Accepted Weather Seasons

[Perotin]

This suggestion is pretty straight-forward: add seasons to minecraft.

I came across this as I was browsing SpigotMC and stumbled upon this resource, and it's a good idea for a couple reasons:

- It'd make weather have actual consequences in the game for once

- Debuffs/buffs for certain activities depending on the season (like losing hunger/hearts quicker if swimming in winter)

- Tornadoes?? (whoever does particles, good luck)

and a lot more use scenarios for this. You could also change weather patterns as well to match the season. I know some people will say "NO! I don't want it raining 24/7" and I understand that which is why you could also add weather-related items like an Umbrella, which could remove rain in your area or something along those lines.

Overall, it'd make the Dyescape world that much more immersive if seasons became a thing.


EDIT: Ok wow... this thread has become a lot more than this OP. If you're feeling lazy, basically, seasons will be more than just mere cosmetics, affecting professions and the economy/server meta. They could also be region-based with independent weather cycles.

 

[MrDienns]

I think the obvious question here is; what interval? How long is a season, and I'm sure while we're at it, how long would you suggest a Minecraft day/night to be? What kind of effects should be given in-game depending on a season? Winter could obviously debuf any farming profession by a chunk for instance, but what about the other seasons?

- Tornadoes?? (whoever does particles, good luck)

That's rather easily achieved. A tornado is huge, you won't see one like you see in Minecraft mostly. Just have some cloud/smoke particles flying around here and there, maybe add some rain-like particle, some sound effects, and you'll be fine. Can be implemented rather easily without making it overkill or ruin gameplay.


Anywho, not giving an opinion on this yet, first like to hear what kind of effects should be given by each season and how long they should last. Though I do agree, day and night time usage overall is quite boring and more could be done with it, and seasons could be interesting if the mechanics are right.

 

[Perotin]

I think the obvious question here is; what interval? How long is a season, and I'm sure while we're at it, how long would you suggest a Minecraft day/night to be? What kind of effects should be given in-game depending on a season? Winter could obviously debuf any farming profession by a chunk for instance, but what about the other seasons?



That's rather easily achieved. A tornado is huge, you won't see one like you see in Minecraft mostly. Just have some cloud/smoke particles flying around here and there, maybe add some rain-like particle, some sound effects, and you'll be fine. Can be implemented rather easily without making it overkill or ruin gameplay.


Anywho, not giving an opinion on this yet, first like to hear what kind of effects should be given by each season and how long they should last. Though I do agree, day and night time usage overall is quite boring and more could be done with it, and seasons could be interesting if the mechanics are right.

If we're basing this off of real life, a season is typically ~3 months so 90 minecraft days/night would be most realistic. I would also add in a "randomness" attribute as well, like say between the 70th-90th, the weather will start transitioning to the next season since that is what happens in real life.

As for buffs/debuffs, I would just do whatever makes most practical sense. Here are some off the top of my head

Summer
- Boost Farming
- Boost swimming (depth-strider effect?)
- If in full diamond/'heavy' clothes, lose hunger quicker

Spring
- Relatively neutral season
- Swamp areas give slowness if walking through (mud)
- Tornadoes
- Rains for days straight (sorry guys, but this is true)

Fall
- Boost harvesting (want people to finish their farms before winter hits)
- Also pretty neutral

Winter
- Big debuff to farming/harvesting
- If walking around with no armour/no leather, lose hearts at a quicker rate
* You can make this so leather becomes useful, say if your wearing iron, you'll still be cold but leather keeps you warm.
- Boats go slower
- Snows a lot / blizzards

No doubt there's a lot more you can add, but I'd try not to overkill it-- you don't want weather to become a dominating factor of the server. I also said this on discord, but you can change the day/night based on the season. Say if middle of spring is 50/50 day and night, as you reach the climax of summer it slowly increases to 75/25 (day-night) and then goes the other direction for winter (25/75).

