A MSQ timeline/calendar is needed.

[Zaniel]

I need the timeline to better enjoy the story.

I WANT to better enjoy the story. The timeline/clock is part of the necessary path to get that.

No timeline is the same reason as they don't have full voice acting for the WoL. Some elements are being kept indistinct deliberately so as to not interfere with your visualisation of your own character. It's as much or more them not wanting to box YOU in as it is for their benefit.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

That's nonsense and everybody knows it. You could make a case for 4-5 years, but 1 is nonsense and no writer worth their salt will ever accept that time frame, especially when in HW there was a woman who ran off to Idyllshire with a man and ended up getting pregnant before eventually giving birth (I believe that was over the span of 3.0 to 3.3). That alone implies the end of 3.0 to 3.3 is at least a year.

Are we assuming pregnancy is 9 months?

[Iscah]

No timeline is the same reason as they don't have full voice acting for the WoL. Some elements are being kept indistinct deliberately so as to not interfere with your visualisation of your own character. It's as much or more them not wanting to box YOU in as it is for their benefit.

It's nothing to do with visualisation. It just saves the devs from trying to keep track of time and having to make sure people say it's the right number of months or years since something else happened.

[Zaniel]

It's nothing to do with visualisation. It just saves the devs from trying to keep track of time and having to make sure people say it's the right number of months or years since something else happened.

These two ideas can be true at the same time, its not exclusive.

[Iscah]

These two ideas can be true at the same time, its not exclusive.

They can simultaneously be true, if they were true, but as far as I'm aware, the devs have only given the one reason for it.

In any case, I don't see how being able to decide whether it took a week or a month to do something would matter to "imagining your character how you want them", though. If there was a straightforward timeline, I doubt anyone would be complaining about the lengths of time in it – or at least, no more than they would for any fictional work even with a set cast.

[Cabalabob]

In ARR there was a rather bizarre scenario where if you progressed the main story far enough a character died, but if you then went and did the CUL quests up to level 50 they rose from the dead just to come and judge your baking competition. That sparked the community to question if there was some timeline of events and exactly how much time had passed since the start of ARR.

The dev response was that they think of it like the Simpsons. They don’t really care about a timeline and the events happen in kind of a “time bubble” where even though the Simpsons has been going for 30 years Bart and Lisa are still 10 and 8 years old. So the events of an expansion are isolated to that expansion (estinien in ARR DRG quests is happening in ARR time and is not effected by the events of HW onward). Time only progresses when it needs to for the plot. But they also acknowledged that time has to have passed between ARR and the start of HW so they gave a kind of loose timeline that the events of an expansion happen over the course of about a year.

So, if we assume this holds true for every expansion then we can assume it’s been about 10 years since dalamud fell. But this doesn’t exactly match with the development cycle as we have had twice that many rising events, so it’s more likely an expansion happens over the course of 2 years to match the development cycle.

[Wanzzo]

There needs to be some way of telling how much time has passed in game from first entering the starter cities to killing titan, to killing despair itself.

It would help the story make a lot more sense. Particularly when you get things like "the scions are pretendjng to disband and won't see eachother as often" to the next quest being "let's get the gang back together"

Been like 2 days dude. Gonna get a restraining order for Graha.

So right next to that Eorzea clock? Add a Eorzean calendar date that only advances with MSQ progression.

I think at this point is far from their reach.

Some parts in ShB's side quests give us the same old text like "5 years ago" to reffer to the Calamity. Not a single year has passed '-'
It feels like the longest year they had in their world. Like 2 to 4 years long in just one.

And the funny thing is: when the Scions were at the First they aged a "bit", but not a single "ilm" for the twins height... In fact, they are supposed to have different ages and heights since they went to there at different moments (1 day in the Source is like 1 year in the First or something like this) Te word "twins" could've lost it's sense for them xD

They neglected this from the start and I think it's irrecoverable at this point after so many things we did and we had.

The best bet is they someday will fast-forward us at some point and only then they start to count the passage of time properly.

I remember an old thread about this problem and people consent that the passage of the time would be like real life inside each patch (or between patches, I don't recall it right).

But yet again, not a single ilm for the twins height no matter the number of patches or when they arrive... '-'

We are dealing with imutable twins while Thancred aged a bit '-'

Edit: don't believe in what I said here! I forgot about corpses. A mistake as usual u.u (always trust Iscah and always doubt everything I say here. Sometimes, the aging hit us harder than we think '-' )

[Iscah]

And the funny thing is: when the Scions were at the First they aged a "bit", but not a single "ilm" for the twins height... In fact, they are supposed to have different ages and heights since they went to there at different moments (1 day in the Source is like 1 year in the First or something like this) Te word "twins" could've lost it's sense for them xD

Not at all. Only their souls travelled to the First, creating artificial aetherial bodies that specifically had to be unravelled before their souls could be taken back across the Rift. Their bodies were lying soulless in the Source the whole time.

They may or may not choose to count their age by experience from now on, but their bodies have had no additional ageing.

[Wanzzo]

Not at all. Only their souls travelled to the First, creating artificial aetherial bodies that specifically had to be unravelled before their souls could be taken back across the Rift. Their bodies were lying soulless in the Source the whole time.

They may or may not choose to count their age by experience from now on, but their bodies have had no additional ageing.

Oh yeah!
That's true!!

Forget what I said xD

[Allegor]

Maybe an Eorzean year is the same as 5 irl years, and time/aging happens reaaaaaaally slow. To add to this silly theory, it would actually explain why Cid, Thancred and F'lhaminn feel and act like grandparents despite none of them being even 40 lol