 ic years from 13 to 20, and that'll last you a good 6 months.

[Silent Bob]

I myself think time goes by to fast at 10 minutes an hour, some on the other hand like it that way.  I think 15 minutes to hour is better. So dark is 20 minutes longer, but daylight last 25 more minutes.  Some said leave the gates open longer.  I myself would not go much beyond that I would not want to be trapped outside myself, or have to wait so long for a sand storm to pass, that I pass out.  I like the idea of a longer year by adding a month or more days to a year.  I am happy to say I have read many good ideas here to think about.

[Rindan]

One thing that should be pointed out is that a Zalanthas day is half as long as an earth day.  The years match up evenly.  An 20 year old human is the same as a earth 20 year old  human.  However, there are nearly 700 days to one of their years.  In other words, it takes two full Zalanthas days worth of time before you have an Earth day.  So, if you go spend and IC days doing something, that is like spending half a day doing something on Earth.  It is still a fair amount of time, but not as insane as 2 earth days.

[X-D]

Wintermute wrote:

Or, alternatively as was suggested, lengthen lifespans for all races. Considering the number of people that actually will die of old age this wouldn't be a major impact on the game.. but would allow those that get there that extra time 'to enjoy their character' that everyone's seeking.

Alright, that makes two people that I know of that seems to think your char is gonna drop dead from old age (sigh) And I can't find at the moment where it says you will not, might be in char creation.

Anyway, first of, if you are playing a human he is not gonna drop dead on his 68'th birthday, the ages is the average lifespan. Hell, I have heard of people not playing for years and coming back and having chars 2-3 times the ave age for the race. But anyway, ave lifespan for humans on earth is like 76 years, does this mean 76 years from the day of birth every human is gonna croak, no, whats the record, 112, 120 years?  So, for a human on zalanthas to live 20-30 years or more beyond the race ave would not raise to many eyebrows.

So If you started a human char at age 15 you could easily play that char for 6 RL years or more before anybody would bat an eye.

[CindyLou]

I thought I posted, but I guess I didn't. Here's my sids worth:

I'm pretty comfortable with the way things are now. However if I was going to change anything with the time, it would be to just add a game-hour of daylight - an extra 10 minutes. This would extend a full cycle of day/night by just ten minutes, without changing the duration of night.

It would also mean less days per week -probably even giving the term "a ten-day" more logic, since a week in Armageddon is 11 days, not 10, even though everyone calls it a 10-day.

That's it. It's the only thing I'd like to see changed, if such a thing could be changed.

[Wintermute]

Well presuming that the listed average lifespans are natural averages (whatever that means) instead of averages that take into account all actual death ages, then theoretically a character could die at say around 50.  That's to say, your character could (and should) have an equal opportunity to pass on at 50 than at 86.

That said, as far as I know there aren't any hard-coded provisions for ensuring that sort of thing occurs, or even if death by old age occurs at all.  I believe in the past imms (maybe together with the player) have just decided when the right time was..?

Anyway, I like the extra time in a day idea too.

[My 2 sids]

I think what people are missing about the "add years to life" ideas is that some players don't care about how old they get... its how fast they get there.  I don't think players who've never played a child role before really understand what all is involved in the evolution of that character.

First, one must create a character based on that age.  Lord knows if a person has to make a spechal app how long -that- can take.  With the years going by so quickly it becomes a race against time.  You wanted to play a child (not forever... not trapped in one age) but a child for how long it takes to evolve.  Part of thrill or RPing a child is to have it mature due to IC reasons... not outside of game ageing.  Even the PCs who interact with the child... get used to it being a child.  People loose track of age and time, but with a child PC one must alway remember that race against the clock.

