Seasonal Cycles

[NCLynx]

A conversation spawned in IRC on the topic of seasonal changes in PS2.

I would love to see something like the continents going through a season change maybe once every 2 weeks (that timeframe is just an example).

Any additional thoughts? Changes? Just a quick idea, so elaborate more on this?

[Stardouser]

If we ever had naval ocean combat, water near poles could freeze(or even if we didn't have naval combat), snow on any continent in winter, etc.

[Kwintus5]

It would be cool if things realy happen like:

Spring: Flowers spawning, the sun getting higher, trees growing leaves, bits of rain, mist.
Summer: Fully leaved trees, sun much higher, drying out of rivers, heavy rainfall with thunder from time to time.
Fall: Falling leaves blowing around, getting colder, visible breathing of soldiers, heavier rain with hailstorms and such.

And who knows what else! Could be very cool.
Winter: snow! snow stacking and such, soldiers leaving footprints for a while, snow that realy has volume so it blows inside buildings when doors open, etc.

[Rocknoise]

Sorry to correct u Stardouser ... Due to the continents are no continents anymore after Auraxis broke apart, those are seperate planets or fragments of it. So every "continent" could have its own cycles. Its not earth, so imagination is free.

My ideas would be a planet with acid rainseasons ... showers of light acid wich hurt u a little bit outside of vehicles and buildings.
Or what about radar jamming fog. Would push ppl into shortrange fights ... so could the weather be a factor of your weapons choice.

Any more ideas?

[MooK]

If we ever had naval ocean combat, water near poles could freeze(or even if we didn't have naval combat), snow on any continent in winter, etc.

Would need dedicated ice breakers. Woo!

Also, pretty sure each CONTINENT is supposed to have its own season. Sort of.

[Ailos]

I think this would be a cool addition - but we would need more continents for that, so probably something to add later on in the game. I just can't envision the three launch continents encompassing enough space on a planet to really have "seasons". But you could still have climate cycles, just not the full 4 seasons that we're used to.

For instance, Amerish could have periods of prolonged rain/fog that makes sneaking around in air easy,

OR Indar could have periods of prolonged sandstorms, so much so that only the most hardcore outfits would decide to assault a base that's inside a storm so bad you can't see. Imagine that conversation in high command "Let's go attack Kusak!" "Fuck that shit, it's all under sand." "Well, let's hope everyone's circumcised."

I feel like that'd probably be easier to implement, too.

Sorry to correct u Stardouser ... Due to the continents are no continents anymore after Auraxis broke apart, those are seperate planets or fragments of it. So every "continent" could have its own cycles. Its not earth, so imagination is free.

My ideas would be a planet with acid rainseasons ... showers of light acid wich hurt u a little bit outside of vehicles and buildings.
Or what about radar jamming fog. Would push ppl into shortrange fights ... so could the weather be a factor of your weapons choice.

Any more ideas?

That was after the bending in PS1. We're back to one Auraxis now.

[EVILPIG]

Sorry to correct u Stardouser ... Due to the continents are no continents anymore after Auraxis broke apart, those are seperate planets or fragments of it. So every "continent" could have its own cycles. Its not earth, so imagination is free.

My ideas would be a planet with acid rainseasons ... showers of light acid wich hurt u a little bit outside of vehicles and buildings.
Or what about radar jamming fog. Would push ppl into shortrange fights ... so could the weather be a factor of your weapons choice.

Any more ideas?

Planetside 2 is the original timeline before The Bending, so Auraxis is a single planet. Though what he is asking for is not possible due to the world not being seemless. Either way, I hope we never see naval units.

[NCLynx]

Naval units was just an example Stardouser used for how different weather/seasons would affect things. This is NOT a thread specifically about Naval units, do no turn it into one.

[basti]

Planetside 2 is the original storyline before The Bending, so Auraxis is a single planet. Though what he is asking for is not possible due to the world not being seemless. Either way, I hope we never see naval units.

And even that is no really correct.

