WW's reasoning for no weather. Disagree!

I would love to have weather effects, but not if I had to sacrifice more costume options.

IT is not a mater of immersion for me, I just would like it. One thing I do know, every MMO that I have played that did have weather had serious lag spikes when it was weathering. It would need to be something that could be disabled. If you get near Antimatter's power plants in Praetoria you can see ash in the air, so it can be done, they just choose not to.

Before anything else cosmetic, I want to be able to change the color of Hasten. Pool customization should never have been left out. Also, I would NOT want to weather to affect my powers in any way.

For what it's worth... I hate weather. If I could have turned it off in my previous MMO, I would have. Yeah, it can be immersive... or it can slow my frame rate and make it hard to see. One of these can be fun, but not always. If I had to choose between weather I couldn't turn off and no weather, I'd prefer no weather. Weather you can turn off doesn't help immersion much.

I vote for weather! I like snow and rain! Change is good!

I'ld love to have random zone wide weather effects that rendered client side and can be disabled.

I already stand around staring at things some more ambiance would keep me logged in more often.

Well in the last stage of the coming Praetorian Event in IC (fight the syndicate),
you get a warning of 'high winds approaching' and if you're not careful they will blow you right off the top of the skyscraper. I was glad I had fly.

So I could see a case made for more of this localized event driven weather. Admittedly the wind gusts didn't have any lag inducing graphics that detailed rain or snow might have.

If there's wind, you'll need to let us make our hair move to be realistic.

Count me among those who would rather NOT have weather put into the game in general.

Perhaps during an event? Certainly. I would love there to be a constant, light snowfall during the winter events - and the ice to come back to Perez and the other zones which froze over. The fog in Dark Astoria is nice, but I wouldn't want it around *everwhere*, not even for a short period of time.

It would have to be PURELY visual - except that ice on the water, which they haven't done since the first year, and I don't expect to see again - to keep people from just growing disgusted with it if it gets in their way.

Thing I'd rather see, is seasons reflected in the trees and grounds around town. That would probably add a huge amount of flavor, and not SO much in the way of 'getting in the way of people's play'.

I would much rather have the team dedicating themselves to revamping the whole of the blue and red side for both content and visuals, than putting any energy into rain anywhere in the game.

Being involved in programming myself, I can understand where War Witch is comming from on this. Given there are a lot of other really sweet things we have gotten recently, and will get, its a question of developer time verses resources, and the avoidence of scope creep. For instance, they could either do weather (which at the moment would be aesthetic, beyond say zone events), or they could come up with new powersets/enemies/incarnate abilities/new zones.

That said, even if it was something as simple as the sky turns a little darker, the skybox goes to overcast, and you get some rain effects it wouldn't hurt. At very least some missions where you get weather effects going on would make things a little more interesting (especially with some AE customization to go with it). Just worth considering if the effects artists are having a slow month

I'd definitely like seasonal effects. Snow in winter especially. I love snow.

Another shout out for seasonal differences to zone appearance - snow on the ground during the winter event, maybe some of the lakes freeze over; little flowers on the grass in spring; brighter sunshine and NPC's moaning about how hot it is in summer; trees turning a different colour in autumn (that's "fall" to our American brethren). It really would make a difference and make the world feel more "real".

However, I would prefer that the older zones got a huge makeover, first.

When it comes to weather, I'd rather they didn't. I've played games that had weather effects before and I just didn't care for them at all.

First off, this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike I agree with the "Weather? *MEH!*" crowd.

Second, this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow I will always pick more costumes, more powers, more locations and more customization over weather.

Third: I if any weather was introduced, I think it would be suited to instanced outdoor missions, to add ambience or drama to a specific situation. Cluttering up large zones with excess graphics requirements not something I would endorse.

Look at Dark Astoria, great ambience but a pain to get anywhere compared to other zones.

Fourth, the OP states:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neogumbercules She could have basically applied the same logic to "Ultra Mode" graphics. For those who don't know, in the New York Post article War Witch said she was a "solid no" on adding weather systems to the game because it "adds nothing" to game play. I really, vehemently disagree with that statement.

I do not have time, atm, the pull the actual quote rather than this spun version... but I remember her saying: she has been in the solid no crowd because she has not been presented a compelling game play reason. It was not an unequivocable no, as I read it. But then again, I am clearly less passionate about the topic than the OP.

EDIT: I now see Noble Savage corrected the OP's misquote already.

I'm in the weather : meh camp too.

I mean it'd be nice and all (I love the weather effects in the Witcher for example, adds a lot to the ambiance) but since for example we're getting a terribad selection of New Animations in i19 I can't see the point of spending Development time on something like weather effects.

Plus of course if they did announce them people would get all excited and then it would be revealed that the amazing new weather system comprised of "A bit sunny" and "Slightly overcast".