Edit: Days - 20 minutes. Night - 20 minutes as a base. So in Spring this is what it'd look like.

 

[KabbyDankGod]

Time for Kabby's thoughts on the suggestion, YAY!

First I'll comment on the general ideas in the resource you linked.
- For an MMO I don't think things such as "Light hats" flying off or Iron weapons starting to heat up are good. I'd assume most people would always have some sort of Iron armour or weapons on them making summer just suck in general. I do like the effects though like wet mud, hot sand, Rainy, and other effects that only minorly affect every player, not just specific people who have, for example, have iron armour and weapons. Other than that I feel like some of the ideas on there are good.

Now for the few things that Perotin suggested.
- Weather effects having an impact on gameplay is a good suggestion. Maybe sometimes it's foggy and you can only see so far. Things like that are good for immersion and RP value.

- Debuffs / Buffs to certain activities depending on season would have to be heavily tested before. I like the idea of taking damage in icy water or maybe travelling in the snow is slower. Though this would make certain seasons suck (Will comment below)

- Tornadoes? Tornados! Tornados would make for a good gameplay element depending on how they will work. Maybe they simply just throw you in the air making you take fall damage or maybe they bring you with them.

Now for the in-depth chatters and comments:
- I think winter would just become super annoying to a lot of players. If you couldn't harvest crops or only got very little crops farmers would become obsolete for a quarter of the playtime. Maybe only certain animals are out in winter times or it just constantly rains snow. How to fix this? Check out the next point

- Seasons and weather effects should affect different zones differently. It wouldn't really make sense for a zone full of lava to suddenly have snow on the ground or have any rain in general. Rather people should maybe get a weakness debuff for sweating like in the resource and the only season there is summer. Then the complete opposite would be true for a winter / snowy zone. It wouldn't make sense if suddenly the snow would melt or it to be labelled as summer unless it would only maybe affect half of the zone? That would be pretty cool. But just completely getting rid of the snow might make certain quests seem weird. Having seasons and seasonal effects that affect gameplay too much would just make things become frustrating to players and might make things less immersive.

- Tornadoes definitely shouldn't exist in every zone. Maybe you have a one, two or three zones that have them, making them less of a common occurrence.

- For better gameplay, you shouldn't really have any seasons debuff anything. Rather seasons should make things better, maybe harvesting crops in autumn gives a bigger quantity of crops, as that is the harvest season. Or it's better to fish in the spring as that's when fish usually mate and the water is the perfect temperature and there is favourable weather.

Ik Perotin already addressed a lot of these already but he made his post while I was writing mine so there is some overlap.

 

[Perotin]

Time for Kabby's thoughts on the suggestion, YAY!

First I'll comment on the general ideas in the resource you linked.
- For an MMO I don't think things such as "Light hats" flying off or Iron weapons starting to heat up are good. I'd assume most people would always have some sort of Iron armour or weapons on them making summer just suck in general. I do like the effects though like wet mud, hot sand, Rainy, and other effects that only minorly affect every player, not just specific people who have, for example, have iron armour and weapons. Other than that I feel like some of the ideas on there are good.

Now for the few things that Perotin suggested.
- Weather effects having an impact on gameplay is a good suggestion. Maybe sometimes it's foggy and you can only see so far. Things like that are good for immersion and RP value.

- Debuffs / Buffs to certain activities depending on season would have to be heavily tested before. I like the idea of taking damage in icy water or maybe travelling in the snow is slower. Though this would make certain seasons suck (Will comment below)

- Tornadoes? Tornados! Tornados would make for a good gameplay element depending on how they will work. Maybe they simply just throw you in the air making you take fall damage or maybe they bring you with them.

