I dont know if this thread goes into the "Game Suggestions", "Technical Issues", or here, but anyway, following the "Time Zones Error" thread, i did a little bit of research because i'm really fed up with all those PST/CST/GMT/UCT/ZZT...
When we schedule a Clan meeting or something, i'd like to be able to say "ok, lets meet this day at this hour", and it would be the same for everyone.
So far, i only found those two things : www.swatch.com/internettime (http://www.swatch.com/internettime)
newearthtime.net (http://newearthtime.net)
I woulndt go for the 1st one (Swatch) because to me it has the bad smell of over-marketting, and the second one may seem a bit complicated...
So i thought "why not create our own Universal Lineage Time" ? :p
(maybe there's gonna be some copyright stuff here, but then again, Lineage is a generic word, just like Windows or Apple, right ? :))
I'd like to hear from anyone interested in this matter, knowing that it would require a bit of programming if we want to maybe create a tray icon or something...
I already had some thoughts (and already dismissed some others, at first i would have liked to get rid of days, but that wouldnt be easy for a meeting to take place "in XX amount of time"), we could discuss this here, or via mail or MSN, the idea would be to create a group of 5 or 6 people working on that, let me know !
There's not only Swatch, there's also the New Earth Time (NET) which already exists, and it's not related to any commercial brand :)
Anyway, i was more thinking of something like "Year Of Shilen 999", i dont know, i dont have any precise idea yet, i'm still gathering my thoughts :p
Problem with GMT is a lot of people don't realize that GMT doesn't change for daylight savings time. So, for example, Greenwich England is in GMT during the winter but they're GMT+1 in the summer. Germany is GMT+1 in the winter and GMT+2 in the summer.
Likewise, the official server time is GMT-6 in the winter but it changes to GMT-5 when the US has daylight saving time.
You tend to get a lot of people off by an hour when you specify GMT times.
Well I wouldnt expect people in europe to know what gmt people in texas are at for example. Just a simple, met at 8 pm gmt should be enough for everyone to know when to show up.
Grazzt had a good idea actually, a "universal L2 time" would be great for NA players playing on the Euro servers and vice versa. A time seperate from the 4 hour Lineage day on the map. It would eliminate alot of confusion. It would just take some getting used to at first. The different siege times would still be in effect on the NA and Euro servers though I'm assuming.
Summer time ("daylight saving time") starts on the last Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October. That's different from the US (and hence from the server times), which runs from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November!
European capitals and their time zones during normal / summer time:
UTC+0 zone (note: Island has no DST):
Douglas -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
Dublin -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
Lisbon -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
London -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
Reykjavík -- UTC+0 / UTC+0
Saint Helier -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
Saint Peter Port -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
Tórshavn -- UTC+0 / UTC+1
Since it seems to poll its time directly from the server, it could break when the server changes to DST on the second Sunday in March (the US change date), while it'll be still "normal time" in Europe for another two weeks.
Also, I don't see a point of "Lineage Time" not being just simply UTC.
Since it seems to poll its time directly from the server, it could break when the server changes to DST on the second Sunday in March (the US change date), while it'll be still "normal time" in Europe for another two weeks.
I'll have to edit a config file when that happens...
Also, I don't see a point of "Lineage Time" not being just simply UTC.
And lineage time is CST....I may have to change up the wording some. That way when they say the event starts at 9 AM you can compare lineage time to your time.
What seems to be your problem dude ?
We told you repeatedly that we DONT want to use this kind of time because of the confusion between Daylight Savings, different Time Zones, etc...
Please stop posting the same thing over and over again or you'll get the same answer over and over again.
Well, if we are to find a fixed time that would be the same for everyone no matter where (and when :p) they live, maybe it would be fun to invent something really different !
First i think we have to get rid of the AM/PM which can be confusing (12 midnight ? 12 noon ?), and maybe, i dont know, we could have a time like "32:25" or something, that could be fun ! A day could last like 60 Lineage hours :eek:
I'll PM you with my MSN address and we'll try to work something out :p
What seems to be your problem dude ?
