Guild Wars 2

Anyone else notice that the Sun and Moon rise to a certain spot and stay there all day and all night long? And then in the morning and evening, they set within a few seconds, no time for the “magic hour”. With the beauty of the rest of the game, I found it quite odd. It robs us of an opportunity to see some amazing sunrises and sunsets that I know the graphics team can whip up.

I’d really love to see them update the sky graphics to give us a more realistic path for the sun and moon.

Amen.
(15 chars)

It has always been this way. The engine has a fixed light source. By day it is the sun, by night the moon, they are always in the same spot, shadows are always cast in the same direction.

All shadows from world objects are still calculated with little draw distance, although with a fixed light source, they might as well be textures.

Once the sun and moon start moving, there is a second practical problem, which is the level design. All zones end with either an open ocean, or a cliff you cannot climb. Basically, the entire map is pressed down in a piece of foam. You will therefore never see the sun rise and set on the horizon, because of the shoe box nature of most maps. At best you see the sun come up and go down over objects which are much nearer than the horizon could be. As a result, you get the same effect you get living in a valley. Often the sun will just vanish behind the hillside, the town will be in the shade and it will get dark without orange glowy magical hour sunsets.

Fixing one fake, gives rise to having to make new fakes.