02-01-2015, 05:04 PM
I've thought of the possible issue of time restraint. I'm actually more worried that players won't make it far in the timeline before finishing the game.
My initial calculations were based purely on traveling the overworld. With time moving at 1 hr in game per 1 second of real life, this results in 150 days in game per 1 hr of real life. For a standard calendar, this results in 2.5 hrs of real life being just over (10 days) a year in game. I was planning on the game lasting around 10-20 years in game. The game would probably go on for an additional 10-20 years after this, but this would be the time frame when the evil ruler is taking over and some allies are no longer able to fight with you. It wouldn't be hopeless though. I would have some new areas with some powerful gear or new allies to help balance.
However, most time will probably be spent in towns and dungeons. Time will move at 1 minute in game per 1 second of real life in these areas. Even if time was split 50% in each area, the real world time of 2 hours would be under half a year (around 152.5 days) in game.
I thought about creating an NPC system or a menu item that you can look at to give you information on the major time events that are coming up. NPC system downside is that you would have to travel to them. Maybe they're in every town. The menu item means that you can access it any time you have access to the party screen. They would work similarly in the sense of "Hey, I heard that there's a town to the North West that is going to come under attack in a few months!". Detail of the event could vary to very specific "Day X of Month Y, Year Z" to more general like the previous example. The information would be dynamic so that the message would reflect how much time is left. A "few months" would turn into "a month" as time progresses.
Setting up the events will definitely require some care as to not spread the locations out to areas that would be un-feasible for a player to reach in time, unless it has a purpose. For instance (although a little cliche), choose to save A or B, but you can't save both. It might be more of evil ruler starts event in the East so that you'll investigate it while evil ruler enacts real plan in the West.
My initial calculations were based purely on traveling the overworld. With time moving at 1 hr in game per 1 second of real life, this results in 150 days in game per 1 hr of real life. For a standard calendar, this results in 2.5 hrs of real life being just over (10 days) a year in game. I was planning on the game lasting around 10-20 years in game. The game would probably go on for an additional 10-20 years after this, but this would be the time frame when the evil ruler is taking over and some allies are no longer able to fight with you. It wouldn't be hopeless though. I would have some new areas with some powerful gear or new allies to help balance.
However, most time will probably be spent in towns and dungeons. Time will move at 1 minute in game per 1 second of real life in these areas. Even if time was split 50% in each area, the real world time of 2 hours would be under half a year (around 152.5 days) in game.
I thought about creating an NPC system or a menu item that you can look at to give you information on the major time events that are coming up. NPC system downside is that you would have to travel to them. Maybe they're in every town. The menu item means that you can access it any time you have access to the party screen. They would work similarly in the sense of "Hey, I heard that there's a town to the North West that is going to come under attack in a few months!". Detail of the event could vary to very specific "Day X of Month Y, Year Z" to more general like the previous example. The information would be dynamic so that the message would reflect how much time is left. A "few months" would turn into "a month" as time progresses.
Setting up the events will definitely require some care as to not spread the locations out to areas that would be un-feasible for a player to reach in time, unless it has a purpose. For instance (although a little cliche), choose to save A or B, but you can't save both. It might be more of evil ruler starts event in the East so that you'll investigate it while evil ruler enacts real plan in the West.