Seasons

 'Do you have a suggestion? Discuss this topic on the forums !' Many online text games don't implement seasonal change, preferring instead to create world regions which have vastly different climates. For example, instead of making a city with four seasons, builders might make one city in the snowy north, one city in a desert, one city on a tropical island, and another deep underground in a cavern. Tohm allows all locations to vary with the season so that individual players get to experience a lot of content without being spread very far apart in the game world (which inhibits social experiences with other players). It also adds yet another layer of content variation over time, which means that visiting a familiar location many times can yield many different experiences.

No Change Notifications
Players don't get a notification when the season changes because it would deliver a sense of sudden change, which isn't in line with what players expect from a detailed, well-simulated world. Also, notification messages wouldn't be a wise expenditure of builders' efforts, because season changes come so rarely that most players would simply miss them due to being logged out at the time of change.

Intersection with Economy (Not Yet Implemented)
Tohm doesn't have an economy yet, but we hope to eventually tie seasons with the availability of gatherable materials, especially plants. The thinking is that some materials will become scarce during seasons where they aren't available for gathering, giving player strategy and tactics a flow. Most other online games (not just the text variety) only see a ubiquitous change in player behavior due to specific events they create, for example holiday events that make items available temporarily, or big changes to game mechanics. By linking availability of some key resources with world season, we can implement a nuanced cycle which automatically influences player behavior over time to keep the game fresh for players.