Patch 5.1 alters US and Oceanic realm event times
Blizzard Senior Community Manager Zarhym has posted on the US forums, informing players that, with the arrival of patch 5.1, substantial changes have been made to realm reset times throughout the US realm region, including oceanic servers. The reason behind this is the impact of cross-realm zones, or CRZ, on times events such as the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. Previously, players were able to manipulate the new feature to "realm-hop" to hand in the quests the moment the tournaments began, so Blizzard shut them down while the devs worked on a solution.
The solution they've reached for patch 5.1 is to normalize event times across the US, and set up a different group of normalized times for the Oceanic region. The EU's servers have worked like this for many years, and it seems a viable answer to the problem, although some adjustment will be necessary for those who are inconvenienced by the changes.
Due to the huge time difference, as noted, Oceanic servers have different reset times, but they continue to share raid and dungeon lockouts with US servers as Blizzard's team wish to maintain the large player pool for their matchmaking systems to draw from.
Hit the break for Zarhym's full post and to see when your new reset times are.
North American Daily Event Times
In Patch 5.1 we've moved most time-based events on North American realms to standardized, region-wide times. Below are the updated event times for all North American realms, regardless of your realm's local time (excluding Oceanic realms).
Times displayed in North American Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8 hours)
Sunrise
5:30 a.m. PST*
Sunset
6:30 p.m. PST*
Daily quests reset
3:00 a.m. PST
Profession cooldowns and farm reset
3:00 a.m. PST
Dungeon & raid lockouts reset
Unchanged (times still shared between NA and Oceanic realms)
Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza begins
2 p.m. PST every Sunday
Battleground holidays
12:00 a.m. every Friday - 12:00 a.m. every Tuesday PST
Darkmoon Faire begins
12:00 a.m. PST first Sunday of every month
Oceanic Daily Event Times
Note that, due to the extreme time zone difference, Oceanic realms have a separate standardized time, and Oceanic realms aren't coalesced with non-Oceanic realms for cross-realm zones. Oceanic realms are, however, still a part of the North American matchmaking pool for Scenarios, Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder, Battlegrounds, and Arenas, in order to ensure that the matchmaking system is able to draw from a healthy population of players at any given hour. Because of this, raid/dungeon lockouts will continue to reset at the same time for North American and Oceanic realms (i.e. reset times will still vary depending on your local time).
Times displayed as Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT +10 hours)
Sunrise
5:30 a.m. EST*
Sunset
6:30 p.m. EST*
Daily quests reset
3:00 a.m. EST
Profession cooldowns and farm reset
3:00 a.m. EST
Dungeon & raid lockouts reset
Unchanged (times still shared between NA and Oceanic realms)
Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza begins
2 p.m. EST
Battleground holidays
12:00 a.m. every Friday - 12:00 a.m. every Tuesday EST
Darkmoon Faire begins
12:00 a.m. EST first Sunday of every month
*Day/night changeovers are not currently set to the times listed above and will be updated in a hotfix as soon as possible.
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