ESO+ is disabled earlier than 10AM EST

ClericPro · August 12

The news https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/68523 indicates that ESO+ will be active until 10AM EST.
However, my friend logged in half an hour before the indicated time and saw that ESO+ was disabled.
He is confused - how can he understand whether the news indicates the correct time or whether these are just random numbers?

LootAllTheStuff · August 12

ClericPro wrote: »

The news https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/68523 indicates that ESO+ will be active until 10AM EST.
However, my friend logged in half an hour before the indicated time and saw that ESO+ was disabled.
He is confused - how can he understand whether the news indicates the correct time or whether these are just random numbers?

I think I can see at least one potential problem. From the announcement:

he ESO Plus Free Trial is now live and continues until August 12 at 10AM EST. Throughout this trial period, you can enjoy the following exclusive ESO Plus benefits free of charge:

EST is Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5 hrs) but we are currently in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC -4 hrs).
@ZOS_Kevin - Any idea which it should have been?

Oznog666 · August 12

To avoid problems like the best would be to use always UTC no matter what server you are on. And as I assume that everybody is able to convert UTC into their local time it would help in a great way. There are so many different time zones not just in North America but all over the world.

katanagirl1 · August 12

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

ClericPro wrote: »

The news https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/68523 indicates that ESO+ will be active until 10AM EST.
However, my friend logged in half an hour before the indicated time and saw that ESO+ was disabled.
He is confused - how can he understand whether the news indicates the correct time or whether these are just random numbers?

I think I can see at least one potential problem. From the announcement:

he ESO Plus Free Trial is now live and continues until August 12 at 10AM EST. Throughout this trial period, you can enjoy the following exclusive ESO Plus benefits free of charge:

EST is Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5 hrs) but we are currently in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC -4 hrs).
@ZOS_Kevin - Any idea which it should have been?

People on the east coast often just say EST all the time and don’t ever change it.

I agree UTC is better, especially for those of us who do not do DST.

twisttop138 · August 12

katanagirl1 wrote: »

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

ClericPro wrote: »

The news https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/68523 indicates that ESO+ will be active until 10AM EST.
However, my friend logged in half an hour before the indicated time and saw that ESO+ was disabled.
He is confused - how can he understand whether the news indicates the correct time or whether these are just random numbers?

I think I can see at least one potential problem. From the announcement:

he ESO Plus Free Trial is now live and continues until August 12 at 10AM EST. Throughout this trial period, you can enjoy the following exclusive ESO Plus benefits free of charge:

EST is Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5 hrs) but we are currently in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC -4 hrs).
@ZOS_Kevin - Any idea which it should have been?

People on the east coast often just say EST all the time and don’t ever change it.

I agree UTC is better, especially for those of us who do not do DST.

Can confirm. When I see something that says est or pst I just go by what time it'll be here in NY or 3 hours earlier for pst. I never factor daylight savings into it.

Monte_Cristo · August 12

I just go by the timer in the + page in the crown store, so I knew it was ending midnight my time. I assume the timer didn't suddenly jump foward at the end?

SilverBride · August 12

The world needs a patch that will stop time from moving forward and backward.

MJallday · August 13

katanagirl1 wrote: »

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

ClericPro wrote: »

The news https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/68523 indicates that ESO+ will be active until 10AM EST.
However, my friend logged in half an hour before the indicated time and saw that ESO+ was disabled.
He is confused - how can he understand whether the news indicates the correct time or whether these are just random numbers?

I think I can see at least one potential problem. From the announcement:

he ESO Plus Free Trial is now live and continues until August 12 at 10AM EST. Throughout this trial period, you can enjoy the following exclusive ESO Plus benefits free of charge:

EST is Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5 hrs) but we are currently in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC -4 hrs).
@ZOS_Kevin - Any idea which it should have been?

People on the east coast often just say EST all the time and don’t ever change it.

I agree UTC is better, especially for those of us who do not do DST.

in the UK and UTC moves back and forth a couple of times a year - sometimes its the same as GMT - sometimes not

i agree with you - UTC all the time for everyone.

Toanis · August 13

It's completely understandable to get confused with timezones and daylight saving (which should have been abandoned long ago, when folks started to draw the curtains and sit in front of the TV at 8pm). It gets even more confusing when one of the DST zones is used synonymously for "local time". But for international time scheduling it's kinda important to do it right.

Luckily Google can help both communicating the time and translating it to local time: https://www.google.com/search?q=10am+est+utc will notice the mistake, refer to ET instead of EST/EDT and convert to the correct UTC time. Remove the "UTC" and it will show your local time.

ClericPro · August 15

Toanis wrote: »

Luckily Google can help both communicating the time and translating it to local time

How can Google help if the time is wrong? All it can do is correctly convert one wrong time to another wrong time.

Toanis · August 15

ClericPro wrote: »

Toanis wrote: »

Luckily Google can help both communicating the time and translating it to local time

How can Google help if the time is wrong? All it can do is correctly convert one wrong time to another wrong time.

Just google "10am EST UTC". Google returns 2pm UTC. That is wrong. EST is UTC-5, so the correct answer would be 3pm. Bing returns the technically correct answer, but Google's AI is trained to guess what we really wanted to ask, and assumes using EST between March and November is a mistake, which it then corrects, giving us the right answer for the most likely reason we asked, even when it's technically wrong. Try it again in November and Google's answer will also be 3pm.
(Could also just be a macro that automatically changes EST/EDT to ET, but I like to imagine an eye-rolling AI...)

Either way, that's a great tool to make time announcements and convert them to UTC (or whatever timezone) even when you colloquially use the wrong term for "local time". Same when someone tells you a time and you don't trust them to do that timezone stuff properly.

katanagirl1 · August 16

This is a good source

https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

ClericPro · August 23

Toanis wrote: »

Just google "10am EST UTC"...

Do you realize that no one outside the US uses US local time and is not required to know the nuances of switching to summer/winter time?

The time is given in the news. It is incorrect. The only way to solve this problem is to give the correct time. And also, as correctly noted, the international format should be used for an international project.

Toanis · August 24

ClericPro wrote: »

Toanis wrote: »

Just google "10am EST UTC"...

Do you realize that no one outside the US uses US local time and is not required to know the nuances of switching to summer/winter time?

I do. This is why I told you how you can easily convert US time correctly with auto-correction of the mistake that happened here. I did so, because I also realize that american companies very often mess up time zones even though they have to deal with them on a daily basis (or maybe because of that - when it's something you rarely have to do, you pay more attention.)

ClericPro wrote: »

The time is given in the news. It is incorrect. The only way to solve this problem is to give the correct time. And also, as correctly noted, the international format should be used for an international project.

The event ended at 10am local time for ZOS just as planned. Usually they give an UTC time as well, but with the mistake, that likely would have been wrong as well. (Interesting enough, the news article now shows the correct "10 AM EDT"...)

Ideally, the devs would use a "smart" conversion to UTC that takes such common mistakes into account (e.g. Google, DuckyDuckyGo, and from ChatGPT you even get a little lecture.) But we players can use that as well, to make sure that we get the right time, regardless of whether the devs made a mistake or not (Or we can go to the forums after the fact, and complain that our freebie ran out an hour earlier than expected. Our choice.)