The Twenty-Minute Hour

[Brokenbone]

I think it's been debunked that the IG clock affects anything other than "hourly" based spells, if talking about magic. I'm not planning to make a list of how many we have, but I have relative certainty that the list would be shorter in NWN2 with its 3.5 rules, than NWN1 with its 3.0 rules. Favourite example would always be the Bull/Cat/Fox/Bear/Owl/Eagle type ability buffs, in NWN1, you're looking at an hour a level vs. in NWN2, a minute a level.

Were we changing the NWN1 clock ratios, lots more commonly used spells would be affected up or down than were we changing NWN2 clock ratios.

Anyhow, since I keep seeing brief mention of people being either pleased or displeased with a perceived advantage to casters in this, remember that it's only a very small fragment of duration based spells that pay any attention at all to the clock.

[Mulu]

It's really the rest cycle that gets affected the most. If you're 2-4 hour session can only be one day IG due to a slower clock, obviously that limits what you can do in that session, as a caster especially.

On the DM tangent, if DM's shouldn't advance time, can they simply force rest for a PC before their clock has run out to simulate the passage of time?

[Zelknolf]

Huzzah for inserting myself into conversations later on:

re: permanight for some players - Why not a 21 minute hour? 2.86 game days/ RL day like that. It'd stagger itself slowly over the course of the week, resetting about every 7 days (but not quite, so there'll be a little staggering for once per week players, too)

re: resting - I'm with Acadius: Is it a difference for the average player? If people do indeed only play a few hours at a time, they're only gettting one usable rest for any given playing session, anyway. Unless we've got people who're spending 8 hours/day playing and counting on having 2-3 rests per playing session (in which case I ask what they're using those spells on. Less-frequent resting seems like it would discourage any grinding and support the [IC] notion of scarcity in spellcasting. That is, after all, why NPC spells cost so much. IC, there're only so many to go around.)

re: hour/lvl and day/lvl spells - BB's on the right track; there are very few hr/lvl spells, especially in the level range ALFA usually plays in, and those spells aren't very powerful. Mage armor? +4 AC lasting a whole session? La de da; it's the difference between 12 AC and 16 AC. That's still easy pickings for anything CR 2+. Undetectable alignment? Sounds like it'd encourage a diversity of characters, 'cuz it'd be harder to bust out the detect alignment stuffs. Protection from Elements? How often does that spell wear off by duration instead of dispelling or mining currently (let's be honest. People use it expecting it to get mined.)

[Keryn]

I think you keep forgetting many folks don't play once a day... Some go IG 1/2 hours logg to go to work and like to play some late night, as it is folks are able to enjoy sometime IG, and due to the lack of DMs get into some adventure with other PCs. If we step towards the 20/21 mins hour, and looking at Zelks words why not make it last even more? Because if we extend the hour IG theres no reason to keep it shorter if the goal is allow a more real feeling of time I guess it would be a benefit to have it lasting even longer say 31mins?

Though I stand by my original view of about this people get IG to enjoy the game and have some fun, theres so much things to consider already I think this wouldn't make things better really.

[Ithildur]

Not sure where we're at with this, but I too have been noticing with some dismay that time does seem to fly by faster than expected. We're not as bad as some servers I've played on where you literally said good morning to someone and by the time you finish the conversation the sun is setting, but it's still fairly fast. Aurum can attest to both of us being surprised when my PC cast a Light spell to help an NPC finish his task in the dark, and it evaporated before he could even get anything done; granted his caster lvl was 1 so it'd last an hour, but it was funny telling him he's got an hour to finish up his task which *sounds* like enough time to gather up some smooth stones by the river, but in fact 7 minutes doesn't give you a lot of room to work with... by the time a few paragraphs are typed out, *poof* it's gone. It discourages interesting dialog and rushes people into spitting out one sentence or even one word grunt replies, and in moments where thoughtful dialog with an NPC might mean the difference between life and death, if you have any protective hour duration spells you may as well not bother casting them because they'll be gone short of near epic lvls. If you are trying to do something tricky like discuss terms with an NPC you know can use mind influencing magic, it's a lost cause because that protection from evil spell will be gone before you're done talking.

The irony is that using dialog to 'buy time' actually works in reverse effectively - you talk to try to buy time/plan/coordinate, you end up at a disadvantage. Faster time favors a 'shoot first, ask questions later' approach to the game.

[dob85y]

The only trouble with this (and i actually like the idea) it that the distances between places will be compressed. Right now, walking form Rivermoot to Silvy takes around 4 IG hours, which translate into roughtly 12 miles. If we make the IG hour longer, then you would be travelling less than an IG hour, and as such reducing the distance between Silvy and Rivermoot to less than 4 miles.

If this problem could be overcome, perhaps by reducing everythings movment rate by a set pecentage or introducing an overland map and adding distance between stops, maybe it could work.

[Kest]

The only trouble with this (and i actually like the idea) it that the distances between places will be compressed. Right now, walking form Rivermoot to Silvy takes around 4 IG hours, which translate into roughtly 12 miles. If we make the IG hour longer, then you would be travelling less than an IG hour, and as such reducing the distance between Silvy and Rivermoot to less than 4 miles.

If this problem could be overcome, perhaps by reducing everythings movment rate by a set pecentage or introducing an overland map and adding distance between stops, maybe it could work.

Distance is abstract anyways - the distance between RM and Silverymoon is not twelve miles. And yeah, replacing the travel areas with an overland map and places of interest would add to that.

PS. There is an item property for miscellaneous items - i think column 15 or 16 - called Special Walk that forces the PC to walk.

