Please use GMT (or UTC if desired)

Kite42 · November 2022

Today I've found out, after 50 minutes of wasted time, that not only is the time origin for this game's announcements pretty arbitrary (well, i guess the servers must be there, so not arbitrary, but whatever) but it has freaking seasonal variation too!?

Okay, Greenwich I guess was an arbitrarily chosen place, but that was ages ago and now at least we all know our own time relative to it, and it's not seasonal. I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time, but come on, everyone uses GMT / UTC. Can't the community manager just write a script to convert his or her times to also show the UTC version?

[edited for inappropriate content]

jaws343 · November 2022

I think you'd find yourself quite mistaken that everyone knows their time in relation to UTC/GMT. In the US, unless you work with people in Europe (and even then, I can barely keep up with who is in what time zone and what time it is for them at any given time), it really isn't a thing anyone thinks about or knows well enough to care. All you see in the US, ever, is ET, CT, MT, PT.

spartaxoxo · November 2022

I don't know UTC or GMT. The US doesn't really do much with those time zones. I am in the Eastern Time zone, so it's quite easy for me. It makes sense for them to use a time format that's easiest for their employees, and those timezones are ones common to America because it happens to be an American company. 🤷🏿‍♀️

TaSheen · November 2022

I have a second clock set up in Windows to display UTC. Sometimes I do need to know something at a time in UTC, so that makes it quick to check. Otherwise I'd have to use google, because no, I don't have the GMT/UTC offset for US Mountain Time memorized.

Cazador · November 2022

I honestly don't know the time difference between my time zone (central standard US) and either of those. I don't even know what countries use either so no, not everyone uses GMT/ UTC.

SPR_of_HA_community · November 2022

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't know UTC or GMT. The US doesn't really do much with those time zones. I am in the Eastern Time zone, so it's quite easy for me. It makes sense for them to use a time format that's easiest for their employees, and those timezones are ones common to America because it happens to be an American company. 🤷🏿‍♀️

If you do not use GMT or UTC,what do you use ? I only know this 2 systems so I am interested what else do exist.

As example how do you calculate time zones ? Or based on some local server time as example ?

Cazador · November 2022

SPR_of_HA_community wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't know UTC or GMT. The US doesn't really do much with those time zones. I am in the Eastern Time zone, so it's quite easy for me. It makes sense for them to use a time format that's easiest for their employees, and those timezones are ones common to America because it happens to be an American company. 🤷🏿‍♀️

If you do not use GMT or UTC,what do you use ? I only know this 2 systems so I am interested what else do exist.

As example how do you calculate time zones ? Or based on some local server time as example ?

I can probably answer that one. Here in the US we typically use one of 4. ET (eastern) , CT (central) , MT(mountain) or PT (Pacific) going from east to west. Each is separated by 1 hour so if it's 9 PM in ET it's 8 in CT, 7 in MT and 6 in PT.

redlink1979 · November 2022

People use their familiar time zone.
Usually only Europeans know the difference between their time zone and UTC/GMT/CET.

Ingenon · November 2022

I believe that ZOS is based in Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA, which is in the Eastern Time Zone (ET). So this is probably why they post times in that time zone.

tomofhyrule · November 2022

The time zones are shown in whichever language you have the page set to.

If you're on the US homepage, it's in Eastern because that's where the servers are. If you want GMT, they're listed as such on the GB version of the site: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news
And the GB forums: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/

Lumsdenml · November 2022

Living on the Best Coast in the US, I think all times should be given in PST. Also, I know my time zone is UTC -8.

TaSheen · November 2022

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The time zones are shown in whichever language you have the page set to.

If you're on the US homepage, it's in Eastern because that's where the servers are. If you want GMT, they're listed as such on the GB version of the site: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news
And the GB forums: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/

Wow, learn something new every day!

Stanx · November 2022

Kite42 wrote: »

Today I've found out, after 50 minutes of wasted time, that not only is the time origin for this game's announcements pretty arbitrary (well, i guess the servers must be there, so not arbitrary, but whatever) but it has freaking seasonal variation too!?

Okay, Greenwich I guess was an arbitrarily chosen place, but that was ages ago and now at least we all know our own time relative to it, and it's not seasonal. I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time, but come on, everyone uses GMT / UTC. Can't the community manager just write a script to convert his or her times to also show the UTC version?

[edited for inappropriate content]

As a Brit, you do realise that GMT has seasonal variations too, right? Like we just went back an hour a couple of weeks ago.

