Official|| -- Early Access Ending 5 Hours Sooner than previously Anticipated:

[Neofate]

Early Access will be ending 5 Hours sooner than previously announced on December the 19th, 2011.

It was previously scheduled to end at 11:01pm Central Standard Time, the 19th of December.

However, it has since changed, to end at 6:00pm Central, the 19th of December, due to scheduled maintenance to prepare for the "official" launch at Midnight the 20th of December.

Officially stated as:

Maintenance Window #2:

Date: Evening of December 19th (CST)

Time: 6PM CST (4PM PST/7PM EST/12AM GMT/1AM CET)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to complete before 11PM CST, and will mark the end of Early Game Access for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

To note: I do believe Bioware plans to officially launch at Midnight EASTERN time, not Central. Which is why this is to be completed before 11pm CST.

So expect, for now, the servers to be up for official 'launch' at 9pm PST, 10pm MST, 11pm CST, and 12AM EST.

Thought this would be good information to spread around.

Hope that helps, (And as always this is subject to change).

Neo

[Deleted]

oooh ooooh.. Europeans going to midnight launch and coming home not being able to play ain't gonna be happy o.O

[gibbie99]

oooh ooooh.. Europeans going to midnight launch and coming home not being able to play ain't gonna be happy o.O

Blizz did the same thing with their launches, which were actually midnight PST. So you can get it from the store then have to wait until 4am to play it on the east coast.

[Deleted]

Why can't this stupid world use the same clock everywhere, GMT, CST , fine whatever, just don't make up all of them different.

[Neofate]

oooh ooooh.. Europeans going to midnight launch and coming home not being able to play ain't gonna be happy o.O

Well the launch happens the same time everywhere. So for example, In London, launch will be:

12:01:00 a.m. Tuesday December 20, 2011 in US/Eastern converts to
05:01:00 a.m. Tuesday December 20, 2011 in Europe/London

So 5am, not exactly "Primetime" Anyway you look at it... for the U.S., Or Europe.

[Fannyd]

Why can't this stupid world use the same clock everywhere, GMT, CST , fine whatever, just don't make up all of them different.

Sorry, but I couldn't help smile at this..... You do realise that the earth is round, yes?

[Neofate]

Why can't this stupid world use the same clock everywhere, GMT, CST , fine whatever, just don't make up all of them different.

If it wasn't necessary, we wouldn't have them

But..

In order for each place in the world to have the sun directly overhead at the noon hour and to standardize the times that people get up, eat and go about their lives, the world is divided into multiple time zones. Each zone is an hour different from its neighboring time zones, with a total of 24 time zones corresponding to the 24 hours in a day.

Think about it.

From a theoretical physicist point of view:

http://curiosity.discovery.com/quest...e-zones-needed

Maybe that will help.

Further, use this website to convert ANY time zone to your own here:

http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Time zones really aren't that difficult to master,.. as they go IN order.. and there are, well, 24 of them. 4 in the U.S. Alone.

[Arrowstormen]

Why can't this stupid world use the same clock everywhere, GMT, CST , fine whatever, just don't make up all of them different.

It could, but then Chinese people would be sleeping 4pm.

[Exodus1811]

Why can't this stupid world use the same clock everywhere, GMT, CST , fine whatever, just don't make up all of them different.

Brilliant deduction my dear watson.

[Deleted]

...I meant use GMT for everyone, USA would be -6~-9 and china would be +7 or smt.

NOT 15.00 everywhere.

[Neofate]

Blizz did the same thing with their launches, which were actually midnight PST. So you can get it from the store then have to wait until 4am to play it on the east coast.

Interesting,.. I think Bioware is being 'nicer', if you will, by placing the midnight launch at the earliest the United States positions itself globally to be "Midnight". As those on the West coast will actually still be in the '19th, and somewhat 'early' in the evening.

This also keeps the initially launch server load lower than if launch was at, say, 5-8pm.

[Mister K]

Sorry, but I couldn't help smile at this..... You do realise that the earth is round, yes?

Damn it make the earth flat please!

Dear God/Santa/Jeezus etc....

[Fannyd]

...I meant use GMT for everyone, USA would be -6~-9 and china would be +7 or smt.

NOT 15.00 everywhere.

Well that's exactly how it works, except that "+6" is called PMS/PMSL or something like that

[Deleted]

...I meant use GMT for everyone, USA would be -6~-9 and china would be +7 or smt.

NOT 15.00 everywhere.

That's why timezones are usually written as "X (GMT +/- Y)" where X is the time zone and Y is a number.

[Neofate]

...I meant use GMT for everyone, USA would be -6~-9 and china would be +7 or smt.

NOT 15.00 everywhere.

It IS used that way.

It is known as UTC, which is Universal. UTC = Greenwich (GMT).

IE: Central, is, as you know, -- UTC - 6, .. Pacific UTC -8 and so on.

However it isn't pragmatic for people to determine their daily routines on a GMT (minus X + the minute and second position the earth is in rotation at that particular moment in space/time)

---------- Post added 2011-12-16 at 06:20 AM ----------

Damn it make the earth flat please!

Dear God/Santa/Jeezus etc....

ROFL! Your wish is done! This is now the earth:

[terrahero]

It could, but then Chinese people would be sleeping 4pm.

well it would help if we could just use a standerdized unit. GMT? CST? All fun and games to name stuff, but just go ahead and call it GMT+6 or GMT-7. Then everyone who has had basic math in grade school will know the time diffirence. Honestly, i dont know EST, or GMT, or CTR or whatnot.

Just stick to GMT +/-X. Then we have a standard unit of measure.

[Fannyd]

well it would help if we could just use a standerdized unit. GMT? CST? All fun and games to name stuff, but just go ahead and call it GMT+6 or GMT-7. Then everyone who has had basic math in grade school will know the time diffirence. Honestly, i dont know EST, or GMT, or CTR or whatnot.

Just stick to GMT +/-X. Then we have a standard unit of measure.

This isn't Terrahero from Boulderfist-EU, all those years ago is it?
Friend of Elfiest...?

[Neofate]

well it would help if we could just use a standerdized unit. GMT? CST? All fun and games to name stuff, but just go ahead and call it GMT+6 or GMT-7. Then everyone who has had basic math in grade school will know the time diffirence. Honestly, i dont know EST, or GMT, or CTR or whatnot.

Just stick to GMT +/-X. Then we have a standard unit of measure.

Ok, this work for you?

Official Launch of Servers will occur December 20th at GMT -5.

On a related subject, Servers on the 19th will be coming down earlier than previously announced, they will be coming down in preparation for the Official Launch at GMT -11.

Simple math!

[Sellest]

Early Access won't be shorter because we will get 2 extra days of grace period to enter keys of retail version.

[Cheezee]

I guess I'll get to take a nap Monday evening.