Planetside 2 is a reimagination of both the original game and its gameplay, as well as the story.

In planetside, the TR was a millitaristic dictatorship that shot everybode who opposed them. They owned multiple worlds, and spread quite a bit over the Galaxy. They did that using wormholes that appeared randomly. They stabilized them and checked whats on the other side. Auraxis really was just another Planet for them.
The reason why they never went with full force to beat the crap out of NC and VS is for two reasons: 1. Nobody ever left auraxis. Getting there was a one way ticked, you were not allowed to get back (to avoid information like respawning, the existance of VS and NC, Alien live etc to spread across TR territory) and 2. they used Auraxis as a testing field, to test new vehicles for example (the original TR provied the blueprints for BFRs to all 3 factions).

Fact is, everything that happend during the Auraxian war, and before, never happend at all in Planetside 2. The Story is very very different.


Anyway, topic: Sounds interresting, but the effect on gameplay would be rather heavy. Not to mention all the nessesary work to implement this...

[EVILPIG]

Naval units was just an example Stardouser used for how different weather/seasons would affect things. This is NOT a thread specifically about Naval units, do no turn it into one.

I didn't speak specifically to naval units, I just added my comment to them. But thank you, you seem to feel that my opinion of them would overtake this thread. Carry on about Seasonal Cycles.

[EVILPIG]

And even that is no really correct.

Planetside 2 is a reimagination of both the original game and its gameplay, as well as the story.

In planetside, the TR was a millitaristic dictatorship that shot everybode who opposed them. They owned multiple worlds, and spread quite a bit over the Galaxy. They did that using wormholes that appeared randomly. They stabilized them and checked whats on the other side. Auraxis really was just another Planet for them.
The reason why they never went with full force to beat the crap out of NC and VS is for two reasons: 1. Nobody ever left auraxis. Getting there was a one way ticked, you were not allowed to get back (to avoid information like respawning, the existance of VS and NC, Alien live etc to spread across TR territory) and 2. they used Auraxis as a testing field, to test new vehicles for example (the original TR provied the blueprints for BFRs to all 3 factions).

Fact is, everything that happend during the Auraxian war, and before, never happend at all in Planetside 2. The Story is very very different.


Anyway, topic: Sounds interresting, but the effect on gameplay would be rather heavy. Not to mention all the nessesary work to implement this...

Fixed my typo. Work can be distracting.

[NCLynx]

I didn't speak specifically to naval units, I just added my comment to them. But thank you, you seem to feel that my opinion of them would overtake this thread. Carry on about Seasonal Cycles.

:D Probably was a bit on the harsh side with my post, but yes there are several threads about Naval Warfare that it can be discussed in. Where it should be.

On Topic:

(Still using my example of the season changes once every 2 weeks)

Imagine driving your tank near the end of the fall season, it still handles well more or less perfect. As the season change to winter starts at the beginning of the its allotted 2 week slot, snow starts and by the end of the first week there's even a chance of full blown blizzards. Tanks that when being driven slide in the direction they were going if you break to abruptly, things like that. By the end of that second week you see less and less snow until finally you don't see anymore but instead see the beginning of a more spring time zone. Rinse, repeat (with all 4 seasons of course).

(Of course I wouldn't want it to be a 100% chance of blizzards at all times during the peak of winter because lack of visibility would piss people off to no end)

[Lonehunter]

I would love seasons, it would take quite a lot of work though. Plus you have to balance seasonal weather with different terrain types. Does the desert continent have any changes during winter? Does the Icy Esamir? Having every continent completely covered with snow is a good example of how it could go wrong, there still has to be variety.

[Xaine]

Sounds good. :)

I'd rather they work on slightly more... practical stuff first though?

I'm sure you all feel the same anyway, but we all love a bit of immersion.

[NCLynx]

I would love seasons, it would take quite a lot of work though. Plus you have to balance seasonal weather with different terrain types. Does the desert continent have any changes during winter? Does the Icy Esamir? Having every continent completely covered with snow is a good example of how it could go wrong, there still has to be variety.

