Just a suggestion and an observation:

Wouldn't it be better to have rolling starts by time zone, than setting one time, and working the time zones back from that? Everyone starts at 12:00pm (midday) on the 30th local, no matter where in the world you are.

1. Having a rolling start would alleviate the anticipated 25,000,000 players logging on at the same time, and risking a failed launch. (crashing etc) - I know there overflow server, but...risk is risk. Only trying to sincerely help.

2. Also, being in NZ, makes my 5 day early access to be 00:01am on 31 March, with the live launch at 12:00pm on the 04 April, which effectively only gives me 4.5 days of early access.

3. No player (or country) is more positively or negatively impacted. Keeps things nice and fair and inline with advertising.

I guess the problem is they have no control over gradual logons due to only being one mega server....

So, in which case, I think its only fair that, if they've advertised 5 days early access, then 5 days minimum should be granted. (to avoid false advertising claims)....if this means some get 5.5 days due to time zones....then so be it, they get a benefit....The important thing is that no-one receives less than promised and the minimum & real early access time is 5 days as advertised.

This means that the 5 days and 3 days early access should be brought forward 12 hours.....based on the live launch times. (and instantly take 12 hours off everyone's countdown clock...hahaha)

As this is only an observations (professional standards) and not a complaint....I am sure its not going to be an issue 5 minutes after launch.

I hope the anticipated player number in item 1 above, isn't overly ambitious

Very much looking forward to launch.

For 5 day early access:

North America (East): 7:00 AM EDT, Sunday March 30th--
UK/IE: 12:00 PM WEST, Sunday March 30th--
Central Europe: 1:00 PM CEST, Sunday March 30th--
Sydney, Australia: 10:00 PM AEDT, Sunday March 30th--
Singapore: 7:00 PM SGT, Sunday March 30th --

For 3 day early access:

North America (East): 7:00 AM EDT, Tuesday April 1st--
UK/IE: 12:00 PM WEST, Tuesday April 1st--
Central Europe: 1:00 PM CEST, Tuesday April 1st--
Sydney, Australia: 10:00 PM AEDT, Tuesday April 1st--
Singapore: 7:00 PM SGT, Tuesday April 1st--

...and for launch:

North America (East): 7:00 PM EDT, Thursday, April 3rd--
UK/IE: 12:00 AM WEST, Thursday, April 4th--
Central Europe: 1:00 AM CEST, Thursday, April 4th--
Sydney, Australia: 10:00 AM AEDT, Thursday, April 4th--
Singapore: 7:00 AM SGT, Thursday, April 4th

I think it's fine the way it is. Everyone has access the same time. I wouldn't even think about some getting 5.5 days or otherwise.

There wasnt any problems at all with logging on during the betas (without the new "overflow" server) so I really dont see why there would be a problem with live. At least that part of the game seem to be very stable.

Not really people would complain then. you do get 5 days early access even if it opens on :01 march 31st meaning it will officially open for you on april 5th.

No matter how they do it servers are going to take a pounding and crash.

I think 25 million is a bit overstated. There will probably be half what were in beta which was a few million to begin with. And too, the early access itself is a bit of a rolling start. Some will start 5 days early, and others will start 3 days early, depending on which package they purchased.

Launch period is always going to svck. Always.

It's the period where 10%-20% of players who never played a MMO will quit (sometimes temporarily) due to frustration.

No...midnight for 5days EA - 4.5 days later at midday LIVE.

That's true....somewhat of a rolling start anyway with the 5-3-0 EA's.

If it was a high number they would be boasting, like anet did with GW2 " 2 million sales"

You also have to consider if they had rolling start times, some people would have several hours of play time already banked as others are only just being allowed in.

This would be offset by the server closedowns in 20 years . Progressive shutdowns by time zones....first in, first out ...

There are some effects to you idea that would be frustrating to some. Mainly the chance to get the name they want. Granted you can't please everyone no matter what you do but one start time for everyone seems fairest. Not safest or smartest for some of the reasons you stated. But fairest yes.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Zenimax doesn't care how much time Oceanic players get in their early access, if they are greedy enough to charge us Euro instead of USD unlike EVERY OTHER MMO on the market.

lol I like you.

Good point - Name grabs

IMO not really necessary. It may end up being at odd times of the day, but one set start time for each phase of the launch just seems a cleaner and simpler way of handling things.

There are rolling starts. There's five day early access, three day early access, and launch.

And within five day early access, they made the decision to start at 7 am Eastern on a Sunday... which is even earlier in most of the US, 4 am PDT for me in California. I doubt very much that every player is gonna be awake to log in on the button I will be staying up Saturday night for it, but 4 am is a pretty normal bedtime for me.

And they may repeat what they did with the betas: quietly start the servers several hours ahead, letting people that notice log in early. After they started doing that, the beta servers stopped hanging or crashing at beta start time So my guess is they're happy with the strategy and will keep using it. I'll certainly be checking for that next saturday night

This. Plus I can only imagine the firestorm of QQ that would arise when some are forced to wait, because no one is going to volunteer for it.

All of the above, plus they'd have to have an individual server for every timezone. They have 2 megaservers, so you can already divide the anticipated login load by two, then there's the overflow server, then there's phasing.

I am not sure where you are getting this from. If the servers go up at 07:00 Eastern on the 30th of March that will be the time at the location of the server, if you are in NZ they should be available at whatever local time will correspond to that, will not matter if its still the 29th of March for you the servers will still be up. It will also still be 5 days from when the servers open for early access to the official launch.

I'm not sure where you get 25 million from, but I doubt that many have bought the game. I'd have also thought that the early access creates its own rolling start.

I already have to be awake at 4 freaking AM to play this thing when it goes live, and the there are people complaining?

I like my sleep, man.

If the sales numbers are fantastic, game publishers release the information. If the numbers are not too fantastic, they focus on other metrics to publicize.

They release the statistics regardless with their quarterly financial statement.

Only if they want to or have to. If they had to release all such information, we'd know how much the project cost to develop.