seaons changing in game, your thoughts?

I posted a few weeks back a thread asking if 2.0 would have more variety in biomes for zones, and then last night i started to wonder how cool it would be if you could see the seasons change on occasion. like fall in gridania, the leaves would be orange (or something).

like adding a bit more flavor to zones so they feel different on occasion.
it might not ever be implemented, sure, but i still find myself thinking about it.

if this topic has been discussed i apologize, the closest i could find was something related to weather and mud puddles :cool:

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Originally Posted by Keruvinde

I posted a few weeks back a thread asking if 2.0 would have more variety in biomes for zones, and then last night i started to wonder how cool it would be if you could see the seasons change on occasion. like fall in gridania, the leaves would be orange (or something).

like adding a bit more flavor to zones so they feel different on occasion.
it might not ever be implemented, sure, but i still find myself thinking about it.

if this topic has been discussed i apologize, the closest i could find was something related to weather and mud puddles :cool:

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It's a cool idea but that is too much work. 2.0 is only 3 months away from beta so it's too late to make such big changes. Even if it wasn't too late, you should get it by now that SE is all about doing minimal work and not going above and beyond.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

It's a cool idea but that is too much work. 2.0 is only 3 months away from beta so it's too late to make such big changes. Even if it wasn't too late, you should get it by now that SE is all about doing minimal work and not going above and beyond.

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im sure SE is starting to learn that they need to go above and beyond, and yea, like i said earlier, it may never get implemented. doesnt mean i cant dream :D

Seasons would be neat, it'd be kinda cool to see snow in coerthas or monsoon in gridania etc.

Reminds me of FFXI where we would have snow in batallia XD

maybe even change what monsters spawn adding some variety =o

In an interview Yoshi said that they're making each large zone into many separate zones so they can go about using different textures and whatnot. To my knowledge they aren't planning seasons (as far as what they've said). They do kind of do it with holidays (cherry blossoms, snow etc.) but that's it. They're planning on making weather an important thing though and also when a Company summons a primal the weather all over Eorzea will change to correspond to that element.

I think with all of the changed zones it could become a coding nightmare. FFXI had seasons and all it did was change the frequency of weather patterns. I could see this happening again along with more widespread seasonal props.

However, keep in mind Eorzea is just an island on the planet, it could be located on the equator and never experience seasons. That could lead to an expansion down the line to an unlocked continent having seasons that they could code from the ground up.

Weather dependant monster spawns would be pretty awesome, kinda like XI where you'd get water elementals when it rained. Would be neat to see stuff like Sahagins dotted along Limsa's coastline in wet weather etc

Goobbues with flowers in the summer? @___@

It would be nice, since FFXI had seasons which affected some zone's weather patterns and even changed the color of Rolanberries during fall/winter and spring/summer. (Red <> Purple)

Depending on what they're doing with new zones it could be more than possible since a lot of newer engines are designed to give smaller details more flair (especially with Day-Night and seamless transitions.)

@marta the seasonal events i dont count much since they only affected the cities. as for your comment about the weather, im interested to see what they have in mind for that.

@Nix lol goobues XP and yea i remember elementals spawning in weather in 11. i miss dark clusters XD

XD Castle Zvahl and Xarcabard! Oh how I miss those farming grounds! lol

THIS IS AN AWESOME IDEA.
On the coding nightmares note though, they shouldn't really have to completely change the zones to make it happen. Having it snow more often than rain, or be windy or foggy more often for starters should be easy. Changing some of the monster spawns around shouldn't be too bad either... And it is clear that they often do place new chips on maps and then take them away.

For example, it's summer, so they cover a zone in some kind of cool flowers they drew up. They've done this frequently for seasonal events... If they are organized with the code, this should all be very doable. Although having to manage it every three months for what will eventually be over 100 zones could get time consuming, so it might have to be a selective process concerning zones they focus on.

:D I was just thinking about seasons yesterday. Because I cannot wait for coerthas to be covered in snow!

But moreover you should look at my Geomancer job design!!
It would be so cool in junction with the weather patterns and primal summoning.

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Originally Posted by NefarioCall

THIS IS AN AWESOME IDEA.
On the coding nightmares note though, they shouldn't really have to completely change the zones to make it happen. Having it snow more often than rain, or be windy or foggy more often for starters should be easy. Changing some of the monster spawns around shouldn't be too bad either... And it is clear that they often do place new chips on maps and then take them away.

For example, it's summer, so they cover a zone in some kind of cool flowers they drew up. They've done this frequently for seasonal events... If they are organized with the code, this should all be very doable. Although having to manage it every three months for what will eventually be over 100 zones could get time consuming, so it might have to be a selective process concerning zones they focus on.

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Yeah, having to do it for so many is why I think it won't happen. Though just gives more support for an expansion pack with a distant land that maybe brings back the "large" zones in favor of a season progression for changes of scenery.

A calendar system would have to be developed to better support this. Something to help people keep track of the time of year in Eorzea without the need of the likes of Mithra Pride and whatnot. We have the moons, we have the names for the days, but we need to have that put together in a way it can be tracked in-game.

the picture i have in my head is like 3-4 versions of thanalan. 1 rainy season, cleary type season where thanalan is covered with more life then a dry season as it gets back to what it looks like now and so on. and i was thinking like weekly season considering eorzea time is faster than irl time. kinda pushing it though. i dunno XP cuz the way i saw it was seasons would also affect gathering like what you can get in some way. like you get higher chance of getting veggies in spring or something. along with the mob seasonal change to reflect the area.

the thing with the current seasonal events is like this last holiday season it snowed only in the citys. so you only got the feeling of the season changing in the city.

