Current Timeline of Events from 2.0 On

[shadowclasper]

So the timeline of events in the game always interests me, and let's be honest, the 'ever expanding bubble of one year' is the weakest argument ever made, especially since it directly conflicts with several other sources about travel times.

As such, I think it can be said that the timeline of events, more or less, can be contained within a 3 year period, perhaps a little less, but no smaller than 2 years.

Year 1: Realm Reborn and Heavensward
This is the one that is the 'stretchiest' in many ways, the events of Realm Reborn likely took several months, but we know for a fact Heavensward must have played out over some time between 3 and 9 months, because a woman you encounter during the questlines goes from pregnant with child but not showing to having given birth to that child.

Year 2: Stormblood
By far the biggest hurdle to the idea of 'everything in the main quest happens within one year's time', due to the travel times between Othard and Aldenard. Even if we assume airship travel is significantly faster, airship travel was not safe until the later patches when the Garlean Empire began to fracture and fragment, so we're looking at a several months trip both ways by ship, and you definitely, in the story, took one trip yourself by boat.

Year 3: Shadowbringers and Endwalker
Of all of the expansions, these are by far the most flexible. Endwalker involves a place where time dialation effects are occuring, and so what might have taken weeks, months, even years in the First could have, and probably were, only bare weeks in the Source. For Endwalker, by far the most globe trotting of the expansions with how much and how far the player goes, the distances involved are all covered by air or by magical teleportation, with the sole exception of the march into Garlemald itself, which was ostensibly done via well maintained garlean roads between the capital and through some of their most developed, but by that point, least defended lands, as all of the armies in those regions had pulled back to take part in the civil war, thus leaving a big gaping hole through while anyone could travel relatively unopposed.

Anybody got bits or bobs to add to this theory?

[Cleretic]

I should note that I hold basically two perspectives on this.

From a roleplaying perspective, it's generally just a safe and smart idea to assume that every expansion takes as long as it took to transpire in-game, and travel time takes as long as is narratively appropriate for our characters. So yes, about ten years have passed at this point.

But from a straight-up 'the story as it's given to us' perspective, the expansions go, from shortest to longest...
Shadowbringers: No significant confirmed travel times, and during the events of the story the Source is a 1:1 flow of time with the Source. It probably took a while, but also there weren't any off-screen time jumps. Genuinely, a major unknown to confirm here that would alter things is 'how long does the WoL sleep', because that actually accounts for a lot of time passing.
A Realm Reborn: Again, no major travel gaps, but ARR clearly took quite a while and has a lot of events in it. Probably took longer than Shadowbringers even if it also probably transpired mostly as we saw.
Heavensward: I believe there's mention that at least one of the airship trips in HW took quite some time, but I haven't reviewed it in a while. The pregnant woman's also fairly big as a detail.
Endwalker: Between the boat trip to Sharlayan and the journey to Garlemald, we've got two significant trips; no timeframe was mentioned for either, but looking at the map says they couldn't have been small.
Stormblood: If you don't think it's hilarious that Stormblood is the longest expansion chronologically, mostly because of boat trips, we have a fundamental comedic disagreement. By all logic this took months, plausibly longer than a year, although the length was probably front-loaded since the reason we went through Sirensong was because of the Garlean-controlled seas; since that was a problem we actively solved, chances are the Othardians' trip to Ala Mhigo was shorter than our own trip to Kugane.

But also, it's definitely been less than a year. Nashu told us that, and she would know!

[shadowclasper]

But also, it's definitely been less than a year. Nashu told us that, and she would know!

While I adore and love Nashu, I also simply do not trust her judgement on anything that isn't actively associated with a current mystery. (Also did she say it had been a year since we revived everyone's favorite inspector? Or has it been a year since we last SAW each other)

[Seraphor]

a woman you encounter during the questlines goes from pregnant with child but not showing to having given birth to that child.

I think the 'not-showing'-'showing' part is a bit of a stretch, because they simply don't have models for pregnant women. While I'm sure a length of time has passed, I don't think you can gauge how long has passed based on fetus development.

so we're looking at a several months trip both ways by ship.

Do we have a source that states it takes 'several months'? I'd be onboard with 'several weeks', but I think months sounds a bit much. I wouldn't be all that surprised if they claimed it only took a week or two to get to Othard either.

Also baring in mind, during the Stormblood patches with the war wit Garlemald at Ghimlyt. We teleport over to lend our aid, while Doma sends it's troops by sea. These troops do eventually reach the front and join the fight, but we are not told that this fight has been going on for several months. So I'm guessing 'about a week' seems the most sensible.
It may be half-way around the world, but I don't think we can assume the world is just as big as Earth.

[MistakeNot]

So the timeline of events in the game always interests me, and let's be honest, the 'ever expanding bubble of one year' is the weakest argument ever made, especially since it directly conflicts with several other sources about travel times.

As such, I think it can be said that the timeline of events, more or less, can be contained within a 3 year period, perhaps a little less, but no smaller than 2 years.

