So the next flight will be two separate weekends and will be for 8 hours each day.
Times will be Fri/Sat/Sun
10am - 2pm PT
5pm - 9pm PT
This sucks if your not over in the US. So to stop you from Googling time zones heres how it is for us across the pond and down under
6pm - 10pm Europe 
1am - 5am Europe
3am - 7am Australia 
10am - 2pm Australia
I hoped that the next flight would of been the start of Friday 10am PT straight through until Sunday PT 9pm with no breaks. I know that its important for 343 to stress test the flight and gather as much info on the game but still… America is so lucky to be able to have 8 hours of none stop gameplay and even have a convenient dinner break to fuel up and hop back on the continue the fight. I’ll get to have 4 hours each day, pfff if im lucky with my internet here in Ireland 
If there will be a 3rd flight… well December is getting close so maybe not a flight so hopefully a full on BETA that will be more different time zone friendly. Well at least ill get to wake up on Saturday 25th and browse youtube of the flight and wait until 6pm join the fun
Us Aussies get the worst of it lol.
> 2533274925473364;2:
> Us Aussies get the worst of it lol.
Aww man my heart goes out to ya’s. I think on the up side you’re ahead of all of us so when infinite is released you’s be playing the campaign before any of us. Think im right with that, time wise Yea? No?
> 2533274818433952;3:
> > 2533274925473364;2:
> > Us Aussies get the worst of it lol.
>
> Aww man my heart goes out to ya’s. I think on the up side you’re ahead of all of us so when infinite is released you’s be playing the campaign before any of us. Think im right with that, time wise Yea? No?
no thats not how time works buddy. We get it on the 25th relative to the US 24th release date.
Wait, is it not like MCC flighting? Where the servers are always up, but the allocated timeframes are intended to be where everyone piles in for highest intended availability?
I didn’t get into the first flight, but just came off of some pretty extensive MCC Season 8 flighting where I spent a lot of the downtime between sessions investigating bugs I discovered.
It’d be a big shame not to be able to keep playing after the scheduled period.
> 2533274854268698;5:
> Wait, is it not like MCC flighting? Where the servers are always up, but the allocated timeframes are intended to be where everyone piles in for highest intended availability?
>
> I didn’t get into the first flight, but just came off of some pretty extensive MCC Season 8 flighting where I spent a lot of the downtime between sessions investigating bugs I discovered.
>
> It’d be a big shame not to be able to keep playing after the scheduled period.
No, in this instance you can only use the matchmaking in the windowed hours. They want to maximise server load and concurrent players, and recommended playsessions just aren’t as effective for that as a windowed play session. You’ll be able to load into the flight and interact with the UI, do weapon drills and play the training mode all the time but you can only search during the listed times.
> 2533274925473364;2:
> Us Aussies get the worst of it lol.
Yep and its utter -Yoink-… didnt even get to try out pvp on the last flight because that randomly started in the middle of a weekday while I was at work and finished before I could even get home -_-
We need to realize flights are NOT for us. It is purely for the devs so we should expect them to open it up all day. Of course being selfish I would love for that to happen. At the end of the day, they are a US company and players should be respectful of the fact that they are doing this during and after work hours as well as giving up their weekend. Given its a flight, it requires more hands on time then a love game where its mainly people waiting for jira flags.
> 2533274855648543;6:
> No, in this instance you can only use the matchmaking in the windowed hours. They want to maximise server load and concurrent players, and recommended playsessions just aren’t as effective for that as a windowed play session. You’ll be able to load into the flight and interact with the UI, do weapon drills and play the training mode all the time but you can only search during the listed times.
Okay, that’s not so bad. I was already annoyed by the AOE4 test not coming with a rudimentary tutorial to teach basics, so having the Academy to brush up between MM windows is perfectly fine by me.
I spent so much mental energy convincing my buddy to sign up for the Halo Insider’s program so we could play this flight together. I have a kid and we’re each on a different coast in the US, so it looks like we’re not going to end up being able to play together with the flight times 
> 2533274855648543;6:
> > 2533274854268698;5:
> > Wait, is it not like MCC flighting? Where the servers are always up, but the allocated timeframes are intended to be where everyone piles in for highest intended availability?
> >
> > I didn’t get into the first flight, but just came off of some pretty extensive MCC Season 8 flighting where I spent a lot of the downtime between sessions investigating bugs I discovered.
> >
> > It’d be a big shame not to be able to keep playing after the scheduled period.
>
> No, in this instance you can only use the matchmaking in the windowed hours. They want to maximise server load and concurrent players, and recommended playsessions just aren’t as effective for that as a windowed play session. You’ll be able to load into the flight and interact with the UI, do weapon drills and play the training mode all the time but you can only search during the listed times.
Cheers for the info, didnt know that. That made my weekend better now. I get to play the training mode and play against bots until 6pm. Noice!!
I would have liked more time as I never sleep much anyway
> 2533274925473364;2:
> Us Aussies get the worst of it lol.
I feel bad for you guys for many other reasons than this.
> 2535422142018812;13:
> > 2533274925473364;2:
> > Us Aussies get the worst of it lol.
>
> I feel bad for you guys for many other reasons than this.
Don’t feel bad, Australia is amazing. Wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
With them saying that matchmaking is locked to specific hours each day, it begs the question if you’re still able to do bot matches/training in the off hours. Especially if you’re in a group of 4 four the arena vs bots.
One of the times is 2am-6am in Sweden, which I won’t ever be able to attend to.
Other time is 7pm-11pm which I can do Fridag and Saturday but not sunday because I get up at 4.40 on mondays.
So I’ll be able to be on maximum 1/3 of the times. Better than nothing, but they should keep more people in mind than just americans.
Why not just let servers run matchmaking after they retrieving the test data?
> 2533274871324014;15:
> With them saying that matchmaking is locked to specific hours each day, it begs the question if you’re still able to do bot matches/training in the off hours. Especially if you’re in a group of 4 four the arena vs bots.
Any form of multiplayer is considered matchmaking and not available outside of the time windows. So you can only do single player content the rest of the day, including the training mode which is against bots (just not with multiple players).
It’s nice to know we can still play against bots, I’m most interested in PVP though.
Sorry didn’t see that there was already a topic re this as I just made a thread about this too.
As a UK player I’m really disappointed. I was expecting PvP to be available for the whole weekend not in these small windows again (especially as one of the windows is pretty much non playable for the majority of Europe).