As most of you are aware, in today's maintenance we synced the game server time to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), instead of the previous Pacific Standard Time (PST). As a result of this change, some events are now set to start at different times from before the maintenance began.
We apologize that the announcement of these changes were sudden and we apologize for any inconveniences this change may have caused. We're currently planning to adjust future event times so that they more closely align with the previous event start times. We’re also looking into the current events and content times to determine if they need to re-calibrated to their original schedule. Please bear with us as look into your concerns and find a solution that will better service all of our global players.
Thanks for your patience,
The MapleStory Team
and 22 others.
What do you feel should happen with the game server and event times?691 votes
Use Pacific Standard Time (PST) for the servers and use old event times.
27% (188 votes)
Use PST for the servers and use new event times.
3% (20 votes)
Use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for the servers and use old event times.
4% (25 votes)
Use UTC for the servers and use new event times.
5% (38 votes)
Use PST for the North American server and Central European Time (CET) for the European server.
45% (308 votes)
None of the above
1% (6 votes)
The server and event times do not affect me.
2% (16 votes)
Use Eastern Standard Time (EST) for the servers and use old event times.
This seems like a really bad idea, especially since all of our content is copy-pasted so hard. If this is the best solution, I guess that after every new patch we can expect unscheduled maint just to fix the event times that you messed up again from copy-pasting KMS content onto ours. Why not just have Luna and GMS servers on different Server Times, so that when new patches are released all of the timing isn't ruined for the first few days after patch.
Sounds to me like the change to UTC was completely spur-of-the-moment, because some bright lad (or lass) figured it'd make it easier to not have to have two separate server times for the two regions. Or maybe something in the way the joint account database is set up makes it impossible. So they chose a "neutral" time, the Universal Time Coordinate. The fact that this line was belatedly added to the maintenance notes is very telling.
They never stopped to think about the effect in-game time has on content, and I assume they didn't consult you (are you even back at the office, or are your posts here today being phoned in?)
I think UTC is a bad idea. Not only is the majority of GMS players still in America, but UTC doesn't observe daylight savings time. Which means that even if someone does manage to get used to server reset being at 4PM (in their local time), come March they'll get confused again and won't remember whether it's at 3PM or 5PM now.
I also think that it's going to lead to many mistakes in Nexon's web notices. Up until now we only had the occasional "ha ha, Nexon can't convert PST to EST" slip-up. But when Americans living in LA decide "ok, tomorrow's maintenance starts at 6AM, post it" and somebody needs to convert that to UTC for the web notice, you just know there are going to be mix-ups every other week.
If you absolutely can't have Luna on a different timezone than the NA servers, then I think it would be better to inconvenience the minority, rather than the majority, and use PST for all servers.
As for events and content that are dependent on time of day, they should simply be extended to run 24 hours, to enable all users - American, European, or Australian - to participate fully.
P.S. For me, personally, UTC is a more natural timezone, as it means server reset is at 2AM my time. So this is not about me at all, but rather about the majority of players.
Definitely look into extending the FriendStory Orchid Phone Quest. It used to be 11PM-12AM EST, but now that would be shifted to 4-5PM EST. For longer maintenance (should they still happen at the same PST time), it is far more likely this time will get overlapped and players will get forcibly reset. The other option would make the requirement non-consecutive days. In both cases, the dialog becomes a bit inaccurate (it talks about night time and consecutive calling), but considering this timezone change, at least one of these options is required.
And of course, there is various other content to be revisited. It might be useful, if the change is kept permanently, for us to create a list of all time-limited content and repetitive events that should be modified accordingly.
Just make an official poll for players to decide whether to revert the server time or change it. If you guys can't decide then let the players do it, considering the fact that you guys made this change without any announcement in advance I have more confidence in the player's decision. Meanwhile revert the server time back so the majority of GMS players don't have to deal with all this. The other regions that joined GMS outside of NA had to get used to server time in PST so I don't see why we would have to change it just for EU players while everyone else has to get used to a new time or quit the game. Wasn't this meant to be a migration for EU to join GMS? and not the other way around.
The server maintenance from yesterday lasted so long, I wasn't able to log in until after 12:00am EST, so I thought I would still be able to get my attendance check and complete all my dailies before the server reset. I log in this morning at 7:00am EST to find out that the servers haven't been reset??? So I lost a day to do my event quests. Will there be compensation for the lost day? Give us back the old PST/EST time schedule. This UTC thing is not going to work for Easterners!
I'm fine with going back to PST to appease the masses even though UTC makes more sense for me personally. BUT. There should be more opportunities for Europeans to participate in flag race. All races except one is during night for me, when I need my beauty sleep. Same thing with the notorious Orchid calling quest that falls between 4-6 AM for me depending on the daylight savings. There is a lot of content and quests in the game that have specific time-windows that shut out large chunks of the population when it really doesn't need to be so restricted. Even more so now that we're taking in new European players.
On November 10th, Nexon America will begin to service our European MapleStory players in addition to our existing players around the world.
Keyword being service. Nobody's being serviced if we're just getting the bare minimum. Nobody should have to plan their sleep, or lack thereof, around MapleStory content.
looked like I may have lost a day in the attendance check because I did not do yesterday's quests until late last night. log in this morning and quests not reset, recheck patch notes for time change references (none), then forum. I can adapt if necessary (will log back on and do today's quests after 7pm est) but should be better way to inform users before they find out the hard way.
