COMMUNITY - FORUMS - AGING & DYING
Time and IRL Player Actions

If 7 seconds is about 1 Em, then how do things like PvP combat or other actions take place?

I'm confused on how a couple clicks on my mouse/keyboard really going to translate my 1v1 battle to minutes or hours that would IRL translate to very less time?


1/1/2019 10:44:22 PM #1

I'm having trouble framing this as a serious question. How much do you expect the answer to this question to effect your average game-play experience? Cause, I gotta say, I have never worried about this while playing Fallout or Skyrim.


1/2/2019 12:20:12 AM #2

You're overthinking the time relation. Time in Elyria on the large scale is squished down, primarily so that things are enjoyable not tedious. It means we can develop our characters and stories in-game without wasting our own lives in the process.

This scaling becomes less apparent on a smaller scale, and does not affect how things move and interact in the world. Sure, you might ride a horse to a neighbouring village over the period of about one RL hour, and maybe that is a whole Elyrian day. Increasing the horses animations to look like it is running at the speed of light just doesn't make any sense or add anything to the experience.

Using your PvP example, you can have a battle with someone that lasts 30 minutes without thinking to yourself 'omg, this fight has been going for hours and hours if you take into account the translation between real time and Elyrian time'. Just have the fight?


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.

1/3/2019 1:09:10 PM #3

It was a serious question as after reading the Time Dev Journal AGAIN, it was not clear if it was merely a meta-system or not. As known, characters will age and die, this takes place over Elyrian Time, which has a correspondence to RLtime.

Wondering whether time is suspended during different activities or not does not seem to be out of place. I could certainly suspend belief at some activity level, but which level do I do that at?

Given the game is asking for SMEs of different RW knowledge bases, and it is more extensive than any other game in terms of bringing "reality" to a play experience, it comes off a bit unjust to be seen as over-thinking it. In some sense, this entire game is "over-thinking it," but that is what I actually like about it, and was simply trying to understand.

Sorry.


1/3/2019 1:48:04 PM #4

You're absolutely entitled to ask questions mate, and everyone posts questions that people decide to downvote because they aren't interested in an answer or are annoyed someone wants to know particular things.

You are also right that CoE will be influenced by the 'time squishing' we see in games more than most other games before it. My main message to you is/was that the best outcome that SBS can achieve is if the player isn't thinking about the time relation, and the best way you can enjoy the experience is if you aren't thinking about it either.

SBS have made it very clear that they will not employ a game mechanic that detracts from the enjoyment of the game just for the sake of realism. The reason they ask for advice from real life experts in aspects of the real world is because they seek to capture the atmosphere and vibes of carrying out these tasks and living these journeys, not because they want to make incremental changes to a time slider to make sure people are spending enough time training.

In the end we have two time relations. Our months and years in the real world compared to months and years in Elyria, and then the time it takes for you and I to craft a blade or build a house, vs. how long it takes our character. I think these will not necessarily, and will likely not, be the same ratio. So things will not line up properly if you measure and study these things in a graph. But the important thing is when you craft a blade in game, you enjoy the experience and feel you have put the time and effort in required. And when you ride through the landscape and see the sun(s) going down, you feel like another day is ending in this world, not a bunch of server code ticking over.


If you are new to the community, the Design Journals will answer a lot of your questions.