If there's a day/night cycle, does that mean there's a calendar? With the actual passing of days?
And if the days pass by on a calendar, does that mean there should be seasons?
--I'm not trying to be difficult with this question, so please calm down, lol. I'm just asking.
Even if there aren't seasons, though, do the months pass?
And if the months pass, does the game recognize when it's a new year?
And does entering a new year affect the setting? As in, canon dictates important stuff in the Forgotten Realms setting. It really seems to matter what year you're talking about when it comes to the setting. Such and such happened ten years before such and such, which happened a hundred years before... etc.
But putting aside the canon year of the events in this game... if there's a calendar, will it be weird if it takes, say, a year of in-game time to track down the abducted duke? Do things like that start to break apart when there's an operating calendar, ticking off the days?
--again, I'm just asking questions, not trying to rain on your day/night cycle parade. These are just things that cross my mind when I think about the subject.
Answering your questions in order:
1. Ideally, yes. A calendar would make things very immersive.
2. Ideally, yes. Is it feasible? Probably not. But if the game takes place over a long period of time, seasons would be nice. Wouldn't be the first time in a video game. See: Pokemon, a game which had both a D/N cycle and seasons years ago. There just wasn't much they did with it.
3. Ideally, yes. Skyrim has months passing, as did Oblivion and Morrowind IIRC.
4. I don't think the game clock should allow the game to hit a new year quickly, but, ideally, yes. The Elder Scrolls games do this.
5. Ideally, yes, new years should affect the setting. But, and here's the kicker, BG3 already takes place near the very front of the Forgotten Realms timeline, so there's some creative freedom and all that.
6. The games of the old ways had quest timers and deadlines. To not prevent player freedom, while still preventing the kind of scenarios you are talking about, you can just have really long quest timers. You have a lot of time to accomplish a task, but the timer stops at some length that is just immersion breaking.
7. There are immersion considerations that must be made when implementing a D/N cycle, along with a calendar, along with months, years, seasons, etc. Some of those considerations are timers that make quests make sense in the perspective of the world's time. Or changing weather effects. Or remarks on how long it has been. Or changes in NPC behavior. These changes are good. They are immersive in the nature of providing a sense of time to the world.
