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Lets talk seasons
Veeshan
Member
So we know seasons are gonna effect game play/resources/events and i wanted to know what do you guys think the ideal ingame year length (So all 4 seasons) in Real time, i feel currently its too short which has problems players who cant log in often will be seeing a new season every time they log in, resources that are season bases never in real demand cause by the time stock gets low that season you find them in is already back, i think you benefit better with longer seasons to allow people to stockpile spring resources to sell at a higher rate when there harder to come by such a winter
I feel the sweet spot is either 2 Months or 4 months fur an ingame year, this way there long enough for off resources to get used up and become scarce aswell as season based events/mobs to be played and long enough to feel the season are wizzing by for casuals. It also allows you to line up seasons so RL Christmas time always fall in a winter season which most people recognise as the christmas season (not me though im summer for me haha)
Here a poll if you wanna vote or you can comment below on what you think about the current season length of 1 week
https://strawpoll.com/polls/Dwyoqv5kLgA
I feel the sweet spot is either 2 Months or 4 months fur an ingame year, this way there long enough for off resources to get used up and become scarce aswell as season based events/mobs to be played and long enough to feel the season are wizzing by for casuals. It also allows you to line up seasons so RL Christmas time always fall in a winter season which most people recognise as the christmas season (not me though im summer for me haha)
Here a poll if you wanna vote or you can comment below on what you think about the current season length of 1 week
https://strawpoll.com/polls/Dwyoqv5kLgA
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Comments
The key thing to remember is the possibility of crafting components that may only be available in one given season. If this is the case, having 3 weeks where they are unable to be gathered is already a stretch. Extending that up to 6 weeks where they can't be gathered (or 12 weeks in your suggestion above) would necessitate those components be completely restricted to seasonal applications.
If there is a 3 week period in which they are unavailable, that is able to be worked around even for crafted items that players consider essential to have.
As to your point about some players that log in to the game infrequently having a different season each time they log in - keep in mind that the game is not designed with such players in mind and so they really don't need to be considered in such discussions.
I think having resources be only available for 2 weeks out of 8 is actually a great way to make the economy dynamic. As long as there are sufficient, inferior substitute goods as well, it's not as if the whole server is suffering from a lack of that good. You have to remember as well, that the goods will be held by speculators who think they can make a profit from buying those resources to sell during a season they're not gatherable. And lastly, the game is basing the gathering / crafting off of Star Wars Galaxies, a game in which you may never see the same resource with a particular quality spawn again. Ever.
Where has this ever been stated? "The game isn't for everyone", but that doesn't mean the game is designed to have no place for casuals. All Steven means by the quote I believe you're thinking of, is they're not catering to casuals who want to change the core game design or trying to copy WoW.
The game is very clearly not designed for this type of player.
While it is possible there could be more, Steven has talked about all four seasons in the past, and has made no mention of the possibility of any additional seasons.
It wouldn't be all that unique to have more than 4 seasons though - some EQ calendars (there were many in the original game) had as many as 16 seasons. I wrote a fairly detailed post about this back on the EQN forums when the developers asked how long an in game day should be (I gave them the "correct" answer down to the second).
Right on. Seasons are entirely arbitrary anyway - why not have 6?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
I know a lot of people who work seven days straight and then have seven days off. While working 12 hour days they won’t have time to play what so ever. These players despite being a minority would only ever see two seasons a rotation for ever.
I think bi-weekly seasonal change is def the way to go.
RL seasons are more or less combinations of hot/cold + wet/dry + wind direction climate cycles, it's the way it is becoz ... it is the way Earth is.
So on Verra may be we could have some otherworldly climate cycle factors that also contribute to these combinations, e.g. seasonal variations in strength (or element, alignment, whatever) of ambient magic, creating some unique seasons like warm + humid (supposedly spring) but with a gusting flow of death magic through the area, resulting in a "spring of death" or something ...
Yeah, assuming the game has more than four seasons, I am a fan of this.
The multi-month calendar from EQ that I talked about above (I was mistaken, it has 12 seasons, not 16) has a period where volcanic activity is more pronounced. Sadly, this has not been represented in any EQ game to date.
Doing it this way too can tie in some overlapping with some real world holidays/festivals as well as leave room for in-game events holidays in-case the developers wanted to do anything with that kind of stuff. Additionally to this, we dont really know the geography of the world of Verra.
Spring = January - May - September
Summer = February - June - October
Autumn = March - July - November
Winter = April - August - December
Obviously not all months have the same amount of days so there could be some over lap in that sense.
Having a season each month encourages trade between biomes/zones during off growth/harvest seasons. Gives players something to do and look forward to with planning for upcoming seasons.
To me, this is the most obvious solution to it but that said, judging by the gradual change of weather presented lately, it could easily show it the transitions smoothly over a day to a week.
what an interesting rebuttal.. LOL