Lore Timeline?

[Seraphor]

The Simpsons doesn't have a long continuous main story though.

But the Simpsons does have periods of time that pass.
The Simpsons have experienced several 'birthday's and several christmasses, but they don't age.

This is no different, as Iscah explained.
Time passes, but the calendar year remains the same, and the NPC's don't age.

[Jandor]

This is no different, as Iscah explained.
Time passes, but the calendar year remains the same, and the NPC's don't age.

It doesn't matter that no time passes in Springfield because there is no story, no overarching plot, things just happen whenever and the order doesn't really matter. It makes no difference that it's always the same year.

FFXIV experiences a linear passage of time, things happen, they take time to happen, they lead to other things happening and all these things happen in a specific order. It eventually becomes rather ridiculous that the year never changes.

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Honestly, the time bubble sucks. We get threads like this quite often, variations of 'how much time to you think has passed' and it could be interesting to talk about but instead the replies always become about the time bubble and the damn Simpsons of all things.
They've outright admitted that the bubble only exists in order to lighten their workload but people still treat it like something that's supposed to be taken seriously when discussing the lore, setting, story, etc. despite being an inherently ridiculous concept.

[Seraphor]

It doesn't matter that no time passes in Springfield because there is no story, no overarching plot, things just happen whenever and the order doesn't really matter. It makes no difference that it's always the same year.

FFXIV experiences a linear passage of time, things happen, they take time to happen, they lead to other things happening and all these things happen in a specific order. It eventually becomes rather ridiculous that the year never changes.

-----

Honestly, the time bubble sucks. We get threads like this quite often, variations of 'how much time to you think has passed' and it could be interesting to talk about but instead the replies always become about the time bubble and the damn Simpsons of all things.
They've outright admitted that the bubble only exists in order to lighten their workload but people still treat it like something that's supposed to be taken seriously when discussing the lore, setting, story, etc. despite being an inherently ridiculous concept.

It's specifically something that's not meant to be taken seriously.

[LineageRazor]

It's specifically something that's not meant to be taken seriously.

Well, one thing that may be worth noting, is that the Simpsons is specifically intended to not be taken seriously.

This game IS. We're supposed to be invested in the characters, take their dramas seriously. Sitcom-style "everything stays the same and nothing changes" RANKLES. Especially since things DO change.

I don't mind if they never get into specifics as to how much time is passing, and leave that up to the player. Even the lack of physical growth for Alphinaud and Alisae can be handwaved - they're Elezen, and Elezen's period of puberty is longer than most. But for this to work, they need to stop making references to how long ago something was. In the beginning, in ARR, "the Calamity happened five years ago" was fine. As the expansions pass, however, they need to ease back on these markers, give the players a chance to set whatever timeline they feel makes sense.

[Iscah]

Honestly, the time bubble sucks. We get threads like this quite often, variations of 'how much time to you think has passed' and it could be interesting to talk about but instead the replies always become about the time bubble and the damn Simpsons of all things.

It's not about not being able to speculate on the actual amount of time, but people who ask how much time has passed are often asking in combination with "how old are the characters now? Aren't the twins 18-20 by this point?" ...and the answer is no, however many years have passed, they're still 16. (You can assume they're older now of course, since they logically should be, but don't expect to see it reflected in the game.)