We told you repeatedly that we DONT want to use this kind of time because of the confusion between Daylight Savings, different Time Zones, etc...
Again: Simply use UTC, then. That's what it is for - a universal time.
Again: Simply use UTC, then. That's what it is for - a universal time.
Yes, but again : if we go into something like that, let's make it fun, and add a bit of RP to it, maybe we could create a "Shilen Time" or something, with days that lasts more than 24 Shilen Hours, or maybe we'll get rid of hours completely and "meet at 23658", that's more the kinda thing i was thinking about :cool:
I am pretty bad at time zone conversions too, so I'm glad to see some of the tips and links in this thread. :) This is an interesting idea, but we will continue to make official announcements in CST/GMT+1 time.
but we will continue to make official announcements in CST/GMT+1 time.
...until we come up with something so amazing that you'll go "woah this a great idea, let's use it !" :p
(and let's marry this guy who came up with this awesome idea :o)
Again: Simply use UTC, then. That's what it is for - a universal time.
Mistryl: Does it matter that UTC is not based on Washington or your home in Texas? It would be very easy because at least every adult knows his time offset to UTC.
Yes, but again : if we go into something like that, let's make it fun, and add a bit of RP to it, maybe we could create a "Shilen Time" or something, with days that lasts more than 24 Shilen Hours, or maybe we'll get rid of hours completely and "meet at 23658", that's more the kinda thing i was thinking about :cool:
That would be ... confusing.
"Meet at 236580" for example already means something - to meet at the map quadrant coordinate 23.6, 58.0 (that's on the Dwarven lands coast; about half a quadrant west from Toma's island). Well, that's the default military (NATO) interpretation of such numbers, at least. :)
If you want a "Shillien Time", I'd suggest starting each cycle at the full moon at the beginning of each of the seven signs competition periods. Since they run for exactly a week, and the in-game time runs at 4x the speed of real time, the "full moon" analogy works out nicely to a moon cycle of four in-game weeks.
at least every adult knows his time offset to UTC.
I know my time offset from GMT - the one that's blindly assuming everyone uses DLS, so really not GMT but English time (i.e. the GMT+1 NC also uses). UTC is a blurry concept in my mind.
I know my time offset from GMT - the one that's blindly assuming everyone uses DLS, so really not GMT but English time (i.e. the GMT+1 NC also uses). UTC is a blurry concept in my mind.
Let's try to make it somewhat clearer ...
- GMT (in the correct sense) is an old concept, before we could measure time exactly with the help of the atomic (caesium) clocks. It was abandoned in the middle of the last century for UT1 (Universal Time No. 1).
- UT1 is the new GMT in the sense that it measures the current time on earth based on its rotation. The other "numbered" UT times (UT1R, UT2, UT2R and so on) are "corrected" times, with additional terms to account for tides (UT2 and UT2R) and stuff like plate tectonics (UT1R and UT2R). In practice, only UT1 is widely used.
- UTC, in contrast, doesn't have anything at all to do with the Earth's rotation. It's purely based on an extremely precise atomic clock (actually: A bunch of them, distributed through the Earth and synchronised together). To account for the Earth's changing rotation (which means a day has currently about 86400.002 seconds on average), additional "leap seconds" are added or (theoretically) removed from UTC to always keep it within 0.9 seconds of UT1. That means we had a few days with 86001 seconds already (the "additional" second is displayed as 23:59:60 on the clocks that support it). UTC (not GMT or UT1!) is the base of every time zone on Earth.
So: NCSoft still using GMT for their announcements means they're about 35 years behind (GMT was officially abandoned 1972 - in the US, too). :)
For the ones that doesnt ate a book about it, UTC basicly is GMT, just another name. Germany's CET for example is UTC +0100, but ppl still call it GMT+1. (btw for you military guys, UTC is Z-Time/Zulu ^.^)
Wait 10years and they will have a new name for it, and ppl will still say GMT, but tbh, who cares.
