Get rid of eorzea time and just use real time

Or...we could just keep it as is and use the day/night cycle for something usefull other than the dimming of the sky?

Revolutionary I know.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

One of the primary reasons for both FFXI and FFXIV having game time is because the servers were all in a central location and people from a wide range of time zones around the world connected to the same servers, so game time helped make things consistent. But FFXIV is moving to regionally-located servers, so I think it would be a good idea to just have day/night match real life, with servers in each region being set to the time zone they're located in (most likely PST in the US, JST in Japan, GMT in europe).

This would also eliminate confusion between the two time systems e.g. "Is that over the next real life day / jp midnight? or is it just one game day?" and prevent the ingame date from going drastically out of line with the time the game as originally set in as the years go by (in FFXI, the game started in the 900s C.E. and the current date in game is 1166 C.E.).

I'm not really sure whether most people like this or not. What do you think?

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No. Just no.

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Originally Posted by Dusty Tomes

The Preface:
Penned by Lewphon of Sharlayan, master theologian and astrologist, in the Year 233 of the Sixth Astral Era, to weave together the disparate histories of the nations of Eorzea with a common thread - the thread of time. For through its inevitable march the hours turn into Suns, and they into Moons, and they into Years. And from the Years come the Ages of Man. And ever eclipsing those is the eternity of Gods.

Chapter 1 - The Suns:
By the unit of a sole Sun we mean that period which lasts for the duration of four cycles of the six elemental hours - those of Ice, Water, Wind, Lightning, Fire, and Earth. And so is the sun twenty hours and four, and so shall it ever be.

Chapter 2 - The Moons:
The life of a single Moon spans four cycles of eight Suns, and is thus the sum of thirty and two. The eight deriveth from the elements six, Ice, Water, Wind, Lightning, Fire, and Earth, and the polarities two, Astral and Umbral.

Chapter 3 - The Years:
The Year is made when the Moon goeth round the two Astral and Umbral poles, fluctuating between the six elements, and that in turn. In this, the Year can be said to be the length of twelve Moons. The first and second Moons of the Year are the first astral and first Umbral, and together they share affinity with Ice. On their watch, all is frozen, and breath of life sloweth to near silence beneath. The second Astral and second Umbral Moons come third and fourth in turn, and they are the Water of the melting Ice, and with their flowing slaketh the thirst of life again. Fifth and sixth are the third Astral and third Umbral Moons, and the Wind bloweth over the Water, carrying its heavenly boons near and far. The fourth pairing of Astral and Umbral Moons come six and seven. when the heavens rageth with the furies of Lightning and sendeth them below with godly terror to test the faith of men. The ninth and tenth Moons are the Fifth Astral and Umbral, as the Lightning turns to Fire, and it charreth growing life with the colors of its flames, bleeding blade and leaf with brilliant ues of crimson and scarlet. Year's end eometh in the eleventh and twelfth Moons, the sixth Astral and sixth Umbral, in which the Earth consumes all, for out of the ground we are taken for the dust we are, and to the dust we shall return.

Chapter 4 - Of Man:
The wisdom of the Twelve saw fit to grant man with the cycle of years, and in turn the reverence of man bound them to his gods - the Year of the Navigator, of the Wanderer, of the Builder, of the Destroyer, of the Warden, of the Traders, of the Matron, of the Keeper, of the Fury, of the Lover, of the Scholar, and of the Spinner. The turning of these Years twelve is a sacred thing, and together they comprise one epoch of man, by which the histories of his endeavor are measured.

Chapter 5 - Of Gods:
The constancy and eternity of time derive from the pulse and breath of the Twelve. And by their divine will the brilliance of the Astral Eras which see man flourish and prosper, and the shadows of the Umbral Eras which see man falter and doubt, are visited upon him in equal, and neither the greatest good nor the greatest evil may escape their purview. Since the peace among the Twelve was broken and life was created to wage their wars, six cycles of the Eras have come to pass in keeping with the elemental order. The Sixth Umbral Era belonged to the waters, as heavy rains fell and the seas rose high, submerging and cleansing all in a great deluge. With time the waters receded, ushering in the present Sixth Astral Era, during which man has again rebuilt his halls and tilled his lands. Naught save the ken of the Twelve themselves knoweth when the Seventh Umbral Era shall come and end our days. The sole certainty what resides within man is the selfsame as it has ever been - ours is the power to make of our Era what we might.

