A MSQ timeline/calendar is needed.

[wereotter]

That's nonsense and everybody knows it. You could make a case for 4-5 years, but 1 is nonsense and no writer worth their salt will ever accept that time frame, especially when in HW there was a woman who ran off to Idyllshire with a man and ended up getting pregnant before eventually giving birth (I believe that was over the span of 3.0 to 3.3). That alone implies the end of 3.0 to 3.3 is at least a year.

There's a line, and I'm trying to find it again, in a Stormblood quests that references an event in ARR and states it happened 1 year prior. So the real timeline from 2.0 till now is probably 2 years at most.

Dunno what's going on with the pregnancy, except none of the races are human, so maybe pregnancy lasts less than 9 months? Or it's also possible that she was already pregnant when she left with him? Or even just time is all Jeremy Beremy in this game.

[MikkoAkure]

Oh, and another thing to add about what I said before, at some point, they made clear that the only ones that care about the precise amount in the passage of time is the Garleans. Eorzea kinda lack the necessity of count each second or mark exactly the dates for their milestone points in their History. Even when they chose you to be the envoy to invite the other countries to the ceremony about Carteneau "five years ago" they never said a specific date that mark the 5 years. It's all an aproximate thing.

At some point, I think in ARR, a garlean boy creates a "device to measure the passage of time" in a flashback. Do you know who is it? Our beloved young boy Cid (I think it's in the Praetorium netflix series cutscene).

So, clocks and precision in time is not a common thing for eorzeans anyways. If you want to play considering lore, just take this into consideration

Everyday Eorzeans certainly use calendars at the very least. You can see it when you start up a new character and we know the years when almost every event happened throughout the 6th Astral Era. The days themselves were revealed in an interview to be named after the FFXI names of the week - one day for every element, 8 days a week, 32 days a month, 12 months a year.

We also have plenty of different types of clock furnishings so they’re at least around. Certain NPCs like the skywatchers and the GATE attendants also know the time by the hour. I think that extends to the ocean fishing NPCs too. In 1.0 that extended to the boats and airships which left on a schedule.

Considering the long voyages some of these ships take across the world, they would also need clocks in order to accurately gauge their longitude, so sailors should be very familiar.

[MistakeNot]

I cannot for the life of me recall the source, but I recall that ARR - EW all takes place in about a year. Some of the expansions no more than two weeks apart.

Whatever source that was, it was no official source. The developers take great pains to not nail down exact times. We know time passes, but it is deliberately very vague just how much time has passed.

My personal guesstimate is that not less than one year has passed from the start of ARR to the (current) end of EW, and not more than six years.
Probably around three years from start to now - but that could easily be a year off in either direction.

[Rannie]

Just gonna leave this here

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post4975658

[SieyaM]

I do remember hearing somewhere they are intentionally vague about the passage of time because they don't want to commit to ages and calendars for these kinds of things. I understand it but also feel that it does leave us to kind of feel like everything is happening in rapid succession and that the relationships we are supposed to have with a lot of these characters feels rushed as a result.

[Slatersev]

I would like an official time line, but I get why they don't do it. Personally I just wish they stopped specifying "Five years since the Calamity" Stop putting that as a hard number, it breaks my brain every time. Just say in the years since the Calamity and everyone can just fill in there own headcanon on how long its actually been.

I hope eventually post whatever they decide is the real endpoint and nothing up coming could get in the way, then they sit down and put to paper an offical timeline for the story.

[Iscah]

Let me put it in a way you can understand. If we go under the assumption that ARR happened in around a month or two, that you trust these people enough to throw your life away for them? That one of their deaths (Moenbryda) badly effects you when you've barely known them a week or two? Realism or not, you're not going to do something like that for somebody you barely know, that isn't long enough for bonds to set in.

Not everyone needs to know someone for "long enough" before they're willing to help them – it's pretty clear that we're the sort who will leap to anyone's aid at a moment's notice, and in any case, we're caught up in a threat to our homeland if not the entire world.

Also, the potency of Moenbryda's death has never been about how much it affects our own character, but how much it clearly affects those who have known her longer.

It was stated by Urianger at one point that he didn't get his growth spurt until he was 20. Could be possible that the twins are late bloomers on the growth spurt.

20 is normal for Elezen according to the lorebook, long before it was mentioned in-game. They're slightly longer-lived than the other races who have a human lifespan, apparently by ageing slower overall rather than reaching a greater physical age.

I cannot for the life of me recall the source, but I recall that ARR - EW all takes place in about a year. Some of the expansions no more than two weeks apart.

If it was an official source, then it was probably the devs being flippant about the time bubble logic, and either (if direct) you misunderstood or (if secondhand) somebody else did and relayed it as fact.

Everything allegedly takes place inside the one calendar year, but there are unquestionably a few years' worth of time squeezed into that year, and more will continue to pile in for as long as the game continues.

Considering the twins' ages has been brought up a few times in ShB and EW, that might be hinting at something. My pet theory is that they'll be aged up a little to go with the graphics updates promised for 7.0, but I have no evidence for that, just speculation.

The graphics update isn't going to exclusively affect new content though – it's not going to form some kind of dividing line where the characters shift from one state to another.

GW2 uses years for this exact reason. You don't need to know "Oh this happened in X month of this year," just that it happened in that year. Example, they could have ARR's starting year mentioned, then mention certain important story things that happened that year, such as how 1577 is when the Warrior of Light comes to Eorzea, have the year mentioned for when Crystal Tower storyline happens in, when the Domans fled to Eorzea, etc. Not months, years they happened.

Measuring in years is exactly what the FFXIV team are trying to avoid doing.

At some point, I think in ARR, a garlean boy creates a "device to measure the passage of time" in a flashback. Do you know who is it? Our beloved young boy Cid (I think it's in the Praetorium netflix series cutscene).

So, clocks and precision in time is not a common thing for eorzeans anyways. If you want to play considering lore, just take this into consideration

The basic suggestion of clocks being more common in Garlemald is there, but you're misremembering the rest, to my memory at least.

I believe you're thinking of this quest, where Cid (still amnesiac) repairs a broken timepiece:
http://garlandtools.org/db/#quest/66408

ELUNED
Never before have I seen such a queer device. You say that it measures the passing of time?
Mayhap they are more common in Garlemald. I am given to understand that its cities are filled with all manner of amazing technologies.

Still, that's concept-of-Garlemald versus Drybone, not necessarily the major cities. The Ul'dahn goldsmiths might be rather more familiar with the concept.

[Necrotica]

It does seem on reading a lot of these sources/interviews the devs are very much against having time measured. Fear of actually having to do work and keep track of the story in a logical manner. Who wants to do that? Just fun nonsensical adventures with no attempt at a cohesive timeline!

What in the hell happened to good writing?

[Iscah]

It does seem on reading a lot of these sources/interviews the devs are very much against having time measured. Fear of actually having to do work and keep track of the story in a logical manner. Who wants to do that? Just fun nonsensical adventures with no attempt at a cohesive timeline!

What in the hell happened to good writing?

Avoiding tangible dates on events is not the same thing as avoiding having the story logically progress from event A to B to C.

MSQ is linear; side events clearly happen at designated points in the story, usually corresponding to MSQ of the same level.

That's really all you need to know to keep the plot in sensical order.

[fmonkey13]

If there was a timeline. They would not only have to age the twins. But also every character in the game. That seems a lot of work. But that’s just my opinion.