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

[Alistair Riddoch]

On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 09:59:59AM +0930, Mike Rozak wrote:
> Michael Hartman wrote:

>> Third, the fact that many games make poor use of day/weather
>> cycles does not mean they are pure fluff. There are indeed games
>> where NPCs are only available at certain times of the day or
>> where certain abilities only work during day or night or when
>> certain weather conditions exist.

> I can think of many ways of using time and weather. At what point
> do players start whinging that it's too realistic? If all the
> shopkeepers are away at night, do players whinge? What if a
> shopkeeper goes out to lunch? Etc. Does anyone have any experience
> with this and/or suggestions?

I built a demo which we ran at an expo for a few days, and had
people playing on our stand in which the vendors would go out to
lunch, and then to the inn for a drink in the evening. The players
and other developers were initially confused and frustrated when
they found that they couldn't rely on being able to find vendors,
which was understandable. However once I explained to them what had
happened, most thought it was very cool and were quite happy to
accept it. Noone seemed to be able to work it out for themselves
however, so I suspect a real player base would remain confused and
frustrated.

Al
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