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From my other post earlier today:

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Time passes like this in Eorzea:

00:00 - 01:00 = Ice Hour
01:00 - 02:00 = Water Hour
02:00 - 03:00 = Wind Hour
03:00 - 04:00 = Lightning Hour
04:00 - 05:00 = Fire Hour
05:00 - 06:00 = Earth Hour

06:00 - 07:00 = Ice Hour
07:00 - 08:00 = Water Hour
08:00 - 09:00 = Wind Hour
09:00 - 10:00 = Lightning Hour
10:00 - 11:00 = Fire Hour
11:00 - 12:00 = Earth Hour

12:00 - 13:00 = Ice Hour
13:00 - 14:00 = Water Hour
14:00 - 15:00 = Wind Hour
15:00 - 16:00 = Lightning Hour
16:00 - 17:00 = Fire Hour
17:00 - 18:00 = Earth Hour

18:00 - 19:00 = Ice Hour
19:00 - 20:00 = Water Hour
20:00 - 21:00 = Wind Hour
21:00 - 22:00 = Lightning Hour
22:00 - 23:00 = Fire Hour
23:00 - 24:00 = Earth Hour

More accurately each elemental hour would begin at 00:01 and end on 01:00 but I'm lazy and used 00:00 to 01:00

That completes one day.

Each day is assigned an element. There are thirty two (32) days per game month. The order is always the same in regards the elements except this time you add light and dark after earth and repeat the cycle 4 times yet again.

It should be noted that there are 8 moon phases each lasting a total of four game days, starting with new moon.

New Moon
Day 1 - Ice
Day 2 - Water
Day 3 - Wind
Day 4 - Lightning
Waxing Crescent
Day 5 - Fire
Day 6 - Earth
Day 7 - Astral
Day 8 - Umbral
Waxing Half
Day 9 - Ice
Day 10 - Water
Day 11 - Wind
Day 12 - Lightning
Waxing Gibbous
Day 13 - Fire
Day 14 - Earth
Day 15 - Astral
Day 16 - Umbral
Full Moon
Day 17 - Ice
Day 18 - Water
Day 19 - Wind
Day 20 - Lightning
Waning Gibbous
Day 21 - Fire
Day 22 - Earth
Day 23 - Astral
Day 24 - Umbral
Waning Half
Day 25 - Ice
Day 26 - Water
Day 27 - Wind
Day 28 - Lightning
Waning crescent
Day 29 - Fire
Day 30 - Earth
Day 31 - Astral
Day 32 - Umbral
New Moon

There are 12 months in the year, again the same pattern is seen in regards the order of the six primary elements except this time each element is applied an astral or umbal "shade" which follows suit:

1) Astral Ice Month
2) Umbral Ice Month
3) Astral Water Month
4) Umbral Water Month
5) Astral Wind Month
6) Umbral Wind Month
7) Astral Lightning Month
8) Umbral Lightning Month
9) Astral Fire Month
10) Umbral Fire Month
11) Astral Earth Month
12) Umbral Earth Month

There are also 12 years per game "Epoch" as opposed to 10 in real life. Each year of an epoch is associated with one of the Twelve gods and hence an element.

Earth - Althyk, The Keeper and Nophica, The Matron
Fire - Azeyma, The Warden and Nald'thal, The Traders
Lightning - Byregot, The Builder and Rhalgr, The Destroyer
Ice - Halone, The Fury and Menphina, The Lover
Wind - llymlaen, The Navigator and Oschon, The Wanderer
Water - Nymeia, The Spinner and Thaliak, The Scholar

And im willing to bet money the order of the years is the same elemental pattern seen in the months that is: ice, water, wind, lightning, fire and earth. I don't know who of each element is considered the astral and whom the umbral but that doesn't really matter since the pattern is likely a repition of the months.

