This was a great idea, thought up by Tenqual, and added to myself.

Why not get rid of the TIME feature, replace it with "You can see that it is really dark/kinda light/you're underground, idiot" and make it so that the only way you can tell the real time is by looking at a clock! Add it to the artisan skill, somewhere around the middle, and by LOOKing at it, it tells you what time it is.

I know that -I've- never been able to tell the exact time, simply by looking at the sun or moon!

Sundials! Watches! Sundial watches!

I'd just like to add as co-thinker of this idea, that the normal 'In your world, it is Time: Time GMT' will still be in Time, but the relevant Lusternian time of the day will be shown on the clock, and maybe having greater clocks that will show the date and month, as well as position of the moon, like a sun dial.

Oooh, so much potential!

Ohhh can we add like a sub trans skill, Great Clocks, which are like a mini planet thing whirly moving that shows the position of the planets, i mean they'd cost like shite loads to make by shite loads i mean like 1000 gold 1000 silver 1000 steel 1000 iron, and they'd need to be enchanted, and *insert something to do with Astrology here*'d.

Edit: Too mean, but I meant it with all the love in the world.

Nooo I love the time feature damnit!

I really like the idea as well, but then again i do love my time command sooo much, maybe if the clocks would be zone-wide? *I huge big-ben style clock in some high tower of Celest, chiming out the time, for all to see stands here* and anywhere in the city then you could just type 'time' or maybe in the surrounding neighboring zones as well.

I don't know how this would work for Serenwilde though "A huge sundial stands here, erm sundialing out the time err with fae calling out the time for all to see..." gah, no way that's going to be realisting for the Communes, unless you add it as a skill in nature, looking at the sunlight on the mothertree or something, and then that's unbalanced compaired to the cities and... hmm i'm not getting anywhere with this.

CLOCKS: Wonderful Idea, but please don't impliment it

oh, I like Wesmin's point...sometimes there are big big clocks that should let you see the time when you're in the area...I don't know how this all would work, but it sounds neat

I know that I can tell about when it's noon, or late afternoon, or early morning... the sun is overhead, or it's off in that direction, or it's off in that other direction.

Now, the moon is a lot more difficult, but in Lusternia it's in a pattern just like the sun which means it can be viewed the same way. For instance, right now, "Late night approaching dawn" could be seen with very tiny spots of light starting to spread out into the sky, becoming that pre-dawn gray.

A sundial/clock could give a more exact time, but don't take away our being able to glance up at the position of the sun/moon please

I think clocks are a bad idea in general, along with most of the rest of Imperian's engineering skillset.

Expensive magical clocks for city characters, maybe. But for everyone else, judging an approximate time by the position of the sun in the sky is far more appropriate.

That's just my thoughts... a good idea, but not for Lusternia.

Great idea, but getting rid of the TIME command is unrealistic, since any moron can estimate the time by staring up at the sky, not to mention our own biological clock. But having clocks that can tell the precise time would be cool, specially having really elaborate, huge machines that can tell the time, date and phase of the moon, plus astrological information. Of course, those would be really expensive.

Don't take this wrong, but... people who lived before clocks were commonplace could tell all that to as much precision as they needed (which is about as much as TIME tells us)... particularly those who farmed for a living, which is most of the world for most of history.

I think TIME is really already as vague as it ought to be. A slightly more perfect simulationism would allow communefolk to have a better sense of it than cityfolk, but let cityfolk invent clocks which would be more precise than communefolk do, but only where they could see the clock. But that's way more trouble than it's worth.

I know I can look up at the sun and tell you what time it is. =\\ Don't know about you punks. And, at night, I don't really need to look up to decide what time it is.

But I've a very good sense of time, so.