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Originally Posted by norD

Thanks mate. Exactly what I was talking about smile


That's very nice :p


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(Let me qualify this post by indicating that this is my response to the thread--not necessarily to anything Larian has officially said about a day/night cycle. I would have thought day/night would be a a given seeing as how it was asked for & promised in the first game--but not delivered, for reasons that should not at all apply to DOS2, imo.)

I don't buy the idea that day/night is somehow so difficult that it's beyond the ability of Larian to do--development of DOS2 has just begun--thus the "it has to be built into the game from the ground up so we can't just add it" mantra won't work here...as it was used to explain why it couldn't be done in DOS even though it was supposedly a stretch goal for that game that was promised by the developers (but never met.)

In the DOS2 Kickstarter Larian raised a multiple of the dollar goal they asked for--so if Larian needs "more hires" to do day/night then that should happen (which seems silly to me--the same guys that can do day can also do night--why not? It might take longer in development--but that's it.)

And also the idea that a night cycle would involve all new quest lines and all new schedules for NPCs and implementing that would become a terrific burden--well, it doesn't have to be so complex--just like in real life. When the sun goes down we don't stop pursuing our goals in life, do we?...;) Nope, those goals go right into the next day, don't they? They do not fundamentally change. The sun going down doesn't have to present an unsolvable dilemma from the development side, good grief. Anyone remember the old Might & Magic (not Heroes) rpg's of 25-30 years ago? Well, Day/Night was worked into those games even though the developer of those games didn't have peanuts to work with as far as money or personnel goes in comparison with Larian's resources for DOS2.

I can only think of one reason why Larian would resist putting in a day/night cycle and I have to say it's disappointing--and that is that Larian wants to reuse a lot of the assets created in DOS in DOS2, and that wouldn't be possible with a different engine and a day-night cycle because all of the night-time assets would have to be created fresh. So? What's so weird about creating a bunch of fresh assets for DOS2--the people contributing to the game surely expect that, and rightfully so.

Bottom line is that day/night is not the boogeyman Larian keeps saying it is--it's been done before in other games with a fraction of Larian's development money & personnel, and at a time when the general technology for game development was not nearly so robust as it is today! Larian is one hell of a talented company--this insistence that day/night is beyond them seems ludicrous, imo.


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They don't need new assets for night at all. It's just a matter of changing the atmosphere to make it dark and get rid of shadows, which is easily done already. That's not the problem (and in fact, they are adding a TON of new assets, hundreds if not thousands of new models and animations and textures, not just reusing stuff from D:OS1). The problem is giving a sufficient number of NPCs reactive behavior to the day night cycle to make it actually immersive, instead of just pretty. You seriously underestimate the amount of work it takes to give lots of NPCs schedules, new quests, etc. They could do a minimal amount of scheduling, making vendors go inside, 3-5 night-specific quests, etc. but I think Swen would much prefer to go all the way. It's just like with the origins, which aren't going to be little gimmicks but have a massive effect on the game. Trying to throw a well-developed day/night cycle on top of that is asking too much.

Games have had day/night schedules in the past, but very few have been all that good at changing the world with the scheduling. And the ones that did weren't as graphically or mechanically as complex as D:OS, so they had more time to spend on that reactivity. Making 6-8 highly reactive origin stories and well-developed quests and competitive elements is already a lot for an RPG, and a day/night cycle with scheduling would definitely make the origins suffer. As much as I'd like a day night cycle, I understand why it can't be done. If they had millions more to spend, they could spend months working on the day/night stuff, but we don't know how much the publishers are funding them.

And really, you can't just add the scheduling on top of the game - it has to be there from the start or you're not going design things to account for it. So even if someone were to give them two million dollars 3/4 through development to spend on the day night cycle, it'd be questionable whether they would want to accept it because that would involve reworking a lot of quests and dialogs.

Last edited by Baardvark; 13/10/15 10:04 PM.
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Originally Posted by Baardvark
If they had millions more to spend, they could spend months working on the day/night stuff, but we don't know how much the publishers are funding them.

There is no publisher; Larian is self funding much of the development, and Kickstarter added on to what could be done.


