On Goobues and Timelines.

[Cleretic]

Considering that there's only 1 single source suggesting that and everything else in the game contradicts those couple of lines, I'm going to have to disagree here.

Koji Fox himself said that the game takes place in a Simpsons-style time bubble where it's always the same year and everyone is always the same age.

People might get upset with that and say that there's no way all of it can happen in just 1 year or point out moments when someone mentions something happening 3 months or 1 year ago, but this is just the nature of an MMO. The game is constantly getting new players and more content loaded on top and to keep everything consistent for the writers and preventing the need to age up child characters all over the game including the twins, it's just always 1577 6AE/1 7AE.

And for some clarification on this, it's not quite literally 'the entire game takes place within the same year', it's more 'they write loosely as if no specific time passes'. Outside of in-game events which are their own weird thing, they just write it with no explicit statement of the passage of time. It's more or less up to you how to read that, if you think the events of the MSQ take place in one really wild week or if there's significant gaps between expansions or whatever, but the developers just never state timeframes or milestones. I'd compare it less to the Simpsons, which has to grapple with background technology and celebrity figures changing, and more to Futurama which has no such problems, and can just go 'all this happens and Fry's still nebulously late 20s' with nothing really standing too weird about that.

In contrast, Elder Scrolls Online made the... interesting choice to explicitly set the entire game and all of its ten years of content within one specific year, 2E 582. Evidently, a very eventful year.

[MikkoAkure]

And for some clarification on this, it's not quite literally 'the entire game takes place within the same year', it's more 'they write loosely as if no specific time passes'. Outside of in-game events which are their own weird thing, they just write it with no explicit statement of the passage of time. It's more or less up to you how to read that, if you think the events of the MSQ take place in one really wild week or if there's significant gaps between expansions or whatever, but the developers just never state timeframes or milestones. I'd compare it less to the Simpsons, which has to grapple with background technology and celebrity figures changing, and more to Futurama which has no such problems, and can just go 'all this happens and Fry's still nebulously late 20s' with nothing really standing too weird about that.

That was specifically Koji's words so I guess take them as you will.

Before I move onto question two, allow me to veer off onto a little tangent: there have been several threads about Hydaelyn’s timeline not matching up with Earth’s. If it has been two years since the release of the game, why is it still 1572 in Eorzea at the time of patch 1.23? This is a dilemma faced by a lot of MMOs. To allow everyone that joins the game, regardless of when they do, to experience the full story, there simply has to be a stoppage of time. Okay, not really a stoppage, but more of a time bubble in which a span of about a year is contained. This is why that for the duration of 1.0, Eorzea was in a perpetual 1572. Think of it as the same thing that’s happening in the Simpsons. 23 seasons gone and Lisa’s still 8, Maggie’s still a baby, and the gummy Venus still tastes oh, so sacrilegious.

Long ago, you mentioned that 1.0 took place in a “Simpsons Time Bubble.” Are we still in a bubble? Or does time move now that we know Patch = Canon?

It’s still a bubble; you have to have a bubble. There are players joining in Heavensward that are starting at the beginning. The bubble’s just gotten bigger.

Futurama actually does reference the passing of time and occasionally mentions which year it is. It's always 1000 years into the future and the first episode was year 3000 but they've had whole episodes around the 3012 election during 2012 and other things parallel to current events.

[DPZ2]

Futurama actually does reference the passing of time and occasionally mentions which year it is. It's always 1000 years into the future and the first episode was year 3000 but they've had whole episodes around the 3012 election during 2012 and other things parallel to current events.

We live in an age where "Simpsons predictions for 2025" find their way to Youtube, complete with stupid "Simpsons predicted Apple VR goggles". Movies have featured some form of VR and goggles since 1983 (Brainstorm=1983, Brazil=1985, Disclosure=1994, Johnny Mnemonic=1995). The list spans 40+ years at this point.

I would find it odd if a Japanese gaming company, with Japanese developers, mentioned parallels to "current events". Particularly elections in a foreign country. "Current" events which, by definition, become non-current shortly thereafter.

Thankfully.

[Iscah]

That was specifically Koji's words so I guess take them as you will.

When people use that quote to 'prove' the "span of one year" thing is canon, they invariably overlook two things:

1. The span of one year is how long the time contained within the bubble condenses into despite rightfully taking longer, and it is probably only a year in the first place because they mentioned in Stormblood that it had been a year since the rebellion in Doma.

Secondly, it's something he said during Stormblood, where a year still sounded like a plausible timespan for the events. If he repeated it today it might come with a lot more emphasis that the events are not actually all intended to fit within the designated year of time bubble.

[MikkoAkure]

When people use that quote to 'prove' the "span of one year" thing is canon, they invariably overlook two things:

1. The span of one year is how long the time contained within the bubble condenses into despite rightfully taking longer, and it is probably only a year in the first place because they mentioned in Stormblood that it had been a year since the rebellion in Doma.

Secondly, it's something he said during Stormblood, where a year still sounded like a plausible timespan for the events. If he repeated it today it might come with a lot more emphasis that the events are not actually all intended to fit within the designated year of time bubble.

It should rightfully take longer.

- The death of the emperor and the rebellion mentioned being a year ago despite the news being broken to us in-game seemingly shortly afterwards.
- The ~3 month travel time to Kugane on the very fastest chartered "merchant" ship and the boat rides to Sharlayan and Tuliyollal that would be smaller distances, but slower boats.
- The on-foot traveling and plot happening.
- Downtime in between world-shattering events.

But deciding on a timeline is probably going to cause complications down the road in regards to aging up main story characters like Alphinaud and Alisae who would reach their adult height at age 20-21 which would then cause problems if you do stuff out of order like Coils. Plus there's the many children NPCs running around like important ones such as Khloe or background ones such as the playground in Gridania. The writers would also have an extra layer of complexity when trying to writer future stories to remain consistent to the timeline.

While they definitely took the lazy route of "just ignore a timeline and let plot happen", I don't think having a strict timeline necessarily suits an MMO.

[Cleretic]

While they definitely took the lazy route of "just ignore a timeline and let plot happen", I don't think having a strict timeline necessarily suits an MMO.

I wouldn't call it the 'lazy option' when I don't think there's any better option. Sometimes, the winning move really is not to play.