I am curious about how time will be depicted in this sort of multi-player environment. If there are to be up to 64 players logged on to a host server, all interacting in real time, how do things like sleeping get handled?
If group A and group B are both walking along the road, with group B 30 minutes (game time) behind group A and group A decides to have a nap, what happens with group B? Are they still behind group A? or are they now 8 hours ahead? They can't be, right? The rest sessions, unless you really have to stop playing for 8 hours game time, would only last for a short while.

Oh well, I'm not sure I outlined this thought very clearly, but if you think you understood it and have an answer, please tell!

[img]graemlins/bunny.gif[/img]

I had thought of asking this question myself. Glad you brought it up [img]smile.gif[/img]

Another thing that has to do with time, I wanted to ask, was if someone has a lazy computer/modem, and his computer begins to lag. What will to character then?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wedin:

Another thing that has to do with time, I wanted to ask, was if someone has a lazy computer/modem, and his computer begins to lag. What will to character then?<hr></blockquote>The same as in all other online games I guess. 'Jumping' from one place to another and walking backwards.

I'm going to post this at Bioware to see what they say. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Here's some stuff from a search for "rest" at the Neverwinter Nexus Unoffocial Knowledge Base (http://198.183.217.15/KDBill/index.cfm?chn_id=1071):

<Xander> I assume that this has already been answered in one way or another, but when there are 7+ people on a server, how will casters get back their spells? In other words, with real-time passing for one group, how can another group rest for 8 hours to allow spells to refresh?

<Rob_Bartel2> For gameplay reasons, we're making resting instantaneous. We'll limit that, however, by putting in a limit on how often you can rest within a given period of time. Also, we're considering adding in an adrenaline factor - if you've just been fighting, you need to calm down a bit before you can get some sleep. The details are a little complex for a chat but we'll be explaining it in more detail later. Thanks.

***

Resting is done by the character remaining motionless for a fixed period of time. You heal a small amount during normal activity, but by remaining motionless you gain at triple the rate.

***

Sorry, I think a clarification's in order here, as there's been some confusion on the boards about this, as of late.

1) Everyone rests independently. Just because you're resting doesn't mean your friend is, too (this makes for a better system in multiplayer).

2) Spells and special abilities do not regenerate over time. The only way to rememorize your spells or regain your abilities is by resting. We may or may not choose to implement a slow regeneration of hit points. This decision will be made as part of our testing and balancing phase.

3) Resting is instantaneous. Resting is something you'll be doing a lot so we don't want it interrupting or slowing down the more enjoyable aspects of your game.

4) Once you have rested, a certain amount of time must pass before you can rest again. The length of this "day" will be determined through testing.

5) After performing a hostile action, you will not be able to rest until a certain 'cool-down' time has passed. This is to keep spellcasters from using two day's worth of spells in a single battle. Again, the length of this 'cool-down' period will be determined through testing.

***

How will time work in this game? What is a day in the real world compared to a day in the game world?

Date: Thursday, July 13, 2000 01:11 PM Keith Solesk iLine Producer Neverwinter Nights BioWare Corp.

How time flows in a module will be up to the module creator. As well the DM will have the ability to "jump forward" in time if his/her storyline requires it.

3/5/01 Bob McCabe - Writing & Design
Time Our official campaign is actually operating outside of time ;)
A module might start in the early morning, and stay that way. Or, it might transition to high noon when a player reaches a certain location. Most of our modules make use of the mood created by nice lightning, or the lack thereof. So, we are not using a more "persistent world" type set-up.

It's probably because we all have God-complexes, and we need absolute
control ;)

I'm guessing (I'm a writer, not a programmer), but I think this would
likely be hard-coded. However, our "rest system," though well designed, is not yet implemented. So, obviously, things could change between now-and-then. I'm getting so good at non-answers! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

3. I’ve read in an interview that in NWN 10 minutes of playing will equal I hour of game time. This means that every second in the game will equal six seconds. A combat round in the PnP game is six seconds long. One second of real time will not be long enough to show everything a character could do in a second game round. How will you tweak this difference? Will a combat round in NWN now effectively be 36 seconds?

Topic: Seeking answers from BioWare (4 of 6), Read 72 times From: Trent Oster Date: Thursday, August 24, 2000 02:27 PM

3) Time balance is a difficult thing to discuss. In pen an paper D&D combat time flows significantly slower than travel time. For example it takes a few minutes in pen and paper for the DM to detail the trip to the dungeon which actually took ten hours of walking. It takes the DM two hours to resolve 2 minutes of combat. With NWN we are going to try for a similar feel, with the time passing dictated by combat flow, so time is going to be a little abstract until we play test the game and balance it out.

It sounds like they aren't sure yet, huh? I hope they come up with something good. The "insta-sleep" idea seems sort of odd to me, though. It must be a difficult problem to approach from a programming POV, though.