diff --git a/evennia/settings_default.py b/evennia/settings_default.py
index b1e2a7a79e..7948868ed9 100644
--- a/evennia/settings_default.py
+++ b/evennia/settings_default.py
@@ -490,8 +490,13 @@ TIME_FACTOR = 2.0
 # The starting point of your game time (the epoch), in seconds.
 # In Python a value of 0 means Jan 1 1970 (use negatives for earlier
 # start date). This will affect the returns from the utils.gametime
-# module.
+# module. If None, the server's first start-time is used as the epoch.
 TIME_GAME_EPOCH = None
+# Normally, game time will only increase when the server runs. If this is True,
+# game time will not pause when the server reloads or goes offline. This setting
+# together with a time factor of 1 should keep the game in sync with
+# the real time (add a different epoch to shift time)
+TIME_IGNORE_DOWNTIMES = False
 
 ######################################################################
 # Inlinefunc
diff --git a/evennia/utils/gametime.py b/evennia/utils/gametime.py
index 793e348143..3736128819 100644
--- a/evennia/utils/gametime.py
+++ b/evennia/utils/gametime.py
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ from evennia.utils.create import create_script
 # to real time.
 
 TIMEFACTOR = settings.TIME_FACTOR
+IGNORE_DOWNTIMES = settings.TIME_IGNORE_DOWNTIMES
+
 
 # Only set if gametime_reset was called at some point.
 GAME_TIME_OFFSET = ServerConfig.objects.conf("gametime_offset", default=0)
@@ -133,7 +135,10 @@ def gametime(absolute=False):
 
     """
     epoch = game_epoch() if absolute else 0
-    gtime = epoch + (runtime() - GAME_TIME_OFFSET) * TIMEFACTOR
+    if IGNORE_DOWNTIMES:
+        gtime = epoch + (time.time() - server_epoch()) * TIMEFACTOR
+    else:
+        gtime = epoch + (runtime() - GAME_TIME_OFFSET) * TIMEFACTOR
     return gtime