Game time issues

[Da_ALC]

I have noticed the following:
When a building is going though an upgrade cycle, and there is a timer showing how long there is left before the building is done upgrading;
If I have left the game running in my browser for a long period of time during the upgrade, the timer ticks down, but when I refresh the page, it goes up a few minutes.
It appears as if the server is updating my browser information on each refresh (firefox 3.0.3), and my browser is counting down faster than the server is in the period between the refreshes.
This does not cause any issues in the game whatsoever, it is just an anomaly.

At a rough guess I would say that my browser is reporting time 5 minutes faster per hour than what the server is.

[sakasiru]

Yes, I saw that too, but it´s not only when you update.
Every time I upgrade a building, I look at the timer, look at the clock and calculate when it should be done.

Unless I´m a total dork at maths (which I probably am, but I CAN read the clock), this estimated time is never met. Right now my wheatfield upgrade says it will need another 1h 40 minutes, while I calculated it should be done in about an hour :eek: Sadly, the game log does not state when a upgrade begins, but I began right after another shop was finished at 10:30 game time and the wheatfield description said it would need 5 hours...

[midga]

I've noticed this as well. I only recently started playing, so I haven't seen any exceptionally long times, but I'll start keeping an eye on when things are supposed to finish, and when they actually do.

[Jimhotep]

I was just coming here to report this myself. Maybe it's a problem that's just been introduced...

P.S. I'm using Opera for NO.

[Therlun]

I dont think this is a bug or a browser issue.

Its probably a normal disparity of game time and real time.
I would assume that the server who calculates all the stuff takes for instance 63 seconds to calculate all the game variables for one minute of game time.

So while in the real world one hour passes the game time only progresses by 57 minutes.

(just made those numbers up to illustrate).

[Beamup]

My warehouse upgrade has actually been reporting it'll be done at 12:46 for almost an hour. A good sign!

[Jimaaten]

I dont think this is a bug or a browser issue.

Its probably a normal disparity of game time and real time. I don't agree with this. :) There is something strange going on in at least my game. :confused:

I was upgrading a building and it said it had 25m left to go. I clicked on another structure to see what it needed to upgrade and when I returned to the city (about 10 seconds later), the building now said it needed 33m to upgrade. No matter how slowly time passes it doesn't start going backwards. ;)

[Therlun]

That was simply the time stamp updating.

If you left your browser running for a while it counted down the time of the building project on your computer.
When you changed something the game updated and synchronized with the server.
Since as of my assumption the server lags behind real time a bit you "lost" a few minutes.

[Beamup]

I dont think this is a bug or a browser issue.

Its probably a normal disparity of game time and real time.
I would assume that the server who calculates all the stuff takes for instance 63 seconds to calculate all the game variables for one minute of game time.

So while in the real world one hour passes the game time only progresses by 57 minutes.

(just made those numbers up to illustrate).
So the pace things actually go at is a function of server load, despite being presented as purely time-based, and that's *NOT* a bug?

Your theory as to the mechanism might be right, but it's unquestionably a bug. If an upgrade is listed at 3:10 to complete and it's started at 12:30, it should complete at 3:40 - NOT after 5:00. (Real numbers.)

[Anekdoten]

Hmm, this has been happening to me too, my palace completion just jumped from 1m left back up to 11m - I'm sure the total time elapsed is much more than the 3h 40m advertised.

[Ankit]

I have run into this same problem: Started to build the Pottery, went away, came back and saw that the time to completion was 1 minute. I clicked on the palace and then the city name and now the time to complete was 4 minutes for the Pottery. Definitely a disconnect somewhere...

[Rama-Seph]

I have seen this effect also, and concluded it was due to server load and delay in updating the browser. However, I have seen some LARGE jumps in time, indicating a slowdown of far more than the 5% used in the example above (63 minutes instead of 60). Some of my upgrades have been delayed by 20-30%, suggesting some troubling server slowdown at times.

Ah well, this is what betas are for, is it not?

[Fashah]

I have seen this happen as well, the time goes up a few minutes when I refresh...it's quite annoying.

[dreadmime]

There's definately "something" going on, but I assume it's a calculation issue.

As an example, i'm currently upgrading my Basket shop.

I started at 9:00:00 AM.

The upgrade claims to take 45 minutes. I figured "this would be great to test." as I was just reading this thread, having noticed it last night on an upgrade but not really thinking about it.

I started a Digital Stopwatch.

it's now 9:54AM

It still says i've got 2 more minutes.

54 Minutes have passed on a 45 minute timer and i've got 2 more minutes before it's finished, meaning it's more like a 1-hour upgrade. Adding in 15 minutes to a timer means there's something /seriously/ wrong.

And everytime (and literally, so now i'm just making it worse. lol.) it hits 1 minute, if i click on something and click back, it goes back 2 minutes.

what i'm thinking, honestly, is that it's a coding issue that it resets rounding down to the nearest minute everytime you do something.

I.e.:

Set Timer 45 minutes
Start countdown
If clicked, revert to last known minute.

Therefore if you've got 2 minutes and 28 seconds left, and click on something, it goes back to 3 minutes.

[Jimaaten]

Last night, I started an upgrade at around 5:40. The upgrade said it would take 2h 45m which meant that at 8:30 it should theoretically be done. I left the computer alone and returned at 8:30. The time at this point said 37m until upgrade would be complete. That's not just a few minutes added, but an approximate 20% increase in time. :(

[dreadmime]

Palace Upgrade Level 3 started at 10:48AM. 2.5 Hour timer.

It'll be ready by 1pm, right? lol.

We'll see.