Six Year? A progression of events query

[Viridiana]

Unless I missed one (can't fully discount that), my theory is that some people treat the Companies' announcement like it counts as Heavensturn.

I think they were referencing the Rising.

[Sapphic]

But time has to have passed due to one place.

Revenants toll. Every major patch weve seen it progress to its present state, Rowena going from standing in a tent (kinda) to having a huge store. So time between major patches may not be, in world 3 months. but still some time is shown as passing.

[Anonymoose]

But time has to have passed due to one place. Revenants toll.

It did pass, but did it move? There are no progression flags whereby the Toll will change appearances based on current scenario completion (as the Waking Sands and Rising Stones do). I've been thinking of it as a live event - kind of like how the Ninja safehouse appeared and yet their story is specifically designed to work even for new players. Those who join the game in 3.0 will come to Eorzea just as the Warriors of Light return from the rift and the Black Wolf invades... and Revenant's Toll will already be mostly complete. Sure, there will still be much work for the Domans to do, but (unless Square Enix decides to implement said progression flags), they will never know dirt streets and Rowena's modest tent.

I think they were referencing the Rising.

You know, I didn't even think of that. I went back and checked and the Rising doesn't even mention time at all, it just mentions remembrance of the Calamity and hints about Shiva. I think the Rising was meant to celebrate the real world passage of a year since servers went live the same way All Saints' Wake celebrates real world Halloween (whereby you can have 3 Halloweens and no movement of time to reflect its passage).

I'd mostly just warn that it might be hasty for anybody to assume different until Fernehalwes updates his sentiments on the matter.

[NoloeTazier]

Exactly Moose. We can't assume anything until we see any kind of number lol. That's what I always take into account with my Timeline. For us time is moving, but for our in-game characters not so much unless a date/time is said.

[Kaiser-Ace]

I guess technically it IS possible that all of the MS happened in one day. It'd be weird but assuming all heck was breaking lose it IS possible,

[Volkai]

I'd mostly just warn that it might be hasty for anybody to assume different until Fernehalwes updates his sentiments on the matter.

I would love to see Ferne -- or Bayohne, or any of the dev tracker-listed people -- give us an update on this.

[Fenral]

I would love to see Ferne -- or Bayohne, or any of the dev tracker-listed people -- give us an update on this.

Wait, so he's actually said somewhere before that time will never flow in any meaningful way?

[Anonymoose]

I guess technically it IS possible that all of the MS happened in one day. It'd be weird but assuming all heck was breaking lose it IS possible,

Would this also imply that the entirety of the Simpsons took place on the same day?

Wait, so he's actually said somewhere before that time will never flow in any meaningful way?

Not necessarily never, and not necessarily not in a meaningful way. There can be progression flags (as with the Waking Sands), and there are a few one-line swaps in certain quests (like Qarn HM where the Twins recognize you if you've done the MIN story), but there's a bit of a PAC-MAN spacetime thing going on (PAC-MAN Physics = exits the "end" of the map, emerges at the "beginning," but no progression is lost). Time passes, but doesn't move. Present-day events pass and accumulate, but aren't nailed to a date. The only things that I would say never flow in a meaningful way are the in-game holiday events.

This is a dilemma faced by a lot of MMOs. To allow everyone that joins the game, regardless of when they do, to experience the full story, there simply has to be a stoppage of time. Okay, not really a stoppage, but more of a time bubble in which a span of about a year is contained. This is why that for the duration of 1.0, Eorzea was in a perpetual 1572. Think of it as the same thing that’s happening in the Simpsons. 23 seasons gone and Lisa’s still 8, Maggie’s still a baby, and the gummy Venus still tastes oh, so sacrelicious. Pushing time along would also mean changing 1000s of lines of NPC dialogue, updating quests, webpages, etc. with every patch. Meaning it would take more than double the time to release updates, and I’m sure most people wouldn’t want to wait. In a book, movie, offline game, a strict timeline can be set without too many complications. In an online title, there are just too many variables, so we ask that you bear with our bending of space-time. It’s for the greater good!

A lot of people are having a very hard time wrapping their heads around this, apparently, which makes trying to explain it quite a headache.

That said, Ferne could show back up and elaborate on this (or explain that it's not entirely applicable anymore, or that the circumstances change during a certain expansion) any time he wants to, but the above quote is from 2012, long after ARR went into development. I'm assuming that means it's still relevant, so until he says otherwise, my interpretations will be first and foremost obedient to that concept.

[Fenral]

I understand how it works, but I've also seen it handled differently in another MMO, to a point where occasionally when new low-level content was patched in, it would feature token appearances by characters who "died" later in the storyline. Not saying it was the most elegant solution, but it did allow them to keep a myth-arc going across more than half a dozen end-game raids without the "continuity gating" that FFXIV seems to be so in love with. People who don't care about the story didn't care, and the people who did had extra incentive to go back to lower-level questlines they might have overlooked.

The only story I'm really invested in seeing picked up again could very well just end up used as a continuity gate later on, considering everything that happened with a certain mad scientist seems almost too important to leave entirely optional, but I'm fully aware of the problems that will cause in the long-term, so I hope they can find a more delicate solution.

[melflomil]

Well a a continuation of time has had to go by because some people died. It doesn't have to a full year but at least a few months