Now for the in-depth chatters and comments:
- I think winter would just become super annoying to a lot of players. If you couldn't harvest crops or only got very little crops farmers would become obsolete for a quarter of the playtime. Maybe only certain animals are out in winter times or it just constantly rains snow. How to fix this? Check out the next point

- Seasons and weather effects should affect different zones differently. It wouldn't really make sense for a zone full of lava to suddenly have snow on the ground or have any rain in general. Rather people should maybe get a weakness debuff for sweating like in the resource and the only season there is summer. Then the complete opposite would be true for a winter / snowy zone. It wouldn't make sense if suddenly the snow would melt or it to be labelled as summer unless it would only maybe affect half of the zone? That would be pretty cool. But just completely getting rid of the snow might make certain quests seem weird. Having seasons and seasonal effects that affect gameplay too much would just make things become frustrating to players and might make things less immersive.

- Tornadoes definitely shouldn't exist in every zone. Maybe you have a one, two or three zones that have them, making them less of a common occurrence.

- For better gameplay, you shouldn't really have any seasons debuff anything. Rather seasons should make things better, maybe harvesting crops in autumn gives a bigger quantity of crops, as that is the harvest season. Or it's better to fish in the spring as that's when fish usually mate and the water is the perfect temperature and there is favourable weather.

Ik Perotin already addressed a lot of these already but he made his post while I was writing mine so there is some overlap.

You're totally right about the zones -- in real life, it doesn't snow in Ethiopia, so it shouldn't snow in the equivalent on Dyescape. This could also make picking your locations not-arbitrary, like if you are a farmer, you'd want to go down South to start a farm where it won't snow/have little effect.

The resource I linked just gave me the idea, I actually didn't look at it too deeply, but I agree with the sentiment of limiting the weather's affect it has on the playerbase to not disturb it too much. This suddenly became a pretty big/complex suggestion, but I agree with all of your ideas.

 

[KabbyDankGod]

Like Perotin said in his post, I think day length should be 40 minutes. Spring and Autumn should be a 50/50 split, so 20 Minutes day, 20 Minutes night. But then you could give it a twist where in the summer maybe day lasts 25 minutes and night 15 and reverse in the winter.

 

[MrDienns]

If we're basing this off of real life, a season is typically ~3 months so 90 minecraft days/night would be most realistic.

One Minecraft day/night cycle is 20 minutes from the top of my head, meaning a season season would rotate every 30 real life hours.

 

[Perotin]

One Minecraft day/night cycle is 20 minutes from the top of my head, meaning a season season would rotate every 30 real life hours.

Hmm, I'm not sure if this is too long - perhaps a 3 hr rotation would be better, since 30 hours is a lot if you are waiting for the season to change... Could be a thing you'd have to play around with and see what people like.

 

[KabbyDankGod]

I know Dennis likes his configuration so couldn't you, if you make seasons zone-based that is, make the seasons different lengths. Maybe zones with only two season rotate at X interval when Zones with four seasons they rotate at Y interval. Of course it will take a while to figure out the optimal timing.

 

[Rednaxman]

Whilst designing seasons and long term aspects, it is always important to take into account the basic aspects of the game for players to benefit from. What doesn't matter is the large stuff, but the little aspects that make it memorable.

For example, because magic is an implemented system, why not connect the seasons to the elements? Summer carries the heat of fire, spring carries the growth and nurturing of earth, autumn carries the blustering winds of air and winter carries the harsh frost of water.

I could see this being implemented as a buff/debuff for each element, but it would have to be something more than -% damaged per hit. Perhaps in:

summer the additional fire damage burns for just a little bit longer, whilst causing the effects of frost to be lessened.

In spring, earth based spells travel just a little bit further, whilst air based spells are drawn to the earth just a bit more.

In autumn air attacks push back the enemy just a bit more, whilst earth spells are blown off course and are therfor less accurate.

And in winter, frost or water based spells have the added bonus of slowing your enemies slightly, whilst fire spells lose some of their initial damage per hit.

This would allow for genuine and extensive planning to take on the more difficult entities and players within the game, playing to your strengths and weaknesses in order to come out on top.



