Hydaelyn Role-Players

Respect of lore timeframe (or just lore itself) trumps everything else for me.

If there is 3 starlight events in less than a lore year, then it's compressed in 1 starlight in my book. Storytelling is great in that it allow for time compression or expansion at will.

( I know that my wiki is not following my own medicine, that is planned to get fixed soon )

Usually my characters undergo a lot of changes in a year's worth of development, so... that wouldn't really work for me. ><

The lore is a tool to use in order to bring about enjoyment, and while in the huge majority of circumstances I'm happy to defer to it (because it's exciting and compelling and engaging), this is one situation where sticking to it to the letter brings me nothing but frustration and confusion.

Since I RP every day, and a lot of character growth has happened for the purple-haired idiot over the last 3 years of real life time, I play by the rule of, "game time follows real time, and I'll work out any discontinuities when or if the bubble advances." It's the best balance I can come up with between ignoring obvious progressions of time through holiday events (which, I should note, often mention things that happened at the last celebration, and Heavensturn is an advancement of the year by definition) and sticking to the time progression tied to the MSQ lore. After all, the comic book time bubble exists primarily to aid in the telling of the MSQ given the vagaries of patch and expansion development time.

(02-06-2017, 07:09 PM)Kilieit Wrote: [ -> ]Usually my characters undergo a lot of changes in a year's worth of development, so... that wouldn't really work for me. ><

The lore is a tool to use in order to bring about enjoyment, and while in the huge majority of circumstances I'm happy to defer to it (because it's exciting and compelling and engaging), this is one situation where sticking to it to the letter brings me nothing but frustration and confusion.

What kind of "lots of change"?

(02-07-2017, 06:09 PM)Valence Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-06-2017, 07:09 PM)Kilieit Wrote: [ -> ]Usually my characters undergo a lot of changes in a year's worth of development, so... that wouldn't really work for me. ><

The lore is a tool to use in order to bring about enjoyment, and while in the huge majority of circumstances I'm happy to defer to it (because it's exciting and compelling and engaging), this is one situation where sticking to it to the letter brings me nothing but frustration and confusion.

What kind of "lots of change"?

Three main categories:

- Connections. They meet new people, fall out with old people, get married, divorced, have kids, lose family members, etc etc etc. If one Valentione's day is spent primarily moping to other players about being single, and the next is spent happily with a partner, how am I supposed to roll them into one? If a character says to mine, "haha last year you were really sad and now look at you", am I now supposed to tell them "no that happened before my character met yours (outside the time bubble)"?

- Plots. These are usually sequential i.e. feed into one another directly; plot B could not arise if plot A hadn't resolved in the way it did, and plot A would never have happened if plots X and Y hadn't come together in the way they did. When these plots are tied in any way to the time of year, things get really difficult, really quickly if you start trying to flatten years together. So you ban your players from ever mentioning the season, weather, yearly events, their own namedays? The "butterfly effect" means such seasonal stuff can often spiral out into longer-lasting, wider-reaching plots, and it gets impossible to then start trying to tell everyone it can't have happened like that because "last year's" version of that event was outside the time bubble - or to just perpetually continue stretching the remaining 11 months out into infinity.

- Personal development. Telluric Medic's previous incarnation, the WoW character Ursala Earthwielder, was a prime example of this. Ursala began as a character who was patient to a fault, extremely unreactive, and disinterested in personal grievances - despite having an underlying streak of care for others, and a talent for healing. So her first ever Winter's Veil as an RP character, she sat it out, like she always did. Through developments, she grew first into someone with a growing curiosity regarding other people and their affairs So, the next Winter's Veil she poked her head in a bit to try and see what "the point" was. She didn't really get it. She certainly didn't enjoy it. This was discernable to other characters. She continued to develop - a series of events forced her to face up to the existence of others' emotions, the consequences of callousness, the merits of a smile. So by the next Winter's Veil, she at least made a token effort with presents - already having understood from the previous year that presents were expected - and although the holiday grated on her still, she had begun to understand "the point" of it. This continued for the 7+ years I actively roleplayed her for - in her last Winter's Veil she was actively organising a story evening and present exchange for a local orphanage. I don't think any two of her Winter's Veils were even comparable, because her personality, outlook, and attitude had grown so much in the intervening time (a year's worth of almost-daily RP is a long time). The beginning of the time bubble is a time before development that occurred during RP can have happened - so how could I decide which was the "true" Winter's Veil when all of them demonstrated important traits about her character at the time; traits which would not carry the same meaning if blended together or forced out of sequence?

