Guild Wars 2

So history has shown that Anet only caters to Americans when huge one time events happen, when HoT starts will this happen again? I missed all the previous events as they ONLY occur when my side of the world is asleep. I’m curious to this as I’ve spent quite a bit of money over the years on this game, and also purchased 2 Pre-purchase HoT. That’s AUD$140 each. That’s quite a bit of money for an expansion, so kinda hope the players all over the world get to participate in “One Time Events”.

The world event is happening From 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on September 10 through 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on September 14

It happens on the half hour every hour.

You didn’t miss it.

I mean the actual Start of Heart of Thorns, not the pre event.

There isn’t anything to blame for this problem… It sucks, but due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control you are in the least favorable geographical location in regards to Anet’s home-office. It isn’t Anet’s fault you are Australian, and they don’t owe you anything for pre-purchasing 2 HoT accounts other than access to the expansion on launch day.

I can understand it is frustrating, but there really isn’t anything that can be done. If oceanic players can access the content at a different time then it is unfair to those not in those timezones — no matter what, someone is going to get inconvenienced. If oceanic players get to start a day ahead that is unfair; and if they have to wait a day extra that is also unfair.

The most egalitarian option is what (to my knowledge) Anet has opted for: all players can access the content at the same physical time, though the convenience of this launch window varies based on each player’s geographical location.

It is unfortunate that you are in a location that is the most inconvenienced, but you wouldn’t expect a Korea-based game to launch according to North American time tables, nor would you expect a game based in the EU to keep Oceanic players at the forefront of their decisions when it comes to event and launch times.

Any ‘one-time events’ have historically been keyed to local server time, not home-office time (Lost shores etc) so unless you are playing on a server that isn’t optimized for you, you should not have run into a ‘my country is asleep’ problem. I’m not saying there isn’t a legitimate reason or cause to play on a different server, but you have to make some compromises if you do so.

In the end, worst case scenario is you have to wait a couple more hours to play at a more convenient time. It sucks, no one will deny that, but I just don’t understand what you think Anet or anyone else can do about the physical realities of timezones.

No matter the time any event starts, it will be bad for half the world.
You’ll only miss the first hours of the release but when NA go to sleep you’ll be playing it, so … I don’t see what the problem is.

He’s talking about actual expansion launch time, which we don’t know precisely when it’ll go live. The initial game launched in the middle of the night (I remember staying up until midnight to reserve my names (since they were nice enough to open early)). So I wouldn’t be surprised if they flipped the switch for the expansion in the middle of the American night as well (midnight Pacific).

Yes its Anets fault that they are an AMERICAN COMPANY obviously the times will suit Americans more than Europeans jesus christ Anet can’t help it theres no catering to anyone its just the way the time zones work.

People who can’t just wait a few hours mystify me. There is no reward for logging in first and you are not losing anything.

Specifically I don’t get why you are worried to miss the start? If you log in late it isn’t like you don’t get HoT, it isn’t a time limited expansion.

BareManny.7190:

. That’s quite a bit of money for an expansion, so kinda hope the players all over the world get to participate in “One Time Events”.

so you want everywhere in the world to be able to participate in a single event at the same time… you realise it’s impossible for them to simultaneously release it early evening everywhere in the world at the same time… time doesn’t work that way….

I think the reason ANet focuses on their time-zones is because it would be rather inconvenient to start an event just as they’re leaving for the evening and then the whole thing breaks down forcing them to work into the night. Better for them to start events early in the morning and if anything comes up to address it during the work day.

It’s impossible to have an event schedule that’s convenient for every single player. This is why events run for multiple days, and generally run on 24 hour schedules.

Things tend to run on ANET’s home office time because that’s when they’re best able to do hotfixes for any issues that come up at the start of an event. I wouldn’t complain that a company headquartered in AUS or NZ tended to run their releases around their own time zone.

It’s not favoritism. It’s just plain physics.