Not to sit here and drag the combination back to out of Combat Skills, but Seasons offer a multitude of rare herbs only able to be collected during a specific time period.

Winter has hardy plants, perfect for defensive potions.
Summer has a multitude of life, perfect for offensive potions.
Spring is the dawn of new fresh herbs, perfect for supportive potions.
Autumn is full of decay and age, perfect for deadly poisons.

Cultivation of these ingredients could be a major part of the servers economy, with the rust for craftsmen to gather specific components before the next season hits, or risk not being able to heal or buff themselves in combat. Big boss battles could take server wide preparation at points, with entire guilds working together to gather the supplies they need.

 

[MrDienns]

Hmm, I'm not sure if this is too long - perhaps a 3 hr rotation would be better, since 30 hours is a lot if you are waiting for the season to change... Could be a thing you'd have to play around with and see what people like.

I'd argue it's way too short. If a season implements gameplay effecting elements, such as farms being less effective in the winter, then I would argue that a season should be like a month long in real life time, otherwise the ingame implications are just useless. If your farm is less effective in the winter, you just wait a couple of hours for it to be better. You do like a few quests and your farm will be back again. In fact, I doubt that crop crowing is a matter of hours to begin with. This is an MMORPG, not a survival server, in my opinion (though all of this is up to the content team) crops should not grow from 0 to 100 in a matter of hours; rather a day, if not several. If we implement seasons that would affect crops (which could effect economy and a meta), then seasons need to be long enough to affect professions, which it doesn't if it's like 24 hours or less.

Overall, this won't be implemented any time soon regardless as a bunch of affects would have to be implemented, like snow, rain, storms, sunshine, different day/night lengths, and potential other effects which we'd have to implement on top of systems which don't exist yet. If we imlement seasons, I'd personally have them have an actual impact on the server and not have it be a mere cosmetic thing, so we should take this into account.

I'm not the only one who would want to see seasons affect professions, like farming (crops), as per this comment:

Winter has hardy plants, perfect for defensive potions.
Summer has a multitude of life, perfect for offensive potions.
Spring is the dawn of new fresh herbs, perfect for supportive potions.
Autumn is full of decay and age, perfect for deadly poisons.

I'd find that lovely, as this again creates a massive flow in economy and a meta. Imagine a season in our game is a few weeks or a month long. Certain, extremely deadly, master profession grade potions could only be made from mushrooms which only grow in autumn, then imagine what kind of immersive things this could arrise. The price of those potions would go in any season except autumn, and the same goes for any other item which would be lacking in other seasons. This could be extremely interesting, which is why I'm suggesting that if we implement seasons, we should incorporate it into professions, and have the seasons be long enough for it to affect the meta / economy.

TL;DR: My personal opinion (not part of the content team) is that seasons should be a few weeks or a month long at least to that we can put proper effects on the world, like professions. A few perfect examples of @Rednaxman; a type of deadly mushroom which only grows in autumn which can be used to make master-grade poisons. This could severely stimulate economy of profession related items, and can even promote auctions and add some kind of economy-meta. Could be really interesting. On top of this, seasons could imply differences to the world as visuals. In winter, we could have a snowy themed map, in autumn we have autumn themed, etc. This could all be extremely interesting.

Naturally though, if this suggestion gets accepted, it won't be implemented anytime soon as this requires plenty of work. If the content team agrees with it though, we could schedule it for a profession update. Again, that's if they agree with it. Just saying I'd personally like it.

And this;

Cultivation of these ingredients could be a major part of the servers economy, with the rust for craftsmen to gather specific components before the next season hits, or risk not being able to heal or buff themselves in combat. Big boss battles could take server wide preparation at points, with entire guilds working together to gather the supplies they need.

I know @Euvrounin likes his dungeons as difficult as possible, and he would want to see people actually prepare strategicly for dungeons. This again would only add to this idea.

