Armageddon Standard Time

[hatchets]

Hammond, Indiana has recognized daylight savings for atleast the last 20 years. (thats up there near gary)

As for the timezome problem. Over the span of all the muds I have played, I always find it helpful OOCly, to have some sort of OOCly idea time to base things off of. Can I convert timezones? Yes, do I want to? No. Call it laziness, but being able to do either an OOCtime command, or look somewhere on the website or forum board and see a stationary, non-daylight savings, consistant time in which everything is planned off of, has always proven to help players get together for event.

Could go right on the front main website page, where it lists the current IC time, just pick an OOC timezone and call it armageddon time, whichever timezone staffers like.

Armageddon runs at armageddon.org 4050.

Armageddon last booted 5 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes and 15 seconds ago.

It is currently dawn on Yochem, the 216th day of the Ascending Sun
In the Year of Lirathu's Agitation, year 77 of the 21st Age in Zalanthas.

It is currently 8:20 AM Armageddon time!

Though now that i look up at the top of the forum by my sign in name and all that, there seems to be a time up there that doesnt match my time zone, asusming it shows the same for everyone, could just call that Armageddon time

[Drayab]

I'd prefer that we get a better IG to OOC time converter built into the website, and post RPT in IG time if its a real issue for you to convert from one time zone to another.

While this sounds like a great idea in theory, my experience on other muds has been that this method is unreliable in practice, mainly because the conversion can jump around if you have a server reboot. It would take some extra work on the coder's part to ensure that the conversion is stable.

I think displaying the server (Armageddon) time on the webpage is a simple solution that is modestly superior to making everybody use a time zone conversion website because I suspect it will herd people toward adopting that as the standard. Eastern time is kind of a defacto standard, but not everybody uses it.

[Intrepid]

Why don't we just ask Morgenes if ig time jumps around after a reboot?

[Drayab]

That's a good idea. We could even check for ourselves if we knew when the reboot was coming.

Also, a little bit of drift might not be bad here. This other mud typically had reboots once a day, if not multiple times in a day. It's common for ginka to be up for a solid week.

[Samoa]

The issue with an IC/OOC timezone converter is that there is no inherent formula that can be decoded; it will cease to be accurate when the game crashes or reboots.

[Drayab]

Sure there is. 'Help time' gives a linear relationship between IG and RL time. All that's missing from the formula is the zero point. Using this, it's pretty easy to imagine how to fix the IG time to the server time. Of course, I say this without any practical mud coding experience. There must be some complication, or else I don't see why they had so much trouble with it on that other mud. I assumed they were using some kind of interpolation/extrapolation that was causing the jumps.

          Real Time -> Zalanthan Time
          10 RL mins      = 1 ZT hour
          1 RL day        = 16 ZT days
          1 RL week       = ~0.5 ZT month
          1 RL month      = ~2 ZT months
          1 RL year       = ~8.5 ZT years

          Zalanthan Time -> Real Time
          1 ZT hour       = 10 RL mins
          1 ZT day        = 90 RL mins
          1 ZT week       = 16.5 RL hours
          1 ZT month      = ~2 RL weeks
          1 ZT year       = ~43 RL days

[Synthesis]

The issue with an IC/OOC timezone converter is that there is no inherent formula that can be decoded; it will cease to be accurate when the game crashes or reboots.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Zalanthan time is constant with respect to ginka's machine clock.  Reboots don't cause kinks in the timeline.  Dawn has been promptly at 10 after and 40 after for as long as I can remember.

Since it took me 90 minutes (1 Zalanthan day  ) to write the detailed version of of the time changes, I'll just post the link to it here.

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=71431#71431

Well, 8 years, anyway.

[Samoa]

I think there's *days* lost, though, isn't there? I feel like while time constants stay the same, the calendar skips forward a day or two.

[Synthesis]

I think there's *days* lost, though, isn't there? I feel like while time constants stay the same, the calendar skips forward a day or two.

Read Tiernan's link.  He fixed that problem 8 years ago.

[Twilight]

There is an excel spreadsheet somewhere, linked off of player submissions I think.  Its just clunky.

Time used to jump around with reboots.  It hasn't now for years.

[Karieith]

Daylight Savings Time is such a pain. It really ruins everything.

Would having a standard time consistent across the game world magically make people show up on time (and prepared) for events? If so, I'm all for it.

[Maso]

Clever stuff.

<3 you.

It is clever, but it also assumes that players are dickish enough and bad enough at math/timezone conversion to only post replies in their own time zone in response to an RPT post on the GDB.

Harsh and a bit offensive.

There is definitely a kind of 'devils advocate' culture here that seems to shoot down the majority of ideas regardless of their simplicity and evident practicality. Having a standard time would help. Tons of vastly successful online games, that have to deal with players from across the scope of the world, utilise universal game times successfully to make life easier for the players. But here, we don't want to make life easier....and anyone suggesting a method that would be easier is just lazy and a dick for preferring easier to harder and more time consuming.

If I'm in England I post my times in GMT, if I'm in LA I post my time in PST. I am a dick.

