Scheduled Server Downtime - Time Zone Needs Updated

[Teknico]

Any chance turbine could update their timezone information the following statement was posted :

'Scheduled Server Downtime: Monday, August 6th
Aug 03, 2012 18:29 EST The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Monday, August 6th from 6:00 AM - 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) for an update to the game. Click here for the patch notes.. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!'

However in the UK it's now 14:08, which should mean the server should be back up now! or do I have to wait -5 ?

[jaxhammer]

no, it is correct as printed. US East Coast is on GMT -4 during this time of year. as of right now, it is only 9:27 am EST and the posting says that the servers will not be up until 10 am EST (33 minutes from now).

[melyjely]

However in the UK it's now 14:08, which should mean the server should be back up now! or do I have to wait -5 ?

It's currently British Summer Time in the UK ~ GMT +1

[Celestrata]

Any chance turbine could update their timezone information the following statement was posted :

'Scheduled Server Downtime: Monday, August 6th
Aug 03, 2012 18:29 EST The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Monday, August 6th from 6:00 AM - 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) for an update to the game. Click here for the patch notes.. Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you back in the game soon!'

However in the UK it's now 14:08, which should mean the server should be back up now! or do I have to wait -5 ?

Ah, this is a common time zone mistake. Our time is actually correct! Let me explain.

The UK right now is in British Summer Time, which puts you back to 5 hours difference from Eastern time at the moment. However, British Summer Time is not the same as GMT. GMT never moves or changes.

However, our time zone is no longer Eastern Standard Time. It's Eastern Daylight Time. That puts us only -4 hours away from GMT, not -5. Because of this, this is why our conversion is -4 at the moment. Meanwhile, BST still is -5 hours away from EDT. But, because more people use GMT as a conversion, we stick to GMT.

When we change off of Eastern Daylight and go back to Eastern Standard, we'll be -5 again.

I hope that explains things.

[Amrundir]

You should add something like

If you have difficulty working out what time that is for you in your country, try using a site such as timeanddate.com which has useful time conversion tools.

to all your announcements.

Maybe with your own words, the above is "stolen" from Codemasters.

[Leira]

Ah, this is a common time zone mistake. Our time is actually correct! Let me explain.

The UK right now is in British Summer Time, which puts you back to 5 hours difference from Eastern time at the moment. However, British Summer Time is not the same as GMT. GMT never moves or changes.

However, our time zone is no longer Eastern Standard Time. It's Eastern Daylight Time. That puts us only -4 hours away from GMT, not -5. Because of this, this is why our conversion is -4 at the moment. Meanwhile, BST still is -5 hours away from EDT. But, because more people use GMT as a conversion, we stick to GMT.

When we change off of Eastern Daylight and go back to Eastern Standard, we'll be -5 again.

I hope that explains things.

Might I suggest that the launcher read "EDT" instead of "EST," since we are in Daylight Savings instead of Standard? I don't know that it would make it any less confusing, since many people incorrectly use EDT and EST interchangeably, but for the time to be %100 correct it should read EDT.

[Celestrata]

Might I suggest that the launcher read "EDT" instead of "EST," since we are in Daylight Savings instead of Standard? I don't know that it would make it any less confusing, since many people incorrectly use EDT and EST interchangeably, but for the time to be 0 correct it should read EDT.

The launcher just uses "Eastern" for that reason. This way we won't cause confusion with the terms. But, we'll look into possibly trying to clarify it more.

[BelamanthDE]

Yeah, that darn DST. :-)

[Leira]

The launcher just uses "Eastern" for that reason. This way we won't cause confusion with the terms. But, we'll look into possibly trying to clarify it more.

Gotcha, I saw the timestamp of the launcher announcement but overlooked the use of Eastern in the actual announcement itself. You're way ahead of me.

[Iktomi]

Ah, this is a common time zone mistake. Our time is actually correct! Let me explain.

The UK right now is in British Summer Time, which puts you back to 5 hours difference from Eastern time at the moment. However, British Summer Time is not the same as GMT. GMT never moves or changes.

However, our time zone is no longer Eastern Standard Time. It's Eastern Daylight Time. That puts us only -4 hours away from GMT, not -5. Because of this, this is why our conversion is -4 at the moment. Meanwhile, BST still is -5 hours away from EDT. But, because more people use GMT as a conversion, we stick to GMT.

When we change off of Eastern Daylight and go back to Eastern Standard, we'll be -5 again.

I hope that explains things.

Why not use UTC instead of GMT. Because the time in Greenwich does change to summer time, Greenwich is not always on GMT, half the year roughly, it is on BST or UTC+1.

And Yes, I know that outside of precision there is no true functional difference between the two, but GMT truly is being fazed out in usage in a lot of places since UTC was developed back in the....70's?, just to avoid a lot of ambiguity.

[whheydt]

Why not use UTC instead of GMT. Because the time in Greenwich does change to summer time, Greenwich is not always on GMT, half the year roughly, it is on BST or UTC+1.

And Yes, I know that outside of precision there is no true functional difference between the two, but GMT truly is being fazed out in usage in a lot of places since UTC was developed back in the....70's?, just to avoid a lot of ambiguity.

What is ambiguous about GMT? It's a time standard. Granted, the currently preferred usage (which is not *quite* identical) is UTC, but lots of people know what GMT is.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[Iktomi]

What is ambiguous about GMT? It's a time standard. Granted, the currently preferred usage (which is not *quite* identical) is UTC, but lots of people know what GMT is.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

maybe ambiguos was the incorrect word. But the fact that the time in Greenwich is not currently Greenwich Time but is Greenwich Time +1 hour apparenly caused at least one person a bit of confusion if I'm reading the op correctly. /shrugs.

