[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Why do people like weather in MMORPGs?

[Glen Rosenblatt]

Mike Rozak wrote:

> Do players just want weather for eye candy? Or do the MMORPGs and
> reviewers use nighttime and weather as a checkbox item in order to
> differentiate themselves. (Just like some sound cards have 20-bit
> sound, as opposed to 16-bit sound. Not to be cynical, but the
> noisy power supply in a computer only provides 13-14 bits of sound
> no matter how good your DAC.)

This is a great question.

Above all the factors you list for night-time one of the most
important things is that it visually shows the passage of time which
is very important in a "virtual world".  Some of the games require
this because things can only be accomplished between certain in-game
hours (a special monster/npc spawns, access to the portal, a one
time per day event occurs, etc), and having a day/night cycle is a
great visual indicator about what time it generally might be.  It
also adds to the amount of content they can stuff into a constrained
area.  Having one type of monster only spawn during the day and then
in the same location having a second type of monster, each with
different loot tables, essentially "doubles" the content.  It also
adds to the immersion to know that you shouldn't go into the
"Haunted Forest" when the sun isn't out because Bad Things will
happen.  Last note on this topic, having a torch ala Neverwinter
Nights (their's was the best I saw, other games have implemented
this too) would be great and really add to the realism as well.  But
people would be hard-pressed to put down their Superior Shield of
Slamming with +500 hitpoints to wield a torch just to be able to see
5 feet in front of them.  This is more then likely (in addition to
25 other reasons I can't think of right now) why games stray away
from this.

As far as weather goes I think it's purely eye candy.  Rain will
usually have an effect attached to it that essentially lowers the
farclip making it so you can barely see your hand in front of your
face.  Most players I've talked to seem to absolutely hate this, but
it is an immersion thing.  If you had an amazon rainforest type of
zone, and it never rained, people would complain about that too.
It's a no-win situation.  Snow generally seems to be a little tamer,
until we see some game implement a raging snow storm/blizzard type
of effect, and it makes a zone that has snow on the ground seem that
much more real.  Fog of course is absolutely necessary.  When you go
into some kind of volcanic area if you didn't have some faint red
fog, it just wouldn't seem real at all, same goes for a bubbly swamp
and green/grey fog.

Regards,

Glen Rosenblatt
Gameloft NY (http://www.gameloft.com)
Client/Server Developer
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