Guild Wars 2

…please provide the event times in GMT (UT) or CET format as well.
Because I cannot relate to this “noon pacific time” of yours. Thank you.

Windows has a nifty little clock app built-in. Down in the taskbar, that shows your local (computer) time, you can set it to show another time, anywhere in the world.

Right-click – adjust Date/Time – Additional Clocks – (UTC -8:00 Pacific Time)

After setting this additional clock up, whenever you hover over the time on your computer, 2 additional (world-wide) times will also be displayed. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Windows has a nifty little clock app built-in. Down in the taskbar, that shows your local (computer) time, you can set it to show another time, anywhere in the world.

Right-click – adjust Date/Time – Additional Clocks – (UTC -8:00 Pacific Time)

After setting this additional clock up, whenever you hover over the time on your computer, 2 additional (world-wide) times will also be displayed. =)

This is really helpful, thanks for the tip!

You are most welcome. =)

It doesn’t change the fact, that you constantly have to calculate the remaining hours to your timezone. It’s also pretty much the opposite of “QoL”.

There’s a reason the standardized UTC notation has been made (unlike GMT). Using it shouldn’t be hard and we don’t always have to know where the server is located, how many timezones are between and if the DST is currently applied there.
But we all know how globally the USA is thinking.

PDT is usually UTC-8 (GMT-8)
but it’s currently different due to DST.

DST ended in Europe last weekend, so it’s easier to calculate

I know where I am in relation to GMT, but I don’t even know american timezones (all I know there are several, and if you named a city or a state I could not place it on the map. :P).
It is always a pain to try to determine when things might happen. I try to use conversion websites when something is going on and often I have to hunt down the acronym as well… I forget them, it is rare events I follow happen around the world. And my cell phone and other gadgets like to have time by cities, when things are posted under completely different names.

Some day I mean to put a time zone map as my desktop wallpaper. I haven’t looked for one yet…

But yes, please think of us not math and geography gifted (yes, my teachers told me so) people on the other side of the big water. Or maybe it’s just me.. well, would someone please think of me. ;_;

Talenna.4052:

DST ended in Europe last weekend, so it’s easier to calculate

That is wrong.
It ended in Europe indeed, but it didn’t end in USA yet. That’s why I said the difference is usually 8h, but right now it’s 7h. And in march it’s 9h.

@Traced @ TS
Just active ingame clock at server time. It requires calculating, but you always need to do that to communicate with USA.

Nretep.2564:

Just active ingame clock at server time.

Ah yes, that is true. I just tend to rely on it for my local time… Of course I can try this, it would be a constant reminder and help me to, well, remember.
Hm… I hope I could see both times. At least I don’t think there’s an option for that in game.

Since the entire world’s timezones use GMT as a basis, seems reasonable GW2 should do the same

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Since the entire world’s timezones use GMT as a basis, seems reasonable GW2 should do the same

The entire world uses UTC. GMT is an old value without DST. But even though the whole world uses it, it’s not reason enough for USA to use it. Same with the metric system.

They renamed GMT to UTC to keep people happy who didn’t want Greenwich at the center of things and thought it all way too colonial :p

In all seriousness, when they do announce event times it should also have GMT/UTC mentioned just for ease of translation for people in other countries.

GMT didn’t specifc daylight saving times (DST) because it was older.

UTC clearly says to add the DST to the value.

Saying “they only wanted to ditch the name so greenwich isn’t the center of the world”, would mean they they’d set UTC+0 into the USA switching DST when they change their clocks.

Another problem is that some announcements still refer to summer time. It seems Arenanet is not aware that summer time in Europe ended almost one week ago. This causes confusion with special offers for one day or events in the game like the Mad King.

Nretep.2564:

It doesn’t change the fact, that you constantly have to calculate the remaining hours to your timezone. It’s also pretty much the opposite of “QoL”.

There’s a reason the standardized UTC notation has been made (unlike GMT). Using it shouldn’t be hard and we don’t always have to know where the server is located, how many timezones are between and if the DST is currently applied there.
But we all know how globally the USA is thinking.

PDT is usually UTC-8 (GMT-8)
but it’s currently different due to DST.

PDT is not “usually” UTC-8. PDT is always UTC-7 and never changes.

The West Coast observes PDT in the summer which is actually UTC-7 (and always UTC-7). In November it switches over to observing PST which is UTC-8.

PDT never switches between UTC-8 and UTC-7 – it’s always UTC-7. What happens is that California and similar areas switch from observing PDT (UTC-7) to observing PST (UTC-8).