Most of the times I see on the forums offer UTC (which GMT has now lined up with) and failing that I can just google it.

It does grind my gears a little with the whole "I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time", because there are people playing this game from all over the world and it's a tad obnoxious to expect everything to be catered specifically to yourself.

Kite42 · November 2022

Stanx wrote: »

It does grind my gears a little with the whole "I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time", because there are people playing this game from all over the world and it's a tad obnoxious to expect everything to be catered specifically to yourself.

How did you miss the fact that I made that comment to *explicitly* point out that I don't think I, or anyone else, should have a specifically catered ESO message?

Since everyone knows UTC, use UTC. If some people genuinely don't know what UTC is, then they are benefiting fro finding out its existence for sure.

Cryptor · November 2022

#FirstWorldProblems indeed but it would help to clearly communicate times, I don't see why it would be a problem to list a lift of half a dozen time zones when stating release dates etc...

Kite42 · November 2022

Stanx wrote: »

As a Brit, you do realise that GMT has seasonal variations too, right? Like we just went back an hour a couple of weeks ago.

Most of the times I see on the forums offer UTC (which GMT has now lined up with) and failing that I can just google it.

GMT/UTC don't have seasonal variations - that's why they'd be great. I left Britain in 1993, so I'm not particularly au fait with their exact date change schedule either.

jaws343 · November 2022

Kite42 wrote: »

Stanx wrote: »

It does grind my gears a little with the whole "I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time", because there are people playing this game from all over the world and it's a tad obnoxious to expect everything to be catered specifically to yourself.

How did you miss the fact that I made that comment to *explicitly* point out that I don't think I, or anyone else, should have a specifically catered ESO message?

Since everyone knows UTC, use UTC. If some people genuinely don't know what UTC is, then they are benefiting fro finding out its existence for sure.

Again, GMT and UTC offsets, from a general population knowledge standpoint, are not well known. They are more of a European usage. The US uses it's own time zones and really has no need to even care what other time zones are.

And UTC here is itself far more ensconced in the tech world from a professional standpoint and not known nearly at all in non professional settings.

I think people fail to realize how large the US is. We have 4 time zones in the contiguous states. Most countries in Europe have 1 time zone and more often than not share that same time zone with their neighbor countries.

You say you don't think anyone should have to cater, by forcing a US company to cater to European standards and forcing US customers to cater to the same. I propose the same argument back to you that you propose to those who don't know UTC, maybe you will benefit from learning about ET, and how that time zone correlates back to your country.

Olauron · November 2022

The benefit of UTC is that it is an international system used by anyone travelling to get the difference of the time zones and, more importantly in practical usage, is shown first in the Windows "set date and time" interface with the local time zone only second. As such, it is easy to compare your own UTC time with any written UTC time. Comparing local zones with local zones needs special web-sites, though.

Kappachi · November 2022

Kite42 wrote: »

Today I've found out, after 50 minutes of wasted time, that not only is the time origin for this game's announcements pretty arbitrary (well, i guess the servers must be there, so not arbitrary, but whatever) but it has freaking seasonal variation too!?

Okay, Greenwich I guess was an arbitrarily chosen place, but that was ages ago and now at least we all know our own time relative to it, and it's not seasonal. I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time, but come on, everyone uses GMT / UTC. Can't the community manager just write a script to convert his or her times to also show the UTC version?

[edited for inappropriate content]

I don't know GMT or UTC, this is a game made by Americans so it makes sense to use American times, I know my time in relation to EST and so do most other people playing this game in NA server

ghastley · November 2022

Ok let’s get the facts straight. GMT and UTC do not have seasonal changes. The UK changes from GMT to BST (British Summer Time) just like Maryland changes from EST to EDT. As long as the zone designations are correct, their offsets from UTC are fixed.

Note the way the S in BST stands for Summer, but the S in EST stands for Standard. The D being Daylight, which you don’t get in winter, because the USA is north of the Arctic circle, right? And what time is it in the MEZ (Monday Evening Zone?)

ZOS_Kevin · November 2022

Hi all. We normally use Eastern Standard Time (EST), Eastern Daylight Saving Time (EDT) or shorten it to just Eastern Time (ET) as the studio is on the eastern part of the United States. We leave it up to you for time conversion. But we can pass on feedback along to see if there is room to add additional times. But for now, you are encouraged to use a time converter like this to make sure the time is correct for you.