[HEEGZ]

Just so everyone knows... this has been discussed ad nauseum for years and years. It is unlikely to change.

[AcadiusLost]

Quite unlike many of the Brainstorming expeditions we undertake, this one is actually technically quite a simple one. It's true that ALFA has kept to the 7-minute game hour for many years, and opinions are divided over whether a longer one would be an improvement or not, I'd certainly support a change if there were a consensus on a new figure for the hour length. It's also something that could be easily reversed if there was a groundswell of dissatisfaction with it. We're already used to treating the passage of time as somewhat abstract, after all.

If the stance from the DMA seat is that this can of worms isn't worth opening at this time, that's fine too. Though we've kept it all along, I'd say the seven-minute hour isn't really Pillars of ALFA material.

[HEEGZ]

If it is really that simple, and you don't mind making a temporary change to the ACR... I am open to doing a 1 month trial on our Live servers, as long as it is clear that it is a trial only, and that we are likely to stick to the 7 minute hour. We can do a poll afterward to gauge support for the change. If it is overwhelmingly positive then we can leave them at 20 minute hours.

So... is this something we want to try out? Should we test it on WHL instead? I've been happy with things the way they are, but if the change is simple enough then I don't mind. Shall we take a poll before doing this? Let's figure out the details now, so we know exactly what is going to take place (if anything).

[Creslyn]

If this is going to be seriously considered, then you need to look at removing day/night cycles for shops/quests/etc. Waiting for extended periods of time for the shop to open/npc to turn up/etc already happens now and then, and tripling the time dilation is going to affect this even further. Now, if you've got all day to play this isn't a problem, but for those of us with extremely limited time to play it's a real issue.

[Ithildur]

I'd suggest a compromise, perhaps 14 minutes rather than 20m/hour- triple does seem a bit much, though it seemed like someone did some math and arrived at 20 minutes as a prefered option for some reason?

As far as shops and such, it's somewhat relative, especially if it's 14 minutes say vs 20 minutes. Personally I really don't see that much difference between having to wait an hour RL for a shop to open vs two hours; either way it's an inconvenience (which I support) and a better idea to log off and come back later or to go do something else with the pc and come back. With slower time though, it will also be easier to manage time and get things done that you need to do during an x window of time.

Or, perhaps rather than completely removing the store hours, extend the hours they're open by a few hours. They do have candles, lamps, torches, and light spells in Faerun; not everyone would have to close their doors at sundown.

[Kest]

I'd suggest a compromise, perhaps 14 minutes rather than 20m/hour- triple does seem a bit much, though it seemed like someone did some math and arrived at 20 minutes as a preferred option for some reason?

It fits evenly with real time, so you can actually plan or schedule for in game time - time becomes dependable, reliable, and easy to keep track of when you don't want it to be abstract. Three in-game days for every real-life day. (You can always opt to ignore this, but sometimes you don't want to and the current system basically forces you to.)

Also, twenty minutes should be short enough to prevent players from becoming stuck in only day/night. If twenty turns out to be too long, fifteen would also provide the same benefits.

Or, perhaps rather than completely removing the store hours, extend the hours they're open by a few hours. They do have candles, lamps, torches, and light spells in Faerun; not everyone would have to close their doors at sundown.

Sounds smart.

[Rotku]

I'd suggest a compromise, perhaps 14 minutes rather than 20m/hour- triple does seem a bit much, though it seemed like someone did some math and arrived at 20 minutes as a preferred option for some reason?

It fits evenly with real time, so you can actually plan or schedule for in game time - time becomes dependable, reliable, and easy to keep track of when you don't want it to be abstract. Three in-game days for every real-life day. (You can always opt to ignore this, but sometimes you don't want to and the current system basically forces you to.)

Also, twenty minutes should be short enough to prevent players from becoming stuck in only day/night. If twenty turns out to be too long, fifteen would also provide the same benefits.

Eh? You sure you've done your what-ever-the-word is right? If there's three IG days in one RL day, that means each day is 8 RL hours. So surely if I play every day for 4 hours, starting at the same time each day, I would be living eternally in the darkness?

It's not a matter of 20 minutes been too long, it's more the fact that it slots so neatly into our RL time.

If it is 14, that comes to 5.6 hours, which does add a bit of change to things. Means the day/night cycle won't always be the same. Even your 15 minute suggestion sounds an improvement over 20 minutes - 15 comes to 6.25 hours per day, so just under 4 IG days per RL day.

[edit]Reading back over the old posts, looks like someone's said this before me:

One problem with 8 RL hour game-days, is that they divide evenly by our 24-hour days, meaning that if you always get home to play at say, 7 PM, and that's midnight server-time...

It also means tomorrow, when you get home from work to log in at 7 PM, it's again going to be midnight on-server... just 3 game-days later. You might only see daytime on-server at the weekends, at best.

Choosing something slightly less or more might help mix it up a bit for variety's sake, especially important for any servers that are considerably more dangerous by night by canon (I'd expect this to me most servers?).

Anyway, I've got no problems with giving this a trail run, if it's easy enough to change. Just make it very clear that it is a trail run, and may very well be changed again.

[Kest]

Eh? You sure you've done your what-ever-the-word is right? If there's three IG days in one RL day, that means each day is 8 RL hours.

Look, are people not reading the first post or what. It's not like this thread is long.

It's not a matter of 20 minutes been too long, it's more the fact that it slots so neatly into our RL time.

What everyone else calls a hindrance seems to me an advantage. Ignore that part, then, fourteen might work out too.