Though I do disagree on the fact that seasons affect spells; I think that takes it a bit too far and could be confusing to people who just played the game. Economy and professions isn't something a new player gets into straight away; skills are.

@Rednaxman are you in our Discord server yet? If not, please consider joining it. It's easier to discuss suggestions there also

 

[Rednaxman]

I'd argue it's way too short. If a season implements gameplay effecting elements, such as farms being less effective in the winter, then I would argue that a season should be like a month long in real life time, otherwise the ingame implications are just useless. If your farm is less effective in the winter, you just wait a couple of hours for it to be better. You do like a few quests and your farm will be back again. In fact, I doubt that crop crowing is a matter of hours to begin with. This is an MMORPG, not a survival server, in my opinion (though all of this is up to the content team) crops should not grow from 0 to 100 in a matter of hours; rather a day, if not several. If we implement seasons that would affect crops (which could effect economy and a meta), then seasons need to be long enough to affect professions, which it doesn't if it's like 24 hours or less.

Overall, this won't be implemented any time soon regardless as a bunch of affects would have to be implemented, like snow, rain, storms, sunshine, different day/night lengths, and potential other effects which we'd have to implement on top of systems which don't exist yet. If we imlement seasons, I'd personally have them have an actual impact on the server and not have it be a mere cosmetic thing, so we should take this into account.

I'm not the only one who would want to see seasons affect professions, like farming (crops), as per this comment:


I'd find that lovely, as this again creates a massive flow in economy and a meta. Imagine a season in our game is a few weeks or a month long. Certain, extremely deadly, master profession grade potions could only be made from mushrooms which only grow in autumn, then imagine what kind of immersive things this could arrise. The price of those potions would go in any season except autumn, and the same goes for any other item which would be lacking in other seasons. This could be extremely interesting, which is why I'm suggesting that if we implement seasons, we should incorporate it into professions, and have the seasons be long enough for it to affect the meta / economy.

TL;DR: My personal opinion (not part of the content team) is that seasons should be a few weeks or a month long at least to that we can put proper effects on the world, like professions. A few perfect examples of @Rednaxman; a type of deadly mushroom which only grows in autumn which can be used to make master-grade poisons. This could severely stimulate economy of profession related items, and can even promote auctions and add some kind of economy-meta. Could be really interesting. On top of this, seasons could imply differences to the world as visuals. In winter, we could have a snowy themed map, in autumn we have autumn themed, etc. This could all be extremely interesting.

Naturally though, if this suggestion gets accepted, it won't be implemented anytime soon as this requires plenty of work. If the content team agrees with it though, we could schedule it for a profession update. Again, that's if they agree with it. Just saying I'd personally like it.

And this;


I know @Euvrounin likes his dungeons as difficult as possible, and he would want to see people actually prepare strategicly for dungeons. This again would only add to this idea.

Though I do disagree on the fact that seasons affect spells; I think that takes it a bit too far and could be confusing to people who just played the game. Economy and professions isn't something a new player gets into straight away; skills are.

@Rednaxman are you in our Discord server yet? If not, please consider joining it. It's easier to discuss suggestions there also

i am on the discord, so thank you for inviting me anyways i just find this sort of thing very interesting and wanted to offer my view on it.

 

[Euvrounin]

Environment plays a huge part of the game, and yes .. you all have such wonderful ideas
but take not that environmental-related events should never be a nuisance to the players. We don't want players to change armors each time the season changes just so they can get all the buffs they want.

This kind of system is very complex and risky because of the possibilities it can do and believe it or not Weather system is part of our future plans though we haven't fully discussed it yet but we'll make sure that it would be fun and would allow all players to explore and experiment more with the environment.

I think the obvious question here is; what interval? How long is a season, and I'm sure while we're at it, how long would you suggest a Minecraft day/night to be? What kind of effects should be given in-game depending on a season? Winter could obviously debuf any farming profession by a chunk for instance, but what about the other seasons?

