Guild Wars 2

I’ve been trying to figure this out. The server time for me used to be pacific time since that’s where I thought they were located, but with the last patch the time now shows UTC time. Are the servers actually in Europe for NA?

Then as a suggestion: My guild seems to post times for activities based on server time, so I’m always confused when they are actually occuring. I’d love to see a time option that is “Local Time (UTC)”.

Balance, Bug-Fixing, Polish
General

The in-game clock’s server time feature is now displayed in UTC time and is now much more accurate to the server’s actual time. Daily resets will now occur at midnight as it appears when the clock is set to server time.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates

That’s why I’ve been trying to figure it out. If they are now showing UTC time and the server time is hours ahead of us then are they actually in europe because that’s what the server time seems to indicate.

UTC is used by many game companies with an international user base.
http://www.timeanddate.com/time/aboututc.html from a quick google search.

They aren’t saying ‘Server Time’ is local to their servers. They are now using a time display (for the servers) that is more easily converted across the globe. You can always use local time, as whenever reset, World Boss times, etc. happened, they will still happen at that time.

Remember, Server Time used to be Pacific Time, even though the servers were not located in that time zone. (The NA data center/servers are located in Texas [Central Time Zone], and the EU data center/servers in Germany.)

If it’s accurate to the server’s time, that says the server for NA are in Europe. That’s why it was confusing me.

Why they arbitrarily decided to have the server time show UTC then is confusing if as you say it’s not actually server time. It’s fine for the European servers since UTC centers in Europe, but for NA(with servers not located in the EU), you have to subtract 4-9 hours or whatever depending on timezone or Daylight savings. It seems to have served no purpose except to make the server time display more confusing.

“Accurate to the server’s time” does not equate that the time of the physical location they reside in is that time. I could have a server in China running a browser game that hands out quests at roughly 5pm my time, which is EST. I could label that point in time as 0000 Server Time. The difference being that my local time is UTC -5 (previously referred to as GMT -5), which sets server time as UTC +2, despite the local time for the server’s physical location might be something around UTC +4. Confusing as hell, isnt it? That’s why running servers off UTC +/-0 makes it easier to convert to local time.

That phrase is referring to the server machine’s system time, which is entirely independent from any physical location’s time apart from any relation to what place hits 00:00 at the same time as it. AFAIK, servers run UTC/GMT as a standard because it’s easier to convert from it, and prevents a lot of timing errors that can occur.

UTC just makes more sence for most of the world. It is a standard base point that is commonly used. I find it much easier to determine what time something is going to happen when it is in UTC instead of PST or PDT whichever is in effect.

the daylight savings problems go away with utc which makes everything play nice! Otherwise time zones and each countrys use or not use of dst makes everything a huge mess