This patch sounds like it could be pretty decent.�  I like the darker nights idea myself.�  What I would be very nice is if we could turn off the body glow at night.�  Man how awesome that would fight with only the moonlight to guide us.

I'm not really concerned about the missions music though I did like it somewhat.�  I usually have Winamp playing my selected music any how. It would be nice if you could select your own in game music. This game is very limited on the sound options.

I'm also a little confused on the mission setup.�  Are they releasing one mission every few days or something instead of in batches?�  So more days of patching?�  If so The dial up cats will have a ball. I for one think its a great idea since it would be much more convientant for the person writing the missions.

Devs: I'm curious, how difficult would it be to make the "time of day" client side as opposed to server? It would be nice to be able to choose my time of day. Because when I get off work it's always night time in game, and while I love it, I kinda forget how it looks in the day time.

Message Edited by Detrius_MXO on 01-13-200605:15 PM

Message Edited by Detrius_MXO on 01-13-200606:05 PM

Message Edited by EndlessVoid on 01-13-200606:08 PM

• Make the nights darker (check!)
• Add a moonlight effect so cloudy nights are darker than clear ones
• Make it so that, when it really is overcast, the clouds don't fly across the sky at two billion MPH
• Add an option to remove the personal exterior spotlight from your character so that the real-time exterior lighting actually has an impact on your character at night (allows you to sneak around in the shadows or step out into a streetlight)
• Add an option to synchronize the in-game day/night cycle with the client-side clock so that if you play during the day in your time zone, it would appear as day in the game (helps continuity with accounts of events happening "the night before" or "yesterday afternoon"
• Most important of all to me, ADD DISTANT BUILDING LIGHTS! This was what disappointed me the most about the atmosphere of the game after going back and watching the Trilogy again. The Mega City right now looks like Niobe and Ghost pulled another power plant demolition job except for whatever neighborhood, nay, whatever street you're on. Those buildings in the background need windows, I don't care if they're monochromatic black and white instead of 32-bit color textures, the City needs to be lit up.
  

Message Edited by Stack on 01-13-200611:19 PM

Well, I don't really think the day/night cycle could affect the gameplay significantly. I completed several missions during Halloween and was't killed by the street mobs one single time. On the other hand, a level 5 can go to Downtown at day and can't afford leave the main roads unless life doesn't mean anything to him. Navigating in the City doesn't really get that harder no matter how dark it is, since we still have the map and the atlas. So, if the day/night cycle doesn't affect the way we play, the only thing it can affect else is the aesthetics. As the difference between night and day was always quite noticeable (the music, the lights, the "personal exterior light" and of course a still significant decrease of brightness), it's less about differing between daytimes but more about the aesthetical aspects of the nights themselves. The darker nights mostly show that it's really nights right now and everything automatically gets darker. A great concept and also a great feeling, but the city itself suffers from that. Let's say you aren't running missions or pvping at the moment and just exploring the world (what I use to do pretty often). The brighter nights didn't take the fun from this kind of activities since they didn't really hide texture nuances, but brought new aspects and colors into the world. Both night and day were individually amazing (I have to admit, the culminations of the day, especially "Sati's" day and especially in Richland weren't that amazing) and were like two sides of the coin, if you want. Now, day is the time where you still see much and night where everything just turns dark. It even takes some of the districts' individuality, in my opinion.

And here's just my main argument: If the days change from green to purple once a week (disclaimer: I only read that at the forums), what's so wrong about that kind of variation during nights, either?

And then, there are parts of the Earth where the night doesn't turn completely dark during nights (mostly at summers) so the whole night really looks like later in the evening evening or right before sunrise.

Also, because of all the lights, big cities look quite bright even at nighttime. And since this is the Matrix with a green sky and not the real world we're talking about, what's the meaning of "realism" at all? I mean if it looks better in certain aspects (c'mon people, it didn't really look that awful, did it? ), why not simply keep it at least partially? (just repeating the same stuff for better overview lol)

I'd really like to hear your opinion about that, Stack, so I'm looking forward to your answer.