You arrive at the grove and learn there is a ritual. No one says how long it'll take. You ignore the quest and long rest 3 times. Someone shows up at camp and says the ritual was interrupted by Rath. Phshew! You still have time, but by doing this Larian is letting you know that you might want to focus a bit more on that questline. Still no exact time given, but now there's a bit of a follow up on the initial threat the game already gave you.
But sooner or later that ritual will be finished.
So you either are just creating long, but still regular timed event ...
Or there isnt any timing at all, since the ritual will never be finished ... and you just add some npcs that will keep reminding player that some quest should be taken care off first, creating ilusion of urgency ... wich dissapear by the way the second you reach last reminder and still nothing happens ...
Also i must say i dont quite like the idea that some messenger come to your camp to tell you how things look back in the grove ... :-/
Its just feels off ... like:
"Oh hey traveler, Zevlor send me to give you a message that things are really tough in the grove, Rath interupted the ritual so we have few more days, since they are starting anew ... not like you seem to care, since i find you in the underdark, where you traveled for last week, but i managed to catch up to you within single day." :-/
trigger ALL the enemies in all three areas to attack me in a single combat
Yes ...
In minutes at most in the game
Yes ...
then that means it doesn't take hours or days of travel.
No.
Thats where the abstraction come to play ...
In the game it takes you minutes to get from Intellect devourers to Crypt entrance, just as you said ... but from story perspective, you just spend (half?) day runing.
(note that i didnt say Intellect devourers and fishermans ... they are both in the same ship wreckage ... and therefore the same "segment"
)
Dont imagine it as "sprinting all the time" obviously ... its more like chasing scene in the movie, or book ... where enemies are close behind, so hero cant even rest properly and in first sign of any danger is forced to continue.
As i said ...
1 min ingame =/= 1 min in reality ...
And therefore logicaly ... 1 meter ingame =/= 1 meter in reality ...
If they split the maps into smaller segments...
But they didn't do that.
No, they didnt ... i believe this is paradox of lacking "technical limiations" from the past ...
Many old games was forced to create theese small segments, bcs computers back then would have performance issues with anything bigger ...
So theese things come naturaly, i remember for example Fallout ...
Theese days our computers are more capable, so devs often see no reason to cut map into small areas and put loading in between them ... especialy since loading = boring for many players ... so they simply take those small areas we would have in the past, and stick them together.
But the logic for them remained intact in my opinion ...
So we have small segments that are litteral (more or less, more like less in my opinion tho
) and then there are places where miles and miles of forest / road / rocks / water / lava / w/e WOULD BE ... but since they dont provide anything interesting for gameplay, they were simply cut out.
Like ...
I dunno, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt would be great example ... but i gues you didnt play that huh?
Thats ingame map that was created by real city, Prague.
Segments are faithfull ... you can recognize buildings, squares and streets ... but if you know that city, soon you realize that there isnt any Construction site few seconds running far from the main square ... its actualy few killometers away, all space between them was cut out, bcs it would be uninteresting for players.
---
Lets take it from other side ...
What seems more logical to you?
That this game map is litteral transcription of the world ... 1f ingame = 1f in the world ...
- so Goblins are "unable to find" Grove that is litteraly 7 minutes of walking from their own outpost?
- so entrances into and out of Underdark dont actualy corespond between Surface and Underground, and yet they are connected somehow?
- so Moonhaven was a willage that indeed sustains from 5 buildings and nothing more.
OR ...
That this game actualy isnt litteral transcription of the world ... 1f ingame =/= 1f in the world ...
- so Goblins would have to search for day(s) before they would even reach close to the grove.
- so entrances into and out of Underdark are just entrances to some kind of tunnel or other way ... that just LEADS to that place where we get out in the Underdark?
- so Moonhaven actualy had more buildings, but they were simply cut out for keeping this development in acceptable measurements.
