Yes! Pazaak would be a great addition! It would add a bit of diversionary content and maybe even a bit for collectors! /support

Good idea for a 'mini-FP' type of encounter. This would be a great way to add a fair bit of content without the need for a whole FP's worth of new animation and VO work. I can see this being a fun little diversionary game in itself; throw in some XP or loot at the end based on performance and I'd play the heck out of it. I support this idea.

Tbh Imp Taris in the one area that I can see NOT having a day / night, for story/tone related reasons.

Not really. Afaik all such questgivers are on Tatooine. And the sun is bright there. Statements about the sun at night could only infer that they aren't looking forward to the sun coming up.

Since 1) is obviously an anecdotal argument on both our ends, I think we can leave that one. All I know that it has always been a pretty glaring blemish in my view. Also, to clarify, I didn't say it was the sole reason people don't sub. I said it leads to increased immersion, which is an important element for many and does have an impact on that decision for some. My big issue with it, as it stands now, is that the atmosphere adds to the sense of a static, lifeless world, severely taking away from the immersion that has always been a big part of MMOs for me. But, 3) i will disagree with you. I believe it could absolutely be monetized. I, for one, would pay 19.99 for the ability to take a shuttle to an instanced version of Tatooine or Voss at night, and double that if there was actually new or dynamic content to be found there. I think that method of implementation would be foolhardy and half-assed, but I'd still pay for it to help it develop. In playing other games with a day/night cycle, I have never found myself not experiencing both day and night rather routinely, even in games without an accelerated cycle. It all depends how often you get to play coupled with the design decisions, granted, but I am hardly what I'd call a hardcore user and I have never run into this issue personally. I also disagree that it won't be done unless directly monetized. I don't think EA/Bio are that short-sighted. This is mostly about remaining competitive with other AAA MMOs in this department. It should be, imo, released as a tiered implementation world-by-world starting with high-level zones and working backward, as a free series of updates for the exclusive purpose of remaining competitive. It could be monetized, via instancing with a paid unlock in the short term, or as a fully vetted paid expansion in the medium-term. Personally I'd pay for either.

Thank you for a bit of fresh air and sanity. While I recognize that there are benefits to being able to set the tone as desired for certain story missions or zones, I believe this can be accomplished in more sublime ways than oppressive sunshine or constant night. These tools are heavy-handed at best, and a cop-out at worst. As I remember, this was the dev's original final answer for why it wasn't a feature during release. While I understood and agreed with their rationale then - it is a time vs perceived benefit analysis - I believe we are far enough into the dev cycle now where aesthetics and polish start to become as important as new content generation, if not moreso.

What makes you think that EA hasn't updated their root toolkit when they literally own the rights to do so any time they choose? Just a hunch?

1) Yes, via increased subs. You see, increased immersive elements can and do lead to increased play time, which leads to routine. 2) Of course not. 3) It very well could if done well. I must have missed what galactic starfighter and player housing did for class balance. >.>

Well, for starters, all those threads are 2+ years old. Excellent thread archaeology which reinforces your sentiment and points but unfortunately is neither applicable or timely. They have to do with loading screens, mostly. And Ilum. Both of which don't really exist anymore, as they did then. I get that you don't like HeroEngine and EA. What I don't get, is what any of this has to do with the original post. You are asserting that the in-house HeroEngine (which one would assume surpasses the base toolkit, not the other way around) cannot do dynamic lightening(sic?). It's not that I don't believe you, it's just that I can simply log in and see that it does dynamic lighting just fine (and has since launch). Again, not really the point of this thread, though.

I remember the Ilum issues. The load of trying to render 500+ people in the same place would bring any modern MMO to its knees; it was just bad design. That really has nothing to do with the engine's capacity for doing dynamic weather effects, which it possesses. The idea that EA would not bother to update the license for the base tool used for its prime MMO is beyond the domain of the ludicrous to me, sorry. I'd have to see more evidence of that than you have presented, and certainly something a lot more than anecdotal (To say nothing of the fact that HeroEngine licensing is for the life of the product, so it's kind of a moot argument). From my view, the game has changed a heck of a lot since Ilum, both in terms of stability and content. That to me points anecdotally to a lot of under the hood improvements that have occurred (coincidentally?) pretty consistently along the same timeline as HeroEngine has been updated, expanded, and improved.

I find it hard to believe that Bioware, a powerhouse in its own right, and backed by EA of all companies, have not bothered to update the license on the game engine of their crown MMO.

