Worker Unite - Updates for the Working Man (and Woman)

This is a discussion for those brave men and women that are working during the latest new content release of GW, waiting to get home... :-)

Is anyone else looking forward to the day that ANet will release new content updates on Friday evenings/Saturday mornings as opposed to Thursday evenings/Friday mornings as they have in the past?

During prior updates (including the early access and actual release of Factions) the content was made available while the working man/woman was...well... at work, or had to work the day it was released. By the time most of us get home (East coast or West coast), any new content (items and such) has been farmed significantly by the people who either don't work or stay home all day.

It's not a big deal, just a minor observation and the opportunity to start a discussion that's not related to all the new drops that people are finding today :-)

It probably has more to do with the fact that they work during the week and would rather not work during the weekend to fix any bugs. Updates should've already been tested to some extent so I hope they aren't releasing prior to the masses getting of work so that they can have bugs worked out first. It really pays to be unemployed if you play GW alot lol..

BTW, I got my new Totem Axe last night and I really love the look of that ice hammer in Talus :-)

It would be nice... but the folks at ANet would like to have a weekend as well as us. For every release, there's a battery of people standing there hoping it works so they can go home.

Chik-Fil-A's the same way. On Sunday I'm like: I want my friggin chicken sandwich, and they're like: tough, we don't work Sunday :-(

lol

*looks at the clock*
>.>
*pokes her ipod*
<.<
*sigh*
I WANNA GO HOME AN GET THAT TOTEM AXE >.<

Amen, my brother! O_O

>< I totally had classes--exams, no less--when Factions came out. I was a bit upset that while my wife and brother-in-law were exploring Cantha in all its new glory, ~I~ was either studying for finals, or taking finals. AND I work.

>< Any other working people miss the opportunity to get Tengu masks for their characters? But, this was ranted about before. ^_^

One does have to wonder, though... must they taunt us so? Heck, release it Friday evening, de-buggify it through the night, and give the devs Monday off >< Nobody wants to work Monday, anyway. Seriously.

Then again, I guess shame on us for not being 15-year-olds out of school for the break. -_-

Well even if you were here, would you want to go out, farm it fast, and then be one of the hundrenfds of people trying to sell it, undercutting each others pirces in LA and Kaieng?

In other news, its friday afternoon and I bet there are still more to discover.

A thing you're not taking into consideration here is the different Timezones. Based upon them, there will allways be a place where someone can't instantly get the update because he has to work/study/whatever. Given that in any of those timezones are quite a few Guildwars Players, whom should A-Net judge for? And whom against?
They really can't make a fair decision here, so they simply save themselves the hassle and release it early during their day of work so they can fix possible major bugs during their normal working time.
Releasing an update at saturday or even sunday is not really fair towards the developers because the work would then be weekend work. Come on, those developers have family too (i guess). While you (no specific person) can clearly make the statement that they should work on saturday and sunday, i can totally understand that they don't want to. Having time for your family is allready hard enough in the modern world.
A simple "work saturday/sunday" can be quite devastative on a family.

yeah I was meaning around midnight somewhere (maybe central) 'friday night/saturday morning' where you're sure that the day workers are done on either coast for the most part. from what I've seen of several content updates they are done at different times for the different servers (I remember the Korean servers getting some updates before European and American servers during the holidays), so that shouldn't be a problem..

as far as the not fair part, I agree. I tell that to my wife all the time when she has to work on the weekend (she's in retail and as you know retail does most of its business on the weekend when the customers are off), so I don't blame them for that at all (in fact this isn't a blame post, just a 'we arent there so lets talk about something' post lol)..

EDIT: Added emphasis yet again to point out that the times would be relative to the severs - Friday Night/Saturday Morning CST on American Servers, Friday Night/Saturday Morning best Korean time on the Korean Servers - for those out there that may be dense, illiterate, or impatient to read further..

I work weekends =P

Maybe they release on thursdays so they have friday to fix anything they broke before the weekend comes in >.>

/signed for the working man!

/signed!

Don't be so American!!!

It's a worldwide game remember. With many different time zones. So when they release something Thursday your time its because that makes it Friday night somewhere else.

Don't be so hasty to jump on the bashing bandwagon without reading the thread.

European and American servers could obviously be done at different times. As I recall the Korean updates for the holiday events were done around 12 hours or so prior to the American servers (and somewhere in between for the European ones). It was content, which meant that yes, people co go into international districts and trade stuff before the other regions got it.

Yes, remember that Europe exist too... i mean we have favour all the time so we're hard to forget.





cheap shot i know

Point is, there's no 100% convenient time for updates to be released. Tough-luck comes to mind

Only one solution for us working folk....

Quit our jobs and play GW ALL DAY LONG!!!

hmm maybe the updates should come out on monday...lol

lol must be a weekend worker :-) ^^^^

nope at work right now.. but if it came out on monday it would just be a overall crappy time for most =fair lol

Don't be so hasty to jump to conclusions without reading what they wrote. He made an important point regarding time zones, not servers.

Organizing an update for American servers based on an East Coast time zone would leave those on the West Coast just as screwed as they'd be if they were simply on a different server located on a different continent, for the exact same reasons and due to the exact same circumstances that people are already complaining about.

