Set update times

Would it improve NS to return to the predictable update times we used to have? What do you think?

Personally, I'd rather have MORE variation rather than less. Currently, the update is in the middle of the night for me. I'd like enough variation so the European players didn't always have an advantage over us Americans.

Winter Vacationers:

Personally, I'd rather have MORE variation rather than less. Currently, the update is in the middle of the night for me. I'd like enough variation so the European players didn't always have an advantage over us Americans.

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Ummm... I always thought update time aided them yanks more than us. But there we go.

Well, there is only so often that you can stay up all night waiting for a random update time. I would prefer to know what time it was. There was a certain frisson when there were mass troop movements minutes before a known update.

Back when update times were 8am GMT or something, it meant that most of the community (who wanted to have reasonable sleep times) could not really participate. For the Brits and Europeans, that's early in the morning, when you're probably running around, taking care of other things. For those of us here in the States, it ranged from midnight on the West Coast to 4am on the East Coast. And that's only if update came on time. Obviously, unless you lived in Asia (and comparatively, very few in the invading/defending game seem to hail from there), update time was terrible.

Personally, I'm not too big a fan of set update times because it gives so much of an advantage to whoever's defending the delegacy. Liberations are nigh impossible against an awake invader del with half a brain cell.

You could, mayhap, have update twice daily, so you could have one say afternoon/evening in GMT and one afternoon/evening in funny American time. And if you went for sort of middleish of the afternoon it would be areasonable time for people in different timezones as well.

^ not a bad idea

TAO likes that HC. And it would be nice if banjection powers worked with a randomness, too. Imagine the DRAMA experienced by a sitting duck delegate as s/he discovers the banject button has a busy signal until next half update.

The problem with the dual update is that it penalizes more casual players.

Not everyone can log on at one random time during the night, let alone a random time during the day. People who work, go to school, generally can't come online during some random afternoon time. Two updates daily would significantly discourage the casual gamer.

Then how about a cycling update that hits every 36 hours to make things a bit more fair to those who can't stay up until 26 or 27 o'clock every night.

36 hours doesn't work either. Then it becomes random and simply establishing bizzare time-shifts.

flemingovia:

Would it improve NS to return to the predictable update times we used to have? What do you think?

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I'm torn on the issue.

Knowing the exact update time would make it too easy. Randomizing it completely would make it impossible to strategize.

Ideally, there should be an algorithm that is pretty confusing, but possible to predict (somewhat vaguely) with a lot of experimentation. I like a challenge, and I'm in favor of brains, a scientific mind and persistence being rewarded.