Well. SE's done it again! xD
The most recent post on the lodestone says "Fifteen years ago, in the Year 1557 of the Sixth Astral Era..."
Should be seventeen years, considering two years have passed since launch. This brings about the question: what year was launch? What year is it now? I thought it'd been figured that launch was 1571, however from this description it would be 1572, making the current year 1574, even though SE is apparently ignoring the last two years. XD
Anyway, I posted a question about it on the
official forums.
Square Enix seems to have had a habit of being "Frozen in time" in regards to the game world's lore. I have never seen them "update" their lore for FFXI in regards to timeline.
To me it just seems like they want it to be fifteen years since Mor Dhona to now (Dalamud falling). Thus launch would have been 13 years. I'll probably just update my dates as such. Would be nice to get a concrete "this is the current year" out of them, but I don't think it will happen.
Honestly, I think they are not messing with it to make the back story easier to mess with for ARR. I would not expect them to get into specifics. Even in FFXI they advanced the timeline nebulously from expansion to expansion. The Crystal War was 20 years before game start, The Rise of the Zilart was after the return of the Shadowlord, and Chains of Promathia took places one year after the RotZ.
I tend to think the official timeline will read like this for ARR.
20 yrs ago Ala Mhigo fell.
5 yrs ago big doom rock went splode, people went into the poofy fun vortex.
and then we are at the start of ARR.
I find it better sometimes to work off of the flash points of history rather than the official dates. I realize that this can be annoying, but I tend to think SE is going to work off a being more flexible, than rigid. That is what they seem to have done in the past.
I've got no intention of changing anything myself, this is generally why I avoid putting specific dates on my journal entries. SE has been pretty notorious about this stuff, and it's seldom I ever make reference to how long it's been since in-game events happen, only references to things that have happened to my character or anything like that in specific. Roughly five years ago Mihana left the Twelveswood, she went to Limsa Lominsa where she stayed for awhile trying to steal and cheat people out of their gil. Nearly three years later she fled from the nautical state to Ul'dah where she remained after. Just under two years ago she ran into a thaumaturge who successfully scared the hell out of her and with a friend's help she didn't know at the time, was set on a path to leaving the life she made for herself and into one where she could truly be respected.
That's what happened, that's what I'm sticking with. So be it 17 years ago, or 15 years ago, everything that has happened between when the game went up to the present time has happened, and will not be overwritten, retcon, or changed.
Period.