Season, Years?

[Argent]

So I know that everyone on HWO will be on their own timeline since the monthly turn feature is an individual thing, but would it be possible to have season and years implemented in the game? The years might feel a little awkward initially, what with everyone being at a different point, but it would be interesting to see just how long an individual farm has been "in operation" in game terms. Seasons would allow for realistic crop growth cycles and breeding schedules.

[larissar]

It's definitely something I'd like to include. I've thought about adding in things such as mares coming into season at specific times of the year, which then gives us the ability to add in special items (like heat lamps, etc.) as decorations in stalls to help encourage a mare to come into season sooner.

My only worry with this though is will people except to see snow on their farms? And other seasonally changing elements on the farms/landscapes? That will be a lot harder to pull off as the art requirements basically triple.

Also, since each turn is a month in game time, it would mean that every 3 turns the season changes. If we want to do something like this, should we adjust how much time passes each turn? I would be open to doing this if there is interest.

It's something I'll probably add in as a new feature sometime down the road if all my "what ifs" can be answered.

Adding a Year tracker to each user would be dead simple and I can add that in right from the start.

[Argent]

Seeing snow would be great, if that was the weather for the month, but there are a lot of places where it doesn't snow in the winter, so you could get away with leaving it out. I'm personally very fond of autumn, and as much as I'd love to have the leaves change, I could do without. Maybe you could build the custom image upload system to have a seasonal component? So players could buy seasonal art from each other, and it would be applied when appropriate? Sounds like a hassle, but I wouldn't know. Or release the seasonal images later, or as an upgrade feature?

I would prefer a longer turn, personally. I mean, I like the idea of potentially getting through several years in one day if I spend that much time on the game (I probably would...), but I also feel like it doesn't allow for much progress to be made since you have so little time. If possible, I'd say have a "Next Day/Week" button and a "Next Month" button. If you're dealing with a stud farm, the horses can more or less be left alone when it isn't breeding season, so you could skip months, but if you're training horses, it's more beneficial to be able to cover individual days. You could still limit it to up to 48 months per day, and players would have the option of rushing through those four years or taking their time.

[larissar]

I suppose it's all possible, I'll look into adding something like this eventually. I think it would add to the game for sure

Right now 12 turns equals one year. What if I made it so that 20 turns equals one year. Which would make 5 turns per season. Right now there is no limit to how many turns you can get, but I think I need to add in a limit to how frequently you can advance turns. Something like once every 2 minutes or something. Simply to avoid a huge load on the server, since a lot of processing is done each turn. That would mean you could go through 4 years in about 2.5 hours, or use a special item to age a horse faster.

[Argent]

I'd prefer 24 turns to a year, since my need for organization demands that the numbers still look like they could make a year : P

[larissar]

24 turns would mean a little over 3 hours of playing to reach 4 years of age.
That's pretty reasonable I think, especially considering aging can be sped up for breeding.

[Argent]

1 turn per 2 minutes would be 24 turns in 46 minutes.
1 turn per 5 minutes would be 24 turns in 115 minutes.
1 turn per 8 minutes would be 24 turns in 184 minutes, which gives the just over 3hrs you mentioned.

[larissar]

Correct. But I meant to span 4 game years. Birth to breedable age.

[Argent]

Merp. I didn't read that thoroughly, sorry.