Unpopular Opinion: The Thread

[Thekillergreece]

5 hours ago, bartman said:

But there are two very viable solutions in the suggestion thread @TheSenate posted that was conveniently locked within 5 minutes:

 

1. Just have less nighttime. 18 hours of daylight, 6 of night, with a hour or two on either end in the twilight sunrise/sunset mode. Sure it's less night for nightclubs and some gang action, but like, "crime doesn't happen in the day" has never really been true lol.

 

2. Move to a halfway point timezone, like GMT-3. This would only be a 3 hour difference for most European players, and not make a huge difference, but would immensely help most North American and Oceanic players by at least promising a few hours of daylight.

 

Or both!

Or...

 

Make it month by month change.

July would use NA times. August would use EU times. September, NA. October, EU.

I think the above solution would work better without decreasing times and all that. RCRP used to have a similar system where they cut down some hours but it made schedulements with server times nearly impossible because the times were unpredictable.

[pateuvasiliu]

16 hours ago, bartman said:

The refusal to even consider adjusting the server timezone from GMT is a massive mistake that leads to shafting every north american and oceanic timezoned player with doing business/playing at 2AM server time. I know people who legitimately haven't seen sunlight in game in months. I'd legitimately play a NA server over the main GTAW server at this point if a "licensed" one popped up like the RU or Italian servers. It's that bad.

What exactly is your solution to this? If they shifted to an NA timezone then Europeans would never play at night.

And Europeans absolutely make the most players, considering the server peak is usually around 8-11 PM Server Time.

As someone who's 3 hours ahead of the server it's already difficult for me to attend evening events or trainings, since they start near midnight my time. Shifting the time further towards America would just make that worse. No thanks.

Edited June 9, 2022 by pateuvasiliu

[bartman]

7 hours ago, pateuvasiliu said:

What exactly is your solution to this? If they shifted to an NA timezone then Europeans would never play at night.

And Europeans absolutely make the most players, considering the server peak is usually around 8-11 PM Server Time.

As someone who's 3 hours ahead of the server it's already difficult for me to attend evening events or trainings, since they start near midnight my time. Shifting the time further towards America would just make that worse. No thanks.

If I remember the poll right, cause there was a poll, it was like a 55 or 60/40 split with a majority being european, but it's far from a controlling majority. At least 40% of the player base is US or "other" timezoned. Excluding these players from a gameplay experience as simple as seeing the sun is a mistake that any future GTAW competitor would be smart to capitalize on. A compromise can be worked that'd ensure the maximum amount of players possible get some mix of night and day.

 

Shifting to GMT-3 or even GMT-2 would be a decent compromise and not place Europeans or US timezoned players are too far of a disadvantage.

 

Californians like @TheSenate are 8 hours behind servertime, despite the fact the server's allegedly set where he lives. Australians and oceanic timezones are even worse. He's genuinely never seeing the sun, and Australian players are never seeing night. Europeans (at least, Western Europeans) get both in ample quantity.

The current model only benefits europeans.

 

If you were to set it to GMT -3, here's what it'd actually mean (Forgive if my math's off)

Assuming most players log in around 5-7PM local time on most weekdays, after work/school/dinner/whatever.

 

Most Europeans would be logging in at 3-5PM server time. This'd still give them night, particularly on weekends.

Americans would now be in a position to log in at 6-9PM server time. It's not a huge jump, but if you make the sun set at say, 9PM, it's something to give them sunlight. They'd be getting lots of sunlight on the weekends, something the current 5-8 hours ahead of American timezones barely allows even on weekends unless you literally hop on at Noon.

Australians/oceanic timezones would now be logging in at 4-6AM instead of 7-9AM. They'd at least get some nighttime where right now most of them get none and have to play almost exclusively in morning hours.

 

I frankly see this as better for everyone, and all it'd mean is Europeans need to give up 2-3 hours of nightclubbing hours that they get back anyway cause most of that stuff's only open on weekends when most EU timezoned players are on till 2-3AM anyway.

 

Management's insistence on not even allowing real discussion on compromises like this when server management is almost exclusively European is not healthy for the community, and why this is indeed an "unpopular opinion"

Edited June 10, 2022 by bartman

[Lindsie]

On 6/9/2022 at 6:05 AM, bartman said:

The refusal to even consider adjusting the server timezone from GMT is a massive mistake that leads to shafting every north american and oceanic timezoned player with doing business/playing at 2AM server time. I know people who legitimately haven't seen sunlight in game in months. I'd legitimately play a NA server over the main GTAW server at this point if a "licensed" one popped up like the RU or Italian servers. It's that bad.

 

At the very least lower the amount of hours where it's nighttime. Or plop it on some timezone in like the middle of the Atlantic that'd meet halfway like Bermuda (GMT-3) or something.

