Could weather become part of Ultra Mode?

I realise that primarily the Ultra Mode graphics addition has been designed with reflectivity and shadows in mind, but as several people have mentioned, this could be the preparation for future graphical elements in the future, including any possible sequel to this game.

That being said, could weather effects (or more accurately, animations) be utilised by this technology? I'm certainly no coder or programmer, but my experience with weather effects in other games are primarily just visual. So if there's rain, it's animated rain. If it's snow, it's animated and slowly decreases my screen visibilty. These are advanced graphical effects which I presume at least are handled by the video card.

Would it be reasonable then to suggest that environmental effects (which in my mind goes hand in hand with environmental reflections, as weather has effects in them with related properties) could become an optional 'Ultra Mode' feature? It might obviously be confusing if a UM and non-UM user were in the same zone and one was chatting about how cool the rain looked, but such things haven't struck me as 'hard coded' zone events. As someone pointed out, we can get red and green deep cloud cover during zombie and Rikti invasion events, and animations for lightning and storms exist already.

So can those in the know attempt to address this? I'm very curious.


S.

This reminded me of something, years back a Dev, could have been BaBs, listed a few reasons why they wouldn't do weather, specifically rain.

One of the reasons (but not the only) was that without it effecting the envorement, it would just look fake, he specifically mentioned that reflections on streets and things would be needed to make it look like the streets had actually gotten wet.
Of course, back then, the closest thing to reflections were flipping building interiors upside down.
Now of course, we have actual reflection tech... so... who knows?

Personally, I doubt they will add weather... I'd prefer it if the sky was more detailed though.

Me, I dare say weather is one of the last things I'd like to see added. Mind you, I don't dislike the concept, but if I had one desire for the game, it would be dynamic lights cast by our powers, complete with more darkness for the dynamic lights to illuminate. Even as far back as Diable, shooting a fireball down a dark hallway sent not just a ball of fire flying, but also an intense orange light that illuminated the hallways as it went. Awesome stuff! You don't even need these lights to cast shadows. Just the lights themselves would be cool.

Seriously, think of how cool the various powersets would be if all the flashy lights we covered our bodies with and threw around cast their own light.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Weather effects on a constant loop? Not a huge fan of it.

Weather effects in a mission? Yes please!

We know they can do fog you shouldn't ask for more than that. Unless you want to be the one carrying a howl lot of metal in a thunder storm. Besides how would that effect the Storm Summoning.

I have seen rain in games that was just fine with no puddling effects. With the light rains, the only added effect was the small splash at the end of the fall. Since Paragon City is in Rhode Island, I imagine they could have at least light snow flurries in game also with no accumulative effects. Can't remember how far north the Rogue Islands are supposed to be, so I don't know if they'd qualify for snow flurries.

I've also seen perception reduction due to deluge rains. Not certain an actual reduction was programmed in, so much as a side effect from the full deluge.

As to the "loop" thought that EU_Damz mentioned, one of the games I'm thinking of worked with what appeared to be some sort of giant dice roll. Every 10 minutes, roll the dice. There'd be like a 1 in 1000 chance for rain. That would keep it rare and random. Once it started roll again. There'd be a 1 in 20 chance that it would grow from a light rain into a deluge. Something like that, as opposed to looped.

One thing that does concern me for weather would be the effects on older video cards. I've already seen encompassing effects slow my older video cards (just got a new one so things are better) and suspect it might be so for many players with older systems.

Just putting it out there that Morrowind, an eight-year-old game, has both environment-affecting rain (it causes ripples in water) AND powers/spells that illuminate the surrounding environment... and it doesn't look fake at all on the rocky or paved surfaces that don't become reflective.

I also disagree with weather-on-a-constant-loop; the only constant weather I like is the fog in Dark Astoria. But setting up weather as random zone events? That could work well, I think... I'm imagining a foggy morning in Croatoa, or lightning cracking the sky over Grandville. Sweeeeet.

A hitch, though, that COULD make things look fake is that for anything involving wind, people's capes would have to respond. I don't know how the light breeze that affects our capes now is handled, but if there's a howling thunderstorm out there they sure ain't going to be hanging serenely at our backs.

Man, I would looooove weather effects. Things that make the city less static make me happy. Zone events, special GMs, all that stuff makes the city a little more alive for me. Windy days, sunny days, rainy days, snowy days, those would add a lot for me!

I wouldn't mind seasonal snow during the winter months. Granted it'd be a nice vacation from the southern hemisphere (Snow during summer? Yes please)

I'd like to see 'winter versions' of Atlas Park and such piled with snow... But rain, fog and weather would be rather nice if it was done in a 'it gets dark, SFX, rain pours down' kinda way. Even if it was an optional extra to display.

Then again. I'm sure Positron has some hand in the perfect weather year round... Him or some other genius with the mental capacity for making a weather machine that holds the days and nights at a constant, cloud free sky.

Man, I'd be fine with fake rain. I'd be fine with just weather /sound effects/.

A rainy day on Mercy would be epic, I think.

Yeah, I want weather BADLY.

Just play a stormy.....you will have all the weather you want when you want.

Luminara, rain, sun, snow etc would have no effect on the servers at all, since it would all be handled client side.

Edit: Additionally, that's not why Hami raids lagged at all.