Friday Evenings

EDIT: The meeting time has been declared to be Friday evenings, starting at 7:00 PM EST. Feel free to drop by then, or sometime in the few hours after that. A second meeting time will likely be declared for people for whom U.S. time (or Friday nights) are inconvenient.
The original text of this message follows for historical purposes.

Dear all,

Having sat in the lobby for several hours each day over the past two weeks, playing with and talking to everyone who comes by, I've found that with the current level of multiplayer activity, most visitors to the lobby never meet each other. The usual activity level seems to be about one, maybe two people per hour in the afternoon, picking up slightly in the evening (U.S. Time). Occasionally there are three people at a time, counting myself, and I have twice seen six people at once, but mostly it's just one person at a time, separated by fifteen minutes to an hour.

So, I was wondering if it would be feasible to arrange for some time, possibly just once or twice a week, when people would try to go to the tracker, so as to have a time when there is a large pool of people to play with, rather than just me and possibly one other person. I think that having such a time would greatly increase the number of multiplayer SketchFighter games, and it would probably increase the number of people with entries on the high score list. In addition, it would be really nice if, when some new player asks how often people are in the lobby, they could be answered with "there's a major meeting every Friday evening" (or whenever), rather than "there are usually one or two people per hour".

So, what does everyone think of this? If you think it's a good idea, please post with the times you would be available. I myself am free every evening except Monday, from about 7:00 to 12:00 PM EST. I'm also on several afternoons each week.

For consistency, it would be nice if you converted the times you are available to a consistent time zone. As most players seem to be from the U.S., using the Eastern time zone will probably be fairly convenient. You may find a Time Zone Convertor useful (the U.S. Time zones are at the bottom of the time zone list on that site).

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 10 February 2007 - 01:35 AM

A good idea, one gamer's evening per week would be a good thing, maybe friday and/or saturday, because many people can sleep late the next day. I'd be mainly available on 3-8 PM CET, around 9 AM up to 2 PM EST.

I'm mainly available from 7:30 AM-8:30 AM, 2:00 PM-3:00 PM, 6:00 PM-7:00 PM EST. But, not always.

I too think this would be a good idea. I'm available weekends, and sometimes after 5 on weekdays. I think that weekends would probably be best for most people, though maybe having two dates set wouldn't be a bad thing: One for people who can make weekends and one for people who can't.

I agree, once I was waiting so long I opened a browser, and then after an hour casually glanced at the window, 6 seconds ago someone messaged me asking to play, I then left with frustration, I opened the browser again, an hour later I check again, 7 seconds ago he messaged me again!

I detect great enthusiasm, but little action. Therefore, I hereby semi-randomly declare the first official meeting time to be this coming Friday, February the 9th, at 7:00PM EST. Mark it on your calendars, and should you meet anyone on the tracker, tell them about it. If you can't arrive at 7:00 EST, please drop by sometime later. I myself may not be able to play until a couple hours later, but I will try to be present on the tracker, and might be able to get away with a few games.

Edwards

Perfect. I'm nearly always available at that time, just not on weekends.

That'd be 1AM CET. Not that good for central-European players like ZP or I.

Yeah, I see you Europeans like at about 10:00 EST. What about a deferent time for Europeans and for Americans like me?

This post has been edited by FireFalcon : 08 February 2007 - 11:18 AM

We'll have our own time for Europeans players (which US players can join if they are finished with work :p) Freq, I promise you... just wait two weeks for me to be actually able to play online from a connection that does NOT do packet shaping and load balancing that limit your upload speed to 5kb a second (and 5kb is at the good hours, most of the time I get 1kb a second)...

I go out on Friday nights.

Sometimes I do get stuck in, so we'll see.

Cheers for a straight-forward, well organized solution.

Um, so has this actually been happening? I think it's about the correct time right now but I'm not seeing anyone online.

@guy, on Feb 16 2007, 04:42 PM, said in Official Online Game Time:

Um, so has this actually been happening? I think it's about the correct time right now but I'm not seeing anyone online.

Yes, that was the correct time (45 minutes after the official start). I was hoping for a better turnout this time than last week (there were about 6-8 people over the course of a few hours, all of whom actually ran into someone they could play with), but it appears to have been a worse turnout. Time for a major advertising campaign.

Edwards

Like PMing everyone or putting it in the main page of SketchFighter?
-FF

Or, perhaps putting up a 'bot on #sketchfighter that would give game times?

Just a thought...

@jacabyte, on Feb 17 2007, 11:22 PM, said in Official Online Game Time:

Or, perhaps putting up a 'bot on #sketchfighter that would give game times?

Just a thought...

Nah, there's only a small number of people in there and I think that they all know about this.

Hmmmm...