At last the epochs make up the eras but to this we are left in the dark. I am certain that a dev posted some information shedding light on the length of each era (i think it's considered roughly 2,000 years) but I haven't dug up hat post.

What's interesting here is that as opposed to the months which begin with astral and end in umbral, the eras begin with umbral and end with astral:

"The Sixth Umbral Era belonged to the waters, as heavy rains fell and the seas rose high, submerging and cleansing all in a great deluge. With time the waters receded, ushering in the present Sixth Astral Era, during which man has again rebuilt his halls and tilled his lands."

What's interesting here is the mention that the 6th umbral era belonged to water, a great flood of sorts. If indeed the 6th umbral and astral eras correspond to the element of water then the order is different than that which we see in the hours, the days and the months of the year.

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It's called Lore. It's used for immersion. Get used to it.

What the . . . . ? What does in game lore have to do with the question?

Does it matter? As long as the game cycles day and night who gives 2 fucks.

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Originally Posted by Pseudopsia

I don't think I'll like this. If they sync Eorzea time to real time I'll be playing during the night on weekdays. I'll have to change to keeper of the moon.

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I agree, bad idea... lol

Even if I have to work everyday in the morning and NM has to be spawned at 10 AM. Then you can tell why it's a problem. hahaha

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Originally Posted by Lady

I like the day/night cycle. Helped me to keep track of time better when playing. If they have any NMs that only spawn during certain times of day (ie the giant buffalo thingy), this makes it easier for casuals to get a shot at it too. But thats just my opinion.

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I'm sure the scene of Odin in the woods might hint to him being a night time spawn, but that's just speculation for now.

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Originally Posted by Firon

Does it matter? As long as the game cycles day and night who gives 2 fucks.

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Well, I wouldn't mind playing in all daytime (most of the single person FF's are, after all), but being stuck in perpetual night or dusk/dawn, in every zone, would suck.

Notice that even Eorzea days (or Vana'diel) don't perfectly align to real world hours.

If 1 game day = 1 RL hour, certain players who log in at regular hours would be forever limited to whatever time-locked content was available during that time.

By having game days slightly shorter or longer than RL hours, a player who only plays from 5-9pm every Monday would still have access to all cycles of the moon and all hours of the day over time. (this is obviously very important for FFXI where there was a large amount of time-locked content)

Ya sound good on paper but no thanks i be plying 90% of my game life in the night that why there always a set rule of time in mmo games so people can enjoy both nigh and day within a short amount of time.

I really do not want 12 hour days and 12 hour nights... Way too long imo..

I guess I would like the 2~3 hour day. :)

If this happens, it's not gonna be good for us since this is a Japan based game after all, so I think the game time would be adjusted to Japan timezone most likely if they really want to sync real-life time and in-game time. I like this idea but it's just hard to make it work for players in different regions.

I would hate this. I know a few people would can only get online at night. So they would be forced to play the game at night all the time. I'm sorry but that would get old quick.

I would like to see longer days and nights but not real time.

Is there a dislike button? I want one!

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Originally Posted by AlexNiculaie

What the . . . . ? What does in game lore have to do with the question?

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Maybe if you were to fully read my post and truly grasp the meaning of it's content you would understand how our real world calendar is incompatible with the game lore in regards to the application of elements to days of the months.

Since you probably wont read it, i'll make it short and to the point: In game months are made up of 32 days each. EACH MONTH HAS 32 DAYS IN GAME OKAY? It can't be synchronized to real world calendar and never will.

/close thread

Actually you would be wrong, still. You could do a game hour to real life hour. He wasn't asking to make days/weeks/months match, just hours. Either way, it's a bad idea.

By the by, if you overcame your pedagoguery, you could easily have compacted your point to a sentence. Sometime info bombing is actually counterproductive.

No.