Simply not true, other games developed with this engine utilize dynamic lighting and weather effects quite well. Such things are also touted as features of the engine. "HeroEngine’s powerful new Environmental Schemes allow developers complete control of their game environment. Dynamic weather including rain Environmental effects including lightning Atmospheric effects including clouds, stars, and moonlight - See more at: http://www.heroengine.com/heroengine/heroblade/#sthash.2S3RIa1a.dpuf"

Hello, I've been subbing on and off as I have time available since launch. Even during months when I know I'll be traveling or otherwise unable to play, I have offered a few months of subs here and there to support the game and help do my small part to support SWTOR's bottom line. One thing that I've really been hoping to be implemented somewhere along the line is a dynamic day / night cycle, and/or weather effects, even if only for a few areas. Imagine, the nighttime lights of Coruscant stretching to the horizon, or a sunset on Tatooine or Voss, or an asteroid lighting up the sky over Hoth, or an electrical storm over Dromund Kass (as was featured in the promo art). I strongly believe that dynamic weather and passage of time would add greatly to immersion and greatly increase the overall presentation. TOR faces stiff competition in the MMO arena among many established competing titles, franchises, and studios, from crown kingpin WoW to newer titles like Wildstar (which could be amazing once its content is polished) and TES:O (which is actively pushing the borders of aesthetics outward), to more F2P/B2P titles like Rift and GW2, both of which are also doing amazing things aesthetically, and both of which have had day/night cycles since their respective launches. In fact, I would be challenged to think of a single AAA MMO other than TOR without a functional day/night cycle. It troubles me deeply that a now almost entirely F2P title like Rift has better aesthetics and presentation in this department than SW:TOR - in addition to having far more dynamic content in general. This disparity should be readdressed, for the sake of the continuing vitality of our user base and to help SW:TOR remain an attractive option to newcomers. I also believe that now is a great time to consider beginning to implement this tremendous quality of life improvement alongside such recent other big ones like player housing and starship combat. Now that the base game is well-developed and we are into our second major expansion soon, I believe that taking a second look at immersion is warranted. At the very least, please give us a day/night cycle in housing zones (which is already a solely quality of life and immersion-related improvement)... this would additionally give the devs a chance to passively observe how the servers and engine reacts to the add'l loads, and fine tune as necessary. I know the engine can support this kind of stuff, and honestly I think it would add a whole heck of a lot to the overall gloss of TOR. What do you guys think? I know there's folks out there who don't see what the big deal is, and others who downright don't like questing at night because it's do hard to get stuff done. I think that a lot of concerns could be alleviated by the effective use of ambient light fade and positional lighting. It's work but it's definitely doable. In regard to ambient lighting, night doesn't necessarily mean black, or even dark, especially given the canon here. Night cycles lit up by sister planets or dangerously close moons, electrical storms and other atmospheric phenomena, or nights that are nothing more than a short twilight as the sun brushes the horizon. Really the possibilities are endless, which is why it truly surprises me that this hasn't been implemented yet. Honestly, (and I know I'm the outlier here, but...) I care a lot more about day / night at this point in the dev cycle than new content or cartel pack loot. But, along those lines, who says this couldn't lead to more content? As another user in this thread has mentioned, night time is a dangerous place on these worlds. Lots of new and scary mobs could come to visit. That sounds like fun to me. Perhaps these new mobs could be new world bosses, part of dynamic questing, or zone events a la Rift. It may actually be an EASIER way to provide new content in this manner, since all the new content is being generated on zones already in existence. It would make the worlds more alive and less static in more than just appearance, and give players a reason to go back to areas they have not seen since they out-leveled them. A "Night Life" update featuring something resembling a day/night cycle, and perhaps new (rare?) mobs or even dynamic content (Sand People raid?) that occurs at night could add a tremendous amount of polish, value & new content to the game at this point utilizing the zones already in place. In my mind, no AAA MMO should be without proper day/night cycle, especially one that is strongly sub-based. Great aesthetics are part of what I pay for, and it feels to me like SWTOR is still near the rear of the pack in this domain despite the excellent UI and performance improvements that have occurred over the last couple years. To close, the Star Wars universe is such an amazing place, to me at least, for the iconic places. I really appreciate how SWTOR has approached the canon in many ways, keeping the established settings at arm's length and filling in around the edges, creating its own setting, timeline, and lore. I think the dev team has done a great job of presenting The Old Republic within the SW universe. The SWTOR hits the nail on the head with a lot of the architecture and scenery imho, and that is one of the reasons it maddens me so to find day/night and dynamic weather not implemented at this point in the dev cycle. It's like the immersion factor is so close I can taste it, but the totally static and unchanging environments are a glaring blotch on an otherwise fabulous painting. It just seems like such a wasted opportunity to me, given how much could be done with it creatively. A Jedi who has saved the galaxy several times over should not be afraid to go out at night

^Agree. This is an out of the box idea with very interesting ramifications. It could definitely be a defining moment for the player, if not the genre. This makes a much more attractive option than simply leaving a maxed-out character to fester and collect dust. If this were a reality, the player would have the choice of 'ending' their character's story with a bang, being able to go out in a fire of glory or justice (or injustice!). Great idea OP! Let's hope BW looks long and hard at this one.

Agree. Immersion is pretty big for me, and other issues are definitely more important, but down the road, this is an important addition. It could even me done with the Lore of the worlds first and foremost in mind - some planets may be in eternal night or twilight; others could have multiple solar objects. I would love to see this come to pass in later patches.