Why have they changed the patch times from showing the time zones and only showing GMT. This is now as annoying as WoW's patches were. In that you come home from work, think you have time to get a couple of hours of playtime in, only to be greeting with..server is shutting down in 15 minutes.

Why have they changed the patch times from showing the time zones and only showing GMT. This is now as annoying as WoW's patches were. In that you come home from work, think you have time to get a couple of hours of playtime in, only to be greeting with..server is shutting down in 15 minutes.

 

+1

.. i still agree America thinks they only sob on this planet , and that we Australians do GMT..

we paying customer so u better start informing us time correctly..

+1

.. i still agree America thinks they only sob on this planet , and that we Australians do GMT..

we paying customer so u better start informing us time correctly..

 

The US isn't on GMT, it's.. PST? Either way, Bioware should at least have the decency to google a clock.

Yeah, I'm very annoyed by this change.

We feel that most players should be fairly quickly able to convert the time out of PDT and GMT to discern maintenance times.

 

 

Id say yes but with DST messing up everything the last few weeks (US went 3 weeks ago and EU is this weekend) it wouldve been nice. I know how to convert to EST but I have no idea what CDT is to me >_>

 

Is it that hard to include EST/GMT/EDT?

umm yeah it is pretty easy just keep adding an hour until you get where you want. PDT +1 = MDT +1 = CDT +1 = EDT

Your timezone has been shut down..so no need to support it in easy ways.

This is a great question! We looked at how we were handling our maintenance messaging and decided a couple of things. The number one goal of the messaging was to have someone be able to look at it and quickly discern what was happening and when.

 

The problem with our old maintenance messaging is that it was very convoluted, just a bunch of information overload. Although I can appreciate how nice it is to have a lot of timezones listed, it creates more opportunities for us to mess up or for someone to read it incorrectly.

 

We feel that most players should be fairly quickly able to convert the time out of PDT and GMT to discern maintenance times.

 

I hope that answers your question on why we made the change.

 

Actually the previous way was much easier. For myself being in Australia you had AEST. We have 2 states that do not adhere to daylight savings..NT and QLD, so Aust players know how much time to add or subtract at a quick look to determine how much time they have before servers go down. I'd assume it would be the same for the other timezones that were listed.

 

Last weeks patch said 3am GMT. When I googled that time for when i was on it said it was 6am GMT so I thought, you beauty patch has been done I can do my dailies. Only to be met 45 mins later with "Server shutting down for maintenance in 15mins"

 

Probably has more to do with the Australian servers being shut down and everyone being put onto the NA servers.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Jinsali

The US isn't on GMT, it's.. PST? Either way, Bioware should at least have the decency to google a clock.

 

Do they even teach Geography in US schools? Or do they make you learn the names and capitals of your states and call it done?

Uh is adding and subtracting so hard you people can't do it?

Uh is adding and subtracting so hard you people can't do it?

 

So very true.

 

Its not complicated, just remember the one number that tells you your time zone in relation to GMT.

This is a great question! We looked at how we were handling our maintenance messaging and decided a couple of things. The number one goal of the messaging was to have someone be able to look at it and quickly discern what was happening and when.

 

The problem with our old maintenance messaging is that it was very convoluted, just a bunch of information overload. Although I can appreciate how nice it is to have a lot of timezones listed, it creates more opportunities for us to mess up or for someone to read it incorrectly.

 

We feel that most players should be fairly quickly able to convert the time out of PDT and GMT to discern maintenance times.

 

I hope that answers your question on why we made the change.

 

So, if you were a car manufacturer, and sometimes the brakes you put in the autos you made were installed incorectlly, by Dave, the Brake Installer guy, your solution would be to no longer put brakes on any car you made?

Im sure Dave will be happy with his new job as airbag installer guy.

The problem with our old maintenance messaging is that it was very convoluted, just a bunch of information overload. Although I can appreciate how nice it is to have a lot of timezones listed, it creates more opportunities for us to mess up or for someone to read it incorrectly.

