Small Suggestions

[Scotland Tom]

I would definitely recommend starting the US gamedays around 9PM Eastern/6PM Pacific. That'd be 2AM GMT. Before that seems a little absurd. Even on weekends there isn't a lot of gaming done before those times.

 

[Radaka]

I'm all for enforced .zip formats, and later US gamedays would be perfect for me

 

[PenPen]

On the US gameday's running time, I think I might be the only one who is opposed to the later time slot, mainly because I'm like 12 hours apart from whatever US time zones there are. So if it's being run at 6PM Pacific, it's 9AM over here and I'm either at work or recovering from my lack of sleep on Saturdays/Sundays.

I do like playing on gamedays since I like to try all sorts of different custom maps and give feedback later. In fact most of my TF2 time is now from gamedays only.

That'd leave me with the Euro server but my ping is 300+ over there (around 200 in US server), and I don't want to playtest with such a high ping that it'll affect everyone else.

But don't let me sway you. I'm just a minority and just merely stating what I think.

 

[Scotland Tom]

You know... speaking of times and time zones I took another look at the gameday threads. Currently the start times are listed as follows:

Central European Summer Time: 6:00 PM
UK (British Summer Time): 5:00 PM (GMT+1)
Eastern Daylight Time: 12:00 PM
Central Daylight Time: 11:00 AM (GMT-5)
Mountain Daylight Time: 10:00 AM
Pacific Daylight Time: 9:00 AM

Which is incorrect. Eastern Daylight Time (or Eastern Standard Time, EST) is actually GMT-5, not central as is listed. Central time is actually GMT-6, and so on. Which means that the gameday for today, September 4th, actually begins at 11AM Eastern, 10AM Central, 9AM Mountain and 8AM Pacific. At least that's what my "date and time" properties tells me when I look at the time zones tab. Eastern time for US & Canada is GMT-5. And that is of course assuming that the European times listed are accurate.

Unless I missed something...?

 

[Terr]

The times are right, the confusion is the "GMT+/-" bits are misleading.

Central Daylight Time is noted there as GMT-5, which is sort-of-true only if you put Daylight Savings in. Ignoring DST, Central is GMT-6. Central is 6 time zones away, but the effect is 5 while the USA does daylight-savings time.

Similarly, the UK is operating on "British Summer Time" (BST) which is GMT+1, even though Greenwich is inside the UK.

___________

All you need to know is that during the summer everything written will tell you the right times, but may stop making sense later

 

[Caliostro]

The times are right, the confusion is the "GMT+/-" bits are misleading.

Central Daylight Time is noted there as GMT-5, which is sort-of-true only if you put Daylight Savings in. Ignoring DST, Central is GMT-6. Central is 6 time zones away, but the effect is 5 while the USA does daylight-savings time.

Similarly, the UK is operating on "British Summer Time" (BST) which is GMT+1, even though Greenwich is inside the UK.

___________

All you need to know is that during the summer everything written will tell you the right times, but may stop making sense later

Yeah, this. Booj, I think it would be best to drop the "daylight savings time" references. We all adjust our clocks to it, we want the (GMT+x) things to make it easier to tell when it is in our timezone (if it's not up there), the DST just mucks things up IMO.

 

[Terr]

Look, just cite it as a time in UTC and link people to a world clock thing. Let the internet do the heavy lifting for conversions and special-cases like DST, BST, China's unified zones, etc.

The next gameday is September 5 are at 4:00PM UTC. Click below to find what time that is in your own area.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclo...th=9&day=5&year=2009&hour=16&min=0&sec=0&p1=0

 

[A Boojum Snark]

CDT = Central Daylight Time. CST = Central Standard Time. Two seperate time zones, the names are not interchangeable. Same goes for the others. GMT is NOT "england time", and I fail to see how giving UTC will be any less confusing to people can't understand what I have there as it is.

There is no need to be worrying about the relation between the us and europe, just look for your own time zone and there is your time. Steam announcements are all proper anyway.

 

[Scotland Tom]

My confusion indeed lay in the GMT-5. I've always seen it paired with Eastern, not Central. Thanks everyone for clearing that up for me.

 

[MangyCarface]

Was a decision made...? Seems like this thread is turning into quibbling so...

 

[A Boojum Snark]

What do people want? I'm seeing suggestions across a nine hour difference.

 

[Terr]

From the OP 6 PDT and 9EST sounds OK.

 

[Wegason]

An EU Gameday starting later than 5pm UK time (nearer 7pm would be good) and an end to maps being packaged in several subfolders!

 

[MangyCarface]

An EU Gameday starting later than 5pm UK time (nearer 7pm would be good) and an end to maps being packaged in several subfolders!

EU? Concern is with US but that too I guess

 

[A Boojum Snark]

From the OP 6 PDT and 9EST sounds OK.

2100 EDT will run past midnight for them... which, on a weekday really doesn't sound any better than having it during the day.

 

[Terr]

Well, uhm... Isn't that why we have the "Euro-server" gamedays as separately listed events?

I hate to break apart a community even a small way, but a 9 hours is a significant timezone range to try to get everyone together in. If it was even midnight for folks in--for example--Germany, then it'd be 3pm on the West coast and folks would be at work and in-school. (And if not in school, with minimal margin to actually get to a computer.)

BTW, for reference, here's how 6pm US west coast, 9pm US east coast works out.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=9&day=6&year=2009&hour=1&min=0&sec=0&p1=0

 

[MangyCarface]

Just have it start at 17:00 pacific/20:00 eastern, split the difference, because people who go to school/work HAVE to be there, but that doesn't guarantee they HAVE to sleep

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Well, uhm... Isn't that why we have the "Euro-server" gamedays as separately listed events?

...we're talking about US people here.

 

[Terr]

Ah. I thought you were referring to folks in other timezones when you said:

2100 EDT will run past midnight for them

But you mean the gameday would take 3+ hours for folks starting at 9pm EST?

Well, when would be the target end-time for east-coasters?

 

[littleedge]

I hate to bump a thread that's 4 days old, but I feel I should suggest another change to the US Gameday times.

The US Gameday is for those in the US primarily, right? Of course, EU players can join in, but it's in the US server, titled US Gameday, so primarily for those in the US, which means you would want the US gameday to be at a time that is good for all US timezones.

Currently, the times for each timezone in the continental US is as follows:

Eastern Daylight Time: 8:00 PM
Central Daylight Time: 7:00 PM (GMT-5)
Mountain Daylight Time: 6:00 PM
Pacific Daylight Time: 5:00 PM

Most Gamedays last at least three hours, usually closer to four hours. This would mean those in the EDT who play at the end of Gameday are ending at midnight, while those in California end at 9.

A problem with many gamedays is that a ton of people want to join when it starts, and you have to send out a "Need More Testers" near the end. If those that have school the next day go to bed at 11, you'll have an entire timezone out of the server before the last two maps. If you moved the time back three hours, it might fix this. That would mean the times would be as follows:

Eastern Daylight Time: 5:00 PM
Central Daylight Time: 4:00 PM (GMT-5)
Mountain Daylight Time: 3:00 PM
Pacific Daylight Time: 2:00 PM

With this, we'll most likely see more EDT players at the beginning, and since many PDT players would be ending school soon after the start, they could come into gameday closer to the end, resulting in a generally even amount of players throughout gameday (in theory).

Note: Yes, I'm EDT >.>