I really would prefer PST back...unfortunately due to my schedule...I normally do half of my Dailies in the morning and the rest at night...that is no longer a viable option due to the reset being smack in the middle of it all...Id have no dailies to do...which with the recent events I have actually enjoyed doing them.
This doesn't just affect events. Literally everything that is time-dependent in this game got turned upside down. If you want to "more closely align" the times with what we're used to, why not just set the server time back to PST, and leave everything as it was?
EDIT: So if Nexon's solution to changing the server time to UTC, is to manually change all the events back to their original times in PST, why not just reset the servers back to PST and leave all the event times as they were? This was such an unnecessary change.
I really would prefer PST back...unfortunately due to my schedule...I normally do half of my Dailies in the morning and the rest at night...that is no longer a viable option due to the reset being smack in the middle of it all...Id have no dailies to do...which with the recent events I have actually enjoyed doing them.
You could still do half at night and the other half the next morning. Days still last 24 hours.
(But see my post upthread: I think the change was not a good idea).
Same here. Changing to UTC is in my opinion not a good thing for the GMS servers. I logged in this morning to do my farms, and guess what, the nurture count of my monsters hasn't been reset. And what is being served by this change anyway? It is not as if day turns in night and night into day in Europe with this change. When we here in California (for example) play during the day, it is still night there (close at least, 9 hours time difference). So as far as wake/sleep times of the players here and there, nothing changes. It is much more confusing to the GMS players to have to adhere to the UTC time now. Now I have to wait to 4PM PST for the reset? And then all of a sudden, in the middle of the day for us, things get reset? Think again about this change.
It's really bad, i played for years in GMS, then i tryed a bit in EMS and i was really confused, i was used to one time-zone and the other wasn't great for me, you need to change your schedule, i find confusing they do that, it's just going to make everyone confused and need to change what they do first and it's just annoying.
Did you guys really think about this seriously? It's complete and utter nonsense........why do we as EST/PST players have to accommodate EU players and have the whole server changed to UTC? I'm sorry but you guys go and spring this on us and expect everyone to be okay with it? Seriously? What about dalies? A 7PM est reset is ridiculous people who do kiritas invasions are now royally screwed since they go till about 6am and whose seriously going to wake up that early to get on? why not just put us back or separate the two servers? 1 into PST and the other into UTC.....is it seriously that hard?
when are flag races now? and would've been nice if it was EST I didn't even know what UTC meant until now either way I'm neutral about it because I'm sick of having 2x at 3am EST every weekend when its occurring its basically in favor of all the Californian players because it was originally convenient for both a few years back, I don't understand though why were favoring the new players when they are significantly less-populated then the NA server I've heard. reason I say EST is a good time zone to follow is because then 2x would start midnight EST/reset and that's only 9PST, way better then having reset at 7PM EST(which I'm indifferent about but I feel for the majority of the players in west) and 4pm PST.. I know European players who've not struggled playing on these hours for a decade I don't know why this sudden change..
when are flag races now? and would've been nice if it was EST I didn't even know what UTC meant until now either way I'm neutral about it because I'm sick of having 2x at 3am EST every weekend when its occurring its basically in favor of all the Californian players because it was originally convenient for both a few years back, I don't understand though why were favoring the new players when they are significantly less-populated then the NA server I've heard. reason I say EST is a good time zone to follow is because then 2x would start midnight EST/reset and that's only 9PST, way better then having reset at 7PM EST(which I'm indifferent about but I feel for the majority of the players in west) and 4pm PST.. I know European players who've not struggled playing on these hours for a decade I don't know why this sudden change..
The 3AM EST 2x session was created for Australians. Americans on both coasts have the 2PM PST session.
Comments
edit: Does this mean, reset will now be 4pm PST and 7pm EST?
They never stopped to think about the effect in-game time has on content, and I assume they didn't consult you (are you even back at the office, or are your posts here today being phoned in?)
I think UTC is a bad idea. Not only is the majority of GMS players still in America, but UTC doesn't observe daylight savings time. Which means that even if someone does manage to get used to server reset being at 4PM (in their local time), come March they'll get confused again and won't remember whether it's at 3PM or 5PM now.
I also think that it's going to lead to many mistakes in Nexon's web notices. Up until now we only had the occasional "ha ha, Nexon can't convert PST to EST" slip-up. But when Americans living in LA decide "ok, tomorrow's maintenance starts at 6AM, post it" and somebody needs to convert that to UTC for the web notice, you just know there are going to be mix-ups every other week.
If you absolutely can't have Luna on a different timezone than the NA servers, then I think it would be better to inconvenience the minority, rather than the majority, and use PST for all servers.
As for events and content that are dependent on time of day, they should simply be extended to run 24 hours, to enable all users - American, European, or Australian - to participate fully.
P.S. For me, personally, UTC is a more natural timezone, as it means server reset is at 2AM my time. So this is not about me at all, but rather about the majority of players.
And of course, there is various other content to be revisited. It might be useful, if the change is kept permanently, for us to create a list of all time-limited content and repetitive events that should be modified accordingly.
Even more so now that we're taking in new European players. Keyword being service. Nobody's being serviced if we're just getting the bare minimum. Nobody should have to plan their sleep, or lack thereof, around MapleStory content.
EDIT: So if Nexon's solution to changing the server time to UTC, is to manually change all the events back to their original times in PST, why not just reset the servers back to PST and leave all the event times as they were?
This was such an unnecessary change.
(But see my post upthread: I think the change was not a good idea).