Yea, it'd be somewhat different depening on the continent. I assume Esamir would always be mostly cold-esque but maybe during its winter time period it gets ultra snowy.

Another thing to think about is longer nights during winter times and longer days during the summer times.

[Brusi]

I agree, does sound like a lot of work...

I think external effects, like eclipses or movements of close planets and moons across the sky that might change affect the lighting would be really nice too and possibly easier to implement than deciduous trees and variable seasonal flora/snow cover.

Another cool concept... related to the OP's original idea of seasonal changes and very vaguely related to destructible terrain, would be to have an area that has been fought over for extended periods of time, change slightly to display the difficulty for anything to grow in the quagmire of mud and bullet casings. With perhaps a permanent haze of gunsmoke in the air.

If the pop eases up in that area for a while, the haze clears, the grass and flowers start to return.

This may all be too hard to implement, I’m not going to judge the dev teams capabilities until beta, but in the end... yeah... I want it all! :)

[Sledgecrushr]

I would love to see all the seasons, but really just having some weather effects would be really nice. Rain in the tropics or snow on the cold continent. If they can manage to flush out four seasons on the entire game world these guys and gals would go down as the best game developers in history.

[cellinaire]

Color of leaves.

New flowers.
Frequency of rain or other fancy ideas that can only happen in Auraxis.
(I'm mainly talking about the flora here ^_^ the rest, well, you guys know better than me)

[Noivad]

I would like the 4 seasons, It would make the game more realistic. Since there will be only two maps at first , one map could be spring and Summer and one map fall and winter. That could then be divided into four maps each with their own season. Added islands and and area along the equator, and you could have every enviroment like on earth. Makes the maps so they encompass the different enviroments. If there were two hemispheres of a planet, with 4 continents, 2 each hemisphere, plus 2 caps, north and south you could have it all. :evil:

[PantherModern]

I like the idea of having varied weather, since attacks could be planned during a storm when the enemy won't have clear vision, etc. I'm happy with a day-night cycle and some weather; full seasons seem a bit overboard, though.

[Hypevosa]

absolutely love the idea of seasons and what they can bring to the table in terms of tactics.

[Lokster]

Seasons are cool in theory. I'd much rather have seasons in the sense that on "snow" continents, snow storms occur more in the winter than in summer. And on "forest" continents, there is more rain in spring and winter than summer -- a snow storm would have to be an absolute rarity.

The vegetation density idea does some pretty cool though (ie. in summer bloomed flowers, fully leaved trees, etc -- compared to the opposite in winter).

Who knows what this brand new engine is capable of. One would assume a new engine has new ways to process and manipulate weather.

[The Kush]

they talked somewhere about sandstorms so I wouldnt see a snowstorm or creating the physics for ice would be that hard, maybe a future patch though

[Canaris]

And even that is no really correct.

Planetside 2 is a reimagination of both the original game and its gameplay, as well as the story.

In planetside, the TR was a millitaristic dictatorship that shot everybode who opposed them. They owned multiple worlds, and spread quite a bit over the Galaxy. They did that using wormholes that appeared randomly. They stabilized them and checked whats on the other side. Auraxis really was just another Planet for them.
The reason why they never went with full force to beat the crap out of NC and VS is for two reasons: 1. Nobody ever left auraxis. Getting there was a one way ticked, you were not allowed to get back (to avoid information like respawning, the existance of VS and NC, Alien live etc to spread across TR territory) and 2. they used Auraxis as a testing field, to test new vehicles for example (the original TR provied the blueprints for BFRs to all 3 factions).

Fact is, everything that happend during the Auraxian war, and before, never happend at all in Planetside 2. The Story is very very different.


Anyway, topic: Sounds interresting, but the effect on gameplay would be rather heavy. Not to mention all the nessesary work to implement this...

The real history of PS1 ended the day before Core Combat, after that it's just psuedo history, nothing but hearsay, loopholes, conjecture and bad writing ;)

As to the topic at hand, I like the idea for seasons but I think we can make do with having weather effects in game, like storms from the original Planetside.