To kind of springboard off of what Kilieit's saying with my own experiences... For those of us in active RP guilds that may participate in multiple guild arcs over the course of a year? That can potentially have a TON of impact on the characters involved.

If your guild's been around for couple of years or so, condensing ALL of those happenings into a single year can become incredibly unrealistic... Especially if it's a combat-oriented guild, since some people can contract injuries that require many months of healing. To fit everything into one year, you'd either have to retcon them participating in certain events/arcs that occurred after they got injured, or you'd have to retcon the injury itself from ever happening. Neither scenario is preferable, especially if the character's injury/involvement added something pretty major to the course of events/overall plot.

I can see how someone with an incredibly busy RL schedule, small and/or barely active guild, or who plays a character who lacks a proactive nature may not apply to any of what I talked about. And that's totally fine. But for those of us who either get a decent amount of RP in, or want to treat things with as much feasibility as we can manage... Cramming all of our characters' development and experiences into the span of a year would be a hassle.

I personally feel that a lot of players also tend to overdo character evolution and quickly jump to the end of the line, where so many stuff happens in their life in a short amount of time it's ungodly, but I'm not saying it's your case and I understand vast amounts of RP sessions tend to get rather hard to deal with in that regards.

It's actually probably one of the hardest things to manage RP wise in a setting where time nearly froze.

Especially if you play a character that sees a lot of combat and epic adventures. This is exactly a part of why I withdrew my character very fast from a FC arc that was into that kind of things. My character would have turned into a grizzled vet in less than a few months and the rate was not even that huge (one combat arc every two weeks or so).

I probably also have the uncommon belief that even a merc outlet would have a certain amount of non combat time between their epic, adrenalined fueled grim fights. Like the military really. Even the busiest units don't spend their time in missions, and even less in eventful combat missions.

As RPers and storytellers, we naturally want to jump to all the interesting and eventful aspects of the lives of our characters. And when we are busy, those events that usually can happen over long spans of time in realistic lives and outakes, will happen in chain. FCs also fall into the same trap for various reasons (one of the first being also here to entertain their members!).

So yeah, that's something I have been extensively watchful over, and for that, it clashes with most RPers take on the matter and makes my life miserable.

I still don't know... I look at my real life, and the difference between my Christmasses, birthdays, and so on, and I still feel like it's not really possible to say "oh yeah, you can basically roll those into one".

Made-up example b/c I don't feel like revealing personal info: let's say I have a best friend, and we give each other Christmas presents every year. Then one year we fall out, and for Christmas that year, he doesn't give me any presents and I don't give any to him. Despite not wanting him around, I still miss him, because I miss the companionship and consideration that the present exchange signifies. The next year, the loss is felt a little less significantly, and while the previous year I'd been moping, this year I basically have a normal day - but without him. But by year 3 (for argument's sake, this year), we've reconciled, and we do the gift exchange again - only this time the present he buys me doesn't feel as thoughtful, because he was out of touch with my hobbies for two years and doesn't know what I'm into any more. Despite the original routine having been restored, it's different as a result of the ongoing development of our relationship, and this year's Christmas could not have happened the way it did if the previous 3 years' Christmas hadn't happened the way they did.

I don't think there needs to be majorly significant life-or-death changes for a character to have differing outlooks on the same scenario in the course of a year. My example is a pretty boring, happens-to-everyone example - everyone has dramas and friendships that change over time, for better or worse. Especially fictional someones in a hobby where drama of one sort or another is the entire source of entertainment.

I think insisting on utilising the time bubble in RP is basically following rules for rules' sake... it's intended as a way to understand the MSQ and nothing else. Even the developers step outside it when it's appropriate - holidays being the prime example. I think ongoing RP is an appropriate situation in which to step outside the time bubble, regardless of how dramatic it is or isn't. Remaining within the time bubble means you cannot allow stuff that happens to influence the character in any meaningful way. And honestly, that's less realistic than someone changing a lot in the span of a few months because they went through something traumatic (personality change is a symptom of PTSD).