Three years is a reasonable estimate, but we don't have enough evidence to actually nail down a timeline. More than one year, probably no more than 5-6 years is about all we can say for sure.
Can't be much more than 6 years, or the twins (Alphinaud and Alisaie) would have grown to their adult height by now.

[MikkoAkure]

Do we have a source that states it takes 'several months'? I'd be onboard with 'several weeks', but I think months sounds a bit much. I wouldn't be all that surprised if they claimed it only took a week or two to get to Othard either.

The lore book itself says from Limsa Lominsa it’s 2 months to Doma and 2 weeks to Old Sharlayan.

Carvallain said he could make it a bit faster, but Hingashi is also further away than Doma and our ship got dragged off its original course.

Yugiri was at sea for “many moons” before making it to Eorzea.

It may be half-way around the world, but I don't think we can assume the world is just as big as Earth.

There’s nothing in-game that says it’s smaller. If the planet was smaller and also had less mass, that would affect things from how objects move and the size and shape of mountains.

It’s easier to assume that the planet is the same size as Earth and that writers have no sense of scale than the alternative.

[Seraphor]

The lore book itself says from Limsa Lominsa it’s 2 months to Doma and 2 weeks to Old Sharlayan.

Carvallain said he could make it a bit faster, but Hingashi is also further away than Doma and our ship got dragged off its original course.

Yugiri was at sea for “many moons” before making it to Eorzea.




There’s nothing in-game that says it’s smaller. If the planet was smaller and also had less mass, that would affect things from how objects move and the size and shape of mountains.

It’s easier to assume that the planet is the same size as Earth and that writers have no sense of scale than the alternative.

That poses a problem for the Doman troops reaching Ghimlyt then doesn't it? Are we supposed to be fending off the Garleans for months?

[MikkoAkure]

That poses a problem for the Doman troops reaching Ghimlyt then doesn't it? Are we supposed to be fending off the Garleans for months?

The writers obviously just ignored it for the sake of the narrative. The writers also make it out to be that we're all in a time bubble so they're not paying exact attention to the lore at all times and as frustrating as it is to people super into lore, they will ignore it for the story. For better or worse, FFXIV isn't that type of story where everything is chained by the lore. They can, will, and have ignore or just make up lore to keep the story going.

But the lore book itself states that it's 2 months from Doma and that's the highest authority we have on the matter. If you REALLY want to look at everything that happens in the game under a magnifying glass, then I guess they did hold the Garleans off for months. If you're writing RP or fan fiction and are serious about the lore, it's going to be 2 months.

It makes no sense to ignore or write off what little we do have of lore to propose off-the-wall ideas such as "the world is tiny but somehow still has the same mass as Earth" when there's nothing to suggest that except that parts of the writing don't line up.


And if you're looking at the twins as a measuring stick and are super serious about calculating time despite the fact that the writers aren't, then they can never be older than their teens because there's an Elezen who is confirmed 20 years old and uses the adult Elezen model.

Ultimately nothing in the game is going to match exactly to timelines suggested in dialogue because the writers aren't writing the story that way. It's nice for a bit of fun of trying to figure stuff out but if you spend any more thought on it, it's going to make your head hurt.

[Brightamethyst]

Do we have a source that states it takes 'several months'? I'd be onboard with 'several weeks', but I think months sounds a bit much. I wouldn't be all that surprised if they claimed it only took a week or two to get to Othard either.

IIRC, in one of those early SB quests were we told something along the lines of "it usually takes three months to get to Kugane, but with my secret magitek engine I can do it in one."

[Vyrerus]

To play devil's advocate about the boat trips, Carvallain has a ceruleum engine on his ship.

This, in essence, makes it similar to a modern day sailing ship in terms of travel time.

The average speed of a modern merchant ship is anywhere from 12 to 20 knots, and we're talking the big honkin' metal ships. Carvallain's is made of wood. Without the engine and just the sails, it should travel roughly 4 to 5 knots.

A speed of 4 to 5 knots gets you about 120 miles a day(193 KM).

We can't actually fill in the variables we don't know. Like, how strong is Carvallain's ship's engine? How many malms are between Limsa Lominsa and Kugane? What is the wing flapping velocity of an unladen colibri? But we can do some real world analogues to see if our, "it took several months theory" holds up.

First we'll average the lowest speeds Carvallain's ship could go at, and put it at averaging 8 knots. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that he turned the engine on when the wind was against the ship.

Next we'll take a real world distance. The UK to Japan is 4172 Nautical Miles. At a speed of 8 knots it would take a ship roughly 21.73 days to get there. You might think, "Hey, the crew has to sleep!" But ships don't stop just because the crew does. And crews on ships rotate, so ships travel constantly throughout the night and day.

This means it's actually less than a month and a half to go from Limsa to Kugane, assuming they're similarly far apart as the UK and Japan. Which honestly, nothing in FFXIV has given me reason to think that they'd be further, but for arguments sake, let's say they were twice as far apart as the UK and Japan.

A one way trip then, at 8 knots, takes 43.46 days. So anyway you slice it, it really didn't take that long.