Cazador · November 2022

ghastley wrote: »

Ok let’s get the facts straight. GMT and UTC do not have seasonal changes. The UK changes from GMT to BST (British Summer Time) just like Maryland changes from EST to EDT. As long as the zone designations are correct, their offsets from UTC are fixed.

Note the way the S in BST stands for Summer, but the S in EST stands for Standard. The D being Daylight, which you don’t get in winter, because the USA is north of the Arctic circle, right? And what time is it in the MEZ (Monday Evening Zone?)

As a quick aside the USA isn't north of the arctic circle. With the exception of Alaska the northern border of the US is basically in line with central France. From what I can tell the d in EDT is referring to when the eastern time zone in the US enters daylight savings and each timezone in the US has its own equivalent.

ZOS_Kevin · November 2022

Cazador wrote: »

As a quick aside the USA isn't north of the arctic circle. With the exception of Alaska the northern border of the US is basically in line with central France. From what I can tell the d in EDT is referring to when the eastern time zone in the US enters daylight savings and each timezone in the US has its own equivalent.

Fun fact, this is true except for the state of Arizona. They permanently go by standard time and do not observe daylight savings. We're weird here in the states.

opalcity · November 2022

I don't know about everyone else, but the basic clock on my phone has the option to display multiple time zones. Takes minimum effort to set up and all I need to do is tap it the corner and it shows me the time (and weather not that it's relevant) in whatever city

Gwahiir · November 2022

Kite42 wrote: »

Since everyone knows UTC, use UTC. If some people genuinely don't know what UTC is, then they are benefiting fro finding out its existence for sure.

Well clearly everyone doesn't know UTC then

TaSheen · November 2022

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cazador wrote: »

As a quick aside the USA isn't north of the arctic circle. With the exception of Alaska the northern border of the US is basically in line with central France. From what I can tell the d in EDT is referring to when the eastern time zone in the US enters daylight savings and each timezone in the US has its own equivalent.

Fun fact, this is true except for the state of Arizona. They permanently go by standard time and do not observe daylight savings. We're weird here in the states.

Another fun fact: Hawaii doesn't do DST either!

MrGarlic · November 2022

UTC is a static standard reference point that all other timezones are set from.

It makes clear and total sense to use this as a reference in a situation where a game is played globally.

To use a reference time zone that fluctuates due to daylight savings variations is obtuse.

Lephrel · November 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

Kite42 wrote: »

Stanx wrote: »

It does grind my gears a little with the whole "I don't want, or need, Hong Kong time", because there are people playing this game from all over the world and it's a tad obnoxious to expect everything to be catered specifically to yourself.

How did you miss the fact that I made that comment to *explicitly* point out that I don't think I, or anyone else, should have a specifically catered ESO message?

Since everyone knows UTC, use UTC. If some people genuinely don't know what UTC is, then they are benefiting fro finding out its existence for sure.

Again, GMT and UTC offsets, from a general population knowledge standpoint, are not well known. They are more of a European usage.

You say you don't think anyone should have to cater, by forcing a US company to cater to European standards and forcing US customers to cater to the same.

I mean the vast majority of Europe doesn't use GMT. However, every time zone is defined by its offset from GMT (e.g. EST = GMT−05:00), so everyone learns about it in geography.

Since a majority of the game's population is (probably) from timezones outside of the US, it seems like a fair compromise to give a more universal time.

NotaDaedraWorshipper · November 2022

It surprises me so many here don't know what UTC is. No it's not an "European thing" nor is it an European standard, it's an international thing which stands for Coordinated Universal Time and is the primary time standard which the world regulates clocks and time to. It's global.
EST/EDT and other local times across the world still follow it. Like EST is UTC-5 and PT is UTC-8, it's not like the US have their own version of timelines that doesn't follow the rest of the world.

And many of us know how large the US is, same with a lot of other places which are just as large. You don't have to bring it up so often, we had geography, and it's not the point here anyway.

UTC is just simple and convenient for something that is global and leaves no worries about daytimes saving some place may or may not have. Most mmos use it or at least mentions it along with some other time they are familiar with. It surprises me ESO so rarely does. Both EST and UTC can be mentioned.

kargen27 · November 2022

I don't think it matters what they use so long as they are consistent and stick to referencing the one time. No matter what they use 23 of the 24 zones will have to either add or subtract to convert to local time.

Hapexamendios · November 2022

I don't the difference between myself and UTC. It isn't important for me. I do know the difference between myself and EST and PST because that is important to me. It all comes down to your own personal situation as far as I'm concerned.