2014-04-05 - Monthly Release Notice

[Moonlightelf]

Well... this is going to be at 8pm of my time, and while I do like it somewhat, I can understand the concerns of other people.

 

While US has majority of the players in DC, I don't really fancy the fact that this timing gets dictated by US timezone, as if other countries don't really excist and don't have anything better to do.

[MessengerDragon]

Seems there are quite a lot of people for whom this will be at night or during work, but I guess there are probably lots of people who get better times.

[Jocosa]

Sorry, but not a fan of this new time. This pushes some users into Monday, so work, school, etc. Plus as mentioned Sunday here in the US is a day for family, getting together, church, etc. Your time frame, US wise, puts the drop smack in the middle of all that. Not good at all.

 

And for those of us with wicked slow connections, our only shot at those new eggs was when others slept, after they had gotten their eggs already. I'm PST. So on new drops I'd hit the cave around 11pm PST and I'm able to get them. Because it is a bit less chaotic. Now I need to be here at 10am, cancel plans for friends or church, and fight it out with everyone and hope for an egg. This is a bad idea.

[Esmeia]

I can understand the reason for delay a bit, but I greatly prefer it being at midnight exactly. I just hope these won't be SUPER RARE or anything like that.

[Rhynn Collins]

*warning: rant incoming*

 

Reading through especially the first few pages of the topic, I realize more and more how... entitled DC people apparently feel.

 

They're tiny pixels on a screen, people! Your family, friends, work, church, other commitments - those are way, WAY more important than a few pixels on a screen. The eggs WILL still be here when you can get online - yes, maybe they'll be a bit more difficult to catch... about as difficult as they have always been for those who are unable to ever be there for the midnight release. Those people are not here right now, so of COURSE you don't see their opinions at the moment.

 

If TJ says the new time is actually one when more people can be there for a release, then I trust he has the numbers to back it up. I'm also quite sure TJ has thought about the lag... he doesn't exactly strike me as the type to not keep an eye on how his servers are doing.

 

Yes, only announcing this an hour or two before the release would normally have happened was not the brightest idea. But at least he did announce it - it's a major change compared to some years ago when he hardly announced anything and we all just had to find out about things as they happened.

 

So yeah. Maybe it's not convenient for you, personally. Maybe for once you'll be the one looking for trades instead of offering them. But come on... give other people a chance for once. It's nice to be able to be there when a release starts, no? Let others experience that for once as well.

 

And if this does turn out to be a disaster as many people are fearing, then this will be the first and last time the release is at 1pm EST. TJ can be a bit of an arse, but he's not stupid.

 

I do agree, however, that it would have been better if the release was 1pm saturday rather than sunday. If he wants as many people as possible to be able to get them, then saturday-sunday works better than sunday-monday. But of course, other people would then be complaining about having other commitments on saturday. Can't please everyone, but at least he's attempting to please as many as possible.

[MIGOR]

Bad idea for us from Europe. Unless the release will be going on for 24 h. I hope so....

[Silent_Vampire]

I too liked the midnight releases. Though it would be tough on a school night, but I'll try my hardest for those eggs!

[Gladtobemom]

I can easily list the "cons" here:

 

1. Only 11 hours of eggs will drop with the date of the first day. (A valuable commodity).

 

2. This puts the first day eggs falling on SUNDAY afternoon and evening, for most of those in the United States. A time when many have commitments to family and are getting ready for the week ahead. Not exactly a time for an individual leisure activity.

 

3. It puts the drop on Sunday evening for those in Europe. And even more weirdly, it puts the drop on MONDAY for those further east (and yes, there are quite a few players in Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand). Even worse, now people are using up time when they should be sleeping for the start of Monday's work.

 

4. Zero improvement for those that originally wanted to hunt on Sunday afternoon. Now they will be competing with people that would (in the event of a MIdnight start) have already filled their slots by 1pm.

 

5. There is definitely a LOSS to those that would rather hunt late Saturday night. They will either skip the first day or EVERYONE will be competing in less than half the time (11/12 to be exact).

 

6. The game has become less accessible.

 

7. The people that cleared off their scrolls, getting ready for the egg drop, who were waiting for it to start, got told to wait 11 hours . . . instead of a nice pretty new egg. People are disappointed, they prepared, anticipated, looked forward to feeling competent . . . and got fish slapped instead.

