AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Got a very common question of a player last week.

"How much time is a minute in Amia?"

Gave him the usual answer: 2 mins on Amia is one hour in RL.

Today I started thing "Hmmmm..... ".

Time is variably variable in Amia, a mindblowing concept. Let's take two extremes and rather normal value.

1. Resting. Resting takes about 20 seconds on average and covers 8 hours in reality. That means a minute stands for a day. This is a 60 * 24 = 1440% compression. Quite a lot.

2. Conversations. With this you got an up to 10% expansion. Most conversations that last ten minutes in game could have been done in a minute if you were talking to somebody on the street.

3. Fighting has a compression ration of 30%.

This means that time is dependent on activity, which is quite sensible. Problem is that not everybody is doing the same activity at the same time. You can even have a time schism right next to you if your buddy is resting and you are not. You are 10 minutes older, he is 8 hours older. How can that be? Space-time bubbles? Parallel resting universes? Time travelling while you sleep?

So, what we need is a smart person making a Unified Theory of Amian Relativity so we can all sync ourselves now and then. Who's up to teh challenge?

Dev Disco wrote:

2. Conversations. With this you got an up to 10% expansion. Most conversations that last ten minutes in game could have been done in a minute if you were talking to somebody on the street.

Guess Amians are just very slow talkers. Sort of like 10x slower or something.

And.. why do we need that? Safe for giggles that is and being able to say: I did that. These are da rulez.

Time passes for everyone individual, much like everyone character ages differently. Some never grow older, some do.

Because it sounds great, and I can force you all to do maths when I got a shiny formula?

Everybody knows that the magnitude of time compression is related to acceleration. Obviously, there are fewer changes of velocity when talking as compared to fighting, and so the compression is much greater in the latter case. So it is clear, then, that resting is... um... er.... hang on....

... I blame Bioware.

i tried thinking about it and my brain melted

Xaviera wrote:

Everybody knows that the magnitude of time compression is related to acceleration. Obviously, there are fewer changes of velocity when talking as compared to fighting, and so the compression is much greater in the latter case. So it is clear, then, that resting is...

Is it sad that I can actually follow this and see the sense of where this theory of Amian Relativity is going? >_>

If I had more time I might finish it, but I'm too busy...so someone else may have the honor. Xavi?

I might point out that sexual intercourse typically involves sudden changes in velocity. We may therefore conclude that the male organ gets shorter the faster it moves.

I really want to comment on that, Xavi, but just don't want to get banned...or slapped...or that sort of thing...>_>

WYSIWYG. Amia is a universe in which talking is exceptionally slow compared to ours and people need to sit down briefly once every fifteen minutes rather than sleep.

"Speed of Plot".

The Amian Relative Theory:
Contrary to popular belief among the inhabitance of Amia, they are actually products of a collective imagination, and are thus not subjected to the laws of physics, being creatures that do not really exist outside someones fantasy. As peopels fantasies and interpretations are induvidual, even when taking part in a collective fantasy, time will also be different for every creature in said fantasy. Some induviduals of the collective fantasy will think quicker than others, so the their respective fantasy will also move faster, relative to others who think at a less speed, yet still in the same time within the collective fantasy when it coems to pixel action. this is a known paradox.

Because the laws of physics do not apply for the time in Amia, a unified theory is impossible.

Greets, Einstein.

TormakSaber wrote:

"Speed of Plot".

... That about sums it up.

But, I have to question the question... Are you proposing we make an... "Amian Timezone"? Or are you more or less trying to find a way of measuring Amia's time vs the 'Real World' for everyone to understand how long what's happening has been happening? Or did I miss the point completely?

Were time fixed it would be easy.
There's a semi-fixed time dynamic already in the game, spell durations.

2 RL minutes = 1 hour in in-game mechanics.

43,200 minutes in a 30 day month.
43,200 minutes = 21,600 IG hours.
21,600 hours = 900 days.
900 days = 90 tendays.
90 tendays = 30 months.
30 Months = 2 1/2 years IG, per RL 30 day period/month.

There are 1,440 minutes in a RL day, or 720 In game hours, which is precisely, one month of IG time. Per 24 hour RL time period.

That is 1 1/4th day per RL hour.

