Why don't SP RPGs have timed events in them ?

They certainly would break immersion. If it's done in a tongue-in-cheek way, or if the game itself is not a very serious one, this should'nt be an issue. Of course, it hardly fits in games that want to be very immersive.

For example, there's a christmas themed quest in Shadow Warrior (2013). Hardly fits the setting, but then again, the game's a near-infinite source of dick jokes soo…
 
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I really don't see why a timed event should be immersion breaking ? Would a seasonal circus be immersion breaking ?

I wouldn't mind being in a town - as the character - and having real seasons and among them, for example, summer or winter feasts … Complete with tents …

I wouldn't even mind wandering merchants in a country, travelling from village to village, travelling from place to place, and staying there only for a few days. (Similar to a Kiepenkerl.)

Inhowfar is a marketwhich appears only 1 day in each week in town be immersion breaking ?

Plus, we don't know about the country's culture. Maybe they have seasonal or other kinds of festivities the players seas only a few times ? Stardew Valley has that.
 
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You are right that breaking immersion is not inevitable. But there's nearly always a strong disconnect between in-game and out-of-game time. As a result of that, it nearly always does break immersion in practice.

To make that work reasonably well, you need some kind of persistent world (that is somehow synchronized to out-of-game time), and that's just nothing that a singleplayer dev would want to spent effort on. I certainly can see the attraction of stuff like this in, say, MMORPGs.
 
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By the way, Assassins Creed Valhalla has a Yule Festival going on right now. I think until January 7. ;)

So these timed events do exist in SP RPGs. Rarely.
 
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Interesting. Unfortunately I have decided not to play this series.

Sad that this is so rare within offline SP games ...
 
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Yeah I watched someone playing one of these Assassin games a few years ago, didn't look like anything I'd be interested in. Some of the time periods they pick for these look really interesting to me, but not enough to put up with this type of play style.
 
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Yeah I watched someone playing one of these Assassin games a few years ago, didn't look like anything I'd be interested in. Some of the time periods they pick for these look really interesting to me, but not enough to put up with this type of play style.

You're not missing much imo. The worlds in that series are beautifully crafted, but the gameplay is dull and repetitive, at least to me.
 
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By the way, Assassins Creed Valhalla has a Yule Festival going on right now. I think until January 7. ;)

So these timed events do exist in SP RPGs. Rarely.
Yep, and it's stupid. The content itself is shallow, also it's immersion breaking:
Of course this festival is in winter-wonderlandy weather. So now everytime I go back to my settlement I always have snow, where I had beautiful sunshine (or rain) before.
And I just had a quest where there was a wedding in my settlement. So when this happened there was beautiful sunny weather and flower arrangements at the festial site. It screamed "springtime"!
The wedding is over after a few minutes and as you leave the festival site you literally walk against a "wall" of falling snow.

Also there doesn't seem to be a way to end this Yuletide quest. I just want it to go away.

The game has a good foundation but fails on many levels.
 
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Yep, and it's stupid. The content itself is shallow, also it's immersion breaking:
Of course this festival is in winter-wonderlandy weather. So now everytime I go back to my settlement I always have snow, where I had beautiful sunshine (or rain) before.
And I just had a quest where there was a wedding in my settlement. So when this happened there was beautiful sunny weather and flower arrangements at the festial site. It screamed "springtime"!
The wedding is over after a few minutes and as you leave the festival site you literally walk against a "wall" of falling snow.

Also there doesn't seem to be a way to end this Yuletide quest. I just want it to go away.

The game has a good foundation but fails on many levels.

What kind of festival would be in Bethesda's Morrowind Skyrim ?
I mean, there is *always* some kind of winter ...
Even in Siberia, there is a short time of spring, in the Alps also, maybe even in the Rocky Mountains ?
 
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Also there doesn't seem to be a way to end this Yuletide quest. I just want it to go away.
And THAT is what I keep hearing a bunch when single player games try this sort of thing. Some people like it but there's always people that want it OFF and they want it off RIGHT NOW! I'm seeing it right now in Tropico 6 where the islands are getting snow fall and there's presents/snowmen around.

Maybe that isn't as big a deal in MMOs because people play them longer? They get seen as a fun change of pace in those games but, in single player, there's a far larger percentage of people who haven't even been in the game for ten hours yet so a lot more people see it as a disruption.
 
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In MMOs, timed events are seen as something normal. I's just part of the gameplay. Nobody rants against tzhem. Perhaps because they won't be switched off by the devs at a few rants anyway.

In SP gaming, however, the so-called "vocal minorities" (look up the article on TV Tropes) are often trying to change a game into their favour.
And they often get what they want !

This is the difference, as far as i can see it.
 
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The simple answer as to why there are few timed events in single player RPGs is that they cause players a great deal of anxiety as they feel the need to rush, and so cannot enjoy, the adventure.
 
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The simple answer as to why there are few timed events in single player RPGs is that they cause players a great deal of anxiety as they feel the need to rush, and so cannot enjoy, the adventure.

Either that or the timer adds no value because it's too long :D

I just played through Tyranny for a bit and the first main quest has a timer of 8 days or something. I completed every quest available to me in 3 days.
 
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Either that or the timer adds no value because it's too long :D

I just played through Tyranny for a bit and the first main quest has a timer of 8 days or something. I completed every quest available to me in 3 days.

True. Designers feel that lengthening the timer will eliminate the anxiety, which it doesn't, and, as you note, they also destroy any reason to have a timer at all.

The best possible timer for me is one that can be manipulated by the player so that, by their actions, a timer can be extended or shortened for some advantage or disadvantage to the player or a rival.
 
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