Considerations for Day/Night cycle

[Blazur]

Personally I'd like to see the day/night cycle implemented in the game. It adds some variety to the visuals and shakes up the experience. Plus we've seen videos of units projecting headlights and it looks simply stunning. Provided this doesn't give certain colors an advantage at night this could be an interesting change to the franchise, and this could be accomplished by not casting shadows over units so their colors are still distinct amidst the darkened terrain.

How I'd like to see this work is like so:

- When creating a game, you have the option of disabling this effect altogether.
- If you want this enabled, then it can work in one of two ways:

1) Day/night cycle: The game always starts off in daylight, and slowly progresses into night.
2) Random: Every time you start the game it begins at a random period of the day.
3) Synced: The game maintains an internal clock of the time at Blizzard headquarters (PST) at a reduced interval. So let's say that every 5 hours translates to one day in SC2. So in a 5-hour game you see the sun go up and down fully. Again, this is being synchronized to the Blizzard time so everybody playing the game with this option will see the same period of time in the universe. The reason why it's an odd number is so that the timeframe gets skewed over time (5 -> 4.8 hours). So for people who play everyday at 6 when they get home from work its not always the same time in SC2, and gets slightly randomized over time.

The important thing about the day/night cycle is to make it subtle enough to not distract players and yet still provide some visual appeal. Gameplay should not be altered in any fashion.

What are people takes on including day/night in multiplayer?

[Triceron]

Awesome for singleplayaer, neat for multiplayer, but overall unneeded.

I think it's a distraction for multiplay. It's on par with weather effects, which I hope to see in multiplay as a toggle option.

Time cycle doesn't have any influence over gameplay, and it may be confusing for a player who does not expect the lighting to change during the course of a game. Some units may look different during the day than during the night, and such changes might be the difference between spotting a burrowed unit on the ground in broad daylight, and walking into a trap that you overlooked at night.

Again, I think it would be nice as an option, but I sort of think it doesn't fly for SC2. Warcraft 3 actually incorporated this into their gameplay and made it purposeful. I'm not sure SC2 even planned to have time of day in mind, therefore there may be many elements that just don't work.

[SpiderBrigade]

This is pretty pointless for multiplayer, especially if you use your "synced time" idea. 5-hour games? Are you serious?

The other point is that for generic multiplayer games the day/night changes will either be too dramatic, and have negative effects on gameplay, or they will be too subtle to really be worth it. There's probably some small window in the middle between these extremes but I don't think it adds enough to the game to spend time finding that window.

However, day-night dynamics should definitely be in single-player. Maps that have time-based effects would be awesome - for instance imagine the Zerg mission True Colors, only you have to do your initial strike before the sun rises. Alternately some maps could have a very rapid day/night cycle with certain goals only available during one or the other (for instance assaulting a Terran base at night when their tanks would have reduced sight range). For custom scenarios like that, the gameplay effects could be carefully tweaked to make the mission more fun.

I also think that individual multiplayer maps might have variable day/night settings: not that the time of day would change, but that you could set it while designing the mission. I'm pretty sure that at least the ability to change the "sun" angle is already in the game.

[mr. peasant]

Time cycle doesn't have any influence over gameplay, and it may be confusing for a player who does not expect the lighting to change during the course of a game. Some units may look different during the day than during the night, and such changes might be the difference between spotting a burrowed unit on the ground in broad daylight, and walking into a trap that you overlooked at night.

It wouldn't be confusing for people if the day/night cycle was included right from the beginning since it would've always been there for people. Now, if Blizzard suddenly decided to add it in a patch, then perhaps it might throw some people off. But again, they'd get used to it pretty quick.

Regarding it not being necessary, the same could be said for a lot of things; such as multiple attack animations (we know melee units definitely have more than one), 3D graphics along with a whole host of other features. But those are added since they look 'pretty'. Same goes for day/night cycle if they add it.

Finally, if people can't adapt to the change in lighting or are distracted by it, which I might add is a situation that also affects the opponents, then they really deserve to lose, no?

[DemolitionSquid]

I do not support a day/night cycle in melee. For campaign and as an option in UMS, absolutely.

But not for melee.

- can be distracting
- can cause random errors (ex. didn't see or select a unit because the screen got too dark)
- can be misinterpreted as being important to unit stats, especially after WC3
- if it is important, can cause severe balance issues

[mr. peasant]

- can be distracting

If a person is that easily distracted by a change in lighting, wouldn't there be a whole host of other effects that can cause problems?

- can cause random errors (ex. didn't see or select a unit because the screen got too dark)

It depends how much darker night is compared to day. In WC3, I personally didn't experience that issue (not selecting a unit because it got too dark). Besides, you must remember; if you can't see as clearly, neither can the opponent.

- can be misinterpreted as being important to unit stats, especially after WC3

If it was included from the start with no stat importance, I don't see why players would misinterpret it. At the most, such a misconception would last a day or two.

- if it is important, can cause severe balance issues

Agree with you on this.

Alternatively, rather than a day/night cycle, what about a fixed day/night period for a game?

[Triceron]

It hasn't been considered from the beginning though, that's my point. If it had, we wouldn't be talking about it now after the fact, we would already know that they had.

Singleplayer is a completely different story, they could have considered it for singleplayer and revolved all matters around that, but unless they also considered this for multiplayer, in which I do not believe they said they had, a host of issues need to be addressed.

Day/Night lighting change is a global effect, and if it does prove to be distracting and does factor into a win/loss scenario, then Starcraft no longer becomes a game of Chess. A random factor is not appreciated in Starcraft, whereas it was acceptable in Warcraft due to the nature of the games. In Warcraft, overall strategy was based on large army battles with a Hero soaking up EXP off dead enemies. In Starcraft, ambushes can and will happen anywhere at any time, meaning knowledge of terrain is much more crucial.

[mr. peasant]

When I say from the beginning, I mean from when the game is released. If there's a day/night cycle present during initial release, players wouldn't know any different.

Also, a day/night cycle wouldn't be random but more likely at fixed intervals. Therefore, what it does is require players to develop additional skills, including better 'night vision' and keeping track of time.

[Blazur]

I think they can successfully pull off a day/night cycle without obstruction vision too much. It would have to be a very subtle change in lighting, and the only major difference would be a reduction in shadows and overall brightness in exchange for the addition of headlights on some units/buildings.

Last we heard is it'll definitely be considered for single player and they're leaning towards no inclusion in multiplayer. So the mechanics exists as far as we know.

[mr. peasant]

Precisely. Therefore, I think what Blizzard should do is add it to multiplayer for beta and see what feedback they get for it.