/10char

The problem with this is that those who can only play a couple of hours a day would never get to experience the game during night or day depending on when their gaming hours are set and they would miss out on events that happen during nights for example. It's an interesting idea but I don't think it would work that well in practice.

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Originally Posted by AlexNiculaie

Actually you would be wrong, still. You could do a game hour to real life hour. He wasn't asking to make days/weeks/months match, just hours. Either way, it's a bad idea.

By the by, if you overcame your pedagoguery, you could easily have compacted your point to a sentence. Sometime info bombing is actually counterproductive.

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...

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

One of the primary reasons for both FFXI and FFXIV having game time is because the servers were all in a central location and people from a wide range of time zones around the world connected to the same servers, so game time helped make things consistent. But FFXIV is moving to regionally-located servers, so I think it would be a good idea to just have day/night match real life, with servers in each region being set to the time zone they're located in (most likely PST in the US, JST in Japan, GMT in europe).

This would also eliminate confusion between the two time systems e.g. "Is that over the next real life day / jp midnight? or is it just one game day?" and prevent the ingame date from going drastically out of line with the time the game as originally set in as the years go by (in FFXI, the game started in the 900s C.E. and the current date in game is 1166 C.E.).

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Oh he IS talking about an entire time system and not -just- lighting correspondence. He is actually talking about days, weeks, months and years corresponding to real life calendar...

How do I say...No, you sir, are wrong.

I'd be against this. As someone who works very long hours during the day, I'd really only get to see the game at nighttime. Which looks great, btw. But I'd like variety in the game, no matter what time I play.

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Originally Posted by Firon

Does it matter? As long as the game cycles day and night who gives 2 fucks.

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Your never ending stream of highly insightful posts, never ceases to amaze..

I wouldn't like this either. The current rate of day/night cycles is just fine and enables you to see both, and its quite frankly not that hard to keep track of the two different times. If the only difference is day vs. night, there should also be a time of twilight transition, giving you a visual queue without even having to look at the exact game time. Most of the time I have no reason to pay attention to real time anyways, and if you've got somewhere you need to be, set an alarm.

While time-restricted content may not be necessary, done right it can also add a lot of depth to whatever its used in. So that argument doesn't go very far IMO.

Finally, let's say you do sync it to a certain time zone... now what latitude do you use? The length of daylight changes much more dramatically the closer to the poles you are, and doesn't change at all on the equator. And what about the latitude of the region of the game you're in, let alone the real world? Hell, it will only even match if you live in the center of the time zone, if you're near a zone boundary the transitions would be half an hour off. I also imagine NA/EU will only get one, maybe 2, servers per region so which time zone within those regions gets picked? Does one coast or the other get screwed? It's much more complex an issue than it seems at the surface.

The only argument I can buy here is for the cycle to be lengthed to say 2 hours per day instead of 1 hour, or something similar. But as many have pointed out, 24h just isn't right for an MMO, let the single player games deal with that level of realism.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

This would also eliminate confusion between the two time systems e.g. "Is that over the next real life day / jp midnight? or is it just one game day?" and prevent the ingame date from going drastically out of line with the time the game as originally set in as the years go by (in FFXI, the game started in the 900s C.E. and the current date in game is 1166 C.E.).

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This was also explained by a dev once (Fernehawles, maybe? I can't seem to find the post) that for the purpose of overall storytelling, units of time such as years don't even follow the in-game time perfectly and are better tied to the completion of main story quests. Depending on when someone joins the game and completes the quest, you could have claims that some major battle (or maybe a moon falling??) happened in the year 1572 or say 1584 according to the in-game clock. Clearly such events only happen once and the devs need to ascribe a defined time to that. Essentially, time is frozen between quests. That and I doubt our characters are living to be hundreds of years old with no signs of aging. Realistic time is just something that needs to be given up in the concept of most games.

They should never get rid of Eorzea time. Having a gameworld time is an absolutely amazing thing, and it's not exactly common among MMOs currently.

