Question about Ingame time...

[SuperMunch]

Heyas,

I need to know this for Freldo to properly pine (for the fjords), I have read comments on this but I'm not sure what's true and since time is pretty important in this case I need to know the correct scale.

In game, starting with the lesser scale and working upwards, based on combat time observations:

1 round == 6 RL seconds (verified)
10 rounds, 1 Turn = 1 RL minute
6 turns, 1 hour = 6 RL minutes
24 hours, 1 day = 2 RL hours and 24 minutes
7 days, 1 week = 16 RL hours, 48 minutes
4 weeks, 1 month = 2 RL days, 19 hours, 12 minutes
12 months (standard earthian lunar calendar) = 33 RL days+

Now we have another scale, based on the scale I have observed at the bottom of some pages...

15 Layonara seconds = 1 RL second
1 min = 4 RL seconds
60 minutes. 1 hour = 4 RL minutes
24 hours, 1 day = 96 RL minutes (1 hour, 36 minutes)
7 days = 11 RL hours+
4 weeks = 44 RL hours+
12 months = 22 RL days+

Note, by this scale, rounds and turns are set to a different scale (1 round would equal 1 min, 30 seconds in game) - but that's a totally different story.

On a thread that talked about a character's return, one year in real life was about 14 years in game, which is roughly 1,166 years a month or a year per 26-ish days - pretty close to the 15:1 ratio, but not quite.

I can also measure time using the sundial in Hlint and create a ratio but since the sundial doesn't have second markings, my observations would depend on how fast I could click it and server lag - which could skew the results up and down in awfully imprecise ways.

SOOOOOOO...

What's the right time ratio?

Or are all of my observed mesurements wrong and the true ratio is another one?

Gimme a clue please!

[orth]

Not sure where your "1 hour" comes from here:

6 turns, 1 hour = 6 RL minutes

should be

4 turns, 1 hour = 4 RL minutes

[Leanthar]

@Orth, I think his '1 hour' comes from the standard way that D&D classifies a turn which is 10 minutes, so 6 turns equals 1 hour in normal D&D terms...With that stated, what Orth stated is how we work things in the online world...

[SuperMunch]

What Leanthar said...  6 turns per hour per standard rules.

Now I see the light, so 4 turns an hour then, it would bind game time, D&D time and real time together.

Thanks guys!

[Icurus]

This sounds really hard to keep up with.

I just make things easy by saying stuff like, "I missed you yesterday," IC, when one RL day passes. Makes things so much easier then trying to figure how much time passed between visits between people.

Besides, if you think about Roleplaying a Pen and Paper game, the only time that counts is those that you actually play. Why complicate it all in a computer game...even if, realistically, in game, time is moving? Justify it to incalculable time fluxes and don't fret about all the minutia.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Really, Icurus, it's a case-by-case basis.  I agree with you, in that there are times, many times, when the exact time-passage is irrelevant, or doesn't even make sense in regards to the relations between characters and events.  However, there are times that such precise measurement is useful.  One such instance is  character age.  

As is often the case, it's a matter of finding the right balance.  (*whimpers*  I think I just sounded like a tree-hugger....)

[Icurus]

Well, I don't think the computer changes your age....as far as I know...you big tree hugger.  :p

[Ar7]

I actually think that character age is exactly the point where calculations are not that necessery. Because if we would be strict about it, there would be quite a few adventurers that shouldn't be able to move their fingers out of old age, not to mention kill Blood's troops.

[Icurus]

Yea, listen to Rufus...he's probably a couple of thousand years in age and lucky not to have early morning inexplicable bowel movements.   :p

I work in the med field...I know what happens in old age.  Not pretty.  

[SuperMunch]

I need to keep track of time for a very specific reason but that's just to give a deeper meaing to some of Freldo's less visible aspects but in the end it's just me having fun with time.

Generally, I use real world time in game despite the scales not fitting exactly but I do apply my habits into the game (when I say "yesterday", that means "I, player, have slept since I was last on").

I'd love it if a month in game time took 7 days in real time (each RL day would be 4 game days, 6 RL hours per day, 28:7 / 7:1 scale, etc.), but that would require overly complicated adjustments that would upset several aspects of the game balance but would allow real world/game time mesurement and comparissons to be precise.

About aging, I'm knowingly abusing the engine.  I don't think Freldo's ready to get older yet (20 at Dragon Summoning, young and naive) so I ignore that two years of game time has passed for that reason but I will have to have a birthday for him sooner or later, maybe if he pines for 336 days.

Anyway, I had to grok the time scale problem to get some deep character development done.