If we are to be doing something like that, this is one of the first thing we really need to get rid of !
Alright, like i told you on MSN, here is the current situation of my thoughts :p
I thought of something that may be called the "Shillien Time".
You know how the ingame time goes 4 times faster than our time ?
Well, we could do the same here :
One day would be composed of 96 hours
One hour would be composed of 240 minutes (1 Shillien minute would effectively last 15 real seconds)
So like right now, it would be 26:188 :D
(we'd still have to decide what the "zero" reference would be of course)
If my calculations are correct, and to match the ingame daytime/nightime, on one Shillien day the sun would go down every 24 Shillien hours (at 24:00, 48:00, 72:00 and 96:00)
(i'm not sure about how long the night lasts ingame though, so we may have to adjust this)
Now the only thing that's blocking me is the concept of days... Because if we say "let's meet Sunday January 28th at 73:00 ULT" (ULT for "Universal Lineage Time" maybe, or UST for "Universal Shillien Time" ?), it may actually be Saturday for some and Monday for others...
So, to avoid any confusion, maybe we could rename the days and create not only a Shillien Time, but a whole new Shillien Calendar !!! :cool:
Let me know what you think, and if anyone else wanna join the project, just send me a PM and we'll talk on MSN !
Can you tell me without google what AM/PM stands for? :p
12h-format is most likly USA/Kanada/Australia/NewZealand. The rest uses 24h-format, thanks to the "International Organization for Standardization", ISO.
And since this AM/PM stuff is silly and confusing, europe did long ago change to use what you call military time (24 hour time). But we got meter and kg as well ;)
12h-format is most likly USA/Kanada/Australia/NewZealand. The rest uses 24h-format, thanks to the "International Organization for Standardization", ISO.
And the military. Still I have no idea what this thread is about.
I have no trouble think in both 12-hour format and 24-hour format.
I thought of something that may be called the "Shillien Time".
A reference to RL time is needed for those who also spend some time of the day in the real world. (In order to decide at which time to log in to not miss a raid or siege.)
I would find it practical to use GMT or UTC (in the meaning of time zone zero) for all announcements and also ingame, if possible, as everyone should know his time offset and also if his country uses DLS.
In my opinion it's fine to use Shillien Time as addition. If this spans days then it must be supported ingame to display those greater units for reference.
If the game is based on CST then we should all accept that. I'm in England and am between 5 and 7 hours ahead of USA times. I often use the 24 hour clock to say a time to avoid confusion with am and pm. Strangely Americans in game think I'm of a military background because of my use of the 24 hour clock but its quite often used in England for timetables for buses, trains, plains etc and much of our electrical goods use it too.
The game does need a set starting point and CST is as good as any. As long as we stick with it.
Then we could introduce "Aden days" and "Aden Time". These could, as has been said, be stated as a 96 hour clock or even a 48 hour clock with am and pm.
To avoid so many hours, we could use a quarter system. Each Aden day is broken into 4 day/night quarters and stated as 1qm for 1st quarter morning and 1qa for 1st quarter afternoon and through to 4qa.
So a clan hunt time could be 10:00 2qm 24/01//07.
To avoid so many hours, we could use a quarter system. Each Aden day is broken into 4 day/night quarters and stated as 1qm for 1st quarter morning and 1qa for 1st quarter afternoon and through to 4qa.
So a clan hunt time could be 10:00 2qm 24/01//07.
Maybe :eek:
I'm working on it, the day has 96Hs and 4 cycles.
I'm using UCT for a standard time to all.
Soon I'll post a beta.
You and i are moving in two different directions along the same idea.
I'm looking to establish a comparison between CST time and all others, while you want to create a whole new time concept...
Well, that was the whole idea of my orginal post :p
I introduced Swatch Beats and New Earth Time, and said that we could try to come up with something like that, but more "Lineagesque" :D
Why make something that's already complicated even more complicated?
