[ SPOILER ] Appreciation: Thank you VERY much Dev Team...

[Okamimaru]

Exactly right, Moose...what's a novella between two wind-bags who've been playing from the start? Indeed! I really wish I had more time to chime in more often because I keep seeing really great comments here on the Lore section but no time to read them all or respond. Not to mention all the previous speculations on other FFXIV boards for at least a year before the game released. My God, the discussions back then were amazing... good times indeed.

Alright first off, I will hold up a hand in friendly disagreement regarding Gaius' age... (this one gave me some head scratching yesterday while I was writing my post)... but I still believe he's encroaching sixty. Here's why:

Per our current Encyclopedia... (yes yes Moose, I know it still has a few howlers within)... he was just shy of turning 58 when he "disappeared". And since 2.0 the following has occurred (not particularly in this order).

except the magical time bubble is still in effect

[Chewy2nd]

except the magical time bubble is still in effect

I think at least a year has passed, given that the Domans arrived in 2.2, after they got crushed in a failed rebellion. According to Stormblood this happened a year prior to the events of Stormblood

[Anonymoose]

I think at least a year has passed, given that the Domans arrived in 2.2, after they got crushed in a failed rebellion. According to Stormblood this happened a year prior to the events of Stormblood

That's one of the more frustrating seeming-inconsistencies in the patch. The Doman Rebellion was "a year" ago, but none of the other dates moved. Not the fall of Ala Mhigo, not the fall of Doma, not even the Ivalician dates. Maybe (because, lore-wise, sailing from Doma to Eorzea takes so long) the Doman Rebellion actually took place before 2.0 started! Maybe the XIVth Legion was working on old info and, having gone rogue, never got word of Solus's death! Trololol.

(inb4 someone brings up Alphinaud saying, "If you'd told me a year ago..." in 4.3: no, he doesn't use that word in any other language and it's probably just a turn of phrase. Besides, if the rebellion was "a year" ago, he still wouldn't have known who Yotsuyu was, right? lol)

[Belhi]

That's one of the more frustrating seeming-inconsistencies in the patch. The Doman Rebellion was "a year" ago, but none of the other dates moved. Not the fall of Ala Mhigo, not the fall of Doma, not even the Ivalician dates. Maybe (because, lore-wise, sailing from Doma to Eorzea takes so long) the Doman Rebellion actually took place before 2.0 started! Maybe the XIVth Legion was working on old info and, having gone rogue, never got word of Solus's death! Trololol.

(inb4 someone brings up Alphinaud saying, "If you'd told me a year ago..." in 4.3: no, he doesn't use that word in any other language and it's probably just a turn of phrase. Besides, if the rebellion was "a year" ago, he still wouldn't have known who Yotsuyu was, right? lol)

Yeah, to be honest I think they really need to bite the bullet and say at least a year has past. I know it has issues but saying we have done everything we have done in the space of a year is getting beyond ridiculous.

Time locked content isn't that big a deal, particularly when you have odd things like the pre 50 dragoon quests you can end up doing after SB has happened, Nidhogg is dead and the eyes are destroyed.

[Anonymoose]

Yeah, to be honest I think they really need to bite the bullet and say at least a year has past. I know it has issues but saying we have done everything we have done in the space of a year is getting beyond ridiculous.

My (Very) Unpopular Opinion:
For me, it's equally odd that people can't seem to get over it. (Especially after we made it all the way through XI without a date change.)

The open world is frozen to prevent inconsistencies for people who've made different progress, and so the dev. team doesn't have to run calculations and update flavortext all the time. But it's vague in the same way the WoL isn't all that expressive so the player can interpret things how they want to.

What's from stopping anyone from treating the game as though it's taken a year? Or as though every patch really is three months? 2 weeks of activity and 2.5 months of waiting here, 3 active months there? Everyone can have a personal timeline exactly how they want it using the default "frozen time date" as a universal reference point and no one can say they're wrong.

I'm continually bemused that this isn't seen as liberating, lol.

[ObsidianFire]

^That's how I see it. Having the game take "no time" is really so that all the dates mentioned match up. IE: x years ago is x years ago regardless of what patch/expansion we find out an event happened.

How long the events in-game are taking varies from person to person. Heck, how large zones are varies from person to person. There's a lot of information that will probably never be specified because SE does want us to have fun RPing as our own characters.

That's not an attitude most RPGs take nowadays though, so I think a lot of people are out of practice filling in the gaps the devs leave on purpose. For them it feels sloppy.

[Ramesses]

Ahhhh... there were more responses on the subsequent page while I was busy making some edits.

See, this is one of the elements I like about this game... the "freedom" to establish one's own unique timeline within the story line regardless of the other souls therein. Is its a big deal... nope. Does it gives some realism to the illusion of time, yes.... but ultimately still irrelevant. Seems like a couple years to me, might seem like six months to another; makes all the more for a richly embellished tale... its why the Wandering Ministrel loves us so much.

Fact is Gaius is looking darn sharp for his age... and it was a treat to finally see his face after about eight years of speculating.

[Chewy2nd]

I don't mind not having a definitive time frame that the game takes place in, but it seems sometimes the game forces the idea that it has been less than a year, which feels kinda awkward when you've been playing for so long. I like the idea of leaving the time frame up to the player instead

I love Gaius' design, he looks his age, while still looking athletic enough to be a Legatus/Paragon slayer. I like how his hair is slowly losing it's colour, I guess its either because of his age, or the unforgiving sun in the burn. I hope he sticks around for a long while to come, it's about time someone else started taking down the red masked Ascians.

[EdwinLi]

The most simpliest thing to explain the time bubble for each WoL is that each WoL is in their own World separate from each WoL's world.

It is similar to how the Warrior of Darknesses are from another world that is going through the same struggles but for them they have already won in their world (with a price of course).

Then there is the CGI trailers showing Derplander and his path through the storyline of 2.0 to X.X for each expansion.

Everything we experience as the WoL can be considered separate World/realities/etc at this point as each World is shaped by the player's WoL and each one experience different events and similar events while also experiencing these events at different times so each WoL have a different amount of time being passed based on what the player themselves believe.

[Remedi]

My (Very) Unpopular Opinion:
For me, it's equally odd that people can't seem to get over it. (Especially after we made it all the way through XI without a date change.)

The open world is frozen to prevent inconsistencies for people who've made different progress, and so the dev. team doesn't have to run calculations and update flavortext all the time. But it's vague in the same way the WoL isn't all that expressive so the player can interpret things how they want to.

What's from stopping anyone from treating the game as though it's taken a year? Or as though every patch really is three months? 2 weeks of activity and 2.5 months of waiting here, 3 active months there? Everyone can have a personal timeline exactly how they want it using the default "frozen time date" as a universal reference point and no one can say they're wrong.

I'm continually bemused that this isn't seen as liberating, lol.

I think it's something we have to take like the fact that FF9 events happens in about 1 week