SWToRStrategies: Wall of Crazy (WoC) is the latest column that aspires to look into certain concepts and ideas that could make into our Guild Capital ships and Guild Battles. 4m1e15
These two features were something that were promised very fans want concepts like these to be implemented within weeks not years (like it happened with capital ships).
The first WoC idea we’re going to look into is weather and day/night cycle effects.
Day/Night cycle and weather effects from Star Wars Galaxies
1. Description: Many other MMOs have used to weather to either impact how the game is played as well as provide additional immersion to the game. Rain, snow, fog and others could game is taking place on “a galaxy far far away” developers can be free to experiment with other more creative ways to make planetary weather more interesting and less Earth-like.
Likewise, a day/night cycle could offer an come back in a week and complete it without any sort of repercussion. Weather as well-as day/night effects could fall under the same concept
2. Background information: According to rumors, Bioware used a heavily modified SWToR and Zenimax used for development purposes in Elder Scrolls Online. If you head over to the Hero’s Engine website and read through its features, you will discover that one of them deals with dynamic and light environmental schemes. In addition, HeroEngine wiki makes reference to implementing weather systems using this development package.
http://youtu.be/34MkAlBZp7c
A demonstration of how a day/night cycle works in the HeroEngine
3. Day/Night cycles and weather effects would happen because:
- game, a lot of things have changed in SWToR since then.
- Hero Engine makes it Bioware would be adding features to it not removing features of the software.
- Weather and night-effects are an important element of the “Story Pillar” that original concepts of the game, then this could be a great enhancement
- Timing. The game has matured a lot since its release where the push was for more end-game content. The last two expansions (strongholds and starfighter) that Bioware is moving off the beaten path and has discovered that it needs to be unique enough to get people back in the game.
Weather in Elder Scrolls Online using the Hero Engine
4. Day/Night cycles and weather effects would NOT happen because:
- community carries a lot of weight, and influences how Bioware makes decisions.
- It’s difficult to monetize weather and day/night cycles in SWToR. That’s of course an assumption on our part but it would definitely be a first if these effects were implemented for subscribers only.
- Cost of adding these effects from planet to planet outweigh the benefits. The greater question would be though – is it enough to boost SWToR’s numbers? There are very strong arguments on both sides of the fence.
5. Probability of day/night and weather cycles making it into SWToR : Medium/Low. Our take is that weather and day/night cycles are not in Star Wars gaming experience, then getting off the beaten path is definitely the only option.
