Downtime notices in launcher (and timezones!)
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-08-23 05:07 in Suggestions and Ideas
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??????? I don't know what UTC/GMT is. I know it is time, but, that is all I know about it..and I sure don't know how to translate UTC/GMT into Central time...hmm...could you explain it to me and others here on the forums who probably don't know either? If it is easy to understand, this might be a great idea |
Originally Posted by halfflat
As an aside, could we have the official announcement times in UTC/GMT? That way, everyone need know only one number (their offset from GMT), and not have to worry about the vagaries of Standard/Summer time schedules, which of course vary from country to country and hemisphere to hemisphere.
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Lisa.
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UTM/GMT is "Earth Standard." All other time zones are deviations on it. I fully support having everything in UTM/GMT.
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Originally Posted by McCharraigin
??????? I don't know what UTC/GMT is. I know it is time, but, that is all I know about it..and I sure don't know how to translate UTC/GMT into Central time...hmm...could you explain it to me and others here on the forums who probably don't know either? If it is easy to understand, this might be a great idea
Lisa. |
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How you convert GMT to say CST would be nice to know. |
Originally Posted by McCharraigin
??????? I don't know what UTC/GMT is. I know it is time, but, that is all I know about it..and I sure don't know how to translate UTC/GMT into Central time...hmm...could you explain it to me and others here on the forums who probably don't know either? If it is easy to understand, this might be a great idea
Lisa. |
The idea of having notice of server downtime is great. It would be very beneficial for everyone, specially when I21 launches. New players would then get a heads up without having to dig through the forums.
just my two cents...
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CDT is GMT -5, CST is GMT -6. If time is 12 PM (Noon) GMT, CDT would be 7 AM, CST would be 6 AM. EDT/EST -4/-5, CDT/CST -5/-6, MDT/MST -6/-7, PDT/PST, -7/-8.
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Web pages and utilities like this should be smart enough to display a time like this as whatever your local system time is. That would be the most user friendly solution.
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You've got these backward. Daylight Saving Time is one hour ahead of Standard Time, so, for example, Central Standard Time is GMT-6, while Central Daylight Time is GMT-5.
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Originally Posted by Neo Shadowdream
CST is GMT -5, CDT is GMT -6. If time is 12 PM (Noon) GMT, CST would be 7 AM, CDT would be 6 AM. EST/EDT -4/-5, CST/CDT -5/-6, MST/MDT -6/-7, PST/PDT, -7/-8.
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I love this idea.
Just to play devils advocate IF I can find the Forum Post on the forums the devs do link the start/finish times to a website that displays that time with a whole bunch of cities around the world-
Example Post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=269498
This has = Start Time: 4:00 a.m. PDT / 7:00 a.m. EDT / 12:00 p.m. BST / 13:00 CEST which is hyperlinked to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc...0&sec=0&p1=224.
BUT you still need to go through half a dozen clicks to get there IF you remember where to find the post.
easy way to figure it out?
right click on the time in the bottom right corner of your screen (assuming you're using windows)
assuming that you have set you date/time for your time zone, it tells you your time UTC.
mine is eastern so i see UTC-05:00
that would be UTC time - 5hrs
simple eh
suggestion makes sense
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Originally Posted by Neo Shadowdream
CST is GMT -5, CDT is GMT -6. If time is 12 PM (Noon) GMT, CST would be 7 AM, CDT would be 6 AM. EST/EDT -4/-5, CST/CDT -5/-6, MST/MDT -6/-7, PST/PDT, -7/-8.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
You've got these backward. Daylight Saving Time is one hour ahead of Standard Time, so, for example, Central Standard Time is GMT-6, while Central Daylight Time is GMT-5.
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I agree with Lemur, no reason it couldn't just use the time of whatever system is running it.
As to the original suggestion in general, the devs definitely need to make better use of the Launcher as an informational tool. They've started to do a little better since the launch (pardon the pun) of the NCSoft Launcher, but it really does bear mentioning that not everyone uses the forum, while everyone does use the Launcher (even if you normally bypass it and just launch the executable, you still need to use the Launcher to patch).
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Well, it's probably not the developers, but somebody sure does. The little rotating ad was still hawking July's strike targets until sometime last week.
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
As to the original suggestion in general, the devs definitely need to make better use of the Launcher as an informational tool.
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Right-clicking the time in my system tray doesn't tell me anything of the sort.|
Originally Posted by Torment And Agony
easy way to figure it out?
right click on the time in the bottom right corner of your screen (assuming you're using windows) assuming that you have set you date/time for your time zone, it tells you your time UTC. mine is eastern so i see UTC-05:00 that would be UTC time - 5hrs simple eh suggestion makes sense |
It gives the standard taskbar/system tray right-click options.
Yes, I have the time/date set for my time zone.
I haven't seen that right-click behavior in any version of Windows that I've run, all the way back to Windows 3.1 The only version I can recall not having run was Windows NT 4.
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HA! So I do... my bad :/|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
You've got these backward. Daylight Saving Time is one hour ahead of Standard Time, so, for example, Central Standard Time is GMT-6, while Central Daylight Time is GMT-5.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Right-clicking the time in my system tray doesn't tell me anything of the sort.
It gives the standard taskbar/system tray right-click options. Yes, I have the time/date set for my time zone. I haven't seen that right-click behavior in any version of Windows that I've run, all the way back to Windows 3.1 The only version I can recall not having run was Windows NT 4. |
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Looks like it's different depending on which Windows you're using. I'm on Windows XP SP3 --|
Originally Posted by Neo Shadowdream
Left click, Change date and time settings, it then shows timezone as UTC +/-
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RIGHT click, Adjust Date/Time, change tab to Time Zone, and then it shows GMT not UTC (granted, the same thing; but if we're talking about giving a specific-step process then you have to be precise).
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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Originally Posted by Neo Shadowdream
HA! So I do... my bad :/
Left click, Change date and time settings, it then shows timezone as UTC +/- |
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
Looks like it's different depending on which Windows you're using. I'm on Windows XP SP3 --
RIGHT click, Adjust Date/Time, change tab to Time Zone, and then it shows GMT not UTC (granted, the same thing; but if we're talking about giving a specific-step process then you have to be precise). |
I already knew that if I went into the window to change the date and time it would show me UTC or GMT. Several more steps than the "simple eh" method.
EDIT: As a side note, in Windows 7 if you right-click the time and then go to Adjust date/time it shows it there immediately. No need to switch to the Time Zone tab as in XP.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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I have to agree with the facepalming lemur.|
Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
Web pages and utilities like this should be smart enough to display a time like this as whatever your local system time is. That would be the most user friendly solution.
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I prefer visibility and simplicity of information whenever possible, especially when it doesn't take much effort(random websites already know my time and location
).
Downtime is no fun, but it would allow easier planning of people's play time if downtime information was more readily available. So, how about incorporating this into the launcher?
On selecting "City of Heroes", we could be shown the current server status, the next known downtime period, and when things are down, the expected maintenance completion time. It would save trawling through the forums!
An additional advantage would be that the Launcher could display these times in our local time zone, whatever that might be.
As an aside, could we have the official announcement times in UTC/GMT? That way, everyone need know only one number (their offset from GMT), and not have to worry about the vagaries of Standard/Summer time schedules, which of course vary from country to country and hemisphere to hemisphere.