In-Game Clock

Credit for this idea goes to DrSLUGFly, but I thought it was so great it needed it's own topic.

A realtime clock in the login page and as a user interface object would be very useful.
Let it be set to GMT, or to the timezone of ArenaNet's HQ. Whatever timezone it be, let it be constant for all players.
This would simplify time issues for downtime messages and so on, and it would also allow players to communicate on matters of time more easily. Such as "Meet you in Ascalon City at 13:30", rather than "Meet you in Ascalon City in 10 minutes" or "Meet you in Ascalon City at 21:30 Australian Eastern Standard Time".

I think this is one of the few truly useful suggestions. How does something like this work? I'm assuming their servers have their own clocks and you're simply accessing that?

Uhh...

Couldn't you just like...go to Wal-Mart and buy a 5 dollar clock and put it on your desk?

I don't see the point unless you just want everyone to be on the same universal time.

Allow me to explain it for you... we have players in the US and Euro servers... they are appox 8 hours apart on average.

Servers are computers and in required time sycnoisation (Spelling??) in order to function correctly... an ingame function /time could be added which would be server's time....

The login page could be given a downtime/update time which follows the server clock. Since everyone in the game will be going be server time not matter which server they are on, arranging events and times are easy.

For example in Planetside, if you use /time command you'd get your current Earth time (Based on your PC's clock) and Planetside time (Server time)

That's exactly the point. communicating time would become so easy, and you would understand exactly when to find your guild mates or friends online since (though you may not know the actual time where they live) you would come to know what time they usually log on.

And I get no exp. for this suggestion, I read it on another thread somewhere (possibly gwonline)

Ok so you just want a universal timer of what 'time' it is.

Not to actually know the real time.


So you could just say 'Meet me at Ascalon at 6' instead of 'Meet me at Ascalon at 6 CST/EST/WST/GMT/GMT +1000'

YES! Even to this day and age most people don't seem to understand the very simply timing system that is GMT

Yah it took me forever to understand GMT. I always had to use those gay GMT time converters.

It's pretty simple, CST is -6 (my time zone) but it's hard to just go off the top of your head 'oh EST is -4!'

Or maybe it's easy and it just hasn't been in-grained into my head like the CST/EST system.

I find that it's easy so long as you can remember what the offset is.

There is something called internet time but that warps my fragile little mind.

Me myself plays in windowed mode, making the window the same size as the desktop but letting me see the taskbar.

That way I can see the clock, can have GWG.com opened, my winamp, whatever.

And the perf is the same (maybe a liiitle bit better) than in fullscreen mode.

Not a patch but its useful

I do then. Then again, living in England does make the system a little easier

Sign me on this one (with an alarm clock please). It would be a cheap but nifty interface option to arrange meetings as well as to help players who don't pay attention to their watch.

Planetside also has a alarm clock... it works wonders

I support the suggestion for an In-Game Clock.

In-Game Name: Red Memory
Country: Denmark

I support the in-game clock, too.

Even if the clock isn't floating there, ticking away in the corner, the addition of a: /time or /clock to print the information would be great.

It is June 10, 2005, 2:58 PM GMT. It is day 63 of the Zephyr Season and Air is aligned.

You hit the nail on the head there! Perfect.

A syncoronized clock for the game would be nice.

The only question I have is is Tuesday night in Ohio the same as Wednesday morning in Austrialia or what??????
Is it the same day of the week????

No, Ohio is GMT - 6 (I believe, don't quote exact, but it's close to that) and Eastern Australia/New Zealand is GMT + 13(Not sure if this is right either, I might have mixed the +/-, but that's the gist). So, while it's never a full 24 hours difference, between Ohio and Eastern Australia, you have 19 hours difference in time, so it's the same day in both places for 5 hours.


And just to stay on topic...
Great idea, this worked well in Diablo 2, so it should work well in Guild Wars.

I still think this is a good idea.