Suggestion Time, Time Zone and Time Format

Most of Europe, including Germany, is using the Central European Time.
Central European Time zone is observing Daylight Saving Time, therefore there are Standard time (CET) and Summer time (CEST).
The Summer time starts on last Sunday in March (28th of March in 2021) when the Standard time ends, and ends on last Sunday in October (31st October in 2021) when the standard time begins.
The standard time is offset UTC +1 and the Summer time is offset UTC +2.


When it comes to time formats, there are several time formats.
Per W3C the formats are as follows

Code:

   Year:
      YYYY (eg 1997)
   Year and month:
      YYYY-MM (eg 1997-07)
   Complete date:
      YYYY-MM-DD (eg 1997-07-16)
   Complete date plus hours and minutes:
      YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmTZD (eg 1997-07-16T19:20+01:00)
   Complete date plus hours, minutes and seconds:
      YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD (eg 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00)
   Complete date plus hours, minutes, seconds and a decimal fraction of a
second
      YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sTZD (eg 1997-07-16T19:20:30.45+01:00)

where

Code:

     YYYY = four-digit year
     MM   = two-digit month (01=January, etc.)
     DD   = two-digit day of month (01 through 31)
     hh   = two digits of hour (00 through 23) (am/pm NOT allowed)
     mm   = two digits of minute (00 through 59)
     ss   = two digits of second (00 through 59)
     s    = one or more digits representing a decimal fraction of a second
     TZD  = time zone designator (Z or +hh:mm or -hh:mm)

That is according to standards.
In simple everyday usage people are using two time formats - 12 hour and 24 hour time formats.
12 hour format is using 2x12 hours with AM and PM.
For example, in 24 hour format time is presented as 15:35
while in 12 hours time format it is represented as 3:35pm.
24 hour format can be written as 05:50 while 12 hour format can NEVER be written with zero in front of the hour. in 12 hour time format it can be written as 5:50am but never 05:50am.
It is worth mentioning that the 12 hour time format is flawed that is why the 24 hour format is widely used in the military and science.
12 hour time format should be avoided when used in example in official announcements.

Lets see what is wrong in the mentioned announcement in the link.

1. the statement "all times are in CET format" is erroneous as CET is not a format but Time
2. in the same statement there is a double fault with CET because as we said on the start the standard time CET ended on 28th of March and it will not begin until 31st of October. Therefore Central European Summer Time (CEST UTC +2) should be used.
3. 0 (zero) in front of the hour under the 12 hour time format can't be used. 8:30am should be used instead of 08:30am or just 08:30 as in 24 hour time format.

Now, that doesn't mean the moderator made a mistake, because they are usually just copy/pasting announcements. Whoever composed the announcement should be more careful in future, as this kind of announcements are looking really ugly.

 

Hello,

Long story short:

This structure of announcing news/updates/patchnotes has been like this for quite some time.
There were actually no issues so far or people complaining about this, and many updates have been implemented with the same current way of announcing the news without necessarily causing a confusion, however last announcement indeed had a mistake on the date format, which i fixed shortly after, apologies for this.

I will suggest to mention that time is indeed in CEST until October ends and also adjust the announcement text a bit. About the "0" used in the 24 hour time format i consider this a very tiny detail that won't change anything in regards of information flow anyway. but will also suggest a change.

Best regards,
Luke

 

@Luke That is incorrect.
Time zones have always been an issue. Players just Duck Duck Go Berlin time and figure from there. Not sure what @trakilaki is saying he wants here. Whether he has a solution or he just doesn't like your wording in your announcement. Changing it to military time might limit some confusion. But for all of us not in Europe really would make no difference. The Asian Rim, Australia, NZ, N & S America Still have to find out what time it is in Berlin and go from there.

If @trakilaki saying he wants the announcements to be in Military time. Then I agree I would prefer that, so would many players.

Side note: How about posting in your thread the time of each server based on the time zone of the server. Players pretty much know what goes on with the server they play on. Eight AM in Berlin is not eight AM where I am in Colorado. Example: If you say eight AM Heredur time zone, twelve AM Tegan time zone it would eliminate the confusion for many players. Or what ever the difference is between the time zones.

