OK. Did a timing study. Starting over with a new character. Here is my timing results using a stop watch, pausing during combat since that is supposed to be only 6ish seconds per round and pausing during loading scenes. Timing cutscenes and moving around the map. Below is my log according to the stopwatch, what the Dialogue Log says, and what I would assume should be the correct time based on the time of day when you arrive on Faerun:
Stopwatch Dialogue Log Time What Time Should Be Based on Dawn being landing on the Beach
0:00 - Escape Pod 6:43 in the morning
2:45 - Talk to Myrnath 8:51 in the morning 6:45 in the morning
5:45 - Meet Lae'zel 9:11 in the morning 6:48 in the morning
9:15 - Dragon scene 9:52 in the morning 6:52 in the morning
10:00 - Talk to Baker (10 red rats) 9:56 in the morning 6:53 in the morning
11:00 - I'm a bit piqued mum guy 10:02 in the morning 6:54 in the morning
12:20 - Talk to Shadowheart in pod 10:08 in the morning 6:55 in the morning
13:50 - Woman in pod 10:15 in the morning 6:56 in the morning
15:18 - Enter Bridge scene 10:23 in the morning 6:58 in the morning
16:01 - Get past Demon/Flayer 10:48 in the morning 6:59 in the morning
16:10 - Transponder, you made it 11:03 in the morning 6:59 in the morning
17:20 - Ship arrives on Faerun scene 11:08 in the morning 7:00 in the morning, just before sunrise at 7:15 in the morning
At this point, let's say maybe an hour goes by after the landing on the beach, since in the game it goes from almost totally pitch black to bright sunny morning with the sun fully out. The character has been unconscious on the beach all that time. After all, by the time the character wakes up, the nautiloid has already crashed on the beach all around her, so some time must have passed between the main character's landing, the nautiloid crashing, and the main character waking up on the beach. So let's say it is now 8:00 in the morning; or rather it should be 8:00 in the morning.
03:34 - Meet Shadowheart 11:24 in the morning 8:03 in the morning
07:02 - Devourer fight Tutorial End Day 11:46 in the morning 8:07 in the morning
I did, in fact, end day. So essentially, after running about and fighting a few times on the nautiloid for 17 minutes, I slept for 1 hour on the beach. Then I ran about for 7 minutes and the game is telling me to Long Rest. So now I End Day and trigger Shadowheart's Not a Good Idea dialogue.
As you can see, the Dialogue Log Time is TOTALLY off. There is no way more than 2 hours would have transpired on that nautiloid that was blazing through the hells with dragons and imps and mind flayers duking it out and me escaping. It took me only 17 minutes to get to the helm transponder and crash on Faerun, and I did search the boxes and picked up a lot of items; maybe not all, but most.
So I think Larian should line the Dialogue Log Time up more with what the player is actually doing in the game and set the time earlier if they are going to keep that crashing on the beach scene at night. I don't even mind if, once Day 1 actually starts if they set the time later in the day. Your character could be unconscious for hours on the beach, so instead of something like 8:00 when you wake on the beach, maybe it's 12:00, or something like that. Either way, it would make more sense and provide players more of a sense of how much time is passing if this Dialogue Log Time was more attuned with what players are actually doing timewise in the game; 1 minute playing the game is 1 minute in Faerun time. If I step away and go AFK, the clock still keeps ticking for maybe 10 minutes before the game auto-pauses so that time is no longer ticking away. That way, players don't go AFK for so long that hours go by in the Dialogue Log.
After End Day, have the characters return to where they left off at say 9:00 in the morning, or something like that. Basically, it took them some time to wake up, have breakfast, etc. and get back to where they were. Every time you do a short rest, 1 hour passes on the Dialogue Log Time clock. If Larian does this, they should never have the Dialogue Log Time get to a time when it would be night out. Thus, they would be able to stick to their stance that they are not going to implement a Day/Night cycle, and it would still make sense.
