Hydaelyn Role-Players

So, blonde moment, I've looked at the timeline, and ARR started 5 years after Dalamud....Sooo...has time been normal since then? Is it currently the Third Astral Moon of 1579? Working on a character time line. Thanks all!

Had to. But yes..what year is it exactly? I'm bad with these timelines.

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Obviously.

Star Trek Online had a major issue with this...it was 2409 for the first 3 or 4 years of the game, and it finally hit 2410.  Despite that, many people have taken different approaches.  I've been forwarding the timeline each year, so that now it's 2414 for my characters.  Other people go strictly off the in game canon.

The biggest thing is for you to choose what you want to reflect, and if it's important for your rp partners/group, make sure you agree on similar timelines.  But yeah, it really comes down to what you want to do.

Ala Mhigo fell to the Empire 20 years before the start of ARR, in the year 1557 (according to the timeline on the wiki). So if we take 1 Earth year to match up to 1 Eorzean year, it is currently 1579.

I'm kinda hoping that when the expansion hits, they'll have moved time forward an appropriate amount. Like, if it was a year since ARR launched, then it would be a year later instead of just a few months or something. It would alleviate the potential RP time headache.

... Then again, they could also make the time longer and we get to figure out what our characters have been doing in the extra time.

The trouble is that we've only a definite date for the start of ARR, 1577, and we only have that as a result of the lore on the fall of Ala Mhigo, as Bryn mentioned.

We don't know how long a timespan the events of 2.x take place over. To further complicate matters, they reset the year count by announcing the start of a new age at the end of 2.0 MSQ, so then it's Year 1* again of a new Astral Era.

We won't know for sure until another lore drop specifically clues us in to the exact time lapse from 2.0 to 3.0.

* Technically Cycle 1, but whatever.

Until lore says otherwise, it is the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era. FFXIV (per the devs) operates in a time bubble. Time doesn't move forwards unless they say it does. This alleviates the confusion of a new player joining ARR in 2017 and the storyline starting out in the 5th Year of the Seventh Umbral Era, playing the storyline, the storyline telling you it's now the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era, but then everyone else is currently in the 4th Year of the Seventh Umbral Era cuz that's how long they've been playing. The same thing happened in FFXIV's 1.0, which began in 2010 and ended in late 2012. Two real years had passed, but the entirety of 1.0's gameplay and storyline had taken place in the Year 1572 of the Sixth Astral Era.

I'll quote Fernehalwes's explanation:

Quote: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 sacrelicious. Pushing time along would also mean changing 1000s of lines of NPC dialogue, updating quests, webpages, etc. with every patch. Meaning it would take more than double the time to release updates, and I’m sure most people wouldn’t want to wait. In a book, movie, offline game, a strict timeline can be set without too many complications. In an online title, there are just too many variables, so we ask that you bear with our bending of space-time. It’s for the greater good!

So, the way time works in Eorzea is that after every Astral or Umbral Era shift, the calendar date resets to the 1st Year.

So in 1.0, the game ended in the Year 1572 of the Sixth Astral Era, meaning that the Sixth Astral Era specifically had lasted 1,572 years. After the Calamity, the calendar reset to reflect Eorzea entering into a dark time - or Umbral Era - resetting the calendar to the 1st Year of the Seventh Umbral Era. Five years had passed between the Calamity and the start of play in ARR, bringing us into the 5th Year of the Seventh Umbral Era. Towards the end of the 2.0 MSQ, the leaders of the Eorzean Alliance declare the Umbral Era through, and the dawn of the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era had begun.


Now, at any time, lore or story may give us an important date - ie. the fall of Ishgard in 3.0 perhaps?

And most likely, this date will remain within that 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era because of the above-mentioned time bubble. In which case, roleplayers, like they did during the end of 1.0, will have to adjust their timeline to fit... or not. Roleplayers can choose to ignore this bubble or not and play as if each Heavensturn Event signifies a year passing. Technically, they are also correct. Just- in all likelihood, if a major event takes place, you can bet the Eorzean calendar will reflect zero time passage.

So the fall of Ala Mhigo was still 20 years ago. The Battle of Silvertear Skies was still 15 years ago. Etc.

Hope this helps! Know its frustrating.