Blanket updates are good; some benefit & some don't. They can't and won't be able to please everyone due to the simple fact that players living on the same contintent don't work, study, and play at the same times.

Unless everyone that plays on a server agrees to a strict schedule of play at this time, work at this time, study at this time, eat/sleep/drink/screw at this time, then there's not a damned thing ANET can do about it. I, for one, don't forsee this happening and so I'm not going to complain if I miss out on something due to my own schedule.

What i wanna know is who is paying you people at work when all you do is post on guru, you must have the best bosses ever.

Damn, I guess I should've bolded my entire comment. Here, I'll bold the other part for you..

that covers timezones (central is referring to Central Standard Time, a timezone that's in between the east coast and west coast).

compile times baby, compile times :-)

And what about people from countries OTHER than America who connect to the American server's?

Like here in Australia, we're +10 GMT.. and isn't CST like -6 GMT? This means that updates that are done at say 12:01 Saturday morning will be done at 4 pm Saturday afternoon for us. How's it fair for us that we only get 1 and a bit days over the weekend for changes while you would get the whole weekend for it?

I mean really, I can see why this suggestion is being made - but what time could you nominate that would be able to satisfy people from multiple timezones and countries who connect to the same server (ie Aussies connecting to American server, or aussies conencted to Euro server's, etc)?

For that one, I don't have a solution for it. All I was going off of was the idea of the North American servers being updated with respect to North America, Europe for Europe, Korea for Korea, etc.. For the rest of you, I think the problem lies in them either not thinking you're a big enough target or just not getting around to you yet..

I believe, though that you could probably connect to servers closer to your time zone, however I know the language issue exists. In the end, though it IS the North American server, not the English-speaking server (as the brits - European server, French Canadians - NA, and Mexicans -NA - will probably attest to)..

I dunno, sorry.. It should be alright to the majority though and shouldn't be a problem.

I've played with enough Aussies to think that you guys really should get your own server from ANet. Well, aussies and kiwis. I really like Australia (and Australians), too - been there a few times myself :-)

That still doesn't address the issue of people on the same continent working different hours. A large portion of people work nights. My Fiance and I both work rotating shifts in 2 week intervals. 2 weeks on mornings (6am-4pm) then 2 weeks on evenings (2pm-12am). The majority of factory workers also work with a similar type of rotating schedule. Not to mention people who simply work the night shift, or those that attend night time classes.

No matter how you intend your solution to work, it won't. There are too many variables involved that ANET can't control. They will never be able to please all players with all things all of the time. Blanket updates = good.

Something you've overlooked: If a new item was introduced to one server 18 hours before another server had it, there would be a crapstorm like you wouldn't believe coming out of the PvP'ers camp.

I don't think they'd have anything to unbalanace PvP like that. They had items come out during the holiday events (nothing worthwhile to PvP I guess). For PvP-only players that use PvP chars, they can reroll anyways.

I wasn't suggesting they could please everyone, but they could catch the majority:-) Right now they're catching those that don't work or work rotating hours (probably like yourself). That may be the majority (I'm not sure it is), in which case I guess it's great. If someone's going to get screwed by it, it's better the smaller amount of people than the larger amount :-)

As far as cash goes, I know a few people that made their fissure armor off of selling charr carvings at the beginning of the holiday events. Of course I wasn't one of them (dont even really want fissure armor anymore). This was even after the Koreans had access to the new stuff well below the North American servers. I think the majority of players are day workers in North America. I could be wrong, but if I'm right, it would seem to make more sense (if there were zoned updates - per server) that those people are looked at first. I don't think you meant to come off this way, but it seems kind of like you're just the opposite, where you'd rather see the minority of players done right so as not to seem to leave the little guy out (at the expense of the majority).

Remember, this was really a discussion, I don't have any feeling that it will be changed or even looked at seriously.

BTW, since you're on a rotating shift, how is hav ing it on Fri Night/Sat Morning US Central time any worse than it is now for you?

obastable is probably right as far as the introduction of items is concerned. they probably do a sweep just for that reason. the updates do tend to favor Korea time/day-wise and not only is NCSoft from Korea (the publisher), but having been there several times I also really they tend to be more involved in their gaming than other places.. most likely that's the reason for the time and day of updates. the staggered holiday updates can be argued that nothing substantial comes out of them (except cash of course). the only exception I guess is the release of factions, which I believe was staggered.

so if they aren't going to stagger the content updates, then there's no need for change. staggered updates, though, could be timed a bit better for the majority of people that use the appropriate servers as they were named for, which no disrespect to everyone else that uses those servers as a side-effect of not having one. if the kiddies are the majority, then it should definitely be friday night/saturday morning so they could make the most of it (not all schools take a summer break). this especially applies in Korea where school hours and extra hours go into the evening. ANet really needs to get the south pacific its own servers so they don't have to become a 2nd class citizen so-to-speak on someone else's servers. they really deserve their own, with hours catered around them.

i do find it funny sometimes when someone complains about others speaking spanish/french on a north american server, telling them there are international districts and other servers for them. i kindly point out that north america includes other languages than english - such as french and spanish.. however, it is really intended for north america. for now the Korean servers are closer to the timezone of the pacific nations (remember its not a language-based server, which europe demonstrates).