 

 

The "Pros" here:

1. A subset of the players that wanted to sleep from Midnight till 1pm will get to be in on the "beginning" of the drop. If there is an actual advantage to this, someone please tell me, because I don't see it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, not feeling the joy here. I was so looking forward to a new nice surprise egg or two. Instead, I just filled up my scroll, bred a bunch for the AP. Traded good stuff on Chat So I guess, I will be left out tomorrow. If, by some miracle, I get to the computer before midnight tomorrow (hoping for about 11pm). Maybe I'll get an egg or two, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

I was READY for the drop to happen Saturday Night. Egg slots free, My husband knew it was coming, he had a new "Vikings" to watch and was saving it. The kids were going to stay up. We'd have had fun for an hour or so catching, gendering, incubating. Then Sunday, we'd check on the eggs, put them in one of the click sites--all of 5 minutes.

 

So . . . I've stayed up till 3:30 am anyway, because I did. Not getting anything except aggravated and feeling kind of tricked.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Gladtobemom

[Windy]

I liked the old system better but oh well...

[KageSora]

If TJ says the new time is actually one when more people can be there for a release, then I trust he has the numbers to back it up.

That's actually one of the problems.

 

New eggs aren't easy to get right away for quite a few people, especially for those with bad connections.

 

Now force those people to fight it out with vastly increased numbers of competition.

 

Yeah, they're getting ed over pretty royally.

 

Unless the drops won't be mixed for at least 24 hours, that would be a bigger help. Then people could try to get online during a time when they won't have too much competition to actually have a chance to get an egg...

 

 

 

And, now, the largest group of players? Normally, they would only have to compete with each other. Only now they're going to not only have to compete with each other, but compete with an even greater number of people who are trying to get the eggs.

 

Having a larger number of people trying to obtain a smaller number of eggs (because eggs dated Day 1 are more valuable to a number of players than those dated later) is just going to end with more frustration and angry all around.

[Mysfytt]

Oh rats - that makes it 1am for me - NOT staying up for that. But then you lot stayed up till12am I suppose so time to swap it over.

I just hope they stay a solid drop for long enough - when they are a mixed drop I have no hope of getting any.

[skauble]

The "Pros" here:

1. A subset of the players that wanted to sleep from Midnight till 1pm will get to be in on the "beginning" of the drop.  If there is an actual advantage to this, someone please tell me, because I don't see it.

I'm going to hazard a guess here that this change isn't driven by timezones, but rather by traffic activity during certain times. Meaning that I don't think TJ changed it simply because he thought that there should be a benefit conferred upon players of a given timezone, but rather that the site statistics indicate that the initial release event would both reach more players and draw additional players in if it was held at a different time.

 

Although, as I've said, I love the midnight releases, I can see where a business could very well benefit by scheduling events when a majority of consumers are available to attend.

 

Which doesn't mean that I think the change is necessarily permanent (I really do think it will get bumped to Saturdays in the future), just that I think that the numbers will probably decide this.

[Gladtobemom]

And now the site is Down . . . for "regular maintenance." During the time when a release had been scheduled . . . at least the time for which we prepared.

 

Makes me wonder if TJ sort of lied. Maybe the REAL reason is somthing needed to be fixed. If that's so, maybe he should have just told us that.

 

Or . . . maybe he's punishing us for complaining?----

-------------------------

And it's now back (only down a few minutes).

I was rearranging some dragons on my scroll. I guess I can finish now.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Gladtobemom

[Seikan]

Maybe he's adding a lot of new release dragons

I can only hope.

[Naruhina_94]

I'm positive, the relase will occur for an entire day, so there will be for sure a quiet moment to catch

[TheGrox]

I reckon that either TJ forgot to do a midnight release, and is now covering his tracks by saying he's trying something new, or he's just making it look like he's trying something different because people were complaining the other day.

 

Either way, I'll be awake then, but I wonder whether catching eggs will be impossible with so many others around too.

[Anna Selka]

Well, this change is very impractical for me, I hope it doesn't become permanent. This is one of the things that worked quite well, I don't see the need for change.

 

I am less and less motivated by the game as it is... Maybe after a few months of this I will be fed up enough to stop. It's just disappointing that instead of adding interesting new features, this is what we get.

 

I 100% agree with Gladtobemom's pros and cons, you nailed it.

 

Edited for clarity

Edited April 6, 2014 by Anna Selka

[KageSora]

I'm positive, the relase will occur for an entire day, so there will be for sure a quiet moment to catch

Still, even if there are pure drops all day, that still removes a considerable number of hours during which "Day 1" dated eggs will be obtainable. And those can be more valuable than eggs obtained in the days following a release.

 

What we effectively have is forcing a larger number of people to compete for a smaller number of eggs.

