Lore Timeline?

[Jaywalker]

We do know that actually, from the lorebook - they're slow to hit puberty (as their whole lifespan is 10-20% longer than average) and overtake Hyuran height around age 20.

That doesn't explain the "always five years since the Calamity" thing, or twenty since the fall of Ala Mhigo whether you're in ARR or Stormblood.

Whoop didn't hit that part of the lorebook yet, but fair point!

Five years since the Calamity/20 years since the fall of Ala Mhigo remains weird agreed. Twenty I could see rounding/figurative language involved maybe but five is too low a number for me to buy that.

[Nefiiria]

That's not how the time bubble works here. Time is still passing and the story is still being told in order. The time bubble is just keeping the calendar from moving. It's why Aphinaud is still 16 and the Calamity is still "5 years ago" and such despite 4-6 years worth of events having happened since the beginning of 2.0.

I don't like the idea of this time bubble. Like I said in my last paragraph, it makes absolutely no sense how time could be "stopped" when events clearly have happened. You can't say Gaius got his ass kicked, spent no time thinking about what he was going to do to get revenge on the Ascians, and then spent no time gathering like-minded folk to help him in his cause, and then spent no time getting to the Burn. Time has obviously passed. Screw the calendar year, we all know the game doesn't run on our depiction of time gone by. But you can still say that on a per-person basis, time has passed. If I go do MSQ's 1-25 and then go back and do side quest 1, side quest 1 is more in line with MSQ 1. Likewise, if I'm on MSQ 500 and I go back and do side quest heavensward pre-nidhogg slain and they talk about the dangers of nidhogg, I'm assuming the quest is part of that era. Not a part of the current event the MSQ is on.

[ObsidianFire]

I don't like the idea of this time bubble. Like I said in my last paragraph, it makes absolutely no sense how time could be "stopped" when events clearly have happened.

Time is not "frozen" like you are implying. Events in the story still happen in order. The game just never records how much time has passed between events. That is left entirely up to the player.

It all goes along with how the FFXIV team wants to let everyone experience the story in their own way. For some people it takes less then a year, for other people it takes a year per expansion; for some people it takes five years, for some people it takes ten years... The game devs really don't care about that.

They do care about having a consistent date to use as a reference point though and that is "five years after the 7th Umbral Calamity". Anytime you see something along the lines of "x event happened y years ago", we as players know that means "x event happened y years ago in relation to the 7th Umbral Calamity".

[Iscah]

Time has obviously passed. Screw the calendar year, we all know the game doesn't run on our depiction of time gone by. But you can still say that on a per-person basis, time has passed.

That is exactly what the time bubble means.

That is exactly what we're trying to explain it as.

There is clearly time between events that happen in a designated order - possibly several years of it. You just don't see it on the calendar.

It's why we could count up three or four years as the logical amount of time spent on the plot line of the game, but the twins are still sixteen years old, and it's still five years since the Calamity despite everyone going through nine years' worth of events inbetween.

[ObsidianFire]

The better way to put it is that the 7th Astral Era starts five years after the 7th Umbral Era starts. The timeline of FFXIV effectively stops counting formal years in the First Year of the 7th Astral Era.

[Hezzlocks]

I honestly do not buy that whole "it will always be year 1" nonsense at all, not unless a single eorzean year is worth multiple of our own earth years. Just because a bunch of unimportant side NPCs dialogue never changes doesn't mean time isn't progressing. Logically time would have passed. I'm not sure how much time, iirc MSQ dialogue stops making timeline references at about the end of ARR / start of HW, but logically at least a year, likely more, would have passed.

The funny thing is, there is a perfectly valid lore explanation why old NPCs don't change their dialogue, much less positions, movements and actions. The Echo. It allows you to not only relive old memories, but also actively interact with them. This is why we can do dungeons and fight bosses whenever we want. There are even quests, like the Anima weapon, that refers to going back to do old content like Garuda again as "reliving the fight in your mind". So, when we go back and talk to old NPCs and doing old sidequests? We are experiencing and manipulating old memories via the Echo.

[Keever]

snip

But it's not just "old NPCs". The time references continue throughout Stormblood. The Calamity was five years ago, Ala Mhigo fell 20 years ago, Doma 25, Dalmasca 30. Yda died six years ago, one year before the Calamity. The failed Doman Uprising was "one year ago" and it's in response to this that Yugiri and her refugee compatriots came to Eorzea.

[Hezzlocks]

I don't like the idea of this time bubble. Like I said in my last paragraph, it makes absolutely no sense how time could be "stopped" when events clearly have happened. You can't say Gaius got his ass kicked, spent no time thinking about what he was going to do to get revenge on the Ascians, and then spent no time gathering like-minded folk to help him in his cause, and then spent no time getting to the Burn. Time has obviously passed. Screw the calendar year, we all know the game doesn't run on our depiction of time gone by. But you can still say that on a per-person basis, time has passed. If I go do MSQ's 1-25 and then go back and do side quest 1, side quest 1 is more in line with MSQ 1. Likewise, if I'm on MSQ 500 and I go back and do side quest heavensward pre-nidhogg slain and they talk about the dangers of nidhogg, I'm assuming the quest is part of that era. Not a part of the current event the MSQ is on.

Yep, pretty much this. It's just bad writing making it so time doesn't pass at all. You can even use the Echo as a lore reason on why you can jump around periods like that, considering we can use the Echo to go back and fight old enemies again.

At this point the only explanation I'd find acceptable for years not passing is if a single Eorzean year is worth something like 10 of our own, and even that would just be a copout for why time hasn't passed.

Next you're gonna tell me that Revenant's Toll was constructed in a day.

[Brightamethyst]

I don't like the idea of this time bubble. Like I said in my last paragraph, it makes absolutely no sense how time could be "stopped" when events clearly have happened.

I don't like it either, but I understand it. It means they don't have to age NPCs and change time based dialog, and the like on a regular basis.

Only the calendar is frozen. Time is still moving normally otherwise. 2.0 comes before 2.1, comes before 3.0, etc.

[Mansion]

I wish they would kick the bubble a bit and add a time span at least for expansions. Maybe preserving the coherence of time flow by showing on quests when they logically happen. For instance:

MSQ 1st quest of ShB: "Year 2019"
And if you have not done the Crystal Tower questline, it would appear somewhere as "Year 2016"
(I have lost coutn of the real years, but the idea is to show that 3 years would have passed)

I'm not asking for RP event where we can wish happy birthday to the Twins, just adding a feeling of time that passes (because it does both IRL and in game). It's a good instrument in story telling when handled correctly.