From the D:OS 2 Kickstarter FAQ:
No, we have no plans to introduce a day and night cycle. What we're trying to do at the narrative & scripting level is really complicated, so to even contemplate adding yet another extra dimension of complexity to that gives us a headache. The impact of the player origins combined with a higher level of freedom than the already insane amount of freedom you had in Divinity: Original Sin, added to the options required for multiplayer mode already means that our development is going to be hugely complex. Until we tame all of that, we won't add an extra layer. Perhaps for another game, but definitely not for this one.

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Originally Posted by norD

If I remember correctly SniperHF faked some.
I saw that on youtube I think. Maybe he can talk about what he has made.


Have I been summoned horsey


The real trouble is scheduling.

This is sort of my half ass attempt at getting some basic schedules going. It looks a little better now than it did two weeks ago when I made the video. These things you can sit there and polish each individual NPC animation and movement till you die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75oHucmV5TU

Then you have to account for quest NPCs.......

Originally Posted by Baardvark
though the cycle should be even slower than that. Where Sniper uses 15-24 atmospheres (I don't recall how many exactly), I just use four:


Still haven't come to a conclusion on how long it should be for a 24 hour period, but it's much longer than the YT video from before. That was sped up intentionally.


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Sniper's many atmospheres makes this less noticeable probably,


That's exactly why.


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Anyway, hope Larian gives us the capacity to add a day night cycle to the main game if we want.


I've never even attempted modding MAIN since even some stuff in standalone mods gets locked off by developer mode requirements. I can't imagine what it would take to add it to D:OS 1 ouch

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Baardvark & SniperHF: Well done!

Working with day/night cycles does sound like a crutch, however, with all those workarounds. For a little more than cosmetic and useful cycle, at least from a player's POV, I guess we'd just need the following:

  • - A timer to use that works independently of triggers
  • - GUI elements for info about time: A clock, a calendar. Just a little image showing the current position of the sun/moon.
  • - GUI elements for interaction with time: Wait for xx minutes; rest until morning or for 8 hours

Looking at your transition videos, by the way, I feel that night should generally be a lot darker. Not all the time and everywhere, e.g. during full moon nights and in towns there might be some minimum level of brightness, but I'd prefer having to use torches and other light sources outside towns or in dark alleys for better atmosphere.

The unfortunately discontinued Diablo mod had some great night time vistas.

Originally Posted by "Vometia"
From an RP perspective I preferred to have my PC questing during daylight and catching up with some much-needed sleep at night; and where nights were concerned I added a mod that made them typically dark enough (dependent on weather and the location of the moons) where I couldn't see my hand in front of me, and decided I'd be better off in a comfortable bed (or even a straw mattress with fleas!) than using a torch and various spells to combat the darkness.

Aye, that sounds immersive to me. And since AGoT we know that nights are dark and full of terrors. wink

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thats why i hope larian will provide an in-depth manual for the editor including some engine internals so we do not have to find out the nitty gritty parts ourselves hehe

Last edited by 4verse; 14/10/15 08:53 AM.

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Originally Posted by 4verse
thats why i hope larian will provide an in-depth manual for the editor including some engine internals so we do not have to find out the nitty gritty parts ourselves hehe

Well, if we do some kind of "manual" or anything like this I don't think we will spend time showing you how to do a day/night cycle since it's not planed for the game smile

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Originally Posted by Baardvark
That's not the problem (and in fact, they are adding a TON of new assets, hundreds if not thousands of new models and animations and textures, not just reusing stuff from D:OS1). The problem is giving a sufficient number of NPCs reactive behavior to the day night cycle to make it actually immersive, instead of just pretty. You seriously underestimate the amount of work it takes to give lots of NPCs schedules, new quests, etc. They could do a minimal amount of scheduling, making vendors go inside, 3-5 night-specific quests, etc. but I think Swen would much prefer to go all the way. It's just like with the origins, which aren't going to be little gimmicks but have a massive effect on the game. Trying to throw a well-developed day/night cycle on top of that is asking too much.


OK...development of the game is just beginning...what's stopping Sven from "going all the way", exactly? It seems silly to reject a concept which you have never attempted to implement and for which, therefore, you have no concrete notions as to what it would consume in terms of developmental resources. This is kind of a chicken-egg scenario, imo. If you haven't ever done a night cycle, how can you reject doing it on the grounds it will consume resources you do not have? That's an illogical premise because since you have never attempted it in a game you cannot know what it will cost to implement.