The vast majority of my clan is Eastern Time. Since it's what the majority uses, it's what the clan uses. When new people join, we figure out what their time is in relation to ours, and from that point forward, they simply know to add or subtract however many hours.
The only time it is a hassle is during daylight savings time, but even that isn't bad, because each person adjusts for their own time change, and then adjusts again for our ours.
Beyond that, in ally chat, when something is going on, we simply tell how many hours away it is: ie $Siege meetup in 6.5 hours.
What seems to be your problem dude ?
We told you repeatedly that we DONT want to use this kind of time because of the confusion between Daylight Savings, different Time Zones, etc...
That's exactly why we want to use GMT/UTC. And we (in our clan) use it anyway.
You bunch of heretics, we'll burn you at the stake, at 58:34 of Einhasad time!
In my clan we use GMT times, but usually everyone is late of more than 0.9 seconds, so just tell them a time of 1 hour or more earlier so you have some more ppl who are actually there in time :)
I have nothing against the idea of a Lineage time common to every L2 server in the world, but it would have to be implemented ingame. Else only hardcore roleplayers who are also hardcore mathematicians will use it :)
I am pretty bad at time zone conversions too, so I'm glad to see some of the tips and links in this thread. :) This is an interesting idea, but we will continue to make official announcements in CST/GMT+1 time.
Mistryl, you don't make announcements in CST time in summer, you make them in CDT (which is a huge source of confusion on these boards and in game). And it's just a part of the problem that could be solved by (additionally) specifying UTC.
"The following error occurred attempting to install 'C:\DOCUME~1\PROPRI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\Universal Lineage Time.application':"Could not find file. "
:confused:
"The following error occurred attempting to install 'C:\DOCUME~1\PROPRI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\Universal Lineage Time.application':"Could not find file. "
:confused:
Actually no, America seems to be alone in this crazy idea that month comes before day. If Canada and Mexico do too then you're all mad !
01/24/07 is just so wrooooong !
Its not quite as bad as the wacko Euro influence in England for kids to be taught to cross their sevens. That winds me up so much.
Actually no, America seems to be alone in this crazy idea that month comes before day. If Canada and Mexico do too then you're all mad !
01/24/07 is just so wrooooong !
No, we know about all the other ways to do stuff and have chosen the right way. :p
Its not quite as bad as the wacko Euro influence in England for kids to be taught to cross their sevens. That winds me up so much.
I do this but more because of my math background. I cross my Z's (Zed's to you weirdos) as well.
Well they cross the sevens in parts of Europe like France because they write a one with a long cap, serif or whatever its called and this "could" look like a seven.
Lol, its maths by the way !!
The funny thing is that life's already far ahead of some of the things discussed here. Many conventions about how to measure things have grown over the centuries, often with wrong assumptions about the nature of things. And they're still good enough for everyday use, but they're often loathed where precision is of importance.
<ul type="square"> UTC: it's not just a name but essential to our everyday life. Modern high speed trans-atlantic and trans-continental connections in the internet wouldn't work without it (not talking about your comparably slow DSL connection). The stock exchanges use it, airports do, like someone else said, every timezone nowadays is really just an offset taken from UTC, it's everywhere but most people don't see it because it's not necessary for them to see it.
AM/PM vs. 24 hour clock: the first is good enough for you and me, but it's more difficult to implement in a computer system. Even many people that use it their whole life get confused with 12 AM being midnight and 12 PM being noon, basically counting 12, 1, 2 ....11. There's a reason the military uses Z-time.
Imperial vs Metric: with the exception of 3 countries, everyone else is using metrics, and when it comes to science, even those that officially use imperial, use SI, which is based on metrics.
The reason is really simple. In SI, every unit measuring the same physical expression is related to every other one doing the same by factors of 10. So, 1 cm = 10 mm. You don't have to "think" to get from one unit to the next, just move the decimal point. The factors to get from feet to inch and miles are different, you actually have to figure out what translates to what, and to top it, they aren't even the same factors.