Now it is not uncommon for some folks to spend 1-3 RL hours in one place RPing. And I assume during that time that things move at, -normal- time, for our time at least, if not 1/4th normal time directly variant on typing speed. I would be quite comfortable with 1/4th normal time for that.

So 1 hour worth of RPing could account for 15-60 minutes of 'in game time actually spent talking' in that example. This is also directly varied by the amount of action/words described per pose in each emote, and textual communication, and how descriptive someone is.

Time in RL minutes = R
Time in IG minutes = G

If travelling/Fighting in combat G = R*30
If Dedicated RPing G = Speed of Plot

There's no finite way to put time into anything that'd have any hope of converting RP time, we ourselves as humans cannot communicate whats going on fast enough for 'full expression' in that time. Ultimately, time passage in these situations are.. complex. Human brains cannot easily understand that type of situation, that relativity.

The fact is there are too many variables.. there's no way to properly solve the situation, as its relativity is not a hard constant. It is what it is.

Tormak's 100% correct in saying there's no way to do that. Unless you want to enforce one. Only reason I could see doing that is if you're wanting to put in an age/death from natural causes, or food system.

Which would be interesting, dynamic, but would likely make many folks disgruntled when their human PC croaked in 2-3 years RL time. Especially if it was retro-active.

I'd wager we'd see a definite uptick in non-human race PC's.

Though I suppose this also could be used as reasoning to... slow down the IG passage of time. I don't know if that is possible. It is an interesting thought.

*sighs*

can I come up with time as I go? This thing here kind of is out of my non mathematical, physical mind.

Delarwyn wrote:

*sighs*

can I come up with time as I go? This thing here kind of is out of my non mathematical, physical mind.

*points at "Speed of Plot*"

:wink:

TormakSaber wrote:

Delarwyn wrote:

*sighs*

can I come up with time as I go? This thing here kind of is out of my non mathematical, physical mind.

*points at "Speed of Plot*"

:wink:

This please, I dont want to have to work out how many minutes ive played to then work out how many hours/days thats been just to tell someone what happened yesterday.

If something happened 'yesterday', I still say 'Yesterday'. Or I'm vague. Like "A while ago".

That's not confusing enough!

Sleep Dependent black holes.

I tried to think up an equation that would work with the theory, but it wouldn't sound right. So..
When resting your not moving around (using muscles, when standing around talking you're using muscles no matter how insignificant), which allows your to slip into an alternate dimension (of sorts) that has a different time rate and gives you the ability to get a full nights rest in a matter of minutes.

Yes/no?

Time on Amia only advances when Chuck the gnome monk circle kicks. And no, you won't find him ingame, he finds you.

Speed of plot.

If you press me, I'll say a week is (relatively equal to) a tenday. With three days worth of time to dick around with and place where you will. That's how my mind wraps itself around Amian time progression when I require stable forward motion.

Where's Roberto's mathematical skills? I mean, I'm with Yoss and Tormak... speed of plot is easiest. But Roberto, we want at least some mathematical entertainment out of this thread. Come on. If you and Stormak are going to waste your time figuring out how many potions of speed Torin can buy and how long that X amount of potions will last him.....

At least give us something fun.

Depends on what happens:

You rest during hunting while the other people keep standing and chat.. that means you have a sit-down for a minute.

You rest during hunting and everyone starts putting up a camp and etc. You rest for 8 hours.

With everything else, a minute is a minute.. unless explicitly stated otherwise. World time moves forward as slow as possible. Some folks have different ideas here... and I doubt you can unify that. Some characters want to get old and wrinkly while others prefer to just about stay at their peak for as long as the character is played. Easiest solution is not to bring it up when you don't have to. And not to try to wrap everyone into the same timeline, because OOC we all know it's gonna end ugly.

The Amian Relative Theory:
A wizard did it.

Quote:

If you and Stormak are going to waste your time figuring out how many potions of speed Torin can buy and how long that X amount of potions will last him...

Best 13 days of my life!

The new project is figuring out the cost of haste per round, and if i had a trickling cost of gold deducted every round, could I hunt enough and make enough gold to sustain an IV drop of haste for the rest of my life?

