Questtimes

[Jazzmyra]

So, one thing I got to notice again today is the confusion (at least for me as none-american) when it comes to the quest times. 

I was wondering if maybe the admins and DMs could decide on one specific timezone as common ground, just so people who are not living in the TZ of their choosing would not have to convert everytime? Especially with Daylight Savings it gets utterly confusing and to some people is lost, at least that is my experience. 

[Edge]

Someone's going to have to do conversions either way, whether being the posting DM, players not living in whatever timezone the staff determines to be the "reference point" (which would probably be GMT, if we did that, since it's the reference point by which most timezones are measured anyway), or whatever other arrangement happens to be. Basically you're just asking to shift the burden of finding out if the quest is in your availability from the player(s) to the DM.

We do encourage DMs to use some kind of timezone website to ensure the accuracy of time conversions when/if it's relevant to posting, such as if they're running a quest primarily for a group on Euro or Aus/Asian time. I do believe we have a post in the quests forum that lists a timezone-converter website for this exact purpose, as well as for players to use to check their own local availability against the schedule of a quest.

[Blackheart]

www.timeanddate.com/

I'll start using this and posting it with events.

[Jazzmyra]

Well, to be honest, the thing is that in the case of the US Timezones, there are a LOT of them. And then, even if two states are generally in the same timezone, chances are one of them has Daylight Savings, the other doesn't.

So yeah, I admit I'm kind of asking to shift the "burden" of conversion, but saying "GMT+/-" as TZ is ultimately the easiest way for everyone to figure things out, I think, and causes the least confusion since that is a value that would change either way when the country is using Daylight Savings.

I simply had this thought a few times myself, and went by what I know / did as guild leader in MMOs when organizing events. ^^

[Edge]

There's only two states in the US that don't have DST - Arizona and Hawaii. Everyone else turns it on or off at the same time. =)

[sciolist]

Having something in UTC is pretty unambiguous.
It's like GMT but a less 'British Empire' name for it

[Shantis]

I use CST because it's... more simple.

It's 2 hours longer than my local timezone. Only add "more two hours" to quickly know the quest time for me.

And as it is almost impossible to calculate each timezone individually, I preferred to adopt one as a reference when posting the times (when I don't use websites).

About daylight, it's complicated. They use another timezone (which is a variation of ANOTHER timezone) and I don't know what time others use. For me (who has no daylight, by federal decree in my country), using CST still helps me get references, and pass them on.

[Deleted]

As Edge said, we provide tools for players and DMs to convert to the appropriate timezone.  We are not going to mandate DMs use a specific timezone in their quest posting.

[Mystic Warden]

timeanddate.com calculates with the daylight saving times, including local quirks if you input the name of your location, not just your time zone.

[Rei Jin]

I'm just glad that a number of DMs use CST, because there's EST in the US, and there's also EST here in Australia. In my early days of playing NWN, that always got me.