Another example is when you start measuring weight or volume in "cups"... when you have a cup of salt and a cup of, say, broccoli, they neither have the same weight nor the same volume, it's just an approximation. That's why scientists use grams and liters.
Fahrenheit vs. Kelvin: not sure if this is part of the international SI convention, but throughout the world, in science, Kelvin is used (0 degrees K equals the absolute zero), or at least Celsius since the steps between the degrees are of the same width and the figures of "everyday" temperatures are easier to handle. (30 degrees F approx. 272 K = 1 C)
Am of course not saying that the old units are "bad", my grandmother still uses pounds to buy her meat and horsepower to talk about cars. Nothing wrong with that.
And yeah, the crossing of the 7 is just something to make utterly sure no-one confuses it with a 1, don't want a plane to crash just because of your handwriting.
Lol at the misconception that one form of measurement has more precision than another.
A piece of wood has its own given length. Whether you measure it in feet and inches or metres and centimetres, its still the same length.
The same applies to quantities.
OK so, in decimal, or base 10, we can simply move the decimal point. Had we created a system of base 12 or even 24, with extra characters, we could still apply the same rules with wholes and units. We have base 16 in computing and use letters for the extra characters.
Our brains would be far more useful if we all learned numbers using a higher base because bigger numbers would be more easily handled.
Well, it's certainly true that a piece of wood has a length that's inane to it and it won't change no matter what kind of measurement you apply, but some measurement methods are inherently inadequate or imprecise or have the tendency to cause errors.
Like trying to measure bulky, changing objects in cups. It's good enough if you want to bake a pie but certainly not if you're working at a pharmacy company.
Humans are bound to make errors and some ways of measuring will come more naturally to them than other. Sometimes because there's confusion build into the system. Ante meridiem, post meridiem? Easy to understand. But what is with noon and midnight? It's not part of the system, an inconsistency or afterthought. That's why 12 PM and 12 AM aren't really logical, and why the military doesn't use it.
You're also right with that things would be different if we had a different way of counting. I do not know why mankind works with base 10 by default. Perhaps because they have 10 fingers? Just a personal guess and as far as I know did all civilizations throughout history use it. It's not a modern concept. But the thing is that we do count in base 10. And thus with SI, you can change units by moving the decimal point, there's no change of precision. If you try the same with inch and feet you might end up with an irrational number that you might have to round at a certain point, thus adding imprecision.
In respect to time, every country used to measure it by themselves, nowadays that would again be not precise enough. UTC is not just "a new GMT" but a whole different way of measuring time and ensuring that the clocks tick the same everywhere in the world. In many applications, even the fraction of a second that it takes to compute from a local time to a different one to see if they're equal can be too long and would put the system out of sync.
Ok, now it works, and now i like it a lot, that's really what i had in mind ! :)
It says "Day, Cycle 100", what does it mean ?
And i got a "00:00:00" at the bottom, what is it meant for ?
Ok, now it works, and now i like it a lot, that's really what i had in mind ! :)
It says "Day, Cycle 100", what does it mean ?
And i got a "00:00:00" at the bottom, what is it meant for ?
Real Day is componed by 24Hs it's equal to 96Hs Lineage (4 Cycles Day/Night).
The program uses your local time and change it to UTC then it's converted to Lineage Time (UTC * 4) and the local date is converted to Lineage Date (1 Real Day = 4 Lineage Cycles).
When you saw on the screen "Day, Cycle 100" It means that in game was by day and from 01/01/XXXX to your local time has passed 100 Lineage Cycles (Days).
"00:00:00" at the bottom is a display that will show the time manually converted. It's a tool to convert real dates to Lineage Time.
I have to clean the code for the next release and change the 96Hs format to 24Hs X/4 (Cycle X of 4).
Here is a Screenshot (http://www.blueflame.com.ar/ULT Screen.JPG)
Actually what I have most trouble with is the **** international date meridien.
Tuesday 8:00 pm EST is what?...wednesday, monday or tueday here in australia?
The problem of having one and only time for the whole world would be a date problem.
