Maybe I'm just dense, but I have some difficulty finding the information on when the next patch is due. The latest I can find is this for the December patch: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...downtime-tuesday-december-8th-6-00-am.272019/ With test being patched last Tuesday, https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...1-12-2021-patch-notes-and-discussions.272820/ I suspect the next patch to live will be on Wednesday, but I can't see it anywhere. What is the official source for learning about patch days - and how much advance warning would be reasonable? Our usual raid days are Sundays and Wednesdays, so it'd be nice to at least be able to announce at the Sunday raid if the next raid would be affected by server downtime.
Advance notice is usually the day or two prior in news and announcements as you have found. Unless you are raiding daytime pacific, the servers are (typically) back up in the afternoon. Evening raid times should not be impacted unless patch issues arise.
Same guild as Joks, we are on Euro time so patches nearly always impact our raid times. It would be good to know if the usual schedule applies here.
Patches start at 6 AM pacific Time. That's 2 PM UK time. Our raids start at 7, and most people log in about half an hour before that. Anything longer than 4-4½ hours, and we have issues - which seems to be the case more often that not. A day or two is not a lot of advance notice for us to receive confirmation and pass it on to our members. Not all them check these forums, our own forums or in-game as religiously as I do
It is also normally in the in game calendar though for some reason they haven't been added for 2021 yet. However that being said it is very safe to assume the 3rd wednesday is a patch day and plan around that. The only exception would be in December if they move it for an expansion launch. That and you have a week from when the test patch happens under the normal schedule.
Outside of emergency patches, it only changes for content releases. The expansion patch is often a different day (e.g. this year it was December 8th). The anniversary patch also sometimes is moved to precede March 16th. It's currently scheduled for March 10th, the second Wednesday of the month. Once Wednesday's patch goes in, the calendar should have planned patch dates up through November 2021.
I cant remember the last time apart from Expansion launches when they haven't done a patch on the Wednesday the following week after the Tuesday patch on Test. Pretty much test gets patch 2nd Tuesday, live gets patched 3rd Wednesday. In case of delays we tend to cancel anything on Wednesdays the week the patch is due. Even if it is due up at the time raids start, we don't want to waste guild time when servers are delayed/repatched.