This will be the second game in which a night cycle has been deliberately rejected by Larian--and I think you'll have to admit, it is an intriguing insight into Sven's thinking. He worries about the "realism" of NPC activity during a night cycle; but he doesn't worry about the non-realism of a perpetual day without end. See what I mean? Somehow the facts just don't add up completely.

No, a night cycle simply does not have to put everything in the game on a "night schedule" that is fundamentally different from a "daylight schedule"--it doesn't happen that way in real life, so why should it be different in a game? What are the two main elements that happen at night--sleep & businesses closing, right? How difficult is that to implement? Why not a few quests that have to happen at night--and only happen at night--like something involving ghosts and/or haunts? That's all you need.

Witcher3 has a day/night cycle--I just completed a quest that could only be accomplished at midnight. But, just because the sun goes down, again, it does not mean that everything in the game relating to NPCs has to change. Doesn't happen that way in the Witcher 3 and the game in no way suffers for it. The Witcher meditates (rests)--what about player characters in a Larian RPG needing rest on a daily basis?

Don't misunderstand, I very much enjoy Larian's games and have for a long time and I think D:OS is a masterpiece. But I really don't understand this peculiar aversion to day-night cycles in games. Larian fans aren't as demanding as Sven when it comes to "nighttime realism" and if they were they'd be all over him about the unrealism of perpetual daylight and the absence of a few other normal things that usually happen only at night. I think he's missing a huge opportunity to move Larian forward with D:OS2 by so quickly deciding that Larian cannot afford to implement nights inside the DOS2 universe.


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Originally Posted by norD
Originally Posted by 4verse
thats why i hope larian will provide an in-depth manual for the editor including some engine internals so we do not have to find out the nitty gritty parts ourselves hehe

Well, if we do some kind of "manual" or anything like this I don't think we will spend time showing you how to do a day/night cycle since it's not planed for the game smile


that i do understand.
i rather meant information/knowledge needed to implement a day/night cycle not a specific tutorial hehe


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Originally Posted by Waltc


<see above>



i can understand Swens argument. but to be honest i tend to agree with Waltc. i think Swen is a little bit too "evangelical" (no offense!) concerning a night/day cycle. IMO even a not fully fledged day/night cycle would add to the overall Divinity/gaming atmosphere.

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Originally Posted by Waltc

OK...development of the game is just beginning...what's stopping Sven from "going all the way", exactly?


A tenuous grip on sanity?

Quote
It seems silly to reject a concept which you have never attempted to implement and for which, therefore, you have no concrete notions as to what it would consume in terms of developmental resources. This is kind of a chicken-egg scenario, imo. If you haven't ever done a night cycle, how can you reject doing it on the grounds it will consume resources you do not have? That's an illogical premise because since you have never attempted it in a game you cannot know what it will cost to implement.



They did try it for D:OS 1. It turned out to be a shit-ton more work than was expected and it was too hard to put in.

Yes, they could do a cosmetic-only d/n cycle which changes nothing, and of course that would be much less work. Swen has considered that possibility and rejected it.

Adding in a cosmetic day/night cycle for D:OS 2 sounds like it would be more immersion-breaking than adding one in for D:OS 1, since there are things which will happen "tomorrow", like the Divine Magisters arriving on the island. Since they will never arrive on the island, having people say that they'll arrive tomorrow, ignoring the fact that you could have months of day/night cylcles happening in the meantime wouldn't be any more realistic than eternal day.

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Originally Posted by Waltc
It seems silly to reject a concept which you have never attempted to implement and for which, therefore, you have no concrete notions as to what it would consume in terms of developmental resources.


Apparently you've forgotten (or written in ignorance) that Larian attempted to incorporate a day/night schedule with NPC schedules in DOS1 but ultimately gave up on account of the complexity, so they know as well as anyone what kind of resources it would require to implement it. The decision to reject it is well informed and not silly.

Now perhaps you think it's silly to reject your day/night cycle "light" version without having scoped out the resources, but that's attacking a straw man. They haven't rejected day/night cycle "light" because of resources, but rather because it's not something that interests them.

