Jesus Christ, grant me internet patience...
Edgy Non-Gamer, let's try this one more time, step by step. I'm gonna take our two subjects of contention, the day/night cycle and the camp, break each one of them down, and you tell me why that wouldn't work for BG3, okay? Nice and easy...
1) Day/Night Cycle
So right now the tadpole plot progression works that every time you take a rest, a "day" passes and increments your tadpole ticker, correct? Time doesn't pass while you're dicking around in the level, it's always sunny in Faerun, you rest when you need to replenish your abilities. Once that tadpole ticker counts past certain milestones, crazy shit starts happening and you've got narrative feedback that you're under pressure, have I got it right so far?
Okay, so now let's assume that time is passing dynamically in the game, you've got, for instance, two real time hours of daylight followed by two real time hours of night. The question is how do we handle the tadpole ticker in this scary new world? Well, we've got a couple of options:
a) Hot Real Time Tadpole Action
Every four real world hours, meaning a full in-game day, that little tadpole eats another piece of juicy adventurer brain and the ticker goes up by one! Now this right here is your Mask of the Betrayer, the hardcore option. Fighting goblins? Tadpole's eating your brain! Exploring the countryside? Tadpole's eating your brain! Browsing a merchant's wares? Guess what, tadpole's eating your fucking brain!
In effect, what's happening is that you're moving the tadpole plot progression from your strategic resource management layer - because that's what drives your rest frequency - to your actual playtime, every second you spend unpaused, you're on the clock... The next time you rest in your camp after the tadpole levels, the relevant event plays.
You don't like this, do you? I know, it'd be the most accurate representation of the "lore", but that sort of pressure's not for everyone... And you know what? It's not for me either! I didn't like that part of MotB - I could manage it, but I wished it were different, which brings me to...
b) Your Tadpole Levels with You
I'm only throwing this in here as an academic exercise, so I won't waste too much time on it, but it's a MotB idea that could also apply to BG3 - your tadpole eats your brain as you gain experience, either full levels or intermediate marks, depending on how many events you want to write in. Leveled up? Cool, enjoy your new feat! That'll be one grey matter omelette with a side of fries, please. Again, your next rest after taking a tadpole level will play the event.
Now this will move your tadpole stage progression from resource management to general completion... On the one hand, that's even less variable and much easier to design for than rest counters, but on the other, you could argue it punishes you for engaging with side content...
So still not quite right for you? Well, don't worry, because I saved the best for last, you're gonna love this next option...
c) NOTHING FUCKING CHANGES
The tadpole eats your brain when you rest. Boom. You've got a dynamic day/night cycle as you play outside, but your tadpole ticker still increments when you take a nap, meaning the entire tadpole plot progresses exactly the same way Larian have it now, with it being tied to your need to replenish your resources. And since, without a fatigue mechanic, your rest frequency is governed by your resource use, it's literally the same in this regard.
Now if you were to also implement a fatigue mechanic, that could present an interesting opportunity to also cap the maximum time per tadpole increment, gain a little extra control as a designer that way. But that's entirely optional, you don't have to if it frightens you.
As for why the tadpole only eats your brain when you rest... Well, for whatever fucking reason the writer wants. You could say it's a gourmand tadpole and your brain's tastier while you're sleeping. Or - check this out - you could say nothing at all. We've already established that your transformation is not progressing per the usual rules for reasons that will be revealed later in the story. It's still "urgent", but slower and no one knows exactly how much time you have, so you can set that ticker to whatever the fuck you want. Part of a writer's job is to also know when not to explain shit. So, once more, nothing changes.
So, bottom line here is that there's no inherent conflict between a day/night cycle and Larian's cinematic plot progression. You can either build it around different mechanics or you can even do it
exactly the same way as it is right now. I can't believe I had to lay this shit out like this.
2) The Camp
Which you definitely didn't bring up...
I think the reason for the lack of a day/night cycle is more for narrative purposes. They want players to go back to camp, since that's where a lot of events take place.
Anyway. My point on this was that implementing a day/night cycle is no inherent impediment to it, you can still whisk the player to their magical pocket plane if that's where you want to play out your scenes. Like in the aforementioned Throne of Bhaal.
As for the camp's cinematic value...
eh. I haven't played since the second EA build, I think, so maybe things have changed since then, but most of the interactions I saw then consisted of talking around the campfire and the bedspreads, things you can easily pull off with relative markers inside a clearance radius (i.e. a placeable camp object). And if you really want a scene banging Shadowheart in a moonlit forest clearing, you can always play an animation of you walking away from a compatible location. Plus, aside from
muh immersion, a real camp opens up the possibility for topical random encounters.
The issue is that Larian are combining rest vignettes with a home base and I remain convinced that the main driver here is development expediency. I maintain that I'd prefer a less cinematic
in situ camp over this approach, but I suppose Larian could make
some cinematics that would capitalise on a bespoke home base, especially once you get to Baldur's Gate. The best approach would be to have both, of course, camps when you're out on the trail and a home base with a narrative thread and maybe mechanics bringing you back to it as required, but it is what it is.
But back on the original point, no, having a day/night cycle doesn't stop you having your abstract cinematic camp.
P.S. Just cause this takes the fucking cake...
Your fault for ninjaing my edit. You say I need to take a break, but here you are spamming refresh and making semantic arguments.
"Ninjaing your
edit?" Get your silly ass back to Reddit. And no, changing "these" to "a lot of these" is no better when describing
one out of three things.
I'm glad you think you can make a AAA game with all these features cheaply and think that you can design a 3D, cinematic game like a 2D game. Go do that.
Did I mention Reddit?
P.P.S. Notifications work, I saw you change that rating from
to
, you little fuck.
![I am very smug about this issue. :smug: :smug:](/forums/smiles/emo-emot-smug.gif)