Good idea but we get some snow areas at least with 2.0 :)

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Originally Posted by Keruvinde

the picture i have in my head is like 3-4 versions of thanalan. 1 rainy season, cleary type season where thanalan is covered with more life then a dry season as it gets back to what it looks like now and so on. and i was thinking like weekly season considering eorzea time is faster than irl time. kinda pushing it though. i dunno XP cuz the way i saw it was seasons would also affect gathering like what you can get in some way. like you get higher chance of getting veggies in spring or something. along with the mob seasonal change to reflect the area.

the thing with the current seasonal events is like this last holiday season it snowed only in the citys. so you only got the feeling of the season changing in the city.

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Well, the problem with that is Thanalan is a desert. It's not supposed to rain hardly at all. The reason it's raining so much now is because of the Seventh Umbral Era and Dalamund. We don't know the location of Eorzea on the map as well so it could be just above the equator, with Uldah being right on it. We also don't know the tilt of the planet nor if it has a perfect revolution around the sun or if it's elliptical. So there's a lot we have to take into consideration. The more of a tilt you have and the more elliptical of a revolution would lead to more frequent and widespread seasonal change. If the planet has no tilt, there won't be any seasonal change.

May be a little too real-world, but I expect a bit of real-world physics in the game and this is no different than having gravity, haha. My best guess is we're on the equator or that Hydaelan isn't on much of a tilt. Or both!

Edit: Course this doesn't mean the impact of Dalamund couldn't be so great as to tilt the planet and then produce seasons in the future...

Like the idea of seasons, but i'd expect ideas for small changes would be the most likely to be concidered for instance textures that are repeated often but take up little space, and could possibly be changed somehat easily.

My thoughts for examples:
Tree leaf textures: If you have a base green leaf texture. you could add some orange and browns to it and on a date, replace the green texture with orange and brown texture. Instant Autumn look.

Replace most of the same texture with transparentcy but at the base of the texture make a small greenish bud = Spring

Remove the texture or make a bark colored scraggely line = winter

Also Water effect, is a toughie, but if you removed ripple effects, gave it a white frosted texture/effect you could have a winterish look.

Main issue is if your attempt to have say, snowcover during winter, you have to make a second/third texture of nearly every outdoor setting.

Love the idea, but time is money. So would a more subtle effect like the ones i've mentioned be good enough for those interested?

i love this idea!! ^^ it would be awesome to see the seasons change :D!

I would LOVE it! Having said that I realise the amount of time it would take would be phenomenal and could potentially be better spent elsewhere.

If at some point they could at least take a handful of zones and give them varying seasons instead of them all I would be more than OK with that. :D The plains in XII that had a wet season come to mind, the entire change to how use used the zone and what was there was astounding.

I can't imagine it being that hard to make it so any outside area can realistically simulate rainfall, snowfall, and hot weather (mirages, anyone?).

What I want to see is the seasons reflecting our Earth. Days don't need to. We can just say that Eorzea has 6360 days to a year (yay math). Really fast spin! Really wide orbit!

I mean, we can always go to the beach if we're tired of the cold, but when I go walk about Limsa in mid-January, I wouldn't mind seeing snow-lala's, and fight snow-rats outside.

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Originally Posted by Keruvinde

maybe even change what monsters spawn adding some variety =o

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Seasons and different mob spawns according to season....sounds like Ryzom, and yes it was indeed an awesome concept that worked very well.

I am really certain that before FFXIV was even out there were a few interviews that said they would do season effects/changes... went out the window with the terrible launch I will assume...

Just read the OP.

I'd would be all for Dynamic weather like that.

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Originally Posted by Keruvinde

I posted a few weeks back a thread asking if 2.0 would have more variety in biomes for zones, and then last night i started to wonder how cool it would be if you could see the seasons change on occasion. like fall in gridania, the leaves would be orange (or something).

like adding a bit more flavor to zones so they feel different on occasion.
it might not ever be implemented, sure, but i still find myself thinking about it.

if this topic has been discussed i apologize, the closest i could find was something related to weather and mud puddles :cool:

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It would be amazing if they added this in some later expansion. :3 I've always hoped for changing seasons.

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Originally Posted by Onidemon

It's a cool idea but that is too much work. 2.0 is only 3 months away from beta so it's too late to make such big changes. Even if it wasn't too late, you should get it by now that SE is all about doing minimal work and not going above and beyond.

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Regardless of my issues with SE, I just don't see a company that, in an industry first, decided to completely replace client, servers, maps, and restructure systems, interface and most such structures within their game--I repeat, don't see it--as something that qualifies for the description you summarize as being "all about doing minimal work and not going above and beyond."

Thought I'd share.

R

TBH, I would love to see weather and seasonal effects, I doubt it would be ready for 2.0 but it could easily be added in over time as part of the story.
- Events have changed how the world rotates so now they get more earth like seasons where as before they were more as are kinda thing.

But different mobs. npcs go back to camp or into caves, some races get really grumpy an there ears flop down lol.
SE do need to make sure they push forward with the game.
Tera (like it or not) has given mmos a push forward with the collision/physic used in combat..
I really want to see FFXIV push even more.

An real seasons and effects would be a good move in that direction, I think anyway.

I believe it's roughly 4-5 real days to 3 Eorzean months, so having the season change once a week would be pretty awesome and you could have an Eorzean yearly cycle done in one real month.

Would be cool to have some areas that can't be accessed in winter due to snowfall blocking cave entrances, but have frozen water that can be crossed to access areas. Could probably think of stuff like that for every season if you're more imaginative than me.

caves getting blocked by snow sounds cool :O high and low tide around beaches sounds interesting too :D