So to sum up: They have a particular vision of what a day/night cycle should include. They have attempted to implement such a vision already in DOS1 and know what the implications are and decided against it due to the added complexity. Deciding not to implement that in DOS2 is an informed decision. Deciding not to implement your light version is a philosophical one.


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Originally Posted by Waltc
Originally Posted by Baardvark
That's not the problem (and in fact, they are adding a TON of new assets, hundreds if not thousands of new models and animations and textures, not just reusing stuff from D:OS1). The problem is giving a sufficient number of NPCs reactive behavior to the day night cycle to make it actually immersive, instead of just pretty. You seriously underestimate the amount of work it takes to give lots of NPCs schedules, new quests, etc. They could do a minimal amount of scheduling, making vendors go inside, 3-5 night-specific quests, etc. but I think Swen would much prefer to go all the way. It's just like with the origins, which aren't going to be little gimmicks but have a massive effect on the game. Trying to throw a well-developed day/night cycle on top of that is asking too much.


OK...development of the game is just beginning...what's stopping Sven from "going all the way", exactly? It seems silly to reject a concept which you have never attempted to implement and for which, therefore, you have no concrete notions as to what it would consume in terms of developmental resources. This is kind of a chicken-egg scenario, imo. If you haven't ever done a night cycle, how can you reject doing it on the grounds it will consume resources you do not have? That's an illogical premise because since you have never attempted it in a game you cannot know what it will cost to implement.


Except they did try to implement in their first game, but they saw how much work it would be. Maybe they tried it with a few NPCs, had a lot of problems, saw how much time that took, and can extrapolate from there that they didn't have the time or money to do add it. I made a mod (unfinished) and saw how hard it'd be to make a good day/night schedule, so I imagine Larian could see it even more.

Permanent daytime is less immersive than a slightly incomplete day/night cycle, yes, but the point is Larian doesn't want to half-ass it. How hard is making all the businesses close and people go to sleep without breaking a bunch of quest behavior and then adding enough for players to do at night (instead of wow, everyone's asleep so I can't complete these quests) -- it's hard, especially in the Divinity Engine. And if the player needs to sleep, that'd be a lot of work for something players wouldn't even see. It's just another layer of complication on top of what is building up to be an extremely multi-faceted game.

Say you arrive at the town in the demo, and it's night. Is that dwarf still going to bomb that cart? If he does, you have to change some code with a bunch of people gone. If he doesn't, another complicated thing to code for, and the player will be missing a big set up for a lot of tension in the town. Now imagine doing that with nearly ever event, only making some of them night-only. People's behavior does and should change with the day-night cycle.

Larian could've done the day/night cycle if they sacrificed some other aspect of the game, like the origins. They should learn to properly craft a multi-faceted narrative before they spend a lot of money on something that is mostly aesthetic and just doesn't quite move the genre forward as much as something like hugely impactful origin stories and competitive questing. I haven't played Witcher 3 yet, but that's a game, like Skyrim, that has a huge focus on immersion. It also, I hear, has great quests, good combat, and other things. But they also had a lot more money. And, it's their third game in the series. Witcher 2 had a cycle if I recall, but I don't remember it impacting the game all that much. And I don't know how much it impacts Witcher 3 either.




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I still think I'd rather have no day/night cycle.....

The reason is this

Larian wants to do this right or not at all. But I don't want it done right (Day/Night in W3 was completely sad, I always rested straight to sunrise all the time because at Night, aside from dangerous travel, you gained nothing but navigation troubles in forests..., unless a quest made night visit mandatory) so all this does is destroy visual direction in the game. A certain area may look good tinted in eternal dusk illuminated by torches another in broad sun light.

So yeah. Better Larian focuses on the things that matter... like story, companions, writing and skill/combat balance wink

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I don't like day and night. Hate to wait until shops are open or NPC's are on their places.
Also don't like rain! I'd like to have a switch to turn on sunny day's. I like the sun. smile
I'ts a game! If I wan't reality I look out of my window.

I'd prefere to be a big wizzard, with a good sword and a spell to be invisible, to look in all those chests! I like to create my own magical sword! I like this extra points from books in D:OS.