It takes time for a child PC to mature and grow.  It takes time to have IC interaction, it takes time to update backgrounds and descriptions, it takes time to find an IC sutible employment.  Suddenly, you have a young adult acting like a child because ICly not enough has happend to age the youth, but the time goes by so quickly.  For an adult or young adult age might not matter as much, but for those who pick out a child... the age guide matters a great deal.  A bit of added time for years wouldn't change other PCs a lot (we have fifty year old warriors and all) but it would make a great deal of difference to child pcs.

[Hoodwink]

I agree with My 2 Sids.  As far as aging goes for those of us who select the youngest starting age and go from there it really requires settling into the concept of "youth" for such a short period of time.  And I couldn't have said it better than:

I think what people are missing about the "add years to life" ideas is that some players don't care about how old they get... its how fast they get there.

Very few of us can hope to survive long enough to reach the average lifespan max. of our character's race, but it's not about that, it's all the years between then and just how fast they transpire.

I will say, however, nobody (special requests aside) plays a "child".  13 is the starting age (or whatever age your race equivalent is, such as 20 for a dwarf, 18 for an elf, etc.).  In a world like Zalanthas being an adult could very well be 13 as far as what is expected of you.  What's more, your physical makeup, while clearly not mature, isn't really that of a child.  There's no reason it should take more than one sdesc/desc change to go from from 13 to 18 and beyond.  'The [...] girl' becomes 'The [...] woman', and so on.  

But because of the speed of time in Arm I highly suggest considering your sdesc carefully.  When I start characters at 16 I always use woman over girl because it's really only a matter of weeks, literally, before I would need an sdesc change.  I would avoid boy/girl/child sdescs unless selecting the minimum possible age.

[creeper386]

WARNING: This post is the best to skim over, as there is alittle bit here and there with lots of rambling. I'm not going to go through and edit stuff because I have no clue what might be useful and what isn't. Have fun, and no bitching, meh!  :twisted:

The whole thing brought up by My 2 Sids is where abit of, it's a game, we put RP over code, and suspend beleif abit.

Adding five minutes to each hour wouldn't help much. It'll add three RL weeks to an IC year roughly. The IC time has to be suspended at least alittle because time jumps forward during downtime and crashes, and for the fact that the Staff or anyone else isn't going to be ruining anyones plans just because they couldn't connect to the internet for awhile and their character older then they want now.

It's still a game no matter what. You have to log into Arm with the mental mindset that it's a game, and you have to suspend your beleives abit. It's also a RPI MUD, that means that if it's realistic, the RP can be just as solid and real as the code is, specially in cases where the code doesn't touch or is rather unstable, such as the current time.

If there was an extra five minutes per IC hour, instead of a conversation taking 4-5 hours to a day, it might take just 4-6 hours. A large combat situation or RPT might be shortened by half a day, it might take a day-day in a half as opposed to two days. There is still going to be problems with time. But what that extra five minutes well do is be a HUGE pain to people that can't log in for several hours at a time. Heck, I average probably about four hours each log in, and I hate to log in and see that it's late in the day. When I'm in a combat role in a guild I hate to see it's the weekend. It's not because I want to be uber leet it's because thats where most of the interaction comes from. A Byn Runner isn't going to be interacting alot with Noble Aides and High ranking militia for the most part, he's going to be interacting more with low level commoners and other Bynners like himself. So the weekends tend to be alittle bland specially when numbers are low and it's hard to find people in the sparring yards.

Over all, the time is not even close to perfect... But the time in a MUD can't be perfect. Because it can't very well be minute for minute which would be proper in some cases, and it can't be IC hour for a minute which would be good for when doing some normal every day stuff that you've been doing for the past six hours and still have to do it for another two. The times never going to be perfect. Your not going to be able to add enough time to really effect things in terms of slowing down aging, but just adding a few minutes an IC hour can be a huge problem for other people.

It just depends on playing style, and time you have to spend on the MUD. The more time you spend on the MUD the easier it is for time to be slow, the less time? Well slow is ussually bad. As you can only play out a small part of the day at a time at the current time rate.

And I think I'm done, although probably should have been done WAY up there.