Access to system date & time

[printz]

I think it would be neat to add ACS functions that return the date or time. They could be used for generating very rare easter eggs (that only happen during the autumn equinox, for example), or for making special effects (like darkness) happen in the level, if it's night outside.

[Enjay]

Been asked about before and was [no]'d.

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=24327

[Graf Zahl]

My personal guess would be that it'd mostly be used to annoy the player, not to create anything useful.

Personally, I want my Doom to behave the same, regardless whether I play on March 1st at 12:00 or on October 13th at 21:44.

[Enjay]

my Doom

Not that I'm campaigning for the feature but that assumes Doom. What about other games using Zdoom as an engine (eg new indie games) where the time of day that a person plays could be considered relevant?

My most obvious logical objection to the usefulness of the feature is what about save games? eg a person starts playing a level at mid day and the game checks the time and sets up things appropriately. Then the person saves and comes back to the game at 6pm. The level is now out of step with the real time.

[Nash]

Retrieving the system time could also be useful for creating our own random number generators, but that's kinda too specific and rare use anyway... XD

[Ghastly]

I've actually seen this used for aesthetic effects. A few games I have, for example, have completely different main menus depending on if it's day or night, like Icewind Dale 2, for example.

Not that I agree about this, actually.

[Gez]

A big reason against this is demo playback...

[The_Funktasm]

A big reason against this is demo playback...

People still use demos? Zblood's the last thing I saw use them.

[NeuralStunner]

A big reason against this is demo playback...

Also, net play. Different computers, even on the same network, can have different date & time.

The ability to do ROTT-style holiday screens would be fun, but not practical for other things...

[Graf Zahl]

A big reason against this is demo playback...

That could be solved by routing the time through the network datastream. Still, it's just one potential issue. It makes no sense in a non-realtime game to get the real time.