[Patuk]

Even if this thread is full of sceptics, I've yet to see a reason of why a time like this should not be installed. Yes, it might not work out. But as long as it doesn't make the game crash, allow people to abuse bugs or somehow kill your speshul little character, I don't see why this shouldn't be done. Even if nobody will end up using this AST, nothing of value will be lost by it being added.

[RogueGunslinger]

Even if this thread is full of sceptics, I've yet to see a reason of why a time like this should not be installed. Yes, it might not work out. But as long as it doesn't make the game crash, allow people to abuse bugs or somehow kill your speshul little character, I don't see why this shouldn't be done. Even if nobody will end up using this AST, nothing of value will be lost by it being added.

Hey man that's FIVE valuable minutes out of a staffers day.

[Patuk]

Even if this thread is full of sceptics, I've yet to see a reason of why a time like this should not be installed. Yes, it might not work out. But as long as it doesn't make the game crash, allow people to abuse bugs or somehow kill your speshul little character, I don't see why this shouldn't be done. Even if nobody will end up using this AST, nothing of value will be lost by it being added.

Hey man that's FIVE valuable minutes out of a staffers day.

Hm.

The voices in my head are telling me that, if this thing does not happen, I should wish up and stall a random staffer for five minutes just for the heck of it.

[Nyr]

I thought catchall's post was clever, which is why I said that.  I also said it assumes players are dicks/suck at math/conversion because it doesn't take into account the actual data on the matter which I provided later by looking on the GDB; players aren't dicks and don't seem to suck at math/conversion and they have proven that.  I then posted that there do seem to be some issues with confusion on Daylight Saving Time, but only 5-10% of the time.

I didn't look at player availability posts on clan boards.  I know what I do there--I post in my own time.  Grepping this data would be more difficult, probably a waste of time, too.  That's why I didn't do that.

I didn't look at player RPT posts on clan boards.  I know what I do there--I post a tentative time for an RPT based on what I've read on the availability posts already.  People respond with "yeah I can make it" or say "no I can't, I'll be busy," or "I'm offpeak and you guys suck."  This is anecdotal.  I haven't seen every RPT post out there, but I have seen a lot.  There may be someone out there asking to do an RPT at such and such time, and there may be people that only respond by saying they have availability at these times (in their own time zone) without actually saying whether or not it works for them, thereby forcing the initial poster to do the math on their own.  I don't think I've seen it, though.  That doesn't mean it happens or doesn't happen, but there it is.

I didn't say once that I thought the idea of putting the server time on the website would be a bad idea.  I said it was a good idea.  It's not done yet because me agreeing something is a good idea doesn't make it law or make it happen.  I haven't responded on what I thought about the overall matter yet.   I'm not saying the idea sucks.  I'm not tooting a horn saying it's the best thing since sliced bread, but pointing out that people in the Arm Community don't seem to be dicks/bad at math/conversion as far as coordinating RPTs would seem like a good thing, right?  Pointing out something related to the issue doesn't mean that the proposed idea is shit.

[Maso]

That makes sense. I'm not sure why so many of your posts seem to rub me up the wrong way.

Possibly because I imagine them in the voice and attitude of Sheldon Cooper. >.>

[hyzhenhok]

Vigorously support using actual IC time to talk about when an event is happening. That also allows event planners to make sure they are starting the event at a time that ICly makes sense and is convenient for the intended play.

[lordcooper]

I think there's *days* lost, though, isn't there? I feel like while time constants stay the same, the calendar skips forward a day or two.

And in the game

[Morgenes]

Zalanthas time and our time are in lock.  There are no skipped/lost days anymore, since the great Time Reckoning of forever ago.

[Samoa]

Read Tiernan's link.  He fixed that problem 8 years ago.

Zalanthas time and our time are in lock.  There are no skipped/lost days anymore, since the great Time Reckoning of forever ago.

Oh.

This is like one of those things where I keep referring to this as the 'new GDB', isn't it?

[Maso]

I personally can't look at Zalanthan time then my clock and then figure out what the date and time will be in Zalanthan time next Tuesday at 5.30pm GMT.

Is that just me?

[Lizzie]

I personally can't look at Zalanthan time then my clock and then figure out what the date and time will be in Zalanthan time next Tuesday at 5.30pm GMT.

Is that just me?

I have to use my fingers to figure out what time it is PST, when I'm EST. And I can't remember if I'm EST or EDT. East coast, it's 7:06. West coast, it's 4:06. Or is it 3:06? Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific - nothing inbetween right? Right. So then it's 4:06 western.

That's how I have to figure it for everything. That's the "dialogue" that goes on in my head whenever someone tries to get me to convert times.

Next Tuesday? Heh. I won't even try.

[Lizzie]

armageddon dot org says:

Armageddon runs at armageddon.org 4050.

Armageddon last booted 1 day, 8 hours, 48 minutes and 31 seconds ago.

It is currently late morning on Abid, the 36th day of the Descending Sun
In the Year of Jihae's Anger, year 1 of the 22nd Age in Zalanthas.

Current server time is : 10:08:01 PM

THANKS!

[lordcooper]

Sweet