[ItsTheSheppy]

Not sure how this would work. Every environment I've seen yet looks like it's from someplace in Arizona.

[headcrab13]

Seasons are cool in theory. I'd much rather have seasons in the sense that on "snow" continents, snow storms occur more in the winter than in summer. And on "forest" continents, there is more rain in spring and winter than summer -- a snow storm would have to be an absolute rarity.

I agree completely. I do like the idea of changing seasons in something like a singleplayer game, but for Planetside I'd much rather experience all the climates on a daily basis. It's awesome rolling in a tank column when suddenly a sandstorm kicks up and drops your visibility to zero, or seeing lighting in the distance on Forseral and suddenly you're shooting it out with an enemy empire in the pounding rain.

I have great memories of the varied weather systems in Planetside and don't want to wait days, weeks, or months for the next season to come along.

[Geist]

I love this idea. This way, there is no need for snow continents, and if you have a northern and southern hemisphere, 1 hemisphere will always be opposite of the other. For example, Amerish is in the depths of winter at the moment, snow storms, low visibility, slow movement etc... while Esamir is hot from it's long Summer days.

[Metalsheep]

I like the idea of seasons, but i'd prefer they do something like what other MMOs do. Or what Planetside 1 did. During winter, you get a few wintery themes, you can wear a Santa Hat, there are hidden Christmas things like Snowmen or gingerbread men to find for fun and maybe get a small reward during winter only. In fall the spawn tube doors were coffin lids (that was forever ago.) And bodies turned into pumpkins. I dont think there was anything special for summer or spring...

But they can do things like other MMOs, such as WoW, little details like christmas lights on structures or trees, falling leaves in forest areas, budding trees, ect ect. But full on season shifts that effect game-play probably shouldn't happen. Some continents wouldn't change much anyways, like Deserts, Tropical and Arctic continents. (which i believe Indar, Amerish and Esamir are.) Small things like an increase in frequency of Rain/Snow/Storms i could live with too.

[NCLynx]

Bumping this once because I'd like to see if anyone has anything different to add due to it being talked about on AGN tonight. Also I guess this may be better in the idea box? I dunno.

[Kipper]

I'd expect this in EQ3, but not PS2 - I think day/night/lunar and some random(ish) weather effects would be good enough, with any more being a welcome, not not nescessary addition.

Weather for cosmetic immersion reasons is win, weather that influences tactical decision making is epic win. :)

Loads of work for the artists though and if it affects tactics, whole new potential balancing pitfalls....

[Fenrod]

Damn, a winter season would be wonderful.

[Synical]

How would the seasons affect each continent? I'm guessing each continent would have it's own cycle, this way no two continents are experiencing a harsh winter at the same time.

Also, since certain continents already have certain terrain types, how would it affect them? You already touched on Esamir so I will use that as an example. Esamir by it's nature in PS was already a snowy continent, how would the seasons affect it? During the winter cycle it could experience a worsening of the blizzards and other seasonal appropriate weather, but what would happen during the summer for example? Would continents which already have predetermined terrain types have to be changed to suit seasonal weather, is basically what it comes down to.

I personally would be pleased with random weather effects along with night cycles, but I do like the idea of seasonal weather changes. I just have some questions about how it would work, but I would be more than happy to help you expand on the idea if you would like.

[Sabot]

Actually waether would not be a balance issue at all imo... not unless you plan on having things other than vision impared by a storm or glaring sun in the eyes. If it's randomly generated over one or a few smaller hexes on a continent it does nothing but spell good or bad luck for one or two of the faction, in which case tactics or fronts might have to be shifted... but it's not like waether would render equpment or vehicles useless... apart from maybe snipers, but who cares about those lamers anyway? ;P
And I think seasons is a bit overkill.. I mean the continents are pretty set in their climate already. It would be cool and pretty... but unnecessary.

[Kipper]

On balance - I dunno:

Assume there are roads ... And then it snows.

