Character Release and Season Start Calendar Changes

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

In an effort to better streamline our live service operations of MPQ with our IP2 team, who are on Melbourne, Australia time, there will be some changes to the schedule beginning with the upcoming Season.

  1. Seasons and Character releases are being brought forward 1 day
  2. i.e. From Thursday US to Wednesday US
  3. There will be no changes to the length of the Season
  4. Seasons and Character releases will occur at 00:00UTC (roughly 7 hours later than they have up to now), other event times will remain unchanged
  5. Events that form part of the regular event cadence other than the regular weekly/bi-weekly rotating events (e.g. DDQs, Lightning Rounds etc) will also be brought forward 1 day so they continue to fit neatly with the Season timing

Therefore, the upcoming Season and the next 5-Star Character will release:

  • Thursday 5th February 00:00UTC

The first event for the next 5-Star character will start:

  • Wednesday 4th February 12:00UTC

These changes allow the IP2 team more time during their working week to resolve issues and monitor the releases, but moving forward, we otherwise intend to keep your events routine as consistent as possible.

Thank you for bearing with these changes everyone!

2

I’m probably misreading this, but from

Therefore, the upcoming Season and the next 5-Star Character will release:

Thursday 5th February 00:00UTC

The first event for the next 5-Star character will start:

Wednesday 4th February 12:00UTC

It looks like the event for the new 5* will start before that character is released…

3

So it’s just the start time of season that changes, but not the start time of sim or the individual slices, and not the end time (ending with S5).

So basically a change in name only? As there won’t be any events running until Sim and S1 starts.

Mostly just a quest thing?

Thank you for your reply on this

4

That is the release event that will have the new character in placement. If I read it correctly.

5

You can’t earn a new character anyway until the end of the first PvE. So it’s fine. We’ll get retros or whatever the night (my time) of the first sub of the PvE that releases them as shards you can earn.

6

So is IP2 going to tell us what’s up with the “season quests”? There is 37d left for the missions to be done, but only 2d left in the “season”

So what I mean:
Under the “Season Rewards” on the home screen says “2d Xhrs” left
Under “Quests” there are missions that have 37d left
The under “Recruit Heros/Vaults” it shows :“5d XXhr” left

7

I’m sure the quests would run for 37 days but the pass ends as you say in 2 days. So get going!

Playing while new devs learn the ropes keeps things interesting, anyway.

8

So Thursday 5 12 UTC is Wednesday 4 7pm EST.

So according to Google this means the character will release Wednesday at 7pm EST.

And the event will launch Tuesday at 5am EST

9

The Hunt is now up for pre-join. Starts Sunday morning in EST at 7 am. Normal.

Runs until Thursday 7 am for slice 1, so it’s the 4 day version. If the plan is to start the release pve for the new 5 on Wednesday, these PVEs will overlap.

I guess they can remove it and replace it when they come in like 9 hours later or I guess we just get to play overlapping pves for a day which everyone loves.

10

So is this the right place to talk about Cosmic Ghost Rider and his stranglehold on the 6 star shards?

11

Love it. Keep going for like 11 more months and I’ll have 13 covers.

Option B is rotation and it takes 3x that.

12

Another wrinkle in the future, does their area in Australia observe daylight savings? Wikipedia says some areas do and some don’t :man_shrugging:

13

Hunt is still there. Wish it had started tomorrow like it usually would

14

Yes Victoria does have daylight savings, but daylight saving dates are start of April and start of November in Australia.

15

One reason we’ve decided to base timing off of UTC (and communicate in UTC) is so it’s always consistent and no one has to work out whether or not it’s daylight savings time in Australia. :wink:

So the Season will start 11am during Daylight Savings here in Melbourne, but 10am otherwise, but it’ll always be 00:00UTC. So you folks should only have to work out your local time from that UTC source of truth.

16

@TheMigz said:

@Waddles_Pines said:
Another wrinkle in the future, does their area in Australia observe daylight savings? Wikipedia says some areas do and some don’t :man_shrugging:

One reason we’ve decided to base timing off of UTC (and communicate in UTC) is so it’s always consistent and no one has to work out whether or not it’s daylight savings time in Australia. :wink:

So the Season will start 11am during Daylight Savings here in Melbourne, but 10am otherwise, but it’ll always be 00:00UTC. So you folks should only have to work out your local time from that UTC source of truth.

I’m probably being dumb or overthinking this. But just to make sure. Thursday 0:00 utc is like one minute after 23:59 on Wednesday right ? Not one minute after 23:59 on Thursday?

If so, the season starts at 7:00 my time which is one day and one hour before it used to.

Honestly I’m not sure what part of the season will be 7 hours later unless it means the quests which usually started at 12 noon for me.

Thanks!

17

@TheMigz Oh wow… Another double PVE schedule with The Hunt just started and Operation Spider Silk in <12hr? You guys REALLY love us… :confused:

18

A new PVE starting 24 hours after the current one? Seems like a button was pressed that should not have been. Either way that will be the 8th event in a row with Cosmic Ghost Rider shards.

19

Double progression rewards!

20

It is more likely I got (very) confused in the comms based on the internal calendar here. It uses a few different time zones depending on the event right now which did make it confusing to talk about. (We are going to clean that up too.)

But yes, the next Season will begin when the clock strikes midnight to herald the arrival of Thursday UTC.