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Yaga

The Wurm Universe - Part 2: Time, Date and Calendar

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This is the second  part of a series of articles on the "physics and astronomy" of the universe of Wurm Online, trying to describe the structure, dynamics and "laws of nature" of our in-game world .
Part 2 summarizes all we know about time in the Wurm universe: units of time measurement and the calendar.

 

Part 1 is here: http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/121902-the-wurm-universe-part-1-basic-metrics/

 


One of the first things we notice when observing the world of Wurm Online is the rapid succession of day and night: a full day-night cycle only lasts 3 hours of our real-world time. Thus, we conclude that the planet Wurm rotates rapidly around its axis: 8 times faster than our Earth. (At this point, I will not discuss the physical implications of this observation, nor will I speculate on the possible reasons for the rapid planetary rotation. This will probably be done in one of the following parts of this series.)

 

Quote

1 real day = 8 Wurm days            or:          1 Wurm day = 3 real hours

(By “day” we mean one full planetary rotation, i.e. a complete “day-night cycle”.)

 

Just like in our real world, the rotation of our planet determines how we measure time. In the Wurm universe, instead of saying that a full planetary rotation lasts 3 hours, it was agreed to split the day-night cycle into 24 time units, called “Wurm hours”. (Bear in mind that this is only an arbitrary convention – we could also have agreed on a Wurm rotation having 12 or 30 “Wurm hours”. By choosing the number 24 we just made it easier for us, because now there are as many “Wurm hours” in a “Wurm day” as there are real hours in an Earth day.)

 

Once we made that definition, it is clear that:

 

Quote

1 real hour = 8 Wurm hours       or:          1 Wurm hour = 0.125 real hours (7.5 real minutes)

 

It must be noted that this definition has caused a common misunderstanding. On the forums (and even on Wurmpedia) you can sometimes read that “Wurm time passes 8 times faster than real time”. This is not true! Time in the Wurm universe is the same as time in our real world – we only use a unit of time measurement which is 8 times smaller than in real life! (It is the same effect as if you defined a new unit of length – say: “1 Wurm meter”, corresponding to 25 real centimeters - and you would say that a 1-meter ruler has a length of “4 Wurm meters”. This doesn’t make the ruler 4 times longer than it was before!)

 

You can easily see that Wurm time passes at the same rate as real time by watching the speed indicator below the GUI status window:

 

OZGoufU.png

 

Let your character run a while and count the number of tiles you cross in a given length of time. Considering that 1 tile corresponds to 4 meters (see part 1 of this series) you will easily see that the speed indicated in the GUI uses “real time” instead of some kind of pseudo “accelerated time”.

 

If we take a closer look at the 3 hours defining a full “Wurm day”, we find that Sol (the sun of our planet Wurm) rises at 04:30 (Wurm time) and sets at 19:30 (Wurm time) each day. That’s why the time between about 20:00 and 04:00 is dark (“night”), and the time between 04:00 and 20:00 is bright (“day”).

 

Now that we have defined the “Wurm day” and the “Wurm hour”, we also observe that the visual appearance of Wurm’s nature changes as time passes. Just like in real life, we experience 4 different seasons, called “winter”, “spring”, “summer”, and “autumn”. These seasons reoccur regularly after 336 Wurm days. Thus we can define the “Wurm year”:

 

Quote

1 Wurm year = 336 Wurm days = 42 real days.

 

This is a convenient number, because 336 = 7 x 4 x 12, allowing us to split a Wurm year into 12 months (called “starfalls”), each with 4 weeks of 7 days.

 

Quote

1 Wurm year = 12 starfalls

 

1 starfall = 4 Wurm weeks = 3.5 real days

 

1 Wurm week = 7 Wurm days = 21 real hours.

 

The 7 days in a Wurm week are called:

 

1. day:

 Day of the Ant

2. day:

 Day of theLuck

3. day:

 Day of the Wurm

4. day:

 Day of the Wrath

5. day:

 Day of the Tears

6. day:

 Day of the Sleep

7. day:

 Day of the Awakening

 

 

The 12 starfalls are called:

 

1. starfall:

Diamond

2. starfall:

Saw

3. starfall:

Digging

4. starfall:

Leaf

5. starfall:

Bear

6. starfall:

Snake

7. starfall:

White shark

8. starfall:

Fire

9. starfall:

Raven

10. starfall:

Dancer

11. starfall:

Omen

12. starfall:

Silence

 

 

This is the Wurm calendar, showing days, weeks, starfalls, and the seasons:

 

di0dk1d.png

 


We plan to continue this series with the following chapters:

 

"Part 3: The planet Wurm  (Basic Physics)"

"Part 4: Sky and Stars (Basic Astronomy)"

"Part 5: Sol and the Moons (Celestial Mechanics of the Solar System)"  .... etc......

 

The articles can also be found in Wurmpedia.

 

Edited by Yaga
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bloody hell

(edit) - well done

Edited by Steveleeb
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