This just in from ArenaNet/GuildWars2 on Twitter:

The Guild Wars 2 website redesign is here; take a look! https://www.guildwars2.com/en/  ~RB2 #GW2

The website shows a countdown timer for the beginning of Prepurchase Headstart – and it’s starting 5 hours EARLIER than initially guessed – giving us a headstart time of midday Melbourne time on Sat 25th August.

I’ve assumed that the Preorder Headstart and Launch will be similarly early, and updated our counters/events to match.

 

EDIT: Ok – looks like the count-down timer on the GW2 page is borked. Further twitter information:

To clarify: Countdown timer uses your system time. So it reflects your local timezone. ^MK  – here

Also: The game will go live for everybody at the same time. ^MK – here

I’m guessing then that since it converts to “midday in our timezone”, it’s meant to be midday in ArenaNet’s timezone – with a start time of 5am Sunday for us. Since I think that’s more likely, I’ve set the counters/events to match that. 🙁