I am totally for day and night cycles, given how atmospheric it can be and also adding interesting concepts like shadows for stealth, dakvision, encounter strength /effects on initiative and so forth.
So my suggestion here to cater for MP is as following:
1 - Whomever puts the game into Turn Based slows the world clock accordingly, for everyone. Do I "need" the clock moving if I am not involved? What benefit do I get / what limitations do I have from the clock moving slower (given currently it doesn't move at all)?
2 - If I am concerned about catering for randoms "spamming" TB and preventing the Worl Clock from moving forward, then either assign a set number of times that an individual can enter TB outside of the group , or allow host to override. Frankly given the nature of this type of game, if someone does anything you don't like, you quit or boot said player. I can't see many people playing MP with randoms, but maybe I am wrong on that count.
I suppose the issue with D/N cycles is schedules of NPC's. Currently it's a non-issue because it's always day, so night only happens when you define it and as such you don't need to worry what anyone else is doing. Add day and night and all of a sudden you have immersion issues regarding what the NPC's are doing.
1: Right now if let's say an hour of gameplay is a day then is a turn like a minute? That would mean in game a fight with 20 turns is already a their of the day elapsing.Right now, assuming there are no consequences to time elapsing this shouldn't be a problem in anyway.
2: Randoms spamming TB in MP would be the equivalent of randoms suiciding your characters in DOS2 or BG2. I don't think the influence of random players hoping in is an issue.
3: Schedules of NPC's : Right now the general vibe seems to be to ignore that aspect if needed for the sake of nightfall. Well... Mr.X will be selling swords at 2AM. At 2PM. 24 hours basically. It is an aspect that comes with it's own set of issues with existing solutions from other titles( a note saying " brb in Y hours" etc). That isn't an conceptual issue, multiple solutions can be found. Quest would need to be aligned to take those schedules under consideration if such schedules would be implemented.
