Time in FK

[Tolomon]

When you use the 'time' command, you get output similar to this:

Code: Select all

<97%hp 87m 6%mv> time
It is 2 o'clock am, Seventhday, 26th day in the Month of Leafall.
The mud started up at: Mon Nov 28 11:59:10 2011
The system time (GMT): Tue Nov 29 03:28:28 2011

I'm interested in setting up an event that is supposed to happen on a certain date on the FR calendar. Is there some way to calculate roughly when certain dates are going to happen on the real-life calendar? Or would it be easier to simply pick a time/date on the Event Calendar and just RP that the event is happening on the date in the FR calendar?

Now, if you totally understood what I was trying to say above, you're a better person than I am!

[Athon]

What is the reason for the specific date? Are you trying to align with a holiday?

There might be different perspectives to this, but I'd say it's best to just pick a real-life time/date and RP around that.

There are several factors that influence this decision:
- The games moves at 2 hours IRL = 1 day in-game. So you can theoretically plan around that. However, it is impossible to accurately predict FK crashing, copy-overs, and other things that might adversely affect the date in-game and as such, causing a change to your timing.
- You're going to have a greater than 50% chance that your in-game time is going to fall at a time that is not convenient for players. (e.g. the specific date could be between 3:00 and 5:00 AM MST (US) and the majority of the MUD could be asleep)
- In all my time playing FK, I've really never seen the actual "date" RP'd around. Consider, FK is 'stuck' in a perma-cycle at a specific time in FR's history (shortly after the Times of Troubles but before the rise of Bane, the fall of Zhentil Keep from the Zhentarim, etc.).


I'm not trying to dissuade you from what you're doing - I actually think it's really cool that you're trying to work something out like this. My point is that I firmly believe it's better to just plan an event based on a real-life time and RP around that. The most important part of what you're doing is the actual RP so planning when it's most convenient for the player base would be best, in my opinion.

[Tolomon]

- In all my time playing FK, I've really never seen the actual "date" RP'd around.

That means you're not doing it right.


Anyway, the event I'm wanting to put together is a festival that happens on a certain date. Seeing how the timeline is sorta "stuck" in a loop, waiting for that particular day may not really matter. Just picking a date (IRL) and getting my proverbial ducks in a row, might prove to be easier.

Thanks!

[Athon]

That means you're not doing it right.

I think it would be cool to "code" some NPC festivals around specific dates. Something like this could spice up the game and make the months/days a little more relevant.

Is there currently a flag that can check for a specific date?

[Athon]

Is there currently a flag that can check for a specific date?

Answered my own question. 'if day() == #' is recognized as a prog. I assume each day is assigned a specific number - do we have a list of that? I have an idea for this.

[Tolomon]

I have an idea for this.

One Gondar to another, please share!

[Harroghty]

Athon: Sure, there are some things like this already. (e.g. Leishan's caravan on the Trade Way.) Leishan checks for months and times:

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if month() == 6
or month() == 5
or month() == 7
or month() == 8
or month() == 9
  if time() == 18
  or time() == 17
  or time() == 19

You could capture some holidays on the calendar of Harptos like Greengrass with a program, but it would be harder with something irregular like Shieldmeet. Maybe you could use an if rand check for those.

Tolomon: The biggest difficulty in playing by the calender of Harptos, as Athon said, is matching your desired day with an agreeable real-world time for the players that you wish to involve.

[Athon]

Tolomon: my idea is pretty simple. Write a prog that creates "holidays" on certain days. For example, I could write a prog that shows NPCs celebrating in a specific area and maybe a vendor selling mundane holiday-related items on that day.

Harroghty: So, we don't have a linear order for the dates? The 30th day of the 4th month would be 'if month() ==4; if day() == 30' instead of 'if day() == 120' if this makes sense?

[Harroghty]

That's a good question. I don't know the answer, but I will try to find out.