Me personally when you just give one general time zone. Then I have to figure Berlin time, then figure California time where Tegan is(or was), then figure Colorado time. Worse for players in NZ, Australia etc... they are a day ahead of Berlin.

 

Personally, I'd like "Drakensang" time that never changed due to time zones or Daylight Savings Time. And what would be most awesome is if there was a small widget in the game that told me what time it was in the land of Duria. I mean the event windows tell you the count down to whatever event is next. It clearly knows the time. Why not just display it?

 

Just put a timer script or something like that in the official annoucement.

Thanks!

 

I don't want anything XD
I was just pointing out errors and things that are factually incorrect.

There is no "military time" it is a 24 hour time format that is being used in the military as well.

The land of Duria is using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) like any other sever/PC in the world.
Time conversion is easy.
Drakensang servers are all in sync and using same UTC time. However, servers outside Europe are programmed to run events at different time. That is made so the time would be more suitable for the users of the broader region, for which the server is meant to accommodate.
All you have to do is add to European server times +6 hours for Agathon and +9 hours for Tegan .
You have to use UTC instead of CET/CEST.
The standard time is UTC +1 and the Summer time is UTC +2.
That means you need to subtract 1 or 2 hours accordingly.
In example ... if New Moon event is starting on European servers at 12:00 CEST that is 10:00 UTC.
Then add +6 hours -- 16:00 UTC for Agathon
add +9 hours for Tegan --- 19:00 UTC for Tegan.
Then just convert your local time to UTC. You can use any online time converter (like this one).

If the announcement says Event X (start - end)

EU Servers	12:00 - 00:00 CEST (UTC+2)
Agathon	18:00 - 06:00 CEST (UTC+2)
Tegan	21:00 - 09:00 CEST (UTC+2)

that is

EU Servers	10:00 - 22:00 (UTC)
Agathon	16:00 - 04:00 (UTC)
Tegan	19:00 - 07:00 (UTC)

now just convert the UTC time to your local time

Like the F1 website has?
Dude, someone has to program and code that ... they can't fix a simple quest for more than a year

 

Mods please do not merge this post with the previous one because it dates long time ago and yet again, unfortunately, same mistakes are repeating.

The latest announcement is stating:

Since we have a screenshot from the original post, provided by EmilyRose

it is clear that the mods are only doing copypasta without changing anything. We will not focus on the mods (even though they should ask for corrections and explanations before making announcement) but rather we would focus on the "devs".
So I ask you "devs", what is the audience you are talking to when making announcements?
Is it your neighborhood? Because when talking to neighbors you know you are all in a same community usually all in a same time zone.
Is it the international audience you are talking to? If so, you are doing a poor job since that is such a poor announcement and it is not meeting the very basics.

Same mistakes again:

Start Countdown: 09:30am (UTC +8)​

This

But OK, let's forget about that one and focus on the main thing that the announcement failed to announce.
UTC +8 from WHAT?
You don't just throw UTC +-N just because it looks cool but because you need to make precise announcement. So UTC +8 from what?
The truth is you forgot to add the time you are using, and based on that you are making calculations related to the Coordinated Universal Time.
Let me show you how you should do it:

Start Countdown: 09:30 CST (UTC +8)​

CST being China Standard Time.
You see the difference?
BTW for the players from the largest part of Europe that would be :

Start Countdown: 02:30 CET (UTC +1)​

That is 02:30 tonight ... in ~4 hours.

And of course if you don't want to use China Standard Time and still pretend it is a German game, it is very easy to just present the time in UTC like this:

Start Countdown: 01:30 UTC​

Simple as that.
It is still confusing ... how is it possible someone who is supposed to develop and program this game can't make simple conversion and doesn't understand time formats.

At the end ... since we are discussing time and time formats let me quote one ancient Chinese philosopher:

"So many babes, so little time."
-- Duke Nukem​