Kimmerin
I personally dislike the 1 hour battles idea. As we all know, there is a common tactic of declaring at sh... *cough* uncomfortable hours for your opponents. While it’s surely annoying, this is a valid tactic. The only counter to this tactic, as of now, is 2-hours length of battles.
People tend to be busy IRL, not everyone can log in game before a battle starts. But they can do it during 2 hours of active phase. I’ve seen many battles in which things initially went south for one of the sides, but then this side gathered enough players during first 8-12 rounds to turn the tables and actually win the battle.
2 hours length:
- allows more players participate in battles;
- gives a chance for the side, outnumbered from the start, to win or at least to put up a fight;
- partially counters attacks at “bad” times
1 hour length:
- too fast-paced, leaves more players out;
- allows more abuse of “let’s attack at 5 a. m. in their timezone” tactic.
I might agree with you if I lived in a country that only had 1 or 2 times zones, and/or any of them were even close to CET where a fair number of Ryzom players live. But unless we make them long enough to get both coasts of the US involved on any day other than Saturday, I don't think 1 hour battles are any worse than 2 hour ones.
That said, even the 2-hour battles pretty much make OP battle and EU-only thing much of the time, and anything convenient for one coast of the US will have the other coast either still at work/school or getting ready for bed. So how about if we go the other way and make OP battles more of a siege; something long enough that all time zones have a chance to get in on, and the time zone shenanigans that currently happen just can't happen.
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