Why is time uncompressed?

[crimsonbzd 247]

I'm just wondering why time is being left uncompressed, is it a public interest thing? Seems like all the servers currently in daylight are full up so I would think not.

Furthermore, food and drink and all that is heavily compressed. If you stayed logged into your character for 24 hours, how much food would you need to eat to not drop dead in that 24 hour period?

 

So, unless anyone really wants a 24 hour day/night cycle, I suggest it be compressed to have 4 or so day/night cycles in a rolling 24 hour period.

 

I, at least, would personally enjoy being able to play both in day and night without having to find a specific server to do so, as well as in a time frame that is both reasonable for the median gamer to play and experience AND fits better with the compression of hunger, thirst etc.

[djporternz 644]

You'd have to ask Rocket about the 1:1 Day/Night cycle. I'm not going to speculate why he did it that way.

 

Food/Water isn't heavily compressed. It is just that you spawn in game almost dead from hunger and dehydration. Once you're back up to healthy status, you pretty much only need similar quantities of each as in RL. Not exactly correct, but close enough, and they could tweak it a little as we go forward.

 

Of course, if you are sprinting around the map at 25 km/h constantly, you're going to need a lot more fuel in your system, so it can seem that you are eating more and drinking more than RL. But it works out pretty much right.

Edited January 23, 2014 by DJPorterNZ

[applejaxc 2500]

Realism/fidelity, mostly. If people weren't assholes with 24/7 day servers and gamma cheats (partly the fault of how damned dark the SA is right now), 24:24 with a moon cycle that matched real life's would make an incredibly strategic element to the game.

[crimsonbzd 247]

I must say I disagree with elements of both of your responses. My character, deleted by the update, had been alive a couple of days, long enough to reach a consistent healthy status for a while. The amount of food and drink required to maintain that status is quite unrealistic, however factoring in the forever sprinting it becomes pretty realistic. Also, the 1:1 cycle adding a strategic element to the game. In the end result, I believe it forces players to either submit their entire playtime this session to the server's cycle or join a daytime/nighttime only server.

The idea is that many points of the game are engineered to provide a realistic end user experience, not necessarily one that's realistic when you delve deeper. i.e. in no place in the real world could you carry 25 cans of beans in an average child's backpack, but I doubt many would vote for realistic mass and volume be taken into account with inventory.

 

So again, why is the day/night cycle not compressed, or at least server owners not given the option to compress it?

 

This would force people to change tactics in a more active manner, instead of one that ends up being server based and generally fixed. 

[AP_Norris 1018]

If I was to compress it I would do so by just a few hours so the people that can only play at/ at day get the mix that people that are fortunate/ unfortunate enough to play all the day long get.

Maybe then we can see a nice hive with matching day and night times, nerfed gamma/ brightness settings.

People can stop whining about "giving away their position with a torch" we could have the patient players get some better night sight 15 or so minuets in (possibly damaging ghosters/ combat loggers successfulness).

There is a problem with food if you ask me, hopefully when the server respawns loot by itself this absolutely zero food/ way too much food problem will fix itself and we can get geared players searching for food like a newspawn at times instead of taking another bite of their rice and having a swig from their 2 canteens.

[whatup2003 67]

Speaking from my experience and from everyone who's got a regular day time job.

 

1. I can only play at night except on weekends. So if every server is 1:1 local time, I will only be able to play night servers or I have to play in a server in a very different time zone which means huge latency. (There seemed to be a lot of daytime servers before latest patch, but since the patch, 99% of the servers went back to night time.

 

2. People would like to see time change in the game. In order to do that with 1:1 time scale, you have to play for at least 4-5 hours IF it is around down or dust when you started. Most of my play time spent in DayZ SA, it's either pitch black at night or full blown sun in the middle of the sky. I NEVER FEEL THE TIME CHANGE.

 

Making time scale 1:1 with real life doesn't make the game more realistic. It only make the game more DULL. I wish Rocket can realize that.

[Ymath 30]

I agree, Days and nights should be long but not 1:1 by any means.

Food and drink is fine IMO.

[Artophwar 42]

I want to be able to play through a Sunset to Sunrise in a single normal gaming session. From a fun and gameplay perspective, a time compressed day is more enjoyable.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Artophwar

[FoOKaa 15]

Wow thank god for this post !!

 

It should defo be half ratio so 2 day night cycles in game to 1 real life cycle....

 

I run a UK clan of guys who all mainly work till 5 pm so we would only see Daylight on weekends providing we never sat up all night gaming, or by oplaying in a server in the US...

 

2:1 ratio would be much better and well put that guy who said you wanna feel the cycles HERE HERE !!
 

[Derpy_Hooves (DayZ) 4521]

If i ate as much IRL as my character does in a day in game... i'd have serious medical issues. 

[SpaceMidget75 1]

Have to say, I agree completely. It was an honourable design choice to aim for a real life simulation but it doesn't work in-game. I could only play DayZ in the evening which meant as far as my DayZ "life" is concerned, I never see daytime.

 

Hardly the realism rocket was striving for.

 

On top of that, the inevitable consequence if it actually being a game and not real life, means that if I want to I can easily avoid this design choice by simply finding a server that's running daytime - making the the 24hr system even less useful.

 

Finally, because gaming time is precious and it is easier to play in daytime, I simply avoid night altogether. The final nail in the coffin IMHO for a 24hr cycle.

 

Being able to sit down for an average gaming session (3-4hrs?) and have it be either night or day, as well as have the possibility to experience the transition between the two just makes sense. I'm sure the global server stats will speak for themselves.

Edited January 24, 2014 by SpaceMidget75