I understand there are no plans for a day night cycle, but the lighting system in this engine is robust(In earlier patches, the angle of the sun would often shift drastically for the first couple seconds after loading a game) I appreciate camping taking place at night, the narrative function it serves, and I see how a day night cycle could interfere with that. But, at the same time, outside of camp, how many narrative elements are tied to a specific time of day?
Going with the principle of show vs tell, why not, instead of simply having characters complain that they are tired in the middle of the day, have the lighting of the outside world be a reflection of that. The angle of the sun, not being a binary state, like it is now, nor changing linearly with time, but interpolating, imperceptibly slowly, towards a value representing the average fatigue of the party. Even if, the world never fully entered night, but simply reached sunset, until the player chose to camp, and things were reset to morning upon leaving. This way, it wouldn't be necessary to alter things, like the expected location of NPCs, due to a full day/night cycle.
Even if this was a mostly an aesthetic change, having no interaction with deeper vision mechanics, it would be an easy means of providing a greater sense that the world is dynamic, and increasing immersion through atmosphere. All while still serving a mechanical purpose, and non-intrusively guiding the player towards the narrative pacing developers hope to achieve.
Currently, weather works the same as DOS. It's all on position-based triggers on the map.
You can be standing in complete sunshine and walk 2 tiles and it's raining and vice versa. Who knows if they're capable of doing anything else for something that resembles actual time passing.