 

If I`m getting something off a computer and sitting at home then I want all the information I can get and I don`t want to have to go to multiple sources to get it.

 

So could you please bring the old way back.

Uh is adding and subtracting so hard you people can't do it?

This.

Seriously.

Uh is adding and subtracting so hard you people can't do it?

 

If it is so easy, and has been in every patch notice up until 2 weeks ago, why was it removed? Did maintenance forget how to add/subtract?

Edited March 26, 2013 by Jinsali

It's just weird that you picked pacific time; eastern should be the standard.

This is a great question! We looked at how we were handling our maintenance messaging and decided a couple of things. The number one goal of the messaging was to have someone be able to look at it and quickly discern what was happening and when.

 

The problem with our old maintenance messaging is that it was very convoluted, just a bunch of information overload. Although I can appreciate how nice it is to have a lot of timezones listed, it creates more opportunities for us to mess up or for someone to read it incorrectly.

 

We feel that most players should be fairly quickly able to convert the time out of PDT and GMT to discern maintenance times.

 

I hope that answers your question on why we made the change.

 

Maybe you could put up a link to a timezone conversion website in the posts, like this one for example http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

This is why ...

BioWare are closing down Asia-Pacific servers of SWTOR. I just found this news on Google+ and I must say, I think it's shocking that BioWare would not listen to the suggestions made and would instead opt to close down the Australian servers completely. This will force me, and other Australian and New Zealand players, back to the laggy experience we put up with when the game first came out in the US and did not yet have Oceanic servers.

 

To make it even worse, names that we had secured on original servers are now gone, forcing us all to now change our SWTOR identities. I understand that other players had to change their names as well when the server merges took place, but older veteran players at least had the opportunity to keep their identities if they had active accounts. We are now going to be limited to hyphenated weird names because of the massive populations on the US servers.

 

Being an avid PvP player, the 200+ ping is going to be completely unacceptable and won't allow me to be competitive.

 

This is one massive nail in the coffin for Oceanic players.

 

One of the three Asia-Pacific servers has a more than satisfactory population and a simple merge of all Oceanic players to that most populated server would solve the issues that BioWare have.

 

 

 

Fans suggested several ways to address the problem, with BioWare eventually opting to remove the servers altogether. Musco says the studio will need to update the Free Character Transfer System in order to cater for recent game updates, as well as the forthcoming 2.0 update and Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion pack, so it may be some time before the transfer is completed.

 

Once those issues are addressed, players on APAC servers will be offered Free Character Transfers to the buzzing North American servers of the same gameplay type. “Mastar Dar’Nala (PvP) will transfer to The Bastion (PvP), Gav Daragon (RP-PvE) will transfer to Begeren Colony (RP-PvE), and Dalborra (PvE) will transfer to The Harbinger (PvE),” the community post reads.

While I sympathize with APAC players "bad feelings about servers closure", I cannot do the same for those who cannot simply do some basic maths on time zones for maintenance periods.

 

What are you being taught at schools guys?

While I sympathize with APAC players "bad feelings about servers closure", I cannot do the same for those who cannot simply do some basic maths on time zones for maintenance periods.

 

What are you being taught at schools guys?

 

Believe it or not, many of us don't regularly deal with having to know different time zones. Myself, I'm constantly forgetting which time zone is which and how many hours I have to add or subtract. It's more along the lines of "what's 5 + or - between 9 to 11". Add in that Bioware often takes the servers down earlier than they state, things can get confusing.

 

I'd rather not have to go to a third party site when I want to know what the GMT is and I don't have space in my head to cram in something that's barely relevant every 2 weeks, so it was nice to have all of the times stated in the maintenance times post.

This is a great question! We looked at how we were handling our maintenance messaging and decided a couple of things. The number one goal of the messaging was to have someone be able to look at it and quickly discern what was happening and when.

 

The problem with our old maintenance messaging is that it was very convoluted, just a bunch of information overload. Although I can appreciate how nice it is to have a lot of timezones listed, it creates more opportunities for us to mess up or for someone to read it incorrectly.

