Well, the problem is more that a lot of guys in, say, the USA only get to race in the evening hours, from like 8pm-12am. This would mean that they would never get to race Aston or South City or Blackwood in the daylight (aside from maybe weekends). For leagues in the western hemisphere, this would make weekday leagues very difficult, etc etc. Weather, on the other hand, is constantly changing and isn't tied to anyone's schedule.
edit: In fact the only track they'd see in daylight would be Kyoto. Hah.
Yeah, I'm probably sounding a bit hardcore. Unchangable conditions, epsecially day/night would be fine for me, because I can be on the computer almost 24/7. But for some people, who can only race at certain times, it would of course be a real pain.
In the future, there should be many more people coming to LFS. That will mean many new servers and many new variations of track/car/weather/time, once it's all up and running. That can only be a good thing.
I think time of day should be selectable, but the actual weather (wind, rain, puddles, heat, humidity etc) should be non-user controlled. Either link them to real world conditions in the area where each track is said to reside, or have the weather 'randomised' based on various probabilities. These can either be on the master server (like the handicaps, so Scawen could change the probability of rain if it happens too much at Kyoto for example), or in the track file itself (which might allow people to alter it via 'hacking').
But I don't think rain, temps etc should be configurable ONLINE as people will tend to just have dry (read: easier) races. In real life very few people actually WANT rain, because it IS harder. But they HAVE to cope with rain because occasionally it happens. We should have the same problem.
The difference between weather and time of day is, the weather is random. The time of day would be constant because most probably race in the evenings, thus you would never see daylight at some tracks and never see night at others. With weather, it could be clear on day and raining the next, totally random.
You can say it forces people out of their habits and onto a different track with global real world time of day, but that also forces folks never to come back to those tracks ever again.
You're right. But my point was as soon as you start giving concession to people's preferences, the possibility of a potential suspension of disbelief that these virtual places are somehow 'real places' is compromised. If you can scroll through 20 different servers that offer Blackwood- Blackwood at night, Blackwood in the morning, in the afternoon, with all the varying permutations of weather, then that absolutely blows that potential out of the water. On the other hand- if Blackwood were Blackwood, at 7am, 5 degrees, overcast, and raining - everywhere for everyone - the idea that it's a real place suddenly becomes very strong indeed. That's all I meant.
edit: And I think it's pretty difficult to compromise on this. Forced global weather seems to me really silly if you don't go all out and have realistic time of day as well. Who can believe it's raining at Blackwood, but at 15 different times of the day? It's quite silly. And with just forced weather say, you still get the people who don't want wet weather racing, and are forced off the track anyhow. It may be raining for weeks on end, meaning if you don't like racing in the wet- you're not going to be happy. This is very much antithetical to the easy pick up and play style that LFS is all about at the moment, a totally different style. Also, racing at night shouldn't force people anywhere, if there's proper track lighting and whatnot.
The other way is- everything user/admin controlled. People can have what they want. It mightn't be realistic, but you're flooded with choice. Racing in the wet, the dry, night and day- all options existing simultaneously. This would probably make most people happiest in the long run. But does nothing for the realism/believability factor.
Why is everyone hung up on the day/night cycle though? All you need to do is make the interval a server side option - so that can be uneven i.e., doesn't align with a 24hr cycle. That way, if you have to race at the same times every time you race (like many people with jobs ), sometimes it's night... sometimes it's day, problem solved. I'm all for the weather being forced because you have to deal with it IRL as others have already said. In a sim; you should'nt be able to force the ideal conditions all the time IMO.
This way, the weather and the time of day are tied to the server only. It would seem strange to me to be racing in the dark with others racing in the day... Continuity is an important part of immersion, not to mention it's just not fair.
So the server could have the option of a full 24hr, all the way down to hourly cycles for day/night or whatever is deemed appropriate. Hourly might be a bit much, I don't know - but you get the idea.
To be clear: The day night cycling could be serverside, whether the weather system is or not is irrelevant. LFS could still have global weather systems for the tracks, while allowing a proper day/night cycle on individual servers.
edit: just re-read ekar's most recent comments again...
The weather should definitely be optional/global (global with the option to not use ther weather server).
The time cycle issue has the potential to very much ruin LFS for some, and make it great for others, this one should be treadupon with care.
server location might not be the best time option. but it's an option.
Track location would make several track unusable to large portions of the community.
setting the server time manually might just be the key.
and really the hourly time cycle isnt that bad an idea, so +1 for setting cycle length and time of year, since that affects the day/night ratios
