(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 :)
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 :)