[Tannus]

BAM! Boston time!

To save my brain trying to do timezone conversions I go here.

[FromgalTheMinstrel]

All posts in the forum have a timestamp that is according the local time of the user reading it, not according to the different posters local times.
To avoid confusion, just say "The servers will come back online in 7 hours from this post's time stamp".
I bet something similar can be done with the launcher.

[Teknico]

Ah, this is a common time zone mistake. Our time is actually correct! Let me explain.

The UK right now is in British Summer Time, which puts you back to 5 hours difference from Eastern time at the moment. However, British Summer Time is not the same as GMT. GMT never moves or changes.

However, our time zone is no longer Eastern Standard Time. It's Eastern Daylight Time. That puts us only -4 hours away from GMT, not -5. Because of this, this is why our conversion is -4 at the moment. Meanwhile, BST still is -5 hours away from EDT. But, because more people use GMT as a conversion, we stick to GMT.

When we change off of Eastern Daylight and go back to Eastern Standard, we'll be -5 again.

I hope that explains things.

Thanks Celestrata, for clarifying this. I ended up putting a Lotro Time clock Widget on my desktop so I could watch the time

[Amrundir]

And Yes, I know that outside of precision there is no true functional difference between the two, but GMT truly is being fazed out in usage in a lot of places since UTC was developed back in the....70's?, just to avoid a lot of ambiguity.

I never understood the difference between GMT and UTC. It's just the naming?

All posts in the forum have a timestamp that is according the local time of the user reading it, not according to the different posters local times.

If you set the timezone in your forum settings correctly.

And, with one big exception. The Dev Tracker always shows eastern time.

[whheydt]

maybe ambiguos was the incorrect word. But the fact that the time in Greenwich is not currently Greenwich Time but is Greenwich Time +1 hour apparenly caused at least one person a bit of confusion if I'm reading the op correctly. /shrugs.

Okay.... Are you confused by the fact that the projected celestial location "the first point of Aries" (the point in the sky where the Sun appears to be as it crosses the ecliptic going south) isn't actually within the nominal boundaries of the constellation of Aries?

All posts in the forum have a timestamp that is according the local time of the user reading it, not according to the different posters local times.
To avoid confusion, just say "The servers will come back online in 7 hours from this post's time stamp".
I bet something similar can be done with the launcher.

Forum timestamps are can be set by each user. They can user local time, or Eastern time, or...GMT (or anything else). It's your choice what they're set to. The server almost certainly keeps them in UTC (that being the default time storage for pretty much all server software).

I never understood the difference between GMT and UTC. It's just the naming?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC, we find:

The difference between UTC and UT1 is not allowed to exceed 0.9 seconds, so if high precision is not required, the general term Universal Time (UT) may be used.[7] The term Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) does not have a precise definition at the sub-second level, but it is often considered equivalent to UTC or UT1. Saying "GMT" often implies either UTC or UT1 when used within informal or casual contexts. In technical contexts, usage of "GMT" is avoided; the unambiguous terminology "UTC" or "UT1" is preferred.

Since the usage here would be defined as "casual" (no sub-second accuracy needed), UTC and GMT are functionally identical for the purpose. However, UTC is the currently preferred usage. See the whole article for the details. (Note that I consider Wikipedia an adequate reference for non-controversial subjects but would not rely on it for any topic where there are strongly held and opposing opinions.)

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[Wilkens]

Might I suggest that the launcher read "EDT" instead of "EST," since we are in Daylight Savings instead of Standard? I don't know that it would make it any less confusing, since many people incorrectly use EDT and EST interchangeably, but for the time to be %100 correct it should read EDT.

Small note: its actually Daylight SAVING time...not savingS. Saving is a participle modifying "Daylight" (thus Daylight saving is an adverbial phrase modifying "Time").

[Curandhras]

I never understood the difference between GMT and UTC. It's just the naming

UT is accurately determined by all manner of atomic and celestial scales by Science(tm). GMT isn't any more (if it ever was), it's just understood on a "common knowledge" level. Like people have said though unless you're doing any major calculations the two might as well be identical.

Small note: its actually Daylight SAVING time...not savingS. Saving is a participle modifying "Daylight" (thus Daylight saving is an adverbial phrase modifying "Time").

This. A million times this. There aren't many things that people say that annoy me more than "savings time" .

[Rainothon]

For those of us who use windows 7, you can add extra world clocks to the clock at the right bottom of your taskbar, and even give them custom names, like 'Turbine-time'. So you can just mouse over your clock in your taskbar and see 'Turbine-time' at a glance. Works wonders if you're in a kin that's mainly outside your timezone as well.

Here's a link to a step-by-step how-to:
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/s...indows-taskbar

[Yula_the_Mighty]

[QUOTE=Curandhras;6345113This. A million times this. There aren't many things that people say that annoy me more than "savings time" .[/QUOTE]It is something we have to put with. Not get worked up about.

My dad used to get worked up about this one. When you go to buy a water heater they are often called "HOT Water Heaters". If your water is HOT, you do not need at Water Heater. We also sell "COLD Water Coolers" in the USA - another useless product.

[Leira]

Small note: its actually Daylight SAVING time...not savingS. Saving is a participle modifying "Daylight" (thus Daylight saving is an adverbial phrase modifying "Time").

Hah, good point. It's very easy to slip that extra s in there. :P

[bingo123]

why is the downtime keep getting moved up??