The logical fallacy of keeping the day/night cycle

[lherron 0]

[Please save your "COD carebear" comments for a different thread. If you want to engage your brain, read on.]

As we all know, each server has a true day/night cycle linked to its geographical location. This adds realism, makes the game more hardcore, more unforgiving. This brutality is the essence of DayZ, and it's what we love about it.

However, in practice, all it's doing is creating logistical issues. Here is the logic:

By having true day/night cycles, we impose a harsher and more realistic game environment on players. This is the mission of the game, therefore day/night cycles are good.

Except this logic is flawed because you can't actually enforce that players log onto servers that they geographically reside in. In reality, all it does is drive the majority of players to daylight servers, further exacerbating the technical issues of this "experiment".

I couldn't find an actual discussion of this issue on the forums (just a bunch of whining), so I created this thread.

I'm sure there are those that disagree, and I'm curious to hear your opinions. Considering you can't enforce that people play on a server during nighttime, why do you feel that this feature should be kept?

I think the most simple solution would be all daylight and all nighttime servers. YOU ALREADY CANNOT ENFORCE PEOPLE TO PLAY ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. They are already choosing to play in daylight or nighttime! (edit: this is a bad solution because of persistent non-player stuff like vehicles)

Another solution, more of a compromise, would be to create a lopsided daylight cycle, maybe 20 hours daylight, 4 hours night. You would retain the feeling of anticipating dusk/dawn, etc, but would increase the number of daylight servers at a given time, and reduce the current amount of server swapping.

Yet another potential solution would be to put ALL servers on the same day/night clock, regardless of geographical location (since geographical location is meaningless anyway, when you aren't forced to log into your own geographical server...). This, of course, again, would radically reduce the amount of server swapping. I kind of like that solution the best, actually.

Use logic. Illogical responses will be ignored.

UPDATE:

Here's a great solution posted by Lev:

"If you want all players to be on a level playing field, then the solution that will work is having a global DayZ time that is enforced via the hive pushing time updates to servers. Then slowly shifting the DayZ time (perhaps +3 hours every day or something so a full cycle in 8 days) in such a way that a player who lives at x and plays only during y to z will experience the full day and night cycle if they continue living at x and playing from y to z."

[RaymondThorne 0]

Rocket has mentioned about day/night cycles before. He's hinted at changing it but the fact is that they're synced to the database atm, and would require a large amount of coding and architectural changes to get out of this cycle, due to it relying on system time. So for now, until/if it gets the large amount of work needed, the cycles will stay like this.

[css_god@yahoo.com 543]

I see absolutely no problem with the way it is now, it's just a bunch of butthurt players who don't want to struggle in the game at night because it's "too hard". People in games these days have no integrity and a learning curve is something they just try to avoid instead of enduring through it and rising above it.

There is nothing wrong with it as it is, it's the people that are the problem, not the current system.

[lev 39]

I don't see why this is a logical fallacy. Daytime has more players and thus more threats. I go stealth looting in popular areas during night and in less popular areas I can toss flares, make camp fires and use my flashlight almost all I want.

Less competition for loot = more chances of me getting something good. What does need to be fixed though is server hopping which allows players to grab good gear despite the conditions on the server because they will be gone before it matters to them.

If players don't want to play in the dark there is nothing forcing them to. Just more power to those who can handle night time.

[lherron 0]

RaymondThorne: Hmm, I didn't really consider that it would be a technical issue. It seems like an easy thing to modify, but admittedly I don't know much about it.

Nya: Failed logic test... spectacularly.

Lev: Just as you said "If players don't want to play in the dark there is nothing forcing them to." Exactly right, you literally have no control. They can simply log out when it gets dark and switch to daytime server, exactly as most people do. So why have a day/night system in place that puts TONS of strain on the server population? That's the fallacy - that people think the day/night cycle is responsible for making the game "harder". What actually makes the game harder is PLAYING AT NIGHT. That's the disconnect. My point is that there is a better solution than the current setup.

[BigMorgan (DayZ) 3]

Yet playing at night is easier. :huh:

[MR DELICIOUS 297]

I think the only change I'd like is for the day/night cycle to be more true to the geographic positioning of Chernarus. It's an island, from my understanding, off the east coast of Russia. It's not snowing, which therefore would make it summer or late spring, early autumn. At that latitude, the days would be much longer than they currently are. Day would continue until 11 pm or so, and light would be back around 5.30 am. That would basically make the night time only six hours long, which I think leaves people much more incentive to people to stick around on night time servers if they know dawn will be a few hours time. Like I've said elsewhere, I'm loathe to change the realism of it, but to me this takes natural logic (the actual daylight of the geography) and incorporates it into the game world for the better.