[miltonyorkcastle]

heh, I agree and disagree with you, Rufus.  That is, I have put thought into the fact that for many human adventurers, they will be rather old by the time they get to a level they can handle themselves in the major conflicts.  However, I do enjoy the thought that there is such an element of realism as aging, and one of the drawbacks of playing a human is their short age limit.  It's even worse for half-orcs, half-giants, etc.  And what more objective way is there to determine age than by the in-game passage of time?  Also, expecially for mage types, just because their body is frail, does not mean their power is lessened-often the opposite.  For fighters, it does become an issue, and the life of a fighter lends itself for aging to be even worse for them (lingering battle wounds, etc.).  And finally, of all those in the up-front fight against Blood's forces, how many are human?  And of those that are, what are their ages?  

By the in-game clock, Cole is about 38 years old.

Oh, and following the in-game time for age also addresses all the things your character is doing when you aren't actually playing him/her.

[Ar7]

Rufus is actually not that old, he should be nearing 50 or so.

[orth]

Plen is 75.

[miltonyorkcastle]

haha, Plen, you old fart.     .....  I wonder how being the Birdlord affects his aging, though?

[SuperMunch]

Next time we hear an ingame crashing sound or earthquake...

Might be flying old geezer Plenarius crashing into a building.  

[xXDenizeNXx]

"flying old geezer"  LOLz

L and the team would be the ones with the final say on clarifying this but i could offer a justifcation or two options to believe as you will towards why age isn't factored into Layo atm....

1. The dragon or entities behind the dragon that summoned us have somehow slowed the aging process down because they won't be finished with us until we are finsihed with Blood.......

or

2. The actual process of summoning put us into a kinda out of time flux or some such so we actually do exsist like but because we are 'out of sync' with real time or some such goofy explanation (lol) we don't age, possibly later after we have defeated blood we could all return to whence we came or drop dead due to old age or something IDK ...... HEY maybe it was the old Dragon Gods that summoned us and that was there plan for us to stop Blood then keel over then they can run the show.....LOLz

Anyways as I said before you'd have to look to the Team or world creator for conformation on that but I can offer an actual RL answer to the time thing, It would just plain suck if by the time the casual player reached level 10 they were a pensioner and because L and the team are good guys they overlook it for us , thanks guys btw

Peace
Den

[Acacea]

While I understand that the numbers about age get all weird when you start paying attention to them, it's really conflicting when some people count the game years and others decide that their characters are ever-young for some reason.

For instance, two characters start at the same time, with the same age. One is pretty close to the right age in game years (though really people rarely keep track of smaller amounts of time), but the other decides that it moves way too fast and does not. The longer it goes, the bigger the gap between the characters.

There's also the case with the timeline... it clearly says at what year things happened. ...Was there a time warp for your character? Because it happened for my character in the same year it happened for all of the others, not "everything on the timeline happened in the space of a single game year for me."

As I mentioned in a thread where a similar question came up (with no official backing whatsoever), the Dragoncalled have their souls bound to the bindstones, and their bodies are created anew each time they die. If you were just ripped apart by trolls, to what point is that going to show on the "new" one? You're not recreated with the missing limbs... Or likely even heavily scarred.

For the sake of all of the people who don't want their characters to age way too fast to the point of silliness, I'm willing to believe that they show their age far less than the normal, NPC types. That doesn't really mean I think they shouldn't ever age, just that for those Called, death caused by swords, age, or alcohol poisoning is far less of a concern than for others. However, this gift comes, for most, at the cost of their souls - piece by piece.


Again, there has really been no official comment on this, (and I'm also thinking it conflicts with at least one thing I'm thinking of) as the attitude is, "we don't want to force anyone to age their characters," but the inconsistency bothers me a lot more than the actual "do" or "do not."

[ZeroVega]

I always looked at it like this. When you start a character, you're sort of signing an unofficial contract that says you've agreed to play in the world that was created (Layonara in this case). That includes timelines, history, geography, deities ect. You can't simply start making stuff up for it. You wouldn't make up a new deity (unless your character was mental) so why meddle with time?

As for the aging thing. Well, again, I look at it my own way. Wizards are infused with magic, clerics are blessed by their god/goddess, bards... well I've yet to prove they're even among the living so for the sake of our argument they can't age. By the time you've played a character on Layonara for any length of time (12-24 months/14-28 Layo Years) you'll be powerful, or blessed, or buff, or enlightened enough to not age at quite the same pace that others do. Sure, you can't stop your birthday from coming round. But by the time you hit 50 artheritis isn't already setting in. Make sense?

Again, just me. L will, I'm sure, have the final say.