Event timer(s)

[inghelene]

Not my idea originally but posted with permission from the discord;

 

We do have so many awesome returning events; Wouldn't it be nice to have an ingame timer counting down for each event?

 

Again and again, the question for the regular starting time for Halloween/Holiday/Valentine breeding is asked. Additionally, many new players won't know what events the site runs before it suddenly hits them.

Having timers for any recurring event with set dates will not only be helpful for players all across the timezones, but also ctreate awareness for new players and give them something really cool to look forward to.

Maybe even multiple timers for stuff like x minus t until Trick-or-treat, x minus t until new Halloween breed. Or x minus t until Festival of eggs

ToT and FoE also count here, since new players might not visit the site the first day if they know they'll be egglocked, and miss out on the beginning.

 

(And then we might even have TJ sneak inn a mystery timer now and then if he want to do something fun with these timers as well.)

[Guillotine]

I'd definitely appreciate this, as someone with severe issues with timekeeping.

[Jazeki]

I'd love an event timer. I recently introduced someone to the game and it was hard trying to explain the holiday timeline to them. It would be much better to have a timer to refer to.

[GhostMouse]

Oh, this would be so useful. I've definitely gone digging through old News posts to remind myself when certain things start. This would be much easier.

[deleted_account]

support

[huskyhiccups]

Support! Having a timer to know when events end could be beneficial, too. I was surprised at how long after Halloween I could continue to find treats.

[inghelene]

Oh, absolutely!

Stayed up till way too late to finish the treats only to realise I had at least another day. 😂

[KageSora]

I can't think of any reason not to support this, sounds useful.

 

Sure, sometimes an event might need to be delayed due to special circumstances (there was that one year with the hurricane that delayed Halloween a few days, for example) but I feel like that should be easy enough to explain--if not with prior warning (as, understandably, something could happen without warning) then after the fact and the timer could be updated to reflect the altered schedule as-needed.

 

In the meantime, it might be helpful to have a sort of "masterpost" in the help section that's pinned and explains the usual start times for various events and how they work, there's multiple of these in the TLQ thread that could be used as a template (I would know, I've written several of them myself!).  This could come with a disclaimer that, of course, it's just based on historical data and things are subject to change year to year, but it might be a useful stop-gap measure (or at least, if an event timer isn't to be, something helpful on the forums at least)