Havign to chose between the lore timeframe and the few bland seasonals they give us (which are already way too many and pollute the city states visually with immersion breaking RL rip offs)? Well, my choice is easy I think here.

If find it way less dangerous and a slippery slope to adhere to the lore timeline, for that if you don't, and suddenly learn it has only been one year since the start of ARR when Baelsar's Wall falls or whatever, and have been playing it way differently... Well I find that a lot harder to work around.

But maybe because I anchor all my RP more into MSQ and plot driven events rather than seasonals... I never felt that problem when it came to seasonals. Like for the MSQ, I tend to adapt my writing and keep it rather vague in terms of days/months/years to stick to it. I don't especially feel the need to say something happened that day and not the following day, or even feel obliged to precise the exact day something happened. It happened and it's way enough for me, as long as it remains coherent of course.

But yeah, sticking to the lore here at least until the devs make the clock move further ahead, means adding serious limits as to how far a character can grow and evolve. To me it's part of the story itself, and as much as a challenge as specific tone to work with rather than a hindrance.

But you have to admit that doesn't really work for people who:

• use the time of year (e.g. winter cold, summer heatwaves) as part of their RP
• roleplay their character's nameday
• use seasonal events as points of conversation, or as basis for roleplay events
• want to see their character reach the end of training that takes over a year to complete
• want to see their character recover from long-term injuries without having to retire them shortly afterwards
• want to roleplay their free company completing military campaigns or diplomatic negotiations over a realistic timescale
• want to roleplay long-term relationships as actually being long-term (a year is barely any time to know someone)
• want to roleplay having young children and watching them grow
(& probably more i forgot)

Right..?

You already admitted you pick and choose pieces of lore based on what suits your RP best. I think it's fair to allow other people to do the same thing.

For the record, here's my personal reason why I choose the passage of time over the time bubble:

The value of the lore is that it provides a common denominator for people to work within that is both stable and engaging. Stable means everyone generally agrees on it, and if you meet a random person they'll probably be on the same page as you; engaging means it's fun and provides more opportunities for depth and development in roleplay.

The issue I have with the time bubble in RP is that to follow it, you basically have to lock yourself out of ever using other parts of the lore - in-universe, worldbuilding things like seasonal weather changes that differ by region, as well as what Eorzeans find worth celebrating, why, and how they celebrate it. It also locks you out of using things which give a roleplayer an opportunity to display more things about how their character thinks and feels - like differences in how each character celebrates their nameday from year to year.

Which means you have a binary choice between two pieces of lore (EITHER you follow the time bubble OR you roleplay stuff that depends on the time of year)... and some people are going to take the other choice. Which removes the "stable" aspect of the time bubble, because not everyone you meet in-game is going to agree on following it (others are going to go for the in-universe worldbuilding stuff).

This leaves only "engaging" as its merit, and it's... not. IDK. There's nothing engaging about "all this takes place within a year" - it's just... a thing. It's not a compelling storytelling device or anything; it doesn't tell us anything about what it's like to live in Eorzea. It's just a meta convenience for the dev team so they don't have to keep scanning over NPC dialogue to make sure they got the year consistent.

So it's not stable, and it's not engaging... I don't really see any point of it, other than to say "well technically this is correct".

I'll freely admit that my character's backstory literally could not work if I didn't use rl days to measure time, so my stance should be pretty clear. In rl time, the patch that introduced the first Doman refugees was, what, three years ago, now? But in the lore time bubble, it's been a matter of months. Long story short, Kazu's backstory has him come to Eorzea with the first refugees, turn into a complete depressed alcoholic wreck, then over time slowly recover and become a more hopeful individual with a new lease on life. That's just not the kind of character development you can have happen in a few months.

Honestly, though, I'm kind of surprised to learn that so little time has passed in the lore. Nevermind the fact that that means the WoL is almost killing Primals on a weekly basis, can you imagine the ridiculous levels of strain this puts on the City States? Their militaries must be on the verge of buckling with all the shit they have to deal with going on in Eorzea, particularly Ishgard's. I get that a lot of the damage is mitigated by the WoL, but it's still a miracle they have any troops to commit to Ala Mhigo at all as I assume they eventually will. And let's not even get into the state of the crystal industry with how often stolen shipments were used to hand wave the Primal summoning of the week in 2.0. The whole market must be crashing at this point.