[Harroghty]

I found a check like this in waterdeep.are:

Code: Select all

>time_prog 6~
if day() == 5
or day() == 15
or day() == 25

This leads me to believe that it works on a month basis rather than a count from 1 to 365. I will double-check that though.

[Harroghty]

Okay, I double-checked with Mask. Days are days in a month, so you need both checks for it to function properly.

e.g.

Code: Select all

if month() == 1
  if day() == 5

Is the fifth day of the first month.

[Keltorn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the FK version of the calendar missing five days?

In the FR calendar, there's twelve months, each with thirty days, then there's the five annual holidays (Midwinter, Greengrass, Midsummer, Highharvestide, and The Feast of the Moon), all of which occur between the months. It should total 365 days for each year, plus a leap day (Shieldmeet) every four years, but I've never seen the time show as one of the holidays. I'm pretty sure they're missing from FK.

[Harroghty]

No, you're correct. I believe that you could mitigate this easily though. For Greengrass (between 30 Tarsakh and 1 Mirtul):

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>greet_prog 100~
if month() == 4
  if day() == 30
    mpecho Greengrass!
  endif
endif
if month() == 5
  if day() == 1
    mpecho Greengrass again!
  endif
endif
~

See the new post for builders (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14872&p=95472#p954720). Good initial catch, Tolomon. Thanks. Keltorn, thanks for a dose of your usual, spot-on savvy about the Realms and D&D.

[Tolomon]

Thank you, Harroghty, but I think Keltorn is the one who caught the missing holidays.

My idea probably belongs under the suggestion category, but it directly relates to my original post so I'll post it here.

Does anyone celebrate any of the FR holidays as events within FK? For example, I read through this post on festivals over in the World category. One that jumped out to me was Stoneshar (about half way down the post or so) because of the relation to Gond and crafting. Which gave me the idea, what about putting together a player-run event like Stoneshar? It would be a good way for me to be active in the FK community and give Tigo an chance to ICly meet other Gondars, not to mention other hopefuls.

After asking my original question and seeing the response, it gave me yet another idea. What about having certain holidays actually coded? Staying with the Gond-theme, Ippensheir is a 12-day holy "day" for followers of Gond. They come together and share their new inventions, feast, drink, be merry, etc. Now Ippensheir is unique in that it's 12 days long. 12 days in-game at 1 game-day per 2 IRL-hours means a holiday like Ippensheir would last 24 IRL hours. That means any player who wanted to celebrate it could log on and any point on said IRL 24hour period and still celebrate with their fellow players. Obviously, not every FR holiday lasts for 12 days, but we could stretch holidays to last 24 IRL hours to make sure they don't happen on weird IRL times.

Pulling from my MMO past, devs would put together these festivals with unique quests and items that were only available during these special days. They often happened around certain IRL holidays (Christmas, Halloween, St. Pat's Day, etc.).

Here's where it becomes a suggestion: Could something like this be added to FK? What a way to introduce new players to old players ICly and give both players (new and old) something fun to do besides stand around the Market Square gossiping.

[Athon]

Tolomon,

That's effectively what I was referring to in my post above. Based off the coding that Harroghty figured out above, any builder can go through and program holidays into their areas. So, for example, I bet you could apply to build a Gondar area that hosts a holiday for 12 game days at a certain time of the year. That would be really cool, IMO.

And maybe we could convince the area coders to add mpechos to the major cities and maybe the wilderness to announce coded holidays? I see some good potential here.

[Harroghty]

The rub is that the builders are already up to their eyeballs in other things right now and so, while your suggestion is great Tolomon (I have had similar experiences in other games), I have a solution to bridge the gap. Several faiths have hosted events around their holy days and asked for immortal support via the applications system(e.g. Kregor's hosting of a True Resurrection event for Torm's faithful). The staff can provide props for your event and help transmogrify your enthusiasm into something tangible. The key element is someone willing, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable though. If you can be that person for an event and submit a reasonable application, then we can probably help.

Building such things in is a great idea but it sadly goes atop the pile of other great ideas that will probably have to wait.