 

We feel that most players should be fairly quickly able to convert the time out of PDT and GMT to discern maintenance times.

 

I hope that answers your question on why we made the change.

 

This is another example of

 

"It is cheaper for us to do it this way, so we are doing it this way"

 

Fantastic customer service once again! If you think most players should be able to fairly quickly convert the time out of PDT and GMT, how about you quickly convert it for them?

 

I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if your "scheduled" maintenance was at all regular and scheduled, but when you move the maintenance around to whenever you feel like it (really, is it scheduled when you decide to do it the morning of the same day?), it gets harder.

 

Really though, it is obvious that Bioware are all just about minimising costs now before the slow decline and shuttering of all the servers.

This is a great question! We looked at how we were handling our maintenance messaging and decided a couple of things. The number one goal of the messaging was to have someone be able to look at it and quickly discern what was happening and when.

 

The problem with our old maintenance messaging is that it was very convoluted, just a bunch of information overload. Although I can appreciate how nice it is to have a lot of timezones listed, it creates more opportunities for us to mess up or for someone to read it incorrectly.

 

We feel that most players should be fairly quickly able to convert the time out of PDT and GMT to discern maintenance times.

 

I hope that answers your question on why we made the change.

 

It was not an information overload. It provided valuable information that was easily accessible. Removing it is just laziness and reflects poorly on Bioware and EA. It's not that hard to get the times for a few time zones and post those up.

This is why ...

BioWare are closing down Asia-Pacific servers of SWTOR. I just found this news on Google+ and I must say, I think it's shocking that BioWare would not listen to the suggestions made and would instead opt to close down the Australian servers completely. This will force me, and other Australian and New Zealand players, back to the laggy experience we put up with when the game first came out in the US and did not yet have Oceanic servers.

 

To make it even worse, names that we had secured on original servers are now gone, forcing us all to now change our SWTOR identities. I understand that other players had to change their names as well when the server merges took place, but older veteran players at least had the opportunity to keep their identities if they had active accounts. We are now going to be limited to hyphenated weird names because of the massive populations on the US servers.

 

Being an avid PvP player, the 200+ ping is going to be completely unacceptable and won't allow me to be competitive.

 

This is one massive nail in the coffin for Oceanic players.

 

One of the three Asia-Pacific servers has a more than satisfactory population and a simple merge of all Oceanic players to that most populated server would solve the issues that BioWare have.

 

 

 

Fans suggested several ways to address the problem, with BioWare eventually opting to remove the servers altogether. Musco says the studio will need to update the Free Character Transfer System in order to cater for recent game updates, as well as the forthcoming 2.0 update and Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion pack, so it may be some time before the transfer is completed.

 

Once those issues are addressed, players on APAC servers will be offered Free Character Transfers to the buzzing North American servers of the same gameplay type. “Mastar Dar’Nala (PvP) will transfer to The Bastion (PvP), Gav Daragon (RP-PvE) will transfer to Begeren Colony (RP-PvE), and Dalborra (PvE) will transfer to The Harbinger (PvE),” the community post reads.

 

You know what the annoying thing about all this is for me and probably a few others as well.

 

Last year when i started playing, the guild I was in was on a NA server, then they opened the APAC servers. Because most of them had started prior to febuary/march they got offered free transfers to APAC. I didn't and had to start from fresh again. My old characters were merged into Harbinger and it was as dead as a dodo during Aus prime time. Most I saw in fleet at 730pm Sydney time was 20 ppl.

 

Now they are throwing us all back there...great thinking.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Jinsali

While I sympathize with APAC players "bad feelings about servers closure", I cannot do the same for those who cannot simply do some basic maths on time zones for maintenance periods.

 

What are you being taught at schools guys?

 

Sorry I play an online game so I don;t have to think. You pay me my standard $AUD75 an hour, then I'll think. I pay a subscription for that and its a standard part of customer service that has been in place for over 12 months without any issues whatsoever. Now all of a sudden, it's information overload for the players???