It allows people to experience the game at all hours instead of always seeing night or always seeing day. There have actually been a few complaints about this on WoW over the years.

It also has the potential to allow the devs to add a bit of depth to the game. Such as mobs that spawn at night.

I've always loved the idea of a gameworld having its own time independent of the real-world. Especially when it comes to hours in the day. As long as they don't drag the game day out too long or make it way too short (I found FFXI's cycles to be really well done), Eorzea time should, more often than not, be a fairly positive experience for people.

As far as realistic dates... this is a Fantasy game. I don't mind if my character makes it to 300 years old in game while still looking hawt.

EDIT: In regards to realm time: the devs can add a clock that is on server time. WoW has two clocks, one is server time, and one is your time zone (in case they're different). SE can do something similar to show you game time and Realm time, maybe even your time zone as well.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

But FFXIV is moving to regionally-located servers, so....

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Your premise is wrong. You do not have to play on servers in your region.

This is too restricting. Some things only happen at certain times in FFXIV (and FFXI) and this would mean people would constantly miss the chance to do those things.

Also knowing if a time is being refereed to as real life times (JP midnight for example) it a pretty simple concept to grasp that does not warrant a work around.

This sounds like a great idea for people who are jobless and leeching off others for support and their sub to FFXIV. They'll be able to login whenever they want to experience variations in in-game time of day.

Unfortunately, we the remaining 95% of the user base will be stuck with the same 1-4 hour chunks of night or day nearly every time we login. So no, this is an awful idea.

A neat idea, but probably not for the best. And this is one of those things that's more up to the devs than our bitching, which... well look at the first few comments. Reception for the idea is mixed.

real time in a MMorpg just sucks..

for what? playing in darkness every time?.. no just no.. i want to experience all beauties of the weather and time circles..


played too much WoW eh?

NOOOO OP!!!

MY IMMURSHIN!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by HiirNoivl

Your premise is wrong. You do not have to play on servers in your region.

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My premise is correct. I'm fully aware you don't have to play on servers in your region, and in fact i advocated that in the relevant threads.

This gives people the additional choice of having the day/night cycle in sync with their time, or having it be completely different. That being said, I think most people (except perhaps graveyard shifters or other unusual hours) would like the game time to be close to their time if this were implemetned.

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played too much WoW eh?

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Nope, in fact I haven't played WoW for several years. That doesn't mean that every single thing that WoW did was bad and must be ignored and not present in any other game for the sake of distancing themselves from that piece of crap.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

One of the primary reasons for both FFXI and FFXIV having game time is because the servers were all in a central location and people from a wide range of time zones around the world connected to the same servers, so game time helped make things consistent. But FFXIV is moving to regionally-located servers, so I think it would be a good idea to just have day/night match real life, with servers in each region being set to the time zone they're located in (most likely PST in the US, JST in Japan, GMT in europe).

This would also eliminate confusion between the two time systems e.g. "Is that over the next real life day / jp midnight? or is it just one game day?" and prevent the ingame date from going drastically out of line with the time the game as originally set in as the years go by (in FFXI, the game started in the 900s C.E. and the current date in game is 1166 C.E).

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I'll agree with this. Synching the game to real-life time also means that you can properly plan events within the game world without it going through in-game weeks/months. You could have a single-day holiday and not make it feel like it takes 8 or 9 in-game days. Could have an event or holiday that is supposed to be week-long actually be week-long because you synched it to real-life time.

As far as mobs that spawn at night, I wouldn't really loose sleep over it. You can create other conditions for mob spawns outside of the day/night cycle. The only thing that would suffer is weather fluctuations, but even then those can be accomodated within a system that is synched to real-life time.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

My premise is correct. I'm fully aware you don't have to play on servers in your region, and in fact i advocated that in the relevant threads.

This gives people the additional choice of having the day/night cycle in sync with their time, or having it be completely different. That being said, I think most people (except perhaps graveyard shifters or other unusual hours) would like the game time to be close to their time if this were implemetned.