The seasons and time of Dyescape will depend on the lore itself.
Usually it takes two or more weeks to change a season. We'll see

Cultivation of these ingredients could be a major part of the servers economy, with the rust for craftsmen to gather specific components before the next season hits, or risk not being able to heal or buff themselves in combat. Big boss battles could take server wide preparation at points, with entire guild

You wont have problems with this, i gotchu

 

[MrDienns]

We don't want players to change armors each time the season changes just so they can get all the buffs they want.

We discussed this in Discord a small bit, and do think that several already agreed that seasons should not change spells, weapons or armor as it could become too hectic and confusing, especially to new players. It should mostly be limited to professions, which is what the more experienced players will get into.

 

[Aetheism]

Seasons would create opportunities for seasonal map changes, themed quests, and convenient intervals for massive updates, being quarterly.

 

[MrDienns]

Seasons would create opportunities for seasonal map changes, themed quests, and convenient intervals for massive updates, being quarterly.

Yes. While seasons could come with the more serious changes as discussed above, things like map adjustments would be very cool as well. I think the main question that remains as of now is how long an in-game season should be. There is still a bit of debate and opinion differences there.

 

[Euvrounin]

Seasons would create opportunities for seasonal map changes, themed quests, and convenient intervals for massive updates, being quarterly.

Halloween, Christmas, etc... themed maps would be fun :]

Lets just hope that it would be easy and smooth if we ever implement this considering Minecraft isn't that reliable and efficient to such changes. Things might break in-between updates.

 

[Vix]

My first thoughts:

I'm a massive advocate for making a realistic and lively world to be able to explore. Who would want to spend hours and hours grinding, questing and exploring in a dead and boring environment?

Seasons is an amazing idea to make the world feel more alive, but at the end of the day, you have to think about player progression. How long does it take to level up your main level, your professions and other aspects of player progression?

Buffs and debuffs for certain seasons would need to be balanced enough for both new players and old players to be able to progress at the appropriate rate, if its too easy people will get bored, if its too hard people will get frustrated, it affects player retention.

Visual Changes per season:

I think a great addition would be visual changes for each season. But obviously in winter, a desert region of the map wouldn't have any visual changes.

Debuffs:

My only issue about debuffs would be if the player is forced to change their equipment. While questing, grinding, dungeon running i definitely dont want to be cut off from content or forced to be slowed down while trying to complete content, especially if i'm a new player. This ties in again to progression and player retention.

Seasonal Events:
I think a season long event in game could be interesting. So when its summer in the real world, a summer event is ran in game and lasts until summer is over in the real world. And then the next season event is ran in autumn in the real world and so on for all seasons.

Could have seasonal mounts, pets, cosmetics that you could buy from currency you get when doing certain activities?

I think holiday events would be great also. So when its Halloween in the real world, a Halloween event is opened up with awards and activities centred around that theme, same for Christmas, St Patricks day and so on.

 

[KabbyDankGod]

I do think seasonal events would be a good addition, though I do dislike having seasons be the same ingame to the ones irl. As we talked about certain resources would be restricted to each season. But waiting 3/4 of a year just doesnt seem right. Maybe you could make specific seasons longer and shorter depending on what season it is in real life. Maybe in the summer, the summer ingame season lasts double the time when winter lasts half as long.

 

[Vix]

I do think seasonal events would be a good addition, though I do dislike having seasons be the same ingame to the ones irl. As we talked about certain resources would be restricted to each season. But waiting 3/4 of a year just doesnt seem right. Maybe you could make specific seasons longer and shorter depending on what season it is in real life. Maybe in the summer, the summer ingame season lasts double the time when winter lasts half as long.

My idea for the seasonal events would be just that, only an event. It wouldn't change anything visually it would just add, for example: In summer, when you complete any activity you get a chance to gain a 'summer fruit'. Once you have 1500 summer fruits you can buy a mount. Something like that