And I'm not a massive fan of people using phrases like "logical fallacy" because I think it's a bit obtuse for the rest of us Luddites to penetrate in the hopes of comprehension you feel me?

[Tartantyco 1]

This is just another reason why cross-server persistency isn't compatible with the intended gameplay.

[RaymondThorne 0]

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3116&pid=28374#pid28374

There.

[css_god@yahoo.com 543]

Nya: Failed logic test... spectacularly.

You're an idiot, me having a different outlook on something doesn't mean my logic is not sound, it just means I don't agree with you or your view on things...

Get a grip.

[RaymondThorne 0]

For the record, having the time fixed on all servers would be a bad idea as some people could only ever play at night and vice/versa. If it's going to change it should be all servers have the same cycle, but it's irregular - varies from day to day. eg 10 hours day 4 hours night, so it isn't the same every 24 hours. That being said, I doubt it'll get changed.

[stilton 14]

Requirement = All servers kicked for pings above 75

Problem solved..

..Yeh, people will bitch, and i'll lol.

Mostly i'd feel sorry for people using modems who could no longer play - but jesus get with the times.

[Finally - Not sure why i replied logically to a thread based entirely on a false premise. People quit when it becomes night - hence night is bad? no. Just proves people are weak. Does the fact 99% of Counterstrike servers are playing Dust2 prove that all other CSS maps are bad. No. ]

[ssential 0]

Yet another potential solution would be to put ALL servers on the same day/night clock' date=' regardless of geographical location (since geographical location is meaningless anyway, when you aren't forced to log into your own geographical server...). This, of course, again, would radically reduce the amount of server swapping. I kind of like that solution the best, actually.

[/quote']

So, some guys would be totally funked and would only have the chance to play the game at night. Ever.

Nice...

The easiest solution imo, while it doesn't have to do with day/night cycle, is lighten up the night, realistically. At the moment it's just one color, black.

[lev 39]

I just explained how playing in the night is now an advantage. Less players = less chance of you getting killed. Additionally, this simulates some aspects of reality as less people are active during night than during day especially in survival situations.

First of all, having players move to day servers doesn't induce anymore server stress. If anything less players are playing in total and reducing server stress. Another thing, how does your all day and all night servers solution change solve anything? If you are expecting the behavior of players to shift towards all day servers then you will still have a day/night divide with more players in the day servers than night. Except with this solution, certain servers will always be more crowded instead of a natural ebb and flow of player count depending on time of day and server time. Even worse what about a player that likes the night and the day? They can't even have a "home" server because now you can only play on one server for night and one for day.

Also just because you can't force them to play during the night, doesn't mean they have to be playing at all. You are assuming not playing in a night server = playing in a day server. Sometimes it just means not playing DayZ. With an all night or all day server, you've catered to the "care-bear" (please understand what denoting a phrase with quotations means) mentality and are allowing them to define the game for the rest of the population. Next you can make the argument that players don't like x feature and avoid it so we can make servers that have it on or off.

With regards to the shorter night cycles and longer day cycles. What is the point? Once again this is catering the majority who can't handle night and reducing the ability of players who enjoy the night to play. At least with a realistic night/day cycle, all players have the ability to choose how they want to play in a fair way.

If you want all players to be on a level playing field, then the solution that will work is having a global DayZ time that is enforced via the hive pushing time updates to servers. Then slowly shifting the DayZ time (perhaps +3 hours every day or something so a full cycle in 8 days) in such a way that a player who lives at x and plays only during y to z will experience the full day and night cycle if they continue living at x and playing from y to z.

[lherron 0]

I think the only change I'd like is for the day/night cycle to be more true to the geographic positioning of Chernarus. It's an island' date=' from my understanding, off the east coast of Russia. It's not snowing, which therefore would make it summer or late spring, early autumn. At that latitude, the days would be much longer than they currently are. Day would continue until 11 pm or so, and light would be back around 5.30 am. That would basically make the night time only six hours long, which I think leaves people much more incentive to people to stick around on night time servers if they know dawn will be a few hours time. Like I've said elsewhere, I'm loathe to change the realism of it, but to me this takes natural logic (the actual daylight of the geography) and incorporates it into the game world for the better.

And I'm not a massive fan of people using phrases like "logical fallacy" because I think it's a bit obtuse for the rest of us Luddites to penetrate in the hopes of comprehension you feel me?

[/quote']

This is reasonable post, but even you are missing the larger issue:

I totally get that you don't want to change the realism, and I like your suggestion about a more realistic proportion of day/night. But what you define as realism is "the server acting like a real life environment" and this has nothing to do with tethering the server times to the time zones they reside in. So a switch like synchronizing all the servers would change literally nothing about how the game plays - the realism is 100% in tact - but it alleviates stress on the server issues.