(02-08-2017, 02:14 PM)Kilieit Wrote: [ -> ]But you have to admit that doesn't really work for people who:

• use the time of year (e.g. winter cold, summer heatwaves) as part of their RP
• roleplay their character's nameday
• use seasonal events as points of conversation, or as basis for roleplay events
• want to see their character reach the end of training that takes over a year to complete
• want to see their character recover from long-term injuries without having to retire them shortly afterwards
• want to roleplay their free company completing military campaigns or diplomatic negotiations over a realistic timescale
• want to roleplay long-term relationships as actually being long-term (a year is barely any time to know someone)
• want to roleplay having young children and watching them grow
(& probably more i forgot)

Right..?

You already admitted you pick and choose pieces of lore based on what suits your RP best. I think it's fair to allow other people to do the same thing.

For the record, here's my personal reason why I choose the passage of time over the time bubble:

The value of the lore is that it provides a common denominator for people to work within that is both stable and engaging. Stable means everyone generally agrees on it, and if you meet a random person they'll probably be on the same page as you; engaging means it's fun and provides more opportunities for depth and development in roleplay.

The issue I have with the time bubble in RP is that to follow it, you basically have to lock yourself out of ever using other parts of the lore - in-universe, worldbuilding things like seasonal weather changes that differ by region, as well as what Eorzeans find worth celebrating, why, and how they celebrate it. It also locks you out of using things which give a roleplayer an opportunity to display more things about how their character thinks and feels - like differences in how each character celebrates their nameday from year to year.

Which means you have a binary choice between two pieces of lore (EITHER you follow the time bubble OR you roleplay stuff that depends on the time of year)... and some people are going to take the other choice. Which removes the "stable" aspect of the time bubble, because not everyone you meet in-game is going to agree on following it (others are going to go for the in-universe worldbuilding stuff).

This leaves only "engaging" as its merit, and it's... not. IDK. There's nothing engaging about "all this takes place within a year" - it's just... a thing. It's not a compelling storytelling device or anything; it doesn't tell us anything about what it's like to live in Eorzea. It's just a meta convenience for the dev team so they don't have to keep scanning over NPC dialogue to make sure they got the year consistent.

So it's not stable, and it's not engaging... I don't really see any point of it, other than to say "well technically this is correct".

Wow, nobody told anyone they aren't allowed to do whatever they want with how they consider the flow of time in their RP...

I hear you and I'm still not totally decided on how I should treat it myself. It has pros and cons for both solutions. I'm already annoyed at the progression my character is doing since I'm trying to kickstart something for her to advance eventually. I always have to thread carefully with such things, and doubly so here.

Also technically, no I never said I pick some parts of the lore above others, even if it sounded like it. Starlight and other stuff like that are part of the lore and I deal with them accordingly. I just feel like people are way too attached to being precise on dating and their calendar. Since I have played in eve online where such things matter, are part of the lore, and everything is tied to real time in real life, I have a way different perspective on FF14 RP, and my take is quite similar to the take of the writers: if something happens, well, it happened at some point. And I leave it as that.

And when we get new info on how much time has passed, I just incorporate it all inside as much as I can. But yes, I understand that seasonal festivities are a problem in that regard. And on the other hand, saying that the Castrum Meridianum got raided 3 years ago and you were there to see it is flat wrong. The same will go soon for the end of the Dragonsong War, etc etc. Or as said just above, Doman refugees (good example!). If you try to take those precise dates into your background or RP history, then time will have passed in your RL time model, where in lore it will not and still be super fresh.

I also don't see why you would necessarily need a huge timeframe to tell something meaningul of Eorzea... In your own words, a movie is meaningful but not a photograph or a painting? The latter don't describe anything worthwhile? Or at least, their storytelling ability is lesser? I'm not sure I subscribe to that personally.

So... Vagueness is your friend in my book vOv

Okay, some things here. Since I already came in and dropped timey whimey wibbly wobbly stuff...

(02-08-2017, 02:14 PM)Kilieit Wrote: [ -> ]I don't really see any point of it, other than to say "well technically this is correct".

(02-08-2017, 03:17 PM)Kazukata Wrote: [ -> ]Honestly, though, I'm kind of surprised to learn that so little time has passed in the lore.

(02-06-2017, 07:03 PM)Valence Wrote: [ -> ]Respect of lore timeframe (or just lore itself) trumps everything else for me.

