Writing In-game time progression question.

[BetterNickPending]

Hi.
I'm currently writing my first story for this page.
Never before had written an issekai/vr_game themed story.

My basic idea is that there is newly released VR MMO game. It is a survival, adventure game in fantasy setting.
Because it is a survival game, players beside completing quests where they slay monsters and rescue princesses, have to gather resources, manage their hunger, tend to their equipment etc...
Those additional activities will take precious time. And As we all know all adults have limited time in the day to play games.

That's why I thought about speeding in-game time progression in relation to real world time.
That seemed at first as a good idea.
Lets make 1 real world hour equal to 4 in-game days.
That way people can make significant progress during 1-2 hours game session with their friends.
(collect resources, build a settlement, craft equipment, raid dungeon)

The plan was for MC to be stuck in game permanently (until they find a way to escape).
With faster in-game time progression the MC would have few days in one piece to interact with players who are currently playing, instead of 1-2 hours and than waiting around 22 hours to again meet their friends.

But than it occurred to me, that it may change quantity of time but not its proportion.
Now if a Player games for one hour daily, MC can interact with him for 4 days but has to wait for 92 in-game days! (23*4=92)
That is three months! It is even worse than before!
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻


Obvious solution would be to change the setting to full isekai. But that would derail my story idea and its ending. That would have to be different story with different premise.

Do any of my fellow writers has any idea how to sole this dilemma?

How to make stuck in game MC interact with players for longer streaks of time, but avoid MC waiting for months for Player to return?
I do not mind waiting a day or two for player who did not turn on the game on weekend because he went on trip or something.

I have an half assed idea for a solution but I'm not happy with it. That's why I would like to read other peoples opinions.

 

[RepresentingPride]

Hi.
I'm currently writing my first story for this page.
Never before had written an issekai/vr_game themed story.

My basic idea is that there is newly released VR MMO game. It is a survival, adventure game in fantasy setting.
Because it is a survival game, players beside completing quests where they slay monsters and rescue princesses, have to gather resources, manage their hunger, tend to their equipment etc...
Those additional activities will take precious time. And As we all know all adults have limited time in the day to play games.

That's why I thought about speeding in-game time progression in relation to real world time.
That seemed at first as a good idea.
Lets make 1 real world hour equal to 4 in-game days.
That way people can make significant progress during 1-2 hours game session with their friends.
(collect resources, build a settlement, craft equipment, raid dungeon)

The plan was for MC to be stuck in game permanently (until they find a way to escape).
With faster in-game time progression the MC would have few days in one piece to interact with players who are currently playing, instead of 1-2 hours and than waiting around 22 hours to again meet their friends.

But than it occurred to me, that it may change quantity of time but not its proportion.
Now if a Player games for one hour daily, MC can interact with him for 4 days but has to wait for 92 in-game days! (23*4=92)
That is three months! It is even worse than before!
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻


Obvious solution would be to change the setting to full isekai. But that would derail my story idea and its ending. That would have to be different story with different premise.

Do any of my fellow writers has any idea how to sole this dilemma?

How to make stuck in game MC interact with players for longer streaks of time, but avoid MC waiting for months for Player to return?
I do not mind waiting a day or two for player who did not turn on the game on weekend because he went on trip or something.

I have an half assed idea for a solution but I'm not happy with it. That's why I would like to read other peoples opinions.

You can do the same thing as in The thief who roamed the world. The server are open after day hours so between 4/5pm to 6am. The in-game time are 7x and player can play the game while sleeping.

 

[BetterNickPending]

You can do the same thing as in The thief who roamed the world. The server are open after day hours so between 4/5pm to 6am. The in-game time are 7x and player can play the game while sleeping.

Never heard of it.
It's a manga/story/anime? Do you have link?
I want to check it out.

 

[RepresentingPride]

Never heard of it.
It's a manga/story/anime? Do you have link?
I want to check it out.

it's a novel

 

[greyliliy]

Honestly, the angst potential of them waiting months to see someone they know again is a great concept. Lol.

You wouldn't have to write out what they do every three months alone. That many time skips could be a good exercise in creativity. Like showing what state they are in. Or having them rotate between different players. Etc.

 

[l8rose]

Treat the MC like an NPC. The MC could go "dormant" during the time with no players in their area and simply blank out the long periods without anyone to interact with. It can also be used to make the MC think that there isn't such a long gap in time between meeting the specific players before gradually realizing something is very wrong.


Possibility of game areas that are limited to a single player or group such as a dungeon or inn room. As they are traditionally not impacted by the main world (most MMOs have separate servers or server slices for dungeons), you could say that the time flow in those does not match up with the time flow in the main game. So you could send the MC off into one of those between the times the players are available to shorten the time they're waiting for players.


Another option is that tasks takes longer if a player is not available/nearby. For example, crafting an item through blacksmithing. It's instant for a player or when a player is active nearby but the MC genuinely has to spend the actual weeks to make something if it's outside gaming hours. That way, you haven't fubbed your time rules, but you've given the MC something to do in that period allowing you to gloss over it (I know, it's a bit of lazy writing but then you still have the availability to write something later that involves the time delay if you wanted).

 

[LilRora]

If decreasing the time dilation isn't an option, then I think you'll have to play with restrictions or some fancy magic.

One way to do this would be making the server close for certain periods of time, such as being open only for six hours a day, or only on weekends, or something. This seems like the simplest solution, but has multiple issues, most notably time zones. A similar idea would be dividing the game world into multiple completely independent regions only available at certain times.

You could also try making servers open all the time, but imposing a limit for daily playtime. The issue with that is that I have no idea how you would solve this without some funky time magic syncing people up.

Another thing would be some restrictions for the mc, for example having to sleep periodically for long periods of time. The issue with this is that it isn't really possible without either an inhuman mc or some weird power-imposed conditions.

 

[2wordsperminute]

Crosscode (game) has the main character permanently in the game and side characters not always logged in, granted it's probably not exactly what you're going for.

 

[BetterNickPending]

Treat the MC like an NPC.

Could you please not rat out main plot device for a story I haven't written yet!
:P

I was thinking about similar thing. But I like your idea more.
Having time acceleration based on presence of human players might solve my problem.
Also instanced locations are good solution.

• but has multiple issues, most notably time zones.
• I have no idea how you would solve this without some funky time magic syncing people up.
• some weird power-imposed conditions.

You managed to find problems with solutions I haven't thought about :D

has the main character permanently in the game and side characters not always logged in

That is my goal but I want to have side characters for longer.


Taking in to consideration suggestions submitted so far I think I'll do something like that:

• Cities will have normal time flow and will be open all the time for everyone.
• Lots of smaller instanced locations with faster time flow that are activated by a single player, party or raid group.
• Open world locations with faster time flow opened to players only in certain hours.

That way MC can wait in city for a few hours and not months.
But if players log out of instanced location or time frame for open world passes, MC will be stranded alone and will have to find way to return to city or wait for a long time. Sometimes that will be a predicament for MC to be separated from party in hostile area. Sometimes it will allow MC to escape from hostile players.