Day and night cycle

Alpha-2 day/night cycle.

Day and night cycles in Ashes of Creation are actually over the course of a few hours. – Steven Sharif

There is a day/night cycle in Ashes of Creation.

• Day and night cycles occur over the course of a few hours.
  • Fifteen IRL minutes may equate to one hour in game time but this is subject to change.
  • Sunrise and sunset will last approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
  • Day and night cycle tied to server time will be tested in Alpha-2.

The day night cycle is tied to server time, yes. So there is a number of hours that exist between each of the cycles. That's something that we'll be fine-tuning of course during Alpha 2 as well, but it is intended for players to interact with certain systems even based on in-game time as well. – Steven Sharif

• The developers requested feedback on the intensity of illumination and darkness that will be present in Alpha-2.
  • Based on feedback the developers increased the nighttime darkness.

• Some resources are only gatherable at specific times of the day or night.

• NPCs and mobs may be awake or have varying behaviors at different times of the day. This might also influence abilities and/or buff/debuff vulnerabilities.
  • Different monsters will spawn at different times.
  • Different emissive effects may be more prevalent on night creatures.

Certain creatures will react differently. Certain spawns react differently during night times and different day/night cycles. Those might also influence things like abilities and/or buff/debuff vulnerabilities. You'll have to find out based on the type of creature you're experiencing. – Steven Sharif

• Constellations and moons rotate and change throughout the night.

Constellations

Dawnbreaker constellation in Alpha-2.

Constellations and Ashes of Creation actually have a very relevant purpose across a whole host of different game systems, including on the narrative side, on mechanics like acquiring certain types of relics for your node, on empowering certain abilities and/or items that you have access to; and it is of course relevant that I am playing as a Vek. Vek as many of you may know do worship and obviously study the stars. – Steven Sharif

The Great San'dal constellation in Alpha-2.

I believe the ancient scholars of the Vek refer to it as the Great San'dal. – Steven Sharif</blockquote

There are constellations and multiple moons in the night sky of Verra.

• Constellations and moons rotate and change throughout the night.

Constellations, as you could see with the sky, some of those moons being in different positions. They do rotate and change throughout the night. That is the intent for them; and of course they have wide application across a number of systems that are relevant, including story and narrative and the acquisition of certain types of things in the game. – Steven Sharif

• Constellations may only be seen at certain times at specific locations.

The Constellation system is another predicate system. And when I say it's a predicate system, it means that certain conditions will yield certain constellations being available to pursue, discover and achieve. And they span the realm of interfacing across adventuring level, artisanship, node, relics, policies. There's a lot of different things that constellations can touch because at its essence, it is a predicate system. Now, once players have achieved identifying a certain location that yields a constellation, and they've checked off that box, okay, I have achieved this thing, it can serve its purpose for kicking off a new storyline for that individual, kicking off a new storyline for that individual's micro communities or pseudo factions, if necessary. It can serve as a broader kickoff: One person's discovers it, three, four or 500 people get to participate now in it. That's an opportunity. It can yield the location of an achievable world relic that can be brought back home to a particular node. There's a lot of different things that are possible in order to see the constellation and to actually achieve that. It could be just as simple as looking at your character's viewport into the night sky at a certain location at a certain time. It could be far more in-depth, which is killing a certain raid boss for a particular number of times until it drops a particular item that yields a map that sends you to a location that sends- there's a lot of different layers that can get added on how do we manifest a particular constellation. The intent here is to provide an immersive system that keeps the player in the world and allows their in-world movement and interactions and immersiveness to yield a result that's unique; and that, I think, is a fun and compelling interaction, especially as it relates to adventuring. – Steven Sharif

Constellations are relevant across many different game systems in Ashes of Creation.

• Narrative.
• Acquiring relics for nodes.
• Empowering certain abilities or items.
• A subject of study and worship by the Vek.
• Exploration.

Darkness

Alpha-2 Winstead node at night.

You guys will probably notice that the nighttime is significantly darker than when you guys last saw our nighttime update. We saw feedback from the community that bringing in the field of vision through the lighting in the environment was something you guys wanted to see; and that's what we have adjusted a bit. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 Darkness in the Sandsquall Desert.

The fun is for me, and I know Chris will probably agree, is finding that balance of making it feel the inherent feeling of how we understand night and how we enjoy playing games, because nobody wants to play in complete darkness. So, yeah it was a lot of balancing on that end. – Gabriel Ford

Darkness as an environmental obstacle is being considered as part of the game mechanics.

• The developers are requesting feedback on the intensity of illumination and darkness that will be present in Alpha-2.

In more survival oriented games you're expected to have really dark night times because you utilize instruments like torches and lights that can be present, but when you think about an MMORPG and you think about the types of player numbers and player count you're expected to have in certain locations and dungeons, you need to be able to accommodate those types of visibility lines and those mechanics around that large multiplayer environment. So when you guys are giving feedback think about whether or not you want the outside night time to really be very dark, or if you want that to be reserved for specific locations in game, like certain dungeons and towers where we can utilize mechanics like different types of lighting mechanisms in order to facilitate that more dark feel. – Steven Sharif

Seasonal variations

Timeless Terrapin seasonal variations.

Mounts being one of those things that you own will interact with the seasons and the time of day. – Steven Sharif

We're just using this example, but we could use this type of tech for a lot of things not just mounts. – Margaret Krohn

Kirin seasonal variations 3D renders.

Seasonal variations or time of day may affect certain objects in the world, such as mobs and mounts.

• Different creatures will spawn based on the season.

This alcove might now have a bunch of new types of monsters that are AoE focused and you might want to bring your AoE team there during winter because you can get that spot in this hunting ground; and you can pull really easily all the creatures into that little spot. But in summer maybe that population isn't as close and it's no longer a viable hunting ground. – Steven Sharif

• Mobs and Mounts of a certain rarity are visually affected by seasonal and time-of-day changes.

Mounts will have rarities and those rarities will be, I think, respective not only of their skill selection that they were either bred with or acquired with, but also as it scales in rarity you're going to see effects like these come online: The ability for that mount to represent. But as Margaret said, this is not just on the mount front, this is something that I think allows us to integrate both the visual component of an environment that you see but also incorporate effects as part of that environment and that change accordingly to other things that are going on in the world. – Steven Sharif

• Different seasons may unmask different types of vegetation.

• It is unlikely that seasonal variations will affect player armor.

Visuals

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See also

• Environments
• Constellations
• Seasons