Last edited by Alix; 15/10/15 07:04 AM.

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Originally Posted by Alix
I don't like day and night. Hate to wait until shops are open or NPC's are on their places.
Also don't like rain! I'd like to have a switch to turn on sunny day's. I like the sun. smile
I'ts a game! If I wan't reality I look out of my window.

Waiting for the shops to open or for key NPCs to get out of bed is annoying, though actually I find a schedule helps my roleplaying: I figure that my character also needs a rest occasionally and can't do 24-hour questing. In games with day/night schedules, if possible I tend to make the nights really dark, unless the weather's clear and it's a full moon (actually I forget if the moon(s) ever make a difference, but the weather certainly does). I admit it's sometimes annoying wandering around Cyrodiil or the Capital Wasteland not being able to see a hand in front of me and hearing various growling noises fairly close by! Especially as bad planning means I can inadvertently get caught by the sunset when I'm away from a settlement, meaning stumbling through the dark as I prefer not to fast-travel either.

I agree about the rain, though. I start to feel persecuted when even the weather in my games has it in for me!


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Originally Posted by Windemere


Apparently you've forgotten (or written in ignorance) that Larian attempted to incorporate a day/night schedule with NPC schedules in DOS1 but ultimately gave up on account of the complexity, so they know as well as anyone what kind of resources it would require to implement it. The decision to reject it is well informed and not silly.



Whatever Sven does I know it will be fine. Never have I seen a game developer so obviously enthusiastic about his job, who so much clearly enjoys the company of other people, as I have seen in Sven. You cannot fake the sort of enthusiasm he brings to his many videos about Larian's work. He's a joy to watch and listen to, even if his enthusiasm propels his speech at a 90 miles-per-hour clip as if he's scared he's going to run out of time...;) He's an example to the rest of them, imo.

But that doesn't mean he's perfect, and Sven seems the kind of level-headed guy who'd agree that none of us are...;) IIRC, in the first game, day-night was a stretch goal, wasn't it? His arguments made plenty of sense then as the game foundation was already laid and it was too late to rewrite the engine to properly do day-night. Fine, that was certainly understandable...then, and for D:OS exclusively.

But this is a brand-new game, ostensibly getting a brand-new engine. That was my point. If ever there was a time to bring day-night to Divinity it is now. Because, if not now, when, then?



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Originally Posted by Vometia

Waiting for the shops to open or for key NPCs to get out of bed is annoying, though actually I find a schedule helps my roleplaying: I figure that my character also needs a rest occasionally and can't do 24-hour questing. In games with day/night schedules, if possible I tend to make the nights really dark, unless the weather's clear and it's a full moon (actually I forget if the moon(s) ever make a difference, but the weather certainly does). I admit it's sometimes annoying wandering around Cyrodiil or the Capital Wasteland not being able to see a hand in front of me and hearing various growling noises fairly close by! Especially as bad planning means I can inadvertently get caught by the sunset when I'm away from a settlement, meaning stumbling through the dark as I prefer not to fast-travel either.

I agree about the rain, though. I start to feel persecuted when even the weather in my games has it in for me!


What I like about day-night in Witcher 3 is the change in atmosphere it brings. That's it, really. In W3, the day-night schedules do not change simply because the sun goes down. Things do however manage to look much different at night--and I think that alone lends them credibility. And as well, in W3 there are several scenarios that can only be accomplished @ night. I don't think Larian would have to carry it any further than that. These are fantasy games in fantasy worlds and nobody expects an entirely different world when the sun drops below the horizon--no need at all for a "night-shift" game.

I mention W3 also because you mention the weather--and I agree with you that it is often irritating. However, in W3 they've managed to make even inclement weather highly entertaining...like when the dark/black clouds roll in and the wind whips up...I often stop to just watch...;)


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Yeah, I enjoyed TW3's weather variations a lot. I also liked little touches like a different choice of music during the night: I think the first game where I noticed that happening was Gothic 3, and it also really adds to the overall atmosphere.

TW3 had some fairly obvious things such as noon-/nightwraiths that could only be tackled during certain hours, as well as various quests ("meet me at midnight by the crossroads", sort of thing) but sometimes it's the apparently small changes to the ambience that make the big differences.


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