If by any method we manage to use the same time, meaning 14:00 hrs in Tokyo it's still 14:00 Paris, it will create a mass date confusion. Since it would be 14:00 in the middle of tuesday night for Tokyo and for Paris would be 14:00 in Monday afternoon.... (just an example, don't really know the time difference).
PWNED ! I kept my trap shut all through this discussion, but now that the secret is revealed, it's the kind of thing I ask my students as homework in Programming 2.
Still very nice !
Although when i logged in today, i saw on the start-up screen a message that said "one linage day lasts 4 real hours, with 3 hours for daylight and 1 hour for night"...
Would this mean that time actually goes 6 times faster and not 4 times ? :eek:
Still very nice !
Although when i logged in today, i saw on the start-up screen a message that said "one linage day lasts 4 real hours, with 3 hours for daylight and 1 hour for night"...
Would this mean that time actually goes 6 times faster and not 4 times ? :eek:
Well, using 12h can be confusing for ppl who are used to 24h, but 24h isnt really a problem for ppl who are used to 12h I think. Everyone should know that a day have 24h, and if ya got 19:48 for example simply do a 19-12 math. With AM/PM its not so easy somehow.
-L2Time now is 6 times faster, like the game.
-NA/EU server time added.
-Converting from Local Time to Universal Lineage Time is available.
-New module added, "Agenda" this module converts from server time to your local time the next events: Regular Maintenance, Castle Siege Schedules.
Ok, so what's this 2/6 exactly, it seems that it gets rid of the 78:32 (for exemple) which i really liked ? Now it's just 24 hrs Cycle X/6 ?
And is there a way to get rid of seconds ?
Other than that, very very nice ! :cool:
Ok, so what's this 2/6 exactly, it seems that it gets rid of the 78:32 (for exemple) which i really liked ? Now it's just 24 hrs Cycle X/6 ?
And is there a way to get rid of seconds ?
Other than that, very very nice ! :cool:
1 L2 Day = 1 Cycle
6 Cycles = 1 Real Day
EG.: 22:30 1/6 (22:30 Cycle 1) 14:15 4/6 (14:15 Cycle 4)
It's equal than have a day with 144hs but split in 6 cycles.
"And is there a way to get rid of seconds ?" Sorry, I don't understand =(
1 L2 Day = 1 Cycle
6 Cycles = 1 Real Day
EG.: 22:30 1/6 (22:30 Cycle 1) 14:15 4/6 (14:15 Cycle 4)
It's equal than have a day with 144hs but split in 6 cycles.
Ok, but i think i'd rather have a 144-hours day, it's less "real local time" and more "invented universal time" :p
By the way, did you check this ingame daylight / nighttime thing ? Is this what "Day" and "Night" mean on your program ?
"And is there a way to get rid of seconds ?" Sorry, I don't understand =(
I meant, can we get rid of the display of seconds, they go so fast that i dont find it very useful to display them !
(oh, and one final note : i'm quite amazed at what you've done so far, i know i absolutely wouldnt be able to do the first thing about it !!!)
In game daylight is between 6Hs and 24Hs, the night is between 24Hs and 6Hs.
I'll delete seconds in the display and add a check box to select in 24Hs X/6 or 144Hs format. I'll add a new converter "ULT / Local".
Please tell me if you wanna see something else.
I like it alot, very quick and easy reference to CST and the other timezones in the US. And great with the "official" L2-time at the top. I don't know how many Australians we have playing L2, but perhaps you could add one or two timezones from Australia/eastern Asia?
Current Sydney, Australia Time (EST): xx:xx:xx (xxx) GMT +11
But right now, they have daylight saving, so the standard offset is GMT +10.
and perhaps
Current Perth, Australia Time (WST): xx:xx:xx (xxx) GMT +9
Daylight saving here too, so standard offset GMT +8.
Since we on the northern hemisphere will be using daylight savings soon, i guess you have to work out a way to display that. Perhaps just a short text below (Daylight saving time, standard offset GMT +/- x) ?