Guild Wars 2

I think it would be cool to have the game world weather / climate cycle through the seasons on a real life 365 day calendar. We already have the festivals in place and those are good but changing seasons would be even better.

My winter is your summer (possibly) so it couldn’t be on a real 365 day cycle.

The seasons could be based on the server as in North American or Oceanic. I think they could do that.

Joe.8142:

My winter is your summer (possibly) so it couldn’t be on a real 365 day cycle.

Not to mention that depending on your location, your “winter” could be very different from someone else’s.

Not to mention that there are some zones in the game that clearly couldn’t experience much of an annual climate change. Shiverpeaks is in an endless winter, whereas Maguuma Jungle is clearly tropic. Drop some winter into Maguuma and you end up literally slaughtering the whole ecosystem.

The seasons could be based on the server as in North American or Oceanic. I think they could do that.

Nice try, except that even the United States sports different climates. Some places simply do not experience very distinct seasons.

I think the seasons would correspond to the region.

Clearly, artic or tropical locations would not see as much change. In the tropics I think they have more rain during certain times of the year and in the extreme northern / southern regions the day / night cycle could be adjusted and maybe it snows a lot less during ‘summer’.

I don’t think it would be too hard to figure out ‘realistic’ seasons and weather patterns…..actually coding it might be another matter altogether though.

I would prefer dynamic weather over a seasonal change. While yes it would be nice to see snow on the ground in Divinity’s Reach during the Winter, or hear NPCs complaining about how hot it is in Rata Sum during the Summer, I think having rain storms appear like dynamic events around the world would be much easier at the moment. Have a storm cloud pass over an area and drift on by like a caravan or escort Dynamic Event would, except a big ol’ circle doesn’t appear to hint that weather is taking place and it just happens.

Of course we do need to consider server resource constraints, and having additional resources used for weather instead of something like gameplay might seem like a silly move from a business perspective.

Joe.8142:

My winter is your summer (possibly) so it couldn’t be on a real 365 day cycle.

Anyone in the southern hemisphere does not know what a cold winter is.

why does it have to be based on the real 365 why cant teria have its own year. i like the seasons but idc if the seasons last 3 months or three weeks as long as it changes i think that would be cool. maybe it can roll across the map similar to a year maguuma can be winter like as well as ascalon while kryta is spring, LA is summer and shiverpeaks is fall. then ever month or six weeks have it shift. if they really wanted to put the effort in they could make it fluid and do each land section differently (lvl 1-15 would be different the lvl 70-80) that way its not all one land that is the season

Frozen Carnage.3427:

why does it have to be based on the real 365 why cant teria have its own year. i like the seasons but idc if the seasons last 3 months or three weeks as long as it changes i think that would be cool. maybe it can roll across the map similar to a year maguuma can be winter like as well as ascalon while kryta is spring, LA is summer and shiverpeaks is fall. then ever month or six weeks have it shift. if they really wanted to put the effort in they could make it fluid and do each land section differently (lvl 1-15 would be different the lvl 70-80) that way its not all one land that is the season

Good point about the year. It’s not Earth. It’s a different planet orbiting its own sun and depending on the age and size of that sun, the year could be anything from over a Terran year to a few months. Or even less with a very small star and a small orbit. Which means they could use a 4 month year, as an example, and have a new season each month.

Joe.8142:

My winter is your summer (possibly) so it couldn’t be on a real 365 day cycle.

Either way, neither of you live in Tyria. So it doesn’t have to follow any real world seasonal schedule. Though more than likely if it were implemented it would follow Anet’s HQ seasonal schedule, just as their daily reset schedule does.

Incidently, I’d love to see seasons. The Shivers would never change, it always being snowy there. But maybe the “winter” could be harsher with windy conditions and deeper snow covering the huts and the “summer” showing ocassional thaws in various areas, trees having sparse leaves.

To me, the only areas that aren’t inherently jungle or swamps or mountains and would actually have seasons would be Ascalon and northern Kryta around DR.

Astral Projections.7320:

Frozen Carnage.3427:

why does it have to be based on the real 365 why cant teria have its own year. i like the seasons but idc if the seasons last 3 months or three weeks as long as it changes i think that would be cool. maybe it can roll across the map similar to a year maguuma can be winter like as well as ascalon while kryta is spring, LA is summer and shiverpeaks is fall. then ever month or six weeks have it shift. if they really wanted to put the effort in they could make it fluid and do each land section differently (lvl 1-15 would be different the lvl 70-80) that way its not all one land that is the season

Good point about the year. It’s not Earth. It’s a different planet orbiting its own sun and depending on the age and size of that sun, the year could be anything from over a Terran year to a few months. Or even less with a very small star and a small orbit. Which means they could use a 4 month year, as an example, and have a new season each month.

However ANET chose to implement seasonal weather would probably be ok.

Queensdale under a blanket of snow would be awesome, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Four seasons would be two too many for Maguuma.

darkace.8925:

Queensdale under a blanket of snow would be awesome, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Four seasons would be two too many for Maguuma.

Tropical areas like that are more likely to have 2 seasons aren’t they? A dry and a wet season. They could do that. One where the foliage turns brown and there is no rain and one where all is green and it rains frequently.

There could even be the occasional monsoon. Asuras flying by in the wind as you go along. ^^

Zone changes based on season would be really neat but I image it would be a pain modifying every zone. Are there any MMOs out there that currently do this?