Timed out game turn problem

[KGB]

I put this in the Chat for our game (Beta 2)

I got the turn email:

Hello KGB
Its your turn in game: Open beta game2.
Turn will expire: 2010-04-23 00:27:40.

So how come my turn expired before I got to play it? It's not 00:27:40 04/23 my time as I write this (it's only 10:30 PM on the 22nd). That's something that needs to be fixed because players are going to be playing across all kinds of time zones and I didn't get anything close to 48 hrs to play my turn. I got the email notification at 6:30 AM on the 21st which means I should have till 6:30 AM on the 23rd to play my turn if I am to have 48 hrs to play my turn (I was completely unable to play yesterday).

KGB

[piranha]

I agree that the time stamp is not the best. The time stated is GMT +1 and it should be stated on the time stamp. But also the time left until the turn expires which will make it easier to know how long time left you have regardless of time zones.

From what I have gathered so far the times to do your turn appear to be right. But I'm going to take a closer look now.

Did you receive the reminder email that is sent 45 minutes before the turn expires?

Sorry to hear you missed your turn. But thanks for your post. I will make clarifications to time stamps.

[LillaSkutt]

Actually, right now the time isn't GMT +1 (here where this game is made), cause it's Summer time and during Summer time it's GMT +2, and we are following the CET-time zone (Central European Time).
But normally our time here is GMT=UTC +1 hour.

Before this is solved in a better way... Perhaps it would be an idea to add the time zone in the e-mail.

For exemple it would look like this:
"Hello ...
Its your turn in game: Open beta game2.
Turn will expire: 2010-04-23 00:27:40 CET / GMT+2
"

And later, (if this even is possible in a simple way), to read where the ip-numbers comes from and then show the correct time when the turn will expire for the person who is playing the game .
(Perhaps this isn't possible and then this is just a bad idea..)

[KGB]

Piranha,

What I would like to see is that each player puts in their timezone on your site when they register to play a game.

Then you can just send out all notifications in *their* timezone rather than GMT. That should simplify things a bit for players.

I can forward the emails to you that I got if you want to see them. As I mentioned, I only got about 42 total hours to play my turn instead of 48. Those 6 extra hours were all I needed.

The time/date on the notification email says it arrived at 6:27 am on the 21st but the email content says I need to finish my turn by 00:27:40 on the 23rd. So there is a 6 hour discrepancy which I suspect has to do with timezones (I am on EST which is GMT-5).

KGB

P.S. Yes, I got the 45 minutes till end of turn emails. But since I wasn't at my computer those weren't very useful. I think they need to be more like 6+ hours before the deadline.

[piranha]

You can set your time zone now if you update your account. All new accounts will be required to enter their time zone. I just want to give a little warning, take a look at the time stated in the mail and compare with the time left stated on the site. I haven't tested yet to make sure they match.

The time left stated on the site is the right one.

There is one mail sent 5 hours before the turn expire now.

[KGB]

Piranha,

OK, I set my timezone.

I still believe something is wrong with the times or else you have the turn timeout set MUCH shorter than I think.

For example I played my turn a couple of hours ago. I just logged back in to check the time and I see the next player is already down to 1 day and 9 hours. That means we have a 36 hr turn around. Is that correct? I thought it was 48 hrs.

36 hours is VERY short. Especially if the turn happens to arrive in the middle of the night. You then basically lose 8 hrs of time right away before you even see the email and you only get 1 'evening' to play your turn. If the instead the turn arrives instead in the evening when you are home you get 2 'evenings' to play the turn. That's a BIG difference which is why I thought it was 48 hrs so you got 2 evenings to play.

KGB

[piranha]

The way it works now is that when you host a game you set 2 parameters.

1: How much time you should get when you complete your turn (+36 h in the game you are in)

2. Max time can you accumulate. (72 hours in the game you are in)

This is how its supposed to work, but it didn't work like that until 2 days ago when I made some changes in the calculations for turns.
Right now I'm not 100% sure, I wanted to let a couple of turns pass to monitor the times and see if there is something wrong.

We want to let people host games where that fit people who need a couple of days to find the time to make their turn and for people who spend all day waiting to do a turn.
You will be able to configure it.