English

Dear players,

Considering the answers we received in the previous thread of discussion, we have decided to start a poll and to apply the results, starting with the next Noble assembly of Natae (29th of January). The poll is therefore open until Monday, 28th of January. The discussion for Saga events is still opened on the other thread.

Please vote for the time zone you would prefer to see for assemblies (considering that they last around 2-3 hours).

Event Team

I voted "other". I would like to see them spread over the entire clock, not just limited to starting in a four hour slit. The choices given still largely disenfranchise the Aussies and the USAians. If there were more animation folk than just those in Europe perhaps this could be truly international.

Sadly this is not possible at the moment, this is why there is only 4 hour avalaible. This may change in the future, but, right now, we have no other choice (other is a choice that was not intended but that is always added when creating a poll in the forum).

(Typed this before Zeligmane's reply 10 mins ago, still want to post it)

Looking at big corporations which have offices around the world, they have the same problem: Find a meeting slot where four people, say located in the Americas, in Europe, in India, and in East Asia/Pacific can cooperate.

In real life I've personally participated in three schemes to solve this. And to say it upfront: They all suck. Or, in nicer terms, they all have pros and cons. Probably there are other alternatives, but this is what I know:

1. Agree on a fixed time slot (every week/fortnightly or so).
2. Agree on a cadence of revolving time slots: First weeks it's 9am GMT, second 9pm GMT, then back to first. Choose any number of 3,4, etc different time slots
3. Split the team, so that everyone talks only to "nearest" time zones.

(1) One or two folks have to cope with bad timings. Good thing: Time slot is fixed, easy to remember, no confusion. If team is small, personal preferences can be taken into account and actually can work in your favor. I once had a coworker who had to take pills every 3 hours, and thus adjust his sleeping pattern accordingly. He was quite happy to do 2am meetings. Others like 5am (before kids wake up and go to school), or 7pm (after kids go to bed), etc.

(2) Fair. Everything else is bad about it: Confusing, ruins everybody's schedule here and there. But it's the fairest theoretical solution

(3) Easy work model, but does not allow direct communication of the whole team.


Transferring this to an MMO such as Ryzom immediately kills option 3, especially after we just merged servers, it's unlikely we'd like to split up again. The German and French communities don't have the problem at all anyway, because of their geographically close setting. Splitting the English community into three groups likely makes the groups too small in order for each to have fun.

Option 1 is also tough for a game because generally the players behind the characters do not know each other, and the playerbase has a constant churn that is much higher than any company's particular project team (hopefully ;-)). However, option 1 is well planable, and easy to communicate.

Option 2 seems fairest to me, especially if both the playerbase as well as the animators/event team members are spread over the world.

To me this is all about the question: How widespread are the locations of the event team?
From this poll and remembering discussions and talks in game and here on the forum it seems the event team is very much located in Europe. That would explain a strong preference of option 1, and would explain why there's this poll without any other options.

Maybe it would indeed require two or more folks from the Americas and/or Pacific time zones to sign up to partake in the event organisation to allow such times at all.

Considering my other thoughts in this post, I welcome this poll. At the very least it shows a great willingness of the event team to better accommodate all players. Good luck to us all :)

I've abstained now, because I realized that as a player partaking in the German events, I should not influence the English speaking community's vote.

With that 4 hour time frame, the issue comes down to "not on weekdays please" ... basically cuts off anyone who has a job (usually subscribers, hint hint).

1-5pm Americas time isn't the problem, it's "1-5pm weekdays" which guarantee no one with a job will get to join. Hence why I'm playing elsewhere at the moment.

The poll does not state the day of the week and this makes a big difference for those in school or at work or normal sleep hours. Saturday and Sunday have a much greater range of timezones that can participate.

Arispotle was really an international global server of those who could type/read enough English to communicate with each other. I believe that we had the most participation with 19:00 and 20:00 GMT event times on Saturdays.

Regarding the poll I did the same as Irfidel (Abstain, for same reason)

But I thought that I'd note some things even though...

First of all some personal experiences regarding time zones:

Back when I had a co-worker in Thailand we had the morning to talk about all kinds of important topics - he was leaving work at the same time as I went to midday.

I've got a similar experience with someone from the US (Texas) I'm meeting regularly - once his lunch is ready I can eat my supper.

Sometimes I'm watching webcasts of discussions online - they are in the prime time for the US but midnight to 1am for me.

Then some simple calculus (assumptions included, AM/PM omitted by using 24 hours)
Lets assume that the majority of the event team is from Germany and France (GMT+1) and the UK (GMT)
Continental US has the timezones GMT-5 to GMT-8 (ignoring Alaska here)
Australia is GMT+8 to GMT+10

Prime time in Australia (Start 18-20, end 20-22PM) would start 12-13 for the event team and 4-7 for the US
Prime time in the US (Start 18-21) would start 1-2 for the event team and 9-11 in Australia
The suggested times (19-22 GMT) would be 11-17 for the US and 3-8 in Australia

As stated in the previous thread, assemblies are more likely to take place during weekdays (every 18 days). This has been decided in order to keep the Saturdays open for Saga events (they involve more players, usually).The four time slot options are the only ones available right now, because, as you figured out, currently the event team is located in Europe, and we cannot run events during daytime on weekdays. This is the best timeslots we can offer you at the moment, even if, of course, it is still very limited. When we will have US or AUS events people on the team we will be able to extend our timeslots for events, in order to reach more players. (btw : recruitment is open, feel free to sign in : http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=topic/view/1958/4#4 ).

Since Zeligmane mentioned the 18 days (2 weeks + 4 days)...
here's the order of the weekdays they would happen at (using Saturday as a starting point):

Sat, Wed, Sun, Thu, Mon, Fri, Tue, ...

Dear players,

We will try (just for today) to use the 22:00 GMT timeslot for the assembly, taking into consideration season change and forum votes.

Event Team