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Do any game toolsets offer a means of computing the minimum time it would take a player to move between two objects (or positions, more generally) in a level? I'm not asking about how one would go about calculating this, but rather just whether or not it has been done, and if so, examples.

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Interesting feature to have, though somewhat fraught with implementation challenges. E.g., "player jumps off cliff for shortcut, surviving fall due to quaffing a super-health bonus potion" Players always do stuff you never imagined. See also, "Quake Done Quick" et al – Tim Holt Feb 23 '12 at 19:00
I know what you're getting at, and I think being able to view the various ways the time is affected by game entities and player actions could illuminate more interesting design opportunities. – user_123abc Feb 23 '12 at 19:03
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I'd definitely find it a useful thing. I've noticed that in a lot of WoW maps, you run into something "interesting" about every 30 seconds if following a path. The road turns, there's a unique tree or rock, a bridge crosses a creek, the road forks, etc. It's like the designers drew a "30 second walk distance" circle around each point, then added new points of interest on that circle, etc. I think beyond 30 seconds, the player is bored or wonders where they are going. As a design tool, that ability to draw that "30 second" circle would be very useful. – Tim Holt Feb 23 '12 at 19:20

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Starcraft 2 has a map analyzer:

http://www.sc2mapster.com/assets/sc2-map-analyzer/pages/analysis-details/

Calculating paths is not the only thing it does. It also gives information on the openness of the map, and other neat features.

shortest distance by air, ground, and cliffs

all shortest paths

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Great! This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. I'll hold out to see what else gets posted. Interesting to see he used distance as a proxy for time. One thing I would be concerned about is that I'd like to apply this to deathmatch games, which involve actions such as speedups, rocket jumps, etc. which could decouple the link between distance and speed in a significant way. – user_123abc Feb 23 '12 at 19:44
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Very cool! I especially like the arrow view for seeing where chokepoints are. – Kai Feb 23 '12 at 19:57

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