"Technically, the time bubble is correct" in the exact same way that technically this "lore timeframe" isn't actually lore yet. Let me try to explain.

The Simpson's Time Bubble of 1.0, wherein the game's 2.5 years was condensed into the Year 1572, is canon lore, yes. Not because Fernehalwes told us about the bubble, but because of specific dates and timelines in the lore being released to us that details events that happened in 2010 being in 1572 alongside events that happened in 2012 occurring in 1572 also. When asked why, the time bubble method was explained.

While Fernehalwes has reaffirmed a similar time bubble exists for ARR and HW, we don't actually have any canon dates to affirm this time bubble's actual boundaries and constraints in the lore. What we have are a series of side quests, levequests, and seasonal events that exist within their own meta time bubbles along the continuum of the MSQ as it progresses forward in time at an unknown rate.

From an in-universe perspective, time does actually continue forward as evidenced both in game and in the Encyclopedia Eorzea.

Drake Wrote:Two, um…years ago.

Encyclopedia Eorzea Wrote:Gathered information is then used to improve future versions of the forgekin - such as what has been seen with the recent appearance of the "Neo Faust" but mere moons after a party of adventurers reported striking down an older, less sophisticated Faust model.

Redwald Wrote:Come, my lord. Mayhap you recall the survivor whom you carried back to Falcon's Nest that day? Well, his wife but recently gave birth to their first child.

So what of Seasonal quests still quoting the Calamity as happening 5 years ago even though they also say hey I saw you last year? This comes back to individual meta time bubbles along the continuum that is the MSQ. All Seasonal Events are accessible to all characters usually between levels 1-15 and with most only requiring the Sastasha dungeon clear as MSQ progression. This firmly roots all Seasonal Events as canonly occurring during the 7th Umbral Era, pre-Operation Archon, pre-Heavensward, pre-Haurchefant death. This is intended to be inclusive for players who are just joining the game in 4.0 who experience their first Moonfire Faire as a level 25 gladiator who has yet to face Titan, versus the seasoned Warrior of Light who has done four of these events already.

And all quests and levequests operate on this principle. If you partake in a Lv38 quest in Costa del Sol, you are participating in an event that occurred during the 7th Umbral Era, even though you've theoretically progressed through 6.0 content and are kicking Garleans out of Ilsabard. When you do any HW levequest, you're performing a task necessary during 3.0 only. This is why Estenien still gets tempted by Nidhogg in the DRG 50 quest even after you've killed Nidhogg already. This is why Nanamo Ul Namo still shows up in the 50 CUL quest with Lolorito for a fancy dinner in the Bismarck even though you've only completed up to 2.55 and you could've sworn Nanamo just got offed.

Parts of the game will always say that the Calamity happened five years ago. But you know what, Eorzeans are pretty liberal in their descriptions of time passage. Like how the Autumn War in 1468 was "one hundred" years ago. Or how the Great Flood was "fifteen hundred years ago" when it was much closer to sixteen-hundred.

So even though much of it could be considered meta, we have more in-game and in-universe perspective (book) of lore stating that time is actually moving forwards than the simple statement that somehow all of what we're playing is currently in an all-encompassing time bubble with no visible boundaries or rules, wherein many smaller time bubbles also exist as needed. The time bubble is more storytelling mechanic than it is story lore. The lore says, "Do you remember that knight you rescued, his wife had a baby!" The time bubble will eventually answer, "Of course I do, I rescued him tuesday before breakfast. I remember because that was the day I also defeated Nidhogg."


My point is, until a later expansion (perhaps 4.0!) or dev comes in and tells us There Was An Assassination Attempt on Ul'dah's Sultana in the same year as Warrior of Light Slays Nidhogg in the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era, it's not technically lore yet. Because that same expansion or dev could come in just as easily and say that There Was An Assassination Attempt on Ul'dah's Sultana in the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era and the Warrior of Light Slays Nidhogg in the 2nd Year of the Seventh Astral Era. Fernehalwes never said that this time bubble would only consist of one strict year. 1.0's time bubble contains "about a year" and this new time bubble has "just gotten bigger."

If this happens (and even just in general), it is and will be up to the individual roleplayer to decide how their stories and character events compress or expand into whatever timeframe we're eventually told, