Six Year? A progression of events query

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Originally Posted by lololink

Well 2.0 starts 5 years after the calamity so we are in year 6 AC

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Assuming the time bubble is still in play, I think this may be an inaccurate assumption about how to gauge approximately based on how many years ago people say it was. Throughout the entirety of 1.X, it was 1572. From the day the servers went up until the day the servers went down, "10 years ago" meant 1562. It meant such on Day 1 when NPCs were referring to the fall of the Keeper, it meant such entire storylines later when NPCs were referring to the Bozja Citadel incident.

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Originally Posted by lololink

you are in the 6th year after the quest to commemorate the calamity at lvl 15 I think

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In the quest where you convince them to plan said event (Envoy), Merlwyb actually says, "Seven hells ... Has it been five years?" and during said ceremony, Raubahn still refers to it as "five years ago." If anything, you started the game just as it was passing from 4 to 5 when the "dome" came down and sealed the bubble.

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Originally Posted by Volkai

What Fernehalwes was saying is that while there is 'passage of time' as events progress, it is unmeasured.

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Assuming the bubble is still in play (and I assume it is, considering Fernehawles said this well after 2.0 entered development, referenced MMOs in general, and talks about how lines of dialogue would need to be adjusted between patches if there was), Volkai gets it.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

In the quest where you convince them to plan said event (Envoy), Merlwyb actually says, "Seven hells ... Has it been five years?" and during said ceremony, Raubahn still refers to it as "five years ago." If anything, you started the game just as it was passing from 4 to 5 when the "dome" came down and sealed the bubble.

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Depends on if calamity is day 1 1st month and year 1 then 5 years later is year 6 but if you consider the first year to be year 0 then it's year 5.

Also I still don't understand what text boxes need to be changed, each quest is in a particular time range, let's say that for exemple that heavensward quest occur at year 7 of the era then all the quests texts say 7th year, then if you do a quest from 2.x it will say year 5 or 6 and it's not because you travelled in time, but because you got through the story in a different order.

I think time does progress, but it progresses via you doing the main scenario, rather than it happening at the same time for the rest of Eorzea. I mean at least 6-12 months have passed since The Praetorium, since not only has the whole of Revenant's Toll been built, but a whole war of succession took place in Garlemald.

This is a standard practice in MMOs in order to ease content creation. That being said, expansions usually mark significant time jumps with altered landscapes and quest-related NPC dialog. I'm sure we will get our next "year" update with 3.0 if FFXIV follows the model used by 90% of the MMO market.

What about when you try to take more than the Main Scenario into account?

Say someone joins the game in 4.0 and gets all the way to Patch 3.4 content before even starting the Hildibrand storyline. How many years has Hildibrand been missing for? Five, because that's what the quest said in 2.0? Six because they're caught up to 3.4? Seven because it's 4.0? Should SE have to go back and add flags to check?

Say someone joins in 6.0 and does every single piece of content except the Binding Coil of Bahamut. When they get started, how many years ago does Alisaie say Louisoix died? What if they don't bother leveling Monk until it becomes super popular in patch 7.0. How many years ago does Erik's assistanct think Ala Mhigo was conquered?

I'm not saying it's impossible that they'll transcend the bubble, but I'd be less surprised if they didn't.

It's generally accepted that questlines take place at different times in the main story, for example, early side quests reference the Umbral Era, yet these can be done when you're in the new Astral Era, it's just accepted that these quests took place before you did Praetorium.

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

early side quests reference the Umbral Era

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Can you remember any that say you're in it? What few examples I can recall are careful to only reference that it's been five years since the Seventh Umbral began, which is true regardless of whether or not it's ended yet from an individual's point of view. Unless I'm mis-remembering, only the main scenario, which actually has the before and after, references it presently being the Seventh Umbral Era.

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

it's just accepted that these quests took place before you did Praetorium.

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According to this sentiment, is it generally accepted that sometimes, when you do things, you go back in time to before you did other things? Or that you're re-living a flashback of you doing those things before you did other things? Is that not just as weird as the bubble it escapes? Again, I can't say this enough, I'm not saying that it proves anything about whether or not Square Enix is indeed still using said bubble, or, if so, that they'll never transcend it in the future, but I don't recall encountering that sentiment (or anything that'd require it) so far, myself. The closest thing I can think of is when you re-do instances over and over that it's generally accepted as not really actually canonically happening again.

This is an unexpectedly engaging discussion for such a punctilious topic, lol.

EDIT:
As of Patch 2.55, we now know that events are ordered by patch. Everything released in 2.0 "happened" before 2.1, and so on. This doesn't seem to be enough to assume there will be a movement of time in the open world, but we do know that you can see things out of order and have to mentally realign them.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

According to this sentiment, is it generally accepted that sometimes, when you do things, you go back in time to before you did other things? Or that you're re-living a flashback of you doing those things before you did other things? Is that not just as weird as the bubble it escapes?

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Actually, wasn't that kind of how the first story arcs for your respective cities worked in 1.0? That they were all Echo related flashbacks from many years prior to you arriving in Eorzea? To this day I still have trouble figuring out what was a flash back and what was "Present Day" in 1.0

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Originally Posted by lololink

Well 2.0 starts 5 years after the calamity so we are in year 6 AC ( actually you are in the 6th year after the quest to commemorate the calamity at lvl 15 I think ), but yeah I wonder if they'll stick to the time bubble theory, for an anime where all episodes are independants from each others the time bubble works fine, but in this game events occurs in a certain order ( although you can consider that side quests can occur anytime ) so there is a continuity, I think in WoW they made each expansion last 1 year or 6 month lore wise.

I don't really understand Ferne's answer, unless he is speaking about having the game occuring at the same pace as in the real life ( meaning that if a player started today the dialogues should be changed to say that it's year 7 ) ?

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Time didn't pass in WoW either, it was stuck in a bubble until the Cataclysm happened and Blizzard was able to basically redo everything and jump time forward. Easiest way to show the bubble is looking at Westfall. The buildings were being repaired for 5 years until Cata hit and Blizzard was able to jump time. WoW before that expansion was perpetually stuck 4 years after Warcraft III as FFXIV is stuck 5 years after 1.0.

The only way time can pass forward is if the dev's redo everything like WoW with the Cataclysm or FFXIV with the Calamity. The problem is you run into cutting off new players from older content or at least story. Newbie WoW players will never experience what Azeroth looked like 4 years after WCIII, as FFXIV players will never experience green Coerthas.

Actually, anyone who played the "Wings of the Godess" expansion for FFXI, did they keep referring to the Crystal War as happening 20 years ago or 21/22/23 or something years ago? You can gauge the bubble for SE games using that, since time plays a major role there.

Edit: As Moose said, time passes but it doesn't move. Characters can still say "oh you are so and so who killed Ultima?" or say a week or w.e passed. However I doubt you'll hear a character say the calamity happened 6 years ago or 7 years ago.

Well if I recall, FF11 also had a "Time travel arc" where you went back to when one of the past wars was going on and basically were the reason it was saved then via psychic telephone Paradox. The present was saved so you could go back and save the past that way you were guaranteed to arrive years later and save the future.