Games with "real" time vs. in-game time

So, games that show the time passing. Do you prefer it when the clock syncs up with your real clock? In-game sunsets only at sunset where you life? Or do you prefer it when it's more compressed, so you see more days ticking by?

Honestly I think I prefer real time. Something about twenty minute long "days" weirds me out. Plus then it feels like you're spending half of your game time in the dark. (Granted, I suppose in a game with real time, if you only played at night you'd be spending your ENTIRE game time in the dark.)

I also liked when this was pulled off with Pokemon Gold/Silver. Want an Umbreon? Gotta stay up late! (Or trick the game's clock, I guess.)

How about you guys?

I don't have a preference. The day/night system like in Ocarina of Time never bothered me, nor does the one in Gold/Silver.

I like it best when there's no real telling of how much time passes other than for story purposes. FFX, Vagrant Story and Dark Souls come to mind; noone really knows how much time passes in these stories and it's great :roll2

I smurfing hate having to wait for IRL days or times to do certain things.

I"m looking at you Pokemon.

I prefer in game time. I play a lot of games at night and I don't want to spend my whole game time at night

Depends really. If there are very big effects on the gameplay from playing in night, it's nice that it passes soon enough for me to get the stuff i want done done before i have to go to bed irl. However, if the game lets you wait or sleep that's not much or a problem.

20 minute days are way too short. I think a full 24 hour cycle should at least take 2 hours.

And pumpkin, even if the game had one hour lasting one hour, the game wouldn't necessary sync the time with your own. It could be made to only make time pass while you're actually playing, so the first two nights you play it would be day, then the second two nights you play it would be night.

I don't think I've ever played a game that follows "real time", now that you mention it. I feel like I may be missing out.

Well, unless you count Metal Gear Solid 3 during the fight with (SPOILER)The End where if you take too much real time to kill him he dies of old age. That was amazing to me at the time.

I definitely prefer condensed. If there's actually a need for different times of day then it'd feel more like a chore having to actually wait for that time in real life.

what if you could fast forward it by a wait/sleep feature? Would 1:1 time be all right then?

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Originally Posted by Mirage

what if you could fast forward it by a wait/sleep feature? Would 1:1 time be all right then?

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I don't know. I didn't even like having to do that in Skyrim and that wasn't 1:1. I think I just dislike time having an effect on gameplay.

Castlevania 64 was another one that did it. Some times you'd have to wait for day/night for a room to open, or a particular cut-scene to happen to advance the plot. You could cut the wait with Moon/Sun cards, but it was still kind of annoying.

I enjoy both, thought I think I like the compressed time just a bit more. Xenoblade Chronicles pulled it off perfectly, IMO, with each hour lasting a bit longer than a minute and you being able to manipulate the time.

Though there was something unique about having to explorr that creepy manor in Pokemon Diamond at Midnight.

Game-time. I like how FFXIV does it - roughly an hour for a game-day. It's not too long but not too short. I dislike the idea of having to be gaming at a certain time in order to be able to access something - it's not user-friendly at all. You could fix it so that the game didn't match the real-world clock, but just time progression pace... but I would not want to have to leave my game sitting for 12 hours so the sun can come up/down in order for me to progress with whatever I was doing.

FFXIV is the same as XI, and also the same as Xenoblade, with each minute ingame lasting roughly 2.4 seconds, for a roughly one hour long day. That's way better than the crazy 20-minute days but i still think it is a bit short.

But again Loony Bob. Most offline games let you fast forward time. TES and Fallout games let you just press t and forwards time one hour per second. Xenoblade lets you manually set the time to whatever you wish.

The 1 hour=1 minute system works pretty well for The Sims 3.