Does anyone else miss nighttime? (New: Nights are back 6.0!)

[Vephriel]

I've been camping the Sewer Beast for days and I've had nothing better to do than think about WoW things, so tonight's thought that won't leave me alone is how much I miss nighttime in game.

This is what Redridge looked like at night before:


This is Redridge at night currently:


I'm sure more of you remember how awesome zones could look at night, and how it gave a completely different mood in some cases. It was just another layer of immersion, and frankly one that seems as though it should be obvious. Night and Day. And yet Blizzard decided to remove that, apparently in favour of making the game playable at all times of the day and I still can't fathom the logic behind this decision.

I'm just sad looking through old screenshots and comparing them to the brightly lit "nights" of Azeroth that we now have. There is almost no difference between night and day now except for the skybox gaining stars. Would it be difficult to make some sort of toggle or slider so that if people really were bothered by playing at night they could select the option, rather than having such an important detail removed for everyone?

[Bowno]

Yup. That and Blue Child :c RIP

[cowmuflage]

Would it be difficult to make some sort of toggle or slider so that if people really were bothered by playing at night they could select the option, rather than having such an important detail removed for everyone?

I bet they did think about doing that but there is bound to be a good reason why they did not do it.

[Vephriel]

About a year ago there was a big outcry on the EU forums with people hoping to bring it back. There was a blue post that said

Wow! Alright alright, we hear you. This seems almost like a unanimous opinion on this thread…
We’ll let the devs know how you feel about this

But we don't seem to have heard anything since.

Crossing my fingers for something in WoD perhaps.

[Chimera]

Yesssss I really miss night time in WoW. I'm up till like the wee hours of the night and generally up in the late afternoon server-time on the servers I tend to frequent so I'm exposed to more night than day and I like it that way! But nupe. No good ol' nights.

I'd def come back for dark nights again.

[Makoes]

I to miss the night time scenery's. The zones would look almost completely different from day to night, the atmosphere changed and it was just really awesome.

Also I miss the Blue Child as well...I was happy when it came back, and then it was gone again T.T

[Wain]

Also I miss the Blue Child as well...I was happy when it came back, and then it was gone again T.T

Hey, what? When did it go again???

And yes, more night time would be wonderful!

I guess one major reason they lightened it is that servers have a 24-hour cycle that follows the time zone of their region. Which means most people will play the game at night almost all of the time. I assume they just didn't want it to be perpetually gloomy to the majority of players.

[Lupis]

Shoot, when did night time disappear? I totally missed it! ...Actually, I just never noticed, I guess. Though now that I think about it, you're right, it's been oddly light...

I admit, night time really bothered me after a certain point. I played a lot in the evening and because the server I was on was three hours ahead, it was always dark. And that got gloomy real fast. But artificially light night isn't much good either!

[Kintsugi]

When did this happen? I usually play in the afternoon/night. I must be oblivious or it happened while I was away from WoW and when I came back never noticed the change. But now that you mention it, perpetual daytime is odd. Perhaps the planet stopped rotating. We could just say that. Except then the habitable zones would be reduced to the edge of the day/night divide with the planet largely being burnt desert on the day side and frozen desolation on the night side. But anyway. When did it start raining in Stormwind or did I never notice it before?

[Vephriel]

It was Cataclysm when they removed true night.

I play mostly in the evenings as well, but I still miss it far too much. If they had a way to toggle it on the player side it would be perfect so people had a choice.

Zones just looked so lovely in the night, it's a shame we lost that duality because sometimes it made an area seem like an entirely different place.



I think with the new lighting they implemented in MoP the darker nights would be especially great looking, torches and lanterns would throw more realistic illumination. I know the following would be too dark for some (I would be happy if we just got our old nights back), but I love these manipulations someone did to show what WoW could look like with more dramatic shadows:

http://i.imgur.com/ZswNa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pXY9Z.jpg

[Kayb]

gah, it's not until i see the screens that i recall just how much i miss this

it's so incredibly overdue, my god, just do it blizz. if people can't see crap at night time then they can up their brightness themselves.

[Vephriel]

Yeah, it's only when I look at old screenshots and comparisons that I get frustrated again.

Here's a good Lakeshire comparison I found (linked for large size):
http://imageshack.us/a/img255/7386/lake ... arison.jpg

Buildings that had glowy clockfaces and windows will never do that anymore without true night. The way the whole area is highlighted now without any shadows really bothers me aesthetically, it just looks so wrong and the colours are far too bright and saturated.

I know at the end of the day it doesn't affect gameplay but...the immersion takes a pretty big hit for me when I used to love walking around in the evening.

[cowmuflage]

I admit, night time really bothered me after a certain point. I played a lot in the evening and because the server I was on was three hours ahead, it was always dark. And that got gloomy real fast. But artificially light night isn't much good either!

I know that feeling I really do. All Oceania servers are in Aussie time so I'm always around 3 hours ahead too. It makes a lot of things a pain XD

[Myrrmi]

I have to say I prefer it the way it is now. Even with current lightning level, for me it's sometimes hard to see in darker zones. I had a lot of problems in IoT and ToT, especially Magera's cave, before I've boosted my monitor's gamma up to the roof - but now, on the other hand, my desktop is oddly bright, and I have trouble reading any font that is lighter than very dark gray.

...and I'm not even that much visually impaired, just your usual stabilised 4-eyer. I guess there are tons of wow players that have it -far- worse than me.

[Castile]

I admit, night time really bothered me after a certain point. I played a lot in the evening and because the server I was on was three hours ahead, it was always dark. And that got gloomy real fast. But artificially light night isn't much good either!

I know that feeling I really do. All Oceania servers are in Aussie time so I'm always around 3 hours ahead too. It makes a lot of things a pain XD

I agree, i knida like the way it is now. Im in Perth so we are 2hrs behind the East in summer which means it was ALWAYS night time when i play. It wasn't so bad when i played on a US server but now im mainly on oceanic it being night all the time would bug me. I can see why ppl miss it, its a very pretty look - maybe they could have a few RP servers with the proper night/day lighting? So people could choose to play on them if they wished.

[Melissa]

I too really miss the night time, both for immersion but also on a personal note.

Bad eyes run through my family, and overly bright colors can sometimes hurt my eyes as a result (I think I was one of the few people who actually liked what Garrosh did to the vale because of it, when the main hub of an expansion is all bright and gold, ugh >.<). Night time would usually be when I'd go out to level alts, because the screen would be a lot easier on my eyes, making it a lot more enjoyable ^^

I completely agree that making it a setting would be awesome... Maybe even as far as to let you see the night sky during the day? It would be nice for roleplaying purposes - not every person I RP with is an insomniac ^^

[zedxrgal]

I also miss true night. Such a shame the removed it. This is the only game I play where true night time doesn't exist

[Anyia]

I guess one major reason they lightened it is that servers have a 24-hour cycle that follows the time zone of their region. Which means most people will play the game at night almost all of the time. I assume they just didn't want it to be perpetually gloomy to the majority of players.

They could relatively easily fix that by running in-game time on say a 23h day.

To be honest I hadn't realised they'd removed night time like that - after I transferred to an oceanic server I was mostly on late day/evening, so it seemed reasonable that I didn't get to spend night-time in the game any more. Ah for wandering Silverpine forest in the night, getting ambushed by those roaming elite Sons of Arugal.... such memories... =)

[Litlemouse]

The second one is nighttime? Sheesh, you could pretend it's a sunny day and have a picnic and you wouldn't even notice anything.

[Agravaine]

I miss it too. It should be relatively simple code to make it a client side on/off toggle. Another toggle could let it follow local time instead of server time.