Board Game Arena

I don't understand how timezone is supposed to work for fast turn-based games since it is not working as I expect. [I have searched the forums but it's useful because the search function ignores the word "time", very annoying.]

Example: I have defined the playing hours as 10:00-22:00. My local timezone is GMT-7. There is a player named "*" who is in South Africa, which is GMT+2.

Today at 08:00 local / 15:00 GMT, it was lorem's turn to play. I expected this to be in his local playing hours, since his local time is 17:00. However, the moon icon was shown and their clock was not moving.

Why is that?


*moderator edit: please do not specifically name players, the forum is a place for general discussion.

It's the same absolute playing hours for everyone at the table. So people should only join tables that suit their active hours. Otherwise it wouldn't result in a fast game, if everyone has their own hours

Playing hours are defined/displayed in local time for your convenience, but are "simultaneous" for everyone. If you set it as 10-22 in GMT-7, that's 17-05 in GMT, and 19-07 in GMT+2 (unless I made some mistake), and what the other player should have seen when joining.

I guess the reason for this is that it's the only way to "guarantee" fast turns, otherwise you may take a fast turn, but then you have to wait for the other player(s) to enter their playing hours, at which time you may be out of yours, and it becomes not much better than 1 turn per day.

Jellby thanks for your reply. Your explanation should be on the FAQ -- i have never been able to find a clear explanation of the time zones, even in other forum threads about the topic.

I would also strongly suggest for BGA to display the actual time zone after the playing time. For the OP that would have been "10:00 - 22:00 (GMT -7)".

Not only would that save anyone from looking at the host's location to figure out what hours of the day are meant but also answer the OP's question without a need to look at the FAQ.

odie73 wrote: ↑21 July 2022, 19:58 I would also strongly suggest for BGA to display the actual time zone after the playing time.

The playing hours are always displayed in the browser's time zone. As such, there is never a need to know what the host's time zone is.