Saturday tournament scheduling: 3pm EST or 4pm EST (or other)?

[Urz]

Currently I am running the Saturday Box Social at the same 4pm EST (9pm UTC) time slot as the Cogs which preceded it. The Sunday Rumble originally was run at that time slot as well (on Sunday), but was moved an hour earlier to be easier on the Europeans. I'm proposing this question in regards to both the on-going Box Social, and the larger tournament which is coming soon.

Would you guys like to see Saturday events moved to 3pm?

[Skrimskraw]

+ 1 from our side, but can this be done after the aerodrome?

[Urz]

It would probably happen after Aerodrome was finished.

[Sammy B. T.]

I got Australians and a few Japanese to look after on the Ducks. 3 PM Saturday means 4:30 AM for the Aussies members of my team and when you factor in most people want an hour before a tourney starts we got people starting at 3:30 AM.

[Byron Cavendish]

I know most of the European Gents would love earlier times (as well as for the Rumble) and I would love that they are less cranky with me on Sunday when I say PRACTICE TIME! *ding, ding, ding*

[Imagine]

As a note, no matter when you schedule, someone will always live somewhere that gets shafted >.>

[Wundsalz]

As a note, no matter when you schedule, someone will always live somewhere that gets shafted >.>

While that's true, the US and EU player-bases are the major fractions of our community. Hence it makes sense to try to find an arrangement which suits the needs of these two.

Rhinos prefer 3pm EST over 4pm EST for any weekend event.

[Sammy B. T.]

4pm was already havoc for our Australians but was manageable. I don't have as much sympathy for the Europeans starting at 9, 10, or even 11PM as I do for the Aussies having to play at 5:30 AM

[Byron Cavendish]

As a note, no matter when you schedule, someone will always live somewhere that gets shafted >.>

While that's true, the US and EU player-bases are the major fractions of our community. Hence it makes sense to try to find an arrangement which suits the needs of these two.

Rhinos prefer 3pm EST over 4pm EST for any weekend event.

Exactly, I feel for the Pacific area peoples, but just looking at demographics across the board, I actually think there are even more Europeans in this game than North Americans.

[ramjamslam]

Since you are talking about how Aussies might be affected, I will tell you how it does affect me.

I have definitely missed both Saturday and Sunday events because I have slept in.  Saturday and Sunday events pose different problems for me though.  Sunday Rumble starts at 6am on Monday morning my time, that means if Sacrilege make the final I might not get to work until 10 or 11am which can be stretching the friendship with my Employer.  So for Sunday Rumble I would personally rather it start earlier and not have 1 or 2 hour waits between matches so I'm not late to work every Monday morning.

Saturday Box social does not have the same constraints.  This is an event that my clan has signed up for multiple times, and one that I have always missed due to sleeping in until after 6am on Sunday morning.

For me I prefer Sunday events earlier and Saturday events later.

[Morblitz]

I too request that Saturday stay at 4pm. From my personal example, that's a 5:30am start for me, I need to get up at 4:30am for these events if I'm going to warm up. That's not THAT bad -  well okay it sucks but I can get to bed early and get up in time for it - it's doable. However, a 3pm start means I'm getting up at 3:30 now, it's too late to stay up for it, and it's too early to get any kind of decent sleep before hand. It locks me out entirely, and I think it might be the same way for some other Australians and perhaps some Japanese.

I know there's more Europeans than others, but still, I've always thought 4pm was a decent compromise so that everyone (or at least most people around the world) can attend.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Well...from what I've seen, we've have a large "competitive" playerbase that is in Europe. One that just keeps growing. Heck theres just myself and I think about 2 US players in our group that are active or semi active anymore. Our EU players have been much more consistent Lot of the folks from other guilds that I know are EU too. Numbers I catch from them also point to larger EU playerbases than US or anywhere else.

I don't mind either time. I kinda like the later cause I'm west coast and generally stay up till 5am anyways. But ultimately thats just an alarm clock away from resolving. If we really have a larger EU competitive playerbase then I'd rather see them be able to make matches. Heck, even switch the servers to EU servers. I hear they were moved to France now and it is visible the difference. EU servers used to be the worst but now I'm having less lag issues than I am on US servers which is nuts. Having a better connection to France than I am to a US server...never thought I'd see the day.

[Von Zincington]

4pm was already havoc for our Australians but was manageable. I don't have as much sympathy for the Europeans starting at 9, 10, or even 11PM as I do for the Aussies having to play at 5:30 AM

You may not be seeing this as an issue, but some of us do have things to do on a Sunday morning and starting at 10 or 11 at night in Europe would really be an issue for some. Given that the matches take up to 1hr 45min (including time between maps), that means in a tournament with 6 teams the finals could finish as late as 3:15 UTC with a 22:00 UTC (17:00 ET) start (this is a worst case scenario with either 2 streams or 1 half of the bracket being unstreamed). And that's just for the UK and Ireland time wise, I know many (if not most) of the communities euro players are in UTC+1.

No ill will to our Aussie or Asian players, but a later start is not ideal from a European perspective. I'd be fine with 1600 ET, but would prefer 1500 ET.

[RearAdmiralZill]

I prefer 4pm.

[Sammy B. T.]

I'm not trying to push it later than 4PM ET. I know its tough for the Aussies but it is still doable. They represent a fairly active minority in the com scene.