Normally potions are ingested with temporary effect. Having them intravenously administered directly into the bloodstream (a known magical medium that dramatically affects the individual's constant Pattern) should, IMO, cause your essential Pattern to come out of sync with the standard movement of time, so that you essentially begin to have a forward motion not merely through the standard three dimensions we are familiar with, but also forward through the fourth dimension of time, as well, more rapidly than anyone else. This would mean that the server crashes earlier for you than it does for anyone else, but also that it reboots earlier for you than anyone else.

Alternatively, when your Pattern loses sync with the forward progression of standard time, it could mean that your Pattern loses sync with all the other normal Patterns in the universe, the vast majority them "attuned" to the normal progression of time, and you effecitvely move into a universe that is no longer governed by the familiar laws of physics, a very universe where either nothing may exist at all...

...or the most horrible, unknown things may lurk, in this world beyond (or ahead) of Time, things with mutable Patterns that defy Time itself.

It is how Ao Intended.

I tend to just ignore the game mechanics when I think of how time passes. Like it was said Speed of plot. Well here is my thinking and you can take it or leave it. I say just make it very simple. When you rest you are just sitting briefly to "catch your breath" You actually sleep and rest when your character is logged out. Spells don't last days, but just the matter of time that they do when applied to the real life conversion. And you don't talk for days without end you only talk for the amount of RL time you just spent. I know that due to game mechanics the sun rises and sets relatively fast, but as far as I know a Day doesn't have to be 24hours especially if you are close to the sun and the place has a fast rotation. Look at Mercury for example. This makes it simple to understand and there are no more brain meltdowns, and your character isn't years older in such a short time.

Last edited by ticket on Wed, Feb 04 2009, 0:10 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Dev gods can change the time it takes to rest.

Rest, not sleep. They don't sleep for 8 hours, they rest for 10 minutes. So while a buddy sits down to re-memorize his spells and heal his wounds, the other buddy guarding the camp and him both ages by 10 minutes.

For everything else, we chalk it up to a planet having a very fast rotation and amians being slow conversationalists.

What about time stops? hmmm...

I HATE math so I hate this topic. ::nod::

And yes, it's because I suck at math. ::nod::

I use the "speed of plot" theory like most people do. It keeps it simple and easy to follow.

We are either all approaching the speed of light at different rates, and the pixels merely represent the character's means of communicating with each other, or magic did it.

Last edited by Selmak on Wed, Feb 04 2009, 0:51 AM, edited 1 time in total.

The passage of time is an illusion created by the brain, or so they say. Just as well really, if you could perceive everything that has happened and will happen all at once, your brain would probably explode. Or, even if it didn't, how could you act on all that information? Anyways, the development of memory in the brain obviously suggests that there is a limit to to how much information we can keep in mind, and therefore need to store it and retrieve it later on to compare and contrast different things.

Something that was missed in the initial post was that characters miss whole chunks of time when their players aren't online. Even when the player is writing a PC Story depicting things happening to their character, it's quite possible for much less time to pass in the story than the player spends writing it.

As long as the variable rate of time doesn't throw any spanners in the works, in other words so long as players don't use it to short-circuit a perfectly good story, there isn't a huge problem.

In reality there is no time. WE are currently in a Universe where we were created as we are in this exact moment. That's why we only ever experience the present *sagenod*

its funny that Shada aged like 60 years, while all her friends seemed to not age at all, THough that could be the result of dieing why too many times and getting raised way too many time.

Hmm I think I will call this the raising speed time theroy. *nods*

This is the part were I make the point of bringing up the fact that some children age far too quickly. There's a reason Phen's rolling up on 30, whereas some folks' kids already have grandkids.

If a child ages many years before anyone else even ages a year, we can always blame it on the DnD's planar of Time.
For whatever reason, fair or vile, those children were tossed onto the planar of time. *Nod* And got back. Without realizing it.
Or so I did see that used RPly once as a means to bridge the gap and invoke RP discussion of the mess

Wait...
Can we just claim that Amia is actually -part of- the planar of time and nobody can tell because they are all well and convinced they are still in reality of Faerun? [spelling? *Sigh* learning DnD on the fly is tricky].
And it would cover why people from other servers wouldn't know Amia as part of their world! It's not!

The speed at which time flows is directly disproportionate to the level of boredom experienced by the player.

What about this:

If we allow one standard minute to be equal to x and
one game minute to be equal to y

And

We allow that Disco's points are to be true.

