GMT / UTC and times

Greenthy · 2012-07-06, 08:26 PM

I would like to take the opportunity to ask the community and the developers especially to use UTC or GMT times in their posts.

It's really troublesome that everybody has to convert PDT/EST/... times to their time zones every single time.
UTC (and the sun-synchronous GMT) are STANDARDS.

Standards are there for a reason: they allow the entire community to use them and to easily convert to relevant times. Use them and allow the entire world to run more insync please.

And for the love of god, use a 24hr format.
Nothing as confusing as 12:00 PM or 12:00 AM.

Few conversions:
CEST=UTC+2 (CET = UTC+1)
PDT=UTC-7

I know timezones like PDT can be converted to BST or CEST or whatnot, but having to memorize only one coversion for everybody is easier than having to check every time (especially giving summer times).

So please, show some curtousy to non US players and use UTC times.
You only need to know one conversion as does the rest of the world.

Edit:
Forgot to mention this, but this is in response to the scheduled planetside day event as well as the old oshur event.
Both for which there was confusion in outfit chat, which is just easily avoided with using standards.

use standards, just like you would use the standard PDF for documents, it's what they are there for.

DirtyBird · 2012-07-06, 08:42 PM

I likes the UTC.

Hamma · 2012-07-07, 12:50 AM

We use CDT for AGN because that's the TZ that PSU resides in

Same for SOE, they reside in PDT/PST. EVE uses GMT/UTC because they are based in that TZ..

Vreki · 2012-07-07, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by Hamma

We use CDT for AGN because that's the TZ that PSU resides in

Same for SOE, they reside in PDT/PST. EVE uses GMT/UTC because they are based in that TZ..

Yes, but what percentage of your users are based in that timezone?
I should think that was the important question if you are trying to be international.

And the answer is most likely that no timezone hold a majority of users, in which case it makes sense to at least include the international standard time.

DirtyBird · 2012-07-07, 02:00 AM

Sometimes you can find a number of time zones posted to suit the majority of the target audience(s).

Hamma · 2012-07-07, 10:19 AM

I post it in multiple time zones in our AGN News Posts.

I'm just saying - companies are going to use their local time zones for ease of management. How many people are in their target time zone? Doesn't matter really they have to do what works best for them.

Greenthy · 2012-07-07, 10:52 AM

If that is so, that is just lousy PR for shedueling events.
Using standards is a little harder from the organizing side, but in the end it's the easiest overall.
Internally they should ofcourse use local times to sheduele working hours, etc...
But it would suit them well if they give UTC times for events

It is just alot easier to use UTC as an intermediate transition. And I hope most (gaming) people already know their local timezones expressed in UTC.

oh and this was posted twice for the following reason: One for the community developers for planetside 2, one for the sheduling of 'final' events for planetside 1 (like Old oshur, planetside day, ...)
My apologies for splitting the discussion.

Too bad it is now put in one of the least visited subforums, I guess mentality will never change and the people that organize things don't care that much in the end.

Hamma · 2012-07-07, 03:37 PM

Yes that's exactly why it was moved here

I'm putting this back actually since it's related to PS2 discussion.

Jeepo · 2012-07-07, 03:50 PM

Just use Zulu time?

It makes sense!

http://www.zulutime.net/

sumo · 2012-07-07, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I post it in multiple time zones in our AGN News Posts.

I'm just saying - companies are going to use their local time zones for ease of management. How many people are in their target time zone? Doesn't matter really they have to do what works best for them.

but this particular company try to haul in players from all over the world. so please use GMT

DirtyBird · 2012-07-08, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by Jeepo

Just use Zulu time?

It makes sense!

http://www.zulutime.net/

Same thing as UTC afaik.

Notturno · 2012-07-08, 08:36 PM

Let's say an event is at 8:00 PM PDT. That's 20:00 GMT -7. Add or subtract based on what timezone you are in.

This is really simple math and should be a skill set anyone on the internet knows. It isn't up to the PSU team, or even the SOE team for that matter, to hold someone's hand and post times for every single time zone, for every single event. There are so many time zones, it just isn't an efficient use of time to post a schedule for every single time zone. I can understand maybe using their home time zone and GMT (+0:00) to make it more simplistic, but anything beyond that is just a little ridiculous.

My best suggestion would be to learn how time zones work so it's second nature to you, or find a good online converter.

DirtyBird · 2012-07-08, 08:38 PM

/salute

PS. the OP only asked for one TZ to be used, read it again.