Stuck in permanent night: why some Forever players want the day/night cycle changed

Forever’s new lighting is one of its showpieces, and our look at lighting, water and indoor rain covers what changed. But some players say they rarely get to see it in daylight.

The request

On 24 October, a player posting on Reddit’s r/wowforever as an Oceanic (OCE) player asked Blizzard for a rotating day/night cycle, describing themselves as stuck in eternal night. Their first preference is a shorter, 20-hour day, so that everyone sees different times of day whatever their schedule. For players who value a 24-hour cycle for immersion, they offered a fallback: a cycle that simulates a globe, with night in Kalimdor while it is day in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Who says it affects them

The original poster says the problem exists because Oceanic players run on North American server time. That is their account. We have not confirmed how Forever ties its day/night cycle to region or server time. Another commenter first wrote that live servers would be regional, then edited the comment to say Oceanic players would stay on Pacific time despite Sydney-based servers. We have not verified either version.

It is not only Oceanic players. Among the replies:

• An Oceanic player says they never see zones at any time other than murky darkness: no sunrise, no sunset.
• A player who mostly logs in on European evenings says they always play at night and never see sunrise or noon. They argue that lighting is a big part of Forever’s appeal.
• A US player who works nights says some zones are too dark to see properly, and not in a way that feels immersive.

These are individual reports, not a survey.

The ideas on the table

• A 20-hour cycle, as the original poster proposed, or one as short as 10 hours, as a commenter suggested.
• Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms set 12 hours apart.
• A cycle of about 336 minutes. One commenter calculated that this fits 30 in-game days into a real week, so the same login time would drift through dawn, afternoon and night over seven days.
• A client setting, suggested by the European-evening player.

The original poster acknowledges the other side: for some players, a 24-hour cycle that follows real time is the most immersive option. Others in the thread reply that a single server can span many time zones, so the in-game clock does not match most players’ real one anyway. A few joke about whether Azeroth is round enough for a global cycle at all.

What we don’t know

The captured thread contains no Blizzard response, and we have found no official statement on how Forever sets the time of day by region. Nothing here means the cycle will change. This is a player request, and the answer has to come from Blizzard.