Basically, there a ton of ways to keep the complete realism of the game environment 100% in tact, but create a better technical environment for people to connect to the game. That is the issue.

PS - there are still a hilarious amount of people who don't get that what's I'm trying to solve - I'm not saying nighttime is bad or that I don't like it.

[RaymondThorne 0]

If you want all players to be on a level playing field' date=' then the solution that will work is having a global DayZ time that is enforced via the hive pushing time updates to servers. Then slowly shifting the DayZ time (perhaps +3 hours every day or something so a full cycle in 8 days) in such a way that a player who lives at x and plays only during y to z will experience the full day and night cycle if they continue living at x and playing from y to z.

[/quote']

thank you, exactly the point I was trying to make. That seems the best time option, IF he decides to recode it.

[lherron 0]

If you want all players to be on a level playing field' date=' then the solution that will work is having a global DayZ time that is enforced via the hive pushing time updates to servers. Then slowly shifting the DayZ time (perhaps +3 hours every day or something so a full cycle in 8 days) in such a way that a player who lives at x and plays only during y to z will experience the full day and night cycle if they continue living at x and playing from y to z.

[/quote']

This is a great solution.

[lev 39]

PS - there are still a hilarious amount of people who don't get that what's I'm trying to solve - I'm not saying nighttime is bad or that I don't like it.

I don't think you understand that most of us don't consider this a problem.

[lherron 0]

PS - there are still a hilarious amount of people who don't get that what's I'm trying to solve - I'm not saying nighttime is bad or that I don't like it.

I don't think you understand that most of us don't consider this a problem.

You don't think it's a problem that people constantly bounce around servers, putting unneeded strain on an already fragile setup, making the game unconnectable or unplayable for many people?

Again, this isn't a game design issue, I DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE THE GAME........... It's a technical issue. I want it to be easier for people to CONNECT AND PLAY this amazing mod.

[MR DELICIOUS 297]

I think the only change I'd like is for the day/night cycle to be more true to the geographic positioning of Chernarus. It's an island' date=' from my understanding, off the east coast of Russia. It's not snowing, which therefore would make it summer or late spring, early autumn. At that latitude, the days would be much longer than they currently are. Day would continue until 11 pm or so, and light would be back around 5.30 am. That would basically make the night time only six hours long, which I think leaves people much more incentive to people to stick around on night time servers if they know dawn will be a few hours time. Like I've said elsewhere, I'm loathe to change the realism of it, but to me this takes natural logic (the actual daylight of the geography) and incorporates it into the game world for the better.

And I'm not a massive fan of people using phrases like "logical fallacy" because I think it's a bit obtuse for the rest of us Luddites to penetrate in the hopes of comprehension you feel me?

[/quote']

This is reasonable post, but even you are missing the larger issue:

I totally get that you don't want to change the realism, and I like your suggestion about a more realistic proportion of day/night. But what you define as realism is "the server acting like a real life environment" and this has nothing to do with tethering the server times to the time zones they reside in. So a switch like synchronizing all the servers would change literally nothing about how the game plays - the realism is 100% in tact - but it alleviates stress on the server issues.

Basically, there a ton of ways to keep the complete realism of the game environment 100% in tact, but create a better technical environment for people to connect to the game. That is the issue.

PS - there are still a hilarious amount of people who don't get that what's I'm trying to solve - I'm not saying nighttime is bad or that I don't like it.

I understand what you're proposing but I live in Australia and I don't want to forever play in pitch darkness. If we want to make it fully realistic, we can anchor it to an east Russian time zone so all the US and European servers have to play only at night while Dimitry from Kamchatka is pretty happy to play in sunlight whenever. You could halve synchronization, quarter it, so we can play on one of four time zones, but why not just shorten the night a bit, as I said above, or add in "night vision adjustment" where looking at lights for a certain amount of time turns your vision back to black, or any other good but realistic fix?

[Timberfox 2]

The only logical fallacy is you assuming your opinion is right and makes all other ideas logical fallacies.

[Gick (DayZ) 0]

I like the idea of the time shifting so over the course of a week or so the same real time goes through all of the times of the day, I think that would work well for most players who are willing to cope with the night.

Though I also think that quavering the day night cycle would work well too, that way any long gaming stint would go through an entire day-night cycle which would add to the game IMO.

[Malaclypse 3]

Solution is to get rid of daytime completely IMO.

[Matanza (DayZ) 0]

Yeah, who play only at night is forced to play always at game's night or find others servers with high ping to see some variety, aka daytime. Great feature.

[css_god@yahoo.com 543]

The only logical fallacy is you assuming your opinion is right and makes all other ideas logical fallacies.

This.