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Rotating Update
On similar lines to previously aired thoughts, I intend to end the practice of having update begin at 12 o’clock America/New_York (or 9 o’clock America/Los_Angeles) time every day. This is about changing things so that, in the long run, update is equally likely to happen at any hour of the day. (This is not about changing the update order within an update.)
My current preferred plan is for updates to be scheduled a week (or rather 14 updates) in advance. The hour at which an update is to begin will be determined by (virtually) rolling 8 two-sided dice1, and starting the update that many hours after the start of the previous update.
Sum of 8d2 Probability 8 0.39% 9 3.13% 10 10.94% 11 21.88% 12 27.34% 13 21.88% 14 10.94% 15 3.13% 16 0.39%
Illustration of likelihood of hours between updates
There will be a new page which shows the update schedule for the coming week. This page will unlist an update time as said update starts and schedule the next (14 updates into the future).
Update 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Hours 12 14 12 12 10 10 9 13 12 10 10 13 11 - Start Day 1/1 1/1 1/2 1/2 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/4 1/4 1/5 1/5 1/6 1/6 1/7 Start Hour 0:00 12:00 2:00 14:00 2:00 12:00 22:00 7:00 20:00 8:00 18:00 4:00 17:00 4:00
Example schedule
As you can see, this will result in the start of update “drifting” over time.
The likely change in hour for the start of update over 14 updates
As a result, when update is to begin will be known several days in advance but will tend to change and not stick to a particular time of day.
The primary goal of this change would be to allow players with any schedule, in any timezone, to have an opportunity to participate in update gameplay.
1 Flipping 8 coins and adding up 2 for every heads and 1 for every tails
Please discuss the pros and cons of this form of Rotating Update, of having 13 hours between updates, or a similar plan. If you have questions about the feature as described, please feel free to ask. Please keep in mind, however, that I do not guarantee I will read every post in this topic with full care and consideration: that is the purpose of the request for comments topic.