Suddenly VS has an advantage because magriders don't leave tracks but the other factions tanks do, so you can see their movements even if they've moved on?

Do cloakers leave footprints?

[Sabot]

I'm willing to be a mag still leaves some kind of track in the snow... it's not like it doesn't have mass or exist on our plane of existance :P

[Synical]

On balance - I dunno:

Assume there are roads ... And then it snows.

Suddenly VS has an advantage because magriders don't leave tracks but the other factions tanks do, so you can see their movements even if they've moved on?

Do cloakers leave footprints?

It would still leave a trail, just not normal "tracks". Hovering or not it still exerts a force on the ground. It still obeys the laws of physics, it's not like it's space magic ;)

[Ruffdog]

It's nice in theory to have it all pretty and dynamic, but aren't the developers looking to make this game runnable on rigs of up to 5 years old?
If mid battle, snow and sand storms start up all of a sudden, I could see a lot of people cursing the devs for single figure frames.


Any way this is an alien world! Where's the exotic suggestions...?
e.g. a season where if you go out in anything less than MAX armor, your skin turns inside out?:p

[SniperSteve]

Seasons to the extent that we know them here on earth won't happen... There is just too much work put into re-texturing an entire level (for snow, mostly).

I think we do have phases of the moon(s), so I guess in that way there are seasons.

[Kipper]

It would still leave a trail, just not normal "tracks". Hovering or not it still exerts a force on the ground. It still obeys the laws of physics, it's not like it's space magic ;)

Who says the laws of physics don't allow for hovering without exerting a force on the ground? In fact they do, I've seen it - although the hovering thing had to be supercooled to almost absolute zero iirc, but they might crack it in the future.

MAGrider suggests magnetism to me, I'd suggest that if Auraxis had a strongly magnetic core and it was basically a repelling magnet based hover, that it would not affect snow on the surface... However I'm not a physicist :)

[Synical]

Who says the laws of physics don't allow for hovering without exerting a force on the ground? In fact they do, I've seen it - although the hovering thing had to be supercooled to almost absolute zero iirc, but they might crack it in the future.

MAGrider suggests magnetism to me, I'd suggest that if Auraxis had a strongly magnetic core and it was basically a repelling magnet based hover, that it would not affect snow on the surface... However I'm not a physicist :)

That sounds pretty interesting, do you know what it is called by any chance?

That is true about the Magrider, it is possible seeing how the world is completely alien that anything could be possible when it comes to the laws of physics. Not that my grasp is all that great either, undergrad physics isn't exactly rocket science ;)

It's nice in theory to have it all pretty and dynamic, but aren't the developers looking to make this game runnable on rigs of up to 5 years old?

I know most MMOs are made to be run on a large variety of systems, but five years? That's a pretty big gap in technology. Everything I have seen so far looks pretty amazing, I couldn't picture it running on a rig that old even with everything on low.

Any way this is an alien world! Where's the exotic suggestions...?
e.g. a season where if you go out in anything less than MAX armor, your skin turns inside out?:p

I like the way you think :lol:

[Kipper]

That sounds pretty interesting, do you know what it is called by any chance?

I almost overheated by brain trying to remember - but I got it. Quantum Levitation. This, my friend - is magrider technology today :)

Quantum Levitation - YouTube

[Synical]

I almost overheated by brain trying to remember - but I got it. Quantum Levitation. This, my friend - is magrider technology today :)

Quantum Levitation - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA)

:eek:

That is pretty intense.

Also, I know this is slightly off-topic but I went back and tried to find something I read a little while back on the official site and finally found it, Kipper.


...the Scythe rules the sky with maneuverability and agility. It uses the magnetic field of the planet Auraxis to move in ways other conventional aircraft can not. ( http://www.planetside2.com/news/nov22empirebriefVS )

You got me there too...

:p

[Kipper]

So does a magnetically hovering tank leave tracks in the snow or not? :-)

(quick, someone get some magnets and a tray of flour!)