Also, personal pet peeve: the Year 1577 does not exist, though it is a helpful way of thinking about time passage since the Sixth Astral Era. The Sixth Astral Era ended in 1572, to say the Year 1577 is to say we're still in the 6th Astral Era and that the Calamity did not happen. If you wanna add up years in between all the Eras, it'd be more accurate to say 10077, as the Dawn of Eras was roughly that long ago.

Everybody I know has always gone off RL years = vidya years. After all, I'm sure most people don't go off the ingame day/night cycle. "Oh... it's night... let's wait a few minutes." And so they equate RL days with Eorzean days. The logical extent of that is using years for the same as well. I'd hate for some truly major (like, for example, the fall of Ishgard) to happen in 3.0 and them to put a very specific year on it, causing a divide between people who RP the timeline different. I've also yet to actually encounter anybody ingame who roleplays that it's still the year it was assumed to be when ARR launched, so maybe the divide will be less even than one would think. It remains to be seen.

Thanks for the responses. Not sure how I will date things with a time freeze and all. I figure the 6 moons stood for a rotation of months since you can pick your birthdate. guess I'll have to wait and see.

(05-28-2015, 01:34 PM)Sounsyy Wrote: [ -> ]Also, personal pet peeve: the Year 1577 does not exist, though it is a helpful way of thinking about time passage since the Sixth Astral Era. The Sixth Astral Era ended in 1572, to say the Year 1577 is to say we're still in the 6th Astral Era and that the Calamity did not happen. If you wanna add up years in between all the Eras, it'd be more accurate to say 10077, as the Dawn of Eras was roughly that long ago.

I like to think of it as comparing calendars.

Year 1577 Sixth Astral Era is technically Year 5 Seventh Umbral Era, which then leads/led into Year 1 Seventh Astral Era.

Thanks, Sounsyy!

But yeah, I ignore the time bubble thing. That shit doesn't make any sense from a narrative perspective, yo.

Additionally to my last replay, hard to post from my phone, it does seem as though it runs as a personal choice, but I was really hoping it would be one of those things universally agreed on so that there wouldn't be any dispute or issues among other players...Not holding my breath. I'm in agreement that I will most likely have to wait for them to comment on the year Heavensward begins, BUT I can always put the years I believe it to have happened and when the official version comes out I get to do math, yay math, and bring the events up to speed on when they actually happened.

Thanks everyone.

From what I understood, wasn't 3.0 starting only a few weeks after the events of 2.5?

(05-28-2015, 02:06 PM)RiniKett Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for the responses. Not sure how I will date things with a time freeze and all. I figure the 6 moons stood for a rotation of months since you can pick your birthdate. guess I'll have to wait and see.

Well the Astral and Umbral Moons do equate to months and their passage. And you can (if you want) express a passage of years as RL years pass - just, the game itself is not going to pass any time unless lore says it does. Ie. if there's a major plot event in the storyline that earns itself a date. These will likely still take place in the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era. But if you wanna RP as if years passed, etc, there's been two Heavensturn (New Years) events in real life, so we're now in the 3rd Year of the Seventh Astral Era - if that's how you wanna RP.

Dates are written like this, if you wanted to take today's date as an example:
28th Sun of the Third Astral Moon of the 1st(or 3rd depending) Year of the Seventh Astral Era.

This is a pretty good overview of Eorzean Time measurements if you're interested! Also individual days of the week have names based off of their element according to the Las Vegas Lore Panel.

Michael-Christopher Koji Fox Wrote:Yes! The days of the week definitely have names. Because the game was based off of themes that we had in Final Fantasy XI—the main lore guy was Kenichi Iwao, who worked on XI, and I had also worked on XI, and then we came on and started collaborating for XIV—and, again, it’s a new world, but we do want to, like with all Final Fantasy games, take stuff from previous Final Fantasies, and that’s one of the things that we wanted to take, because it was such a good system. In Final Fantasy XI, you had your elements, and because we have those same types of elements in XIV, we wanted to do the same thing—so you have your Watersday and your Firesday and you have your Windsday.

Personally, in my RP, I don't bring up time often enough where the passage of years actually comes up. I keep my character's age vaguely between 31 and 32, so I don't have to retcon. If something major happens over the course of a really really long time, I'll probably consider roleplaying RL time passage if it becomes necessary, but I generally just don't make mention of time passage or years for the sake of simplicity.