Nope, in fact I haven't played WoW for several years. That doesn't mean that every single thing that WoW did was bad and must be ignored and not present in any other game for the sake of distancing themselves from that piece of crap.

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The problem is why even force us to make this choice? With the current system I can play on any server I want AND I get to see day and night in game. With your proposed system I and many others would have to choose what time of day in game we'd only ever see. Choosing a server/timezone doesn't help the problem at all.

The current system has no issues with it, so why fix it.

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It's called Lore. It's used for immersion. Get used to it.

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Uh, what?

this doesn't have anything to do with lore at all. your days of the week can still be elemental. You can still have all the lore you want with an earth-based clock. This doesn't interfere with that in any way at all. Having the time in game be like the time in real life would be better immersion, not worse.

So you want to talk about immersion: If a day in the game is just 1 hour, then Heydalyinhoweveryouspellit must spin REALLY damn fast. And for a year to go by in a week... it would have to be REALLY close to its star. And to be that close, unless the star was REALLY small, the planet would have to be a scorched wasteland incapable of supporting life i.e. not a class M planet if you're a Trekkie. So the game really isn't very immersive at all, because the game takes place in a physically impossible world.

So making stupid comments like "No, just no. IMMERSHUN!" are just that: stupid, and not helpful.

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The problem is why even force us to make this choice? With the current system I can play on any server I want AND I get to see day and night in game.

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You're not being forced to do anything. Does it really matter whether it's light or dark most of the time you're playing? No, it doesn't.

Funny people arguing this ruins immersion. It helps immersion, not ruins it.

oh yeah and

http://rss.finalfantasyxiv.com/jp/bl...20130118_2.jpg

Honestly, this is beautiful and I TOTALLY would not mind seeing this most of the time if I could only play at night.

I'd always have to play at dusk. No thanks.

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Originally Posted by Gramul

I'd always have to play at dusk. No thanks.

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Screw you and your dusk!

But seriously there is very little positive to gain from this idea. It's a solution to a problem next to nobody is complaining about, and if anything restricts players and developers from enjoying/creating events that happen during day/night.

Now making the day/night cycle take longer? Sure I'd be up for that but not on a 24hour clock like you propose.

Regional servers should really have no place in this proposal either it does little to actually support it besides making it easy to point out there is a portion of the clock that a majority of that region wont be able to enjoy, and a minority who wont get to enjoy the other time of day.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

But seriously there is very little positive to gain from this idea. It's a solution to a problem next to nobody is complaining about, and if anything restricts players and developers from enjoying/creating events that happen during day/night.

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You mean aside from the fact that you'd be further bound to scheduling your life around the in-game clock?

The OP's suggestion accounts for the devs using something other than time of day in-game for events. Which is a fair way of making things tick. It gets rid of pointless limitations and situations where you have to be on the computer beyond what time you set aside. It's no different from the huge inconveniences created by things like stores being controlled by in-game time (at least in single-player RPGs you generally have a way to skip time forward so that you're not standing there waiting for opening time).

If were going to go with this... might as well make time a permanent stand-still. Your average 13+ gamer usually goes on at night after work/school, and may tend to craft/gather a little bit in the early morning.

So then rather than having to always log on in the night like some nocturnal creature... let's have it permanently nightime at Gridania, always sun-up at Ul'dah... and.... er... whatever at Limsa I dunno make it cloudy se we can't tell time there. :\

In all seriousness, no, keep the in-game time seperate from real time. >_>

Maybe someone already said this, but I'm not going to go through the 8 pages. This sounds like hell for people who like me work evening shifts at job.
I get home around midnight and usually play till 5 AM, in a system where we would have light/day according to actual time, I would barely ever see the sun é_è

I also like the game being separated from real life in as many aspects as possible to be able to immerse into the game world.

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Originally Posted by Nayto

If were going to go with this... might as well make time a permanent stand-still.

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People generally don't care what time they log on as long as events and in-game happenings are consistent. I also don't think anyone has ever felt bad about logging in past sunset in any of the MMOs I've played.