Days of the Month

[Buckles]

Hi folks,

I was wondering what the lore reason was behind there being strangeness in the days of the month when giving your character a birthday, noticeably the 7th and 8th day both show as 7th, and anything after the 8th is then a day behind (so the 16th day is written as the 15th, the 20th day is written as the 19th)

Is there a lore reason for this, or... bug? lol

[Enkidoh]

A lot of people have believed it to be bug and informed SE accordingly (the Beta forum was full of 'reports' of that), but in actual fact, it's deliberate. It seems Hydaelyn's calendar is set up much differently to our own - each month is divided into a strict thirty days each, resulting in a full year that is slightly shorter than a real Earth year of 360 days. Because of this, it doesn't seem there's any leap years in the Eorzean calender either (which on Earth is to compensate for the fact an Earth year is 365 days and six hours long - after four orbits of the Sun those extra hours add to one extra day, hence the extra day in a 'leap' year. Eorzea's calender doesn't seem to have this.)

Hence to create an equivalent to the real world Gregorian calendar it seems SE has had to 'double up' some days when converting it to the Gregorian calender, leading to the odd discrepancy mentioned (for instance, my own birthday is March 29th, which I used as the basis for Enki's nameday, which equates in the Eorzean calender to the '30th day of the Second Astral Moon', not the 29th. I guess SE probably did it this way to avoid the complexities of celestial mechanics and it's many odd aspects, such as having to account for leap years and the like.

*Thinks this is a task for the Eorzean Astronomical Society* :3

[Buckles]

Okay, so to be born on Sept. 16th I need the 17th of the 5th Astral, right?

[Enkidoh]

On character creation when choosing your character's birthday it will mention in brackets underneath the Eorzean calender the real world equivalent date for the Eorzean date you've selected, so you can determine a desired date reasonably easy.

[Anonymoose]

each month is divided into a strict thirty days

32* (384 days a year)

From The Five Ages

The life of a single Moon spans four cycles of eight Suns, and is thus the sum of thirty and two.

The Year is made when the Moon goeth round the two Astral and Umbral poles, fluctuating between the six elements, and that in turn. In this, the Year can be said to be the length of twelve Moons.

Hence to create an equivalent to the real world Gregorian calendar it seems SE has had to 'double up' some days when converting it to the Gregorian calenderp

This part's true, though, however convoluted it is. Due to the auto-convert in the character creator, at least it won't cause any confusion. Also, lol calenderp. I like that.

[Enkidoh]

Doh! This is what happens when I rely on my stupid mushy memory! I really should have learned by now not to trust it! Thanks for that clarification Moose.

And haha, 'calenderp'. I think we might have a new meme here.