Aaah yes... Best solution is to make the time in the server be bad for everyone, both EU and NA. Then both sides are equally miserable. 👌

[bartman]

5 hours ago, Lindsie said:

Aaah yes... Best solution is to make the time in the server be bad for everyone, both EU and NA. Then both sides are equally miserable. 👌

I literally provided examples on how it's not that inconvenient for either but okay.

Edited June 10, 2022 by bartman

[Lindsie]

2 hours ago, bartman said:

I literally provided examples on how it's not that inconvenient for either but okay.

Getting pushed to +6 hours compared to server time is rather inconvenient in my book. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Lindsie

[bartman]

1 hour ago, Lindsie said:

Getting pushed to +6 hours compared to server time is rather inconvenient in my book. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

>makes compelling argument to try and make the timezone benefit the maximum number of people possible.

>Yeah, but it makes me specifically have an awkward timezone, so fuck everyone else.

 

Also lol welcome to the daily reality of the 45% of the playerbase who's already 6 or 8 hours behind server time.

 

 

I'm willing to bet the server has more people playing in the Americas than on Moscow/Lithuania time, particularly when RU players have their own GTAW server. This isn't about shafting any particular person, it's about making it as fair as possible for the maximum amount of people possible. Any decision will inadvertently put some people on weird timezones, but server management can mathematically look at what would benefit the maximum amount of people possible instead of the blatantly eurocentric model of "GMT lol".

Edited June 10, 2022 by bartman

[pateuvasiliu]

11 hours ago, bartman said:

If I remember the poll right, cause there was a poll, it was like a 55 or 60/40 split with a majority being european, but it's far from a controlling majority.

The poll doesn't really matter. If you look at 10PM GMT's population and 10PM East Coast's population you'll see that the former has a few hundred more players. It dips down to 400 during the American prime time.

 

11 hours ago, bartman said:

Shifting to GMT-3 or even GMT-2 would be a decent compromise and not place Europeans or US timezoned players are too far of a disadvantage.

What? If they shifted to GMT-3 it would make no sense to go to a nightclub at like 6PM. It would fuck up Casinos, nightclubs and pretty much all evening activity, because by the time you'd normally open most Europeans would be getting ready for bed. It would also completely mess up crime roleplay on the EU side since you'd need to commit your murders and what not in broad daylight.

GMT-3 means that 6PM server time would be my midnight, that's completely fucked. I'd never get to play at night anymore. Any evening wedding, parties, trainings would happen at unplayable hours for anyone East of Germany.

If your argument is that Europeans would get night in the weekends, well, Americans get daylight in the weekends. The difference is that there's way more European players than American players, and that the night brings more RP than daylight. Who they should cater to is quite obvious from the population.

 

They already moved the server time back by 1 hour this year, I'm gonna say pass.

Edited June 10, 2022 by pateuvasiliu

[bartman]

7 minutes ago, pateuvasiliu said:

The poll doesn't really matter. The peak server time is 8-11 PM when it comes to population.

 

...The poll does matter? The entire argument is everyone who isn't playing in Europe doesn't see any sunlight. The poll is entirely relevant in determining how big the problem is and if it's worth addressing. GMT-2 or -3 would make peak server time 5-10PM, which still enables most of the population to see day and night.

 

Quote

What? If they shifted to GMT-3 it would make no sense to go to a nightclub at like 6PM. It would also completely mess up crime roleplay on the EU side since you'd need to commit your murders and what not in broad daylight.

 

Implying crime doesn't happen in broad daylight is a logical fallacy from the start, it 100% does lol. And even then, most European players would still get night, since "peak time" would now be evening into night instead of just flat out night.

 

Clubbing at 6PM isn't any worse than doing business at 2AM, lol. If anything it's far less bad, I 100% see clubs open that early irl.

 

 

Quote

GMT-3 means that 6PM server time would be my midnight, that's completely fucked.

Again, GMT+3 hardly represents where most of the European playerbase is. Statistics on where players are is 100% relevant in determining where the timezone /should/ be.

 

And how is this fucked but the half of the playerbase not playing in Europe being 5-9 hours behind is fine? Because it doesn't affect you?

Edited June 10, 2022 by bartman

[Mythology]

11 hours ago, bartman said:

Assuming most players log in around 5-7PM local time on most weekdays, after work/school/dinner/whatever.

 

I am European, I don't log in till 8PM. Many other Europeans don't either, your assumption and in with that your solution isn't going to be working for Europeans. Sorry to say for the Americans, it's a sacrifice that should be accepted.

 

The threat of going to another server that "capitalizes it" to cater to Americans is also flawed, as that would mean you now have less than half the player base on the server. Most people would come back considering the server is dead/empty, this isn't the times like Valhalla or OwlGaming in which you can happily have 120 players on a server and be happy.