Lore Timeline?

[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.