They seem to be giving us a full 72 hours, which is good. However, I don't care that they are located in the Pacific Time Zone, they aren't the center of the Player Base universe. I'm going to guess that 90% of players are going to be in US or EU time zones and Pacific Time is at the tail end of that time zone range.
Midnight Eastern Time (US) would have made much more sense for the HS and release date start times. That's 9pm to 1AM for North America, not too late for the eastern coast to participate. 5AM to 2PM for most of Europe, which isn't too early.
Midnight Pacific puts the eastern most North American start times at 2AM to 4AM, which is horrible, even for night owls and early risers.
They really don't seem to have any "big picture thinkers" determining their scheduled times.
I personally can work with the time with out issues, but I know it's going to be a huge issue for most people in the US East of the Mississippi River, all the way to far Eastern Canada!
Besides, Midnight EDT also allows for midnight store openings on release day, if any retailers wanted to do so. Can't happen with anywhere in the US, except for PDT, Alaska and Hawaii with a Midnight PDT timer.
For me it's a huge improvement over many other MMO companies that even have their weekly maintenance often extended into our peak gaming hours here in EU because they all seem to think that PST zone is the center of the universe and rule us euros out of giveaways / contests and even GM run in-game events. That affects us weekly so in some way I enjoy that this time around it's inconvenient for the PST zone folk for 1x only. If you want to be there at launch time adjust your sleeping schedule, it's weekend after all. If that's too much for you then just join in later after your normal sleeping hours, probably less queue time and better performance by then too.
And you're saying 4AM is horrible for NA folks but 5AM for EU isn't too early?
Oh, just never mind. Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
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For me it's a huge improvement over many other MMO companies that even have their weekly maintenance often extended into our peak gaming hours here in EU because they all seem to think that PST zone is the center of the universe and rule us euros out of giveaways / contests and even GM run in-game events. That affects us weekly so in some way I enjoy that this time around it's inconvenient for the PST zone folk for 1x only. If you want to be there at launch time adjust your sleeping schedule, it's weekend after all. If that's too much for you then just join in later after your normal sleeping hours, probably less queue time and better performance by then too.
And you're saying 4AM is horrible for NA folks but 5AM for EU isn't too early?
Well, it's morning for Europe and I have to work. Or I get a day off... 0:)
Oh, just never mind. Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.