Convert RL dates to BM

[Buffalkill]

Title: Master Dater

Summary: A syntax that automatically converts RL dates to BM dates in messages.

Details: E.g. The region went rogue on {{14 March 2014}}, would appear as: The region went rogue on day 5 in the year of the goat, or something like that. There should also be some way for the recipient to decode the date, perhaps using hovertext and/or a simple footnote after the message.

Benefits: Makes IG date references easy to understand for non-powergamers.

Possible Downsides/Exploits: none

[Eirikr]

Incidentally, the title can also be re-used for a BM dating website. (Sorry, had to...)

[Anaris]

This would only be possible if there were an official in-game dating system.

Which there isn't, never has been, and there are no plans to ever have.

[Chenier]

The Dwilight calendar seems pretty widely accepted...

[Anaris]

The Dwilight calendar seems pretty widely accepted...

It's also a) entirely unofficial, and b) only useful for Dwilight.

[Chenier]

It's also a) entirely unofficial, and b) only useful for Dwilight.

Unofficial, sure, but it's also the sole accepted calendar and has never, as far as I know, been contested by anyone.

And just because it starts with Dwilight's opening doesn't mean it's usefulness is limited to Dwilight. There's absolutely no reason it can't be exported to all continents. Our calendar has negative years, after all. And if that isn't wanted, then the same calendar could be used, but with a different name, with year zero being BM's opening instead.

It's not because the game never had an official calendar that it can't ever have one.

[Dishman]

I do like having some frame of reference in the game. The seasons on Dwilight are enough for me to feel like the world has depth (summer of Y5, etc).

Are seasons planned to be rolled out to stable continents? After an ice-pocolpyse and sudden seasons, it would be neat to have a synchronized calender for all continents. Spring of Year 1 AI (after ice) has a nice ring to it.

[Eirikr]

Unofficial, sure, but it's also the sole accepted calendar and has never, as far as I know, been contested by anyone.

And just because it starts with Dwilight's opening doesn't mean it's usefulness is limited to Dwilight. There's absolutely no reason it can't be exported to all continents. Our calendar has negative years, after all. And if that isn't wanted, then the same calendar could be used, but with a different name, with year zero being BM's opening instead.

It's not because the game never had an official calendar that it can't ever have one.

The ways in which a year is defined in the game is variable, though. There's the passage of time (seasons, normal aging) and then "accelerated" years; wounds are the only thing coming to mind right now, but I think there's a few other ways in which a year isn't always a year.

[Indirik]

Are seasons planned to be rolled out to stable continents?

No. They are the sole feature of Dwilight and FEI. They are not planned to be expanded to any other island. It is part of the diversity of the game.

Also, we don't really have any plans to do any kind of official calendar. Realms are free to come up with any kind of calendar they want, and to try and convince others to use it. We don't plan on forcing one.

[Indirik]

Also, these unofficial calendars being used on the wiki screw up the dates used by the semantic wiki. It only understands RL dates within a certain timeframe.

[Chenier]

The ways in which a year is defined in the game is variable, though. There's the passage of time (seasons, normal aging) and then "accelerated" years; wounds are the only thing coming to mind right now, but I think there's a few other ways in which a year isn't always a year.

Physical age was never considered to really be a measure of time, in BM, due to, precisely, the fact that it can be accelerated and thus doesn't run at the same rythm for all.

Season or no season, 84 day cycles is still an easy way to measure time.

[Dishman]

Even if seasons aren't running on stable continents, they can still be a good judge for other continents. Just think of them as Tropical regions.

Physical age was never considered to really be a measure of time, in BM, due to, precisely, the fact that it can be accelerated and thus doesn't run at the same rythm for all.

Season or no season, 84 day cycles is still an easy way to measure time.

I agree here. I see age as a physical indicator rather than a temporal one. Heavily wounded characters look and feel older.

[Eirikr]

Especially because our characters cannot die of old age.

I thought there was something else, though... Also time related, but variable.

[Chenier]

Comparing dwilight years with character aging, I figure that characters age about 85% faster than the calandar advances. For a character that never really got wounded or did anything dangerous.

If you put this in relation with life expectancy, I'd say that it makes a lot of sense and you can actually say that a BM character who is 60 years old is probably in about the same shape as a modern person who is 60 years old, even if the actual true age of that BM character is around 30.

I know it wasn't thought out this way, but it coincides pretty well.

[Buffalkill]

It doesn't require an official calendar. Any player can create a calendar and give it a name, and other players can choose to use it or not. All that's needed from the development side is a syntax and some kind of look-up/ conversion function. For example, someone creates a Sanguis Astroism calendar in the form of a reference table (below) and then the system simply substitutes the date in the right column for the date in the left column. Other players will use it if they find it useful, otherwise they'll ignore it and it will be forgotten.

Real date		SA date
14/3/14		Day 10, Spring, Year 21
15/3/14		Day 11, Spring, Year 21
16/3/14		Day 12, Spring, Year 21
17/3/14		Day 13, Spring, Year 21