Ok, I gather that Wiz doesn't like people complaining about the length of days, but that's not what I'm going to do. I don't have a problem with the duration of days and nights as such, the problem is the synchronicity between game time and real time.
As I understand it, each half-day (12 hours) in game is 3 hours of real time. This divides an even number of times into 24 real hours. Problem being, that if, like probably most players, you log in at roughly the same time every day and play for a couple hours, it is always the same phase of the day in-game. At least for those of us in the U.S. central time zone, this means that we never see the light of day. I rarely get home earlier than about 7:30 pm these days, and by then it's already dark. Daybreak doesn't come again until rather late at night - usually later than I can really afford to stay up and still be functional at work the next morning. I've even tried logging in quickly in the morning to try and get a few things done, but it's night time then, too. And because the cycles are in lock-step with real life, that will never change. Basically the only time I get to see daylight is if I get a chance to log some time on the weekends.
What I would propose is relatively minor adjustment. Instead of 12 hours of game time being 3 hours of real time, have it be 2 hours and 40 minutes (160 minutes). This divides exactly 9 times into a full day (1440 minutes). What this would do is cause the day/night cycle to alternate every other day. So if at 6pm on Monday it is sunset in game, then on 6pm on Tuedsay it would be sunrise instead. There are other odd divisors which would work (3, 5 and 15 to name a few), but that would require significantly extending or reducing the length of an in game day. I hope this would be a pretty good compromise between players who would like to see some variation in the in-game time and the developers, who wish to retain a longer time cycle.
Thoughts?
As I understand it, each half-day (12 hours) in game is 3 hours of real time. This divides an even number of times into 24 real hours. Problem being, that if, like probably most players, you log in at roughly the same time every day and play for a couple hours, it is always the same phase of the day in-game. At least for those of us in the U.S. central time zone, this means that we never see the light of day. I rarely get home earlier than about 7:30 pm these days, and by then it's already dark. Daybreak doesn't come again until rather late at night - usually later than I can really afford to stay up and still be functional at work the next morning. I've even tried logging in quickly in the morning to try and get a few things done, but it's night time then, too. And because the cycles are in lock-step with real life, that will never change. Basically the only time I get to see daylight is if I get a chance to log some time on the weekends.
What I would propose is relatively minor adjustment. Instead of 12 hours of game time being 3 hours of real time, have it be 2 hours and 40 minutes (160 minutes). This divides exactly 9 times into a full day (1440 minutes). What this would do is cause the day/night cycle to alternate every other day. So if at 6pm on Monday it is sunset in game, then on 6pm on Tuedsay it would be sunrise instead. There are other odd divisors which would work (3, 5 and 15 to name a few), but that would require significantly extending or reducing the length of an in game day. I hope this would be a pretty good compromise between players who would like to see some variation in the in-game time and the developers, who wish to retain a longer time cycle.
Thoughts?