The forums were down this weekend, which is probably why there isn't a discussion on this topic here already (I'm aware there are some on the blog and elsewhere, however).
Personally, I'm
really disappointed with losing this feature, as it's the sort of thing that greatly increases immersion for both I and the friends I play these types of games with. We were also looking forward to the advantages certain builds might have at night (rogues, for instance), certain creatures becoming more dangerous after the sun sets, and even just the cosmetic changes in a way an area looks at different times of the day.
However, I more than understand the amount of work involved and in no way fault the developers for having to remove this feature. I only wish they had more money and manpower to push ahead on this front, but sometimes that's just out of a developer's hands. I want to make it clear that I am thoroughly impressed with the amount of progress I see being made with each update; sadly, there are a lot of crowd-funded projects out there that seem to be standing still in comparison (and some of these projects have vastly superior funding and much larger development teams available). In many ways Larian Studios really puts a lot of other development studios to shame.
I guess my real disappointment is aimed at the amount of flexibility the game allows, which ultimately had a large hand in interfering with the implementation of day & night schedules. While I completely understand that being able to kill any NPC (including questgivers) and having absolute freedom is important to many players, that kind of chaotic, haphazardly (and even malicious) adventuring just isn't the style in which I or my friends play these types of role-playing games.
Thus, we've gained the playstyle flexibility that really benefits only
some portion of the playerbase at the cost of losing day & night schedules, which is a feature that (whether you appreciated it or not) would have had an impact on the gameplay of
*everyone*. And, to me, that's not a tradeoff I'm particularly thrilled about. Try to understand that I will never run around randomly killing townsfolk and questkillers, so having this level of freedom and flexibility is simply useless to folks like myself. The best enthusiasm I can muster on that end is saying
"Hurray for you..", with "you" being the players that like to run around killing everyone for some reason I will never quite fathom.
At the same time (and again), I completely understand that this sort of gameplay freedom
is extremely vital for some players. I'm just not sure I agree with the decision to support an option that impacts a portion of the playerbase over an option (day & night scheduling) that impacts everyone. However, that's a decision that needed to be made a long time ago, early in development, and not something that can be changed now. Obviously (at the time) Larian Studios was convinced they could pull off both - things just didn't work out that way in the end.
Ultimately, I just want to say this is a feature that will be missed. In the time leading up to the announcement I've seen several comments on the forums that implied some players didn't care about day & night scheduling, and I didn't want the developers to think that everyone felt that way; some of us were really looking forward to it. I hope Divinity: Original Sin is such a huge success that it's a feature that can be eventually added after launch. I would love to see day & night cycles added as simply a cosmetic change (even if it doesn't alter gameplay in any way), but I realize that's probably just wishful thinking.
