Lore Timeline?

[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.

[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".

[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.

[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.

[Jandor]

Don't overthink it.
It's the same reason the Simpsons have been the same age for the past 20 years.

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

[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.

[Iscah]

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).

We already have a designated sequence for story events - but it's based on levels (or ideally patches) rather than labelled years.

Crystal Tower is a Lv50 endgame quest, so it happened during post-ARR.

Or for a more recent example - the FFXV crossover event, which is also Lv50, and also (if existing in the timeline at all) takes place during post-ARR. When Cid turns up, he's wearing his ARR-era clothing, not the newer version with the jacket from Heavensward onwards.

[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.

-----

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.