COA event times and optimal world region and time zones
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Some ideas on peak times for City of Arabel Neverwinter Night's server games
Fridays 5-9pm eastern standard time is about 10am-2pm Saturday in New Zealand time, a little bit earlier in Australia and probably Japan.
Saturdays 12-4pm eastern standard time is about 5am-9am sunday New Zealand time, and about 7-11pm in parts of Europe
Sundays could be pretty early eastern standard time, and give european folks more time in the middle of the day to play, rather than late on what for many might we a work day.
This would make Friday evening eastern standard time optimal for new zealand and australia, saturday would possibly be best for eastern standard time and europe second, and Sundays could be geared to give european folks the optimal time during the day.
Saturday afternoons, Eastern Standard Time, works best for most of those time zones for the weekend on a whole, but just in terms of setting 'game slots' for different people, possibly with gm's who might say be in Europe or North America with players who are in Australia or New Zealand, this kind of gives ideas of say, 'regular slots' that people trying to determine 'best times to play' might use in order to include people of different time zones, etc.
If the West Coast of North America is 3 hours behind eastern standard time, the Friday slot might put it before work is over, but the Saturday slot just puts them at a reasonable time in the morning on Saturday. The Sunday slot will probably put ozzies and kiwi's into Monday or late Sunday which may be a work night for many, or people with kids that need to get up for school in the morning, etc.
So maybe prioritize Friday night for the Ozzies and Kiwi's, and leave them out of plans for Sundays Eastern Standard Time.
Somebody could probably make this into a handy-dandy chart.
I could probably make this into a handy-dandy chart.At any rate, hope this helps a little.
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A little later eastern standard time for game events, like say 2pm start time, might actually work better for ozzies. or 4pm. hmm.
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Events are planned for times when DMs are free to run events. We try to take into consideration the timezones of the players involved in the stories, but sometimes that just isnt possible (like events that require a DM present).
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Basically, RL is first, imaginary playground is second.
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People, being creatures of habit, will more easily come to events, and make time in their schedule, for events which have a regular time.
To accomodate everyone by adapting schedules becomes kwite difficult as the number of players you are trying to include increases- so this is a way to 'let them come to you', as it were, and hopefully cater to some of the groups of people who have regularly been coming to COA.
That said, for sure, real life takes priority.
And the prime spots I was mentioning for games, would be prime spots for lots of other important things in busy peoples' lives, for similar reasons.
Trying to set a schedule like this may not meet the reality of the dm's and players needs; but you may be able to use a similar principle to find a time that does work better, and take advantage of the consistency of schedule, so when people make time, something is happening.
Players could do this too, not just dm's, and event's don't have to always be dm run- the possibilities of play will be more limited to what is in the players' toolboks for creating fun, but for a lot of people I think they could be kwite happy with that.If dm's are planning events around known players schedules, they are only planning for players they know are coming, and any players that might show up or be invited that were not ekspected may not be as well served by that. Essentially, you can only play with your known friends, and inviting new people can still work, but without a set schedule, it makes the work of finding a workable time eksessive for larger groups.
Thanks for offering the comments, its nice to know that people are reading the posts, and getting some useful, informed feedback from people who know what is going on with the server, etc.
I thought I would give some ideas about how to raise server numbers, because people seemed worried they are getting lower and lower, and I think COA has a lot to offer people still as a game, but there do seem to be some obstacles to get new players to the server and keeping them there. Some of it is the learning curve of setting up the game to work. Part of it is that it is a legacy game with a lot of newer and fancier competition. Some of it is just being known to eksist, and the server's capacity to handle bigger numbers, should they come (would players just solve conflicts on their own? Would dm's handle it? Would people just get banned from the server on the first strike if they don't read them and break the rules? A lot of this is probably eksplained on the site, but I don't remember most of it myself, which gives me the fresh perspective of someone coming to the site who knows very little about it).
How are the dm's for workload on the server right now?
Is DM burnout a problem?
I know sometimes the dm team takes on the responsibilities of managing the server a lot more than the rest of the player base sometimes.
That puts a lot of work on top of a few people.
Sharing the load is best, i think.
That's a skill in itself, though. -
Unfortunately the process of "acquiring" new DMs isn't straightforward, they have to be the right type of person to fit in with the current DM team with good ideas and (most importantly) isn't a dick.
The level of work that needs to go into DMing makes it easy for people to burn out quickly, get frustrated or do something silly while IG (believe me, I know)
They also need to look at if the person will be more productive / better as a player or a DM.
Lots and lots to think about and weigh up, and sadly filling the void with the wrong person can do more damage than good so it's not a quick fix.
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@JoeKickAss said in COA event times and optimal world region and time zones:
I think the lack of DMs is an issue recently.
More DMs isnt the answer. Players shouldn't have to wait around for a DM in order to do things.
@solarfall said in COA event times and optimal world region and time zones:
Unfortunately the process of "acquiring" new DMs isn't straightforward, they have to be the right type of person to fit in with the current DM team with good ideas and (most importantly) isn't a dick.
Pretty much nailed it ;)
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I personally like dicks, and if it were up to me we would have a whole bag of them. The penetrating honesty they bring to the table is always welcome in my book.
.......wait, that didn't come out right.
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Can we explicitly say that doing stuff without DM presence, then taking screenshots and putting them up and saying "Hey, we did this" will garner response and reward? Because that would help out alot of people in low TZs. I have tried this before with varying success. Some DMs ignore it. Others are more accepting.
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I did that with Zool. He loved it.
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@CaptainFantastic said in COA event times and optimal world region and time zones:
I personally like dicks, and if it were up to me we would have a whole bag of them. The penetrating honesty they bring to the table is always welcome in my book.
.......wait, that didn't come out right.
I wanted to quote your 4 first words and make these eyes: O_O, but then, I read the rest of your sentence and I was like "Shit, it even gets better, can't quote juste four words out of that".
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You can use screenshots. Brick bros did this to great effect.
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Also, CF, please do not troll.
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I wasn't trolling, I was making a joke. If you were to say "stop making jokes only you and jay from 'jay and silent bob' found funny", that would be a more accurate request.