 

But, unless the drops are pure for longer, it's going to be much harder to get them. (Honestly, I was never a fan of going to mixing in so quickly after a release)

 

 

@Gladtobemom--Actually, even during normal releases the site goes down for maintenance at times. It's not some rare thing that's just happened this time.

[skauble]

And now the site is Down . . . for "regular maintenance."  During the time when a release had been scheduled . . . at least the time for which we prepared. 

 

Makes me wonder if TJ sort of lied.  Maybe the REAL reason is somthing needed to be fixed.  If that's so, maybe he should have just told us that.

 

Or . . . maybe he's punishing us for complaining?

The site always does regular maintenance around this time of night.

 

Besides, if TJ punished us every time we complained about something then the site would never be up.

[ZzelaBusya]

Releases used to occur at 8-9 am my time depending on the time of the year, so I've almost never been present for the first drops with some exceptions. This one is going to happen at 9 PM my time, for me that is, in fact, supposed to be absolutely perfect, have to admit. However, I don't normally catch new releases, most of the time I trade for them, so I've always been neutral on that.

 

Interesting in any case, I'm curious to see how it goes. It's a shame, though, that there will be less time to get release-date dragons for those who are into it.

[Nakeisha]

I hate to be another dissenting voice, however this change/proposed change really is not a positive one at all. Indeed, of all the changes on DC this is by far the worst I have seen.

 

Speaking purely personally for a moment (as many others have done) being disabled, 6:00 p.m. (the UK is five hours ahead of cave time) is an impossible time for me. By that time of day, due to pain and tiredness, I have already gone off-line and settled down for the evening. Thus, all I will be able to do is to hope the new eggs will drop unadulterated by other eggs into Monday.

 

Speaking more generally, I cannot see this change is of benefit to anyone - well certainly not the majority. For any country five or more hours ahead of cave time it is the beginning of the evening, the time people are cooking or eating supper or just relaxing with family or getting ready for work or school the following day or doing last minute work they brought home/homework.

 

For a lot of Americans it is the beginning of the afternoon, it is lunch time and family time and getting ready to maybe go out for the afternoon or already be out for the afternoon.

 

A midnight cave time drop actually benefited a lot of people. For those Americans who wished to stay up to midnight and thus be amongst the first to catch eggs, they could. For those countries a few hours ahead of cave time it meant a less congested time when they came on-line and for those Americans who didn't want to stay up until midnight, it meant that by the time they did get up there were fewer people competing for the eggs.

 

Thus, I honestly cannot see that this change will really benefit anyone. I've seen a number of posts that talk about changing the new drop (if this change is permanent) to Saturdays - but for the most part the same argument applies. It is still early/mid/late evening for those ahead of cave time and still early afternoon for cave time. So the supper/lunch/family time/etc. arguments all still apply.

 

Please do not make this a permanent change, TJ.

 

Also, once again I hate to sound peevish, but when there are changes to established things could the announcement be made at least 24 hours before the event so that everyone will actually be able to see it before it happens, please? This was made at 3:00 a.m UK time, 4:00 a.m for Europe - not a time most people are around.

 

 

[RukatheBlackfish]

Hm, I'll be home, but I do like getting them after my late shift. Oh well I'm willing to give it a chance.

[roxasxaxel]

thats disappointing i stayed up late just for the release.

[Gladtobemom]

Well, this change is very impractical for me, I hope it doesn't become permanent. This is one of the things that worked quite well, I don't see the need for change.

 

I am less and less motivated by the game as it is... Maybe after a few months of this I will be fed up enough to stop. It's just disappointing that instead of adding interesting new features, this is what we get.

 

I 100% agree with Gladtobemom's pros and cons, you nailed it.

 

Edited for clarity

Thanks. I was terribly afraid that my initial (at about 11 pm) reaction was just a selfish reaction. Then, I started thinking like an engineer (which is what I am) and I couldn't find ANY legitimate advantage AT ALL to the players or the game.

 

So, I tried to list the Pros and Cons . . . And you see what happened.

 

I guess, I'm just feeling kind of tricked and I don't like that at all.

[Saruwatari]

I actually find it quite logic to do it after a maintenance.

At least you can be about sure that the server will be up and running during the drop if you just had maintenance (as it usually shows if there's problems on server or not, you see?) so doing it AFTER the maintenance, instead of before lets you 1. have a safe heart that the possibility of the server dying during the drop is LOW and 2. you won't have people complain about the fact that the cave is down during the drop as it has been down before the actual drop started...

is it just me who's happy that the maintenance happens first and then the drop or what? Oo