We arrive with:

480y=0.33x

x=0.1y

x=0.3y

Now, if we solve all three equations for y we arrive with:

0.0006875x=y

10x=y

3.33x=y

Now, using these equations we find that:

0.0006875x + 10x + 3.33x = y + y + y

Simplified:

13.3306875x=3y

Simplified further:

4.4435625x=y

Solving for x we get:

x=0.22504465729918280658818234243358y

Rounding this decimal off to the hundredths we get:

x=0.22y

This would put 1 minute of real time equivalent with roughly 13 seconds of game time. This result is obviously thrown way off due to the time compression in resting.

So... without adding further known standards we're left with hypothetical assumptions that can neither be proved nor disproved.

Therefore we're left with something that has been known for as long as time has been around....

Time is a man-made concept and is only as quantitative as the person in question allows it to be.

We arrive with this:

If:
Time in real life = x
Time in game = y

x = Cy

Where C is equal to the beautiful human trait we call imagination.

The conversation part depends on the area of the world you live in. As we all know, Americans are very slow at conversing, so an American conversation would likely take longer then one in say New Zealand.

Also, typing speed is a huge equation. Like I noticed I can belt out a few paragraphs of speech before someone I'm rping with can even have a line written out. I also tend to type how I talk, so in saying that, my paragraphs will flow easier.

The formula is incomplete due to variables relating to personal ability.

ainjyll wrote:

Time is a man-made concept and is only as quantitative as the person in question allows it to be.

All concepts are man-made; furthermore, if i may commit a monstrous act of reductionism; time does not exist, therefore it cannot be compressed or expanded, it is, and isn't.

That's been scientifically disproven. It is not time that does not exist, but that Time gives any interest in our attempts to measure it.

Code:

Flurry = 2 sec
Round =  6 sec
Turn = 10 rounds = 1 minute
Hour (ig) = 2 turns /20 rounds = 2 minutes
Day (ig) = 24 (ig) hour = 48 minute (48 turns or 480 rounds)

30 minute (ig) = 1 minute
Minute (ig) = 2 sec = (30 minute = 60 sec) / 30 = 2 sec

Flurry = Minute (ig)
Round = 3 Minutes (ig)
Turn = 30 Minutes (ig)
Hour = 60 Minutes (ig)
Day = 1440 Minutes (ig)

I suggest moderators and developers change the Amian time to be 2x slower than IRL time, so it would be somewhat easier.

Geeze some people here.....*facepalms*

Time is not linear, it never has been never will be. As consumate rp'ers we do not exsist in the standard frame of references that can encompase time.

Conversations may well take tens of minutes keyboard time that would only last but moments in rl BUT, then it is balanced out by the time we are not collectively sat in front of our keyboards

However on a more succint point I manage time pretty much as I feel like it, I still observe the day and night cycles as they dictate to a certain point what my character does. On a larger scale, I figure that yes tme does go by, but to be honest the laws of time mean didly squat to me and Bella

Last edited by Yurell on Wed, Feb 04 2009, 11:11 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Time is like a cat. It will do whatever the hell it wants, but will keep coming back (server reset!)

Xaviera wrote:

I might point out that sexual intercourse typically involves sudden changes in velocity. We may therefore conclude that the male organ gets shorter the faster it moves.

Also: all males on amia are sex-gods that can keep going days and days in a row (or at least as long as your cyber session lasts)

Mind that you need to average boot time into this as well.

Can people still go on the time as "Speed of Plot" if this new time system gets implemented.

This time system isint broken so why fix it? It work fines, IMO.

Basin wrote:

Can people still go on the time as "Speed of Plot" if this new time system gets implemented.

This time system isint broken so why fix it? It work fines, IMO.

i dont think we are actually talking about implementing a "time" system. its just (possibly useless) theoretical conjecture.

Xaviera wrote:

. Obviously, there are fewer changes of velocity when talking as compared to fighting, and so the compression is much greater in the latter case. .

Obviously, you guys have studied either too much physics or philosophy.

Trying to figure out a specfic time system for Amia is silly really. As some people don't want to wait for ages to play there PC's kid as a character. (Not a Kid PC, as thats an FU to god).

Amian Einstein needed

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