Topic

Game Time vs. Real Time

OK, this is a bit of a nerdy question, but here it is.

I was trying to determine my Glitchen's birthday (Glitchday? B'Urthday? Imagining Day?) so I looked at when I received my 100 credits and used http://startlingfecundity.com/calendar to figure out the date and time. Then I noticed some things. On my account the time was listed as Pacific Standard Time, but I'm in Central, so I added 2 hours to get my actual time since the Startling Fecundity Calendar displays things in local time for me, or so it appears.

But then I started thinking about when days reset for me (midnight, 4 am, 8 am, noon, 4pm, 8 pm) and it makes perfect sense for me, but that made me wonder if days reset at those times for everyone (making Glitch time relative and shift with time zones) or whether they reset at different times depending on time zone (making Glitch time absolute for everyone).

Anyone know?

Posted 92 days ago by WallCrawlingHero Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Glitch is not relative to time zone. It is a new day every four hours regardless of real world time things (including daylight savings and whatnot)
    Posted 92 days ago by Avery♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Glitch time is absolute.  At the moment when your glitch is seeing midnight glitch time, all other glitchen also see midnight (although it can take a few minutes for New Day to actually happen).  Where and when I am (Eastern Daylight Time), New Day happens at 1, 5, and 9.
    Posted 92 days ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • OK, good. That's what I assumed and it makes the most sense, it just seems to be centered around the Central time zone (because new days start at midnight here) which I thought was odd since Tiny Speck offices are based in the Pacific Time Zone (I think).

    Also that means my calculations were correct and I can stop revising them.
    Posted 92 days ago by WallCrawlingHero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also, glitch time does not observe daylight saving time, so your new day will no longer be at midnight after RL time shifts to "winter time".
    Posted 92 days ago by Vic Fontaine Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oooooooooh interesting. I've only been playing for about a month so thanks for the heads-up. I would have been totally confused when it happened. It makes sense though. The Giants are smart enough to know how silly Daylight Savings Time is.
    Posted 92 days ago by WallCrawlingHero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "The Giants are smart enough to know how silly Daylight Savings Time is."

    The Giants are smart enough to know that RL countries do not follow US time rules and start and finish their daylight saving time on different days to americans. Some do not  even have daylight saving changes and that still others have things like double summer time
    Posted 92 days ago by IrenicRhonda Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yep, the Giants are definitely smart enough to know how silly Daylight Savings Time is. ;)
    Posted 92 days ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Drat....I liked my 12, 4, 8, and midnight days.  It just makes it ever so easy..lol.. xD  Damn you Benjamin Franklin! *shakes fist* Why did you ever propose the notion?  Stay up an extra hour one day, and wake up late for work the other, haha.  :F He definitely doesn't sound like a night owl, lol.. ^^;
    Posted 92 days ago by Mr. iOuS kEiPhErs Subscriber! | Permalink
  • how do you look up when you received the 100 credits? a badge? what's the name?
    what about those who were here in Beta? then we all have our birthday on sept 20th, 2011, I guess, no?
    Posted 92 days ago by Posh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Posh, look here at the bottom of the page:
    http://www.glitch.com/account/credits/
    "A special gift for new players"
    Posted 92 days ago by Lazy Cubimal Subscriber! | Permalink
  •  ˈleɪzi, thank you! that worked. just like I thought - May 26th, 2011 :)
    Posted 92 days ago by Posh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I found this Birthday Calculator in another thread when I was looking for the answer to my original question. I'm not sure how it determines your Glitch Birthday, but it said I was two Glitch-days older than what I calculated using my "Special gift for new players" date and time. I'm sticking with the date I calculated, though. I trust where the date/time comes from, plus it gives me a birthday time to the minute instead of just a date.
    Posted 92 days ago by WallCrawlingHero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The main reason behind determining my birthday was that I stumbled across Lord Bacon-o's story "When Alph Imagined Time" and I wanted to figure out which Giant I was born under. Plus I found another thread with a Glitch Astrology chart that I thought was really neat and creative. All of this was just in the interest of creating a bit more of an identity for my character. If you'd like to do the same here are some links.

    If you haven't read it, I highly suggest Lord Bacon-o's "When Alph Imagined Time." It's really well written and feels like a great piece of Glitch mythology. You can find his list of what dates are associated with which Giants on page 4 of the comments.

    For the list of astrological signs imagined up by Miss Portinari go here. I really like the amount of thought that went into these.

    Just remember, none of this is Glitch canon, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun.

    I'm a Squid born under Zille if you're curious.
    Posted 92 days ago by WallCrawlingHero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • On a sidenote, the very easy way to figure out your 'bUrthday' is with this tool right here: http://deletethis.net/dave/dev/glitch-helperator/birthday.html
    Posted 92 days ago by San Serif Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I mentioned that in a previous reply. It is very handy, but I like knowing where all my dates and conversions came from (time zones and all that). Plus I figured mine out to the minute because I like specificity.

    I would be curious to know where it pulls the date from, though, because it had me 2 Glitch days older (between 5-11ish hours) than what I figured, but from what I remembered about my first login the time I calculated made sense to me.

    I guess it comes down to how exact you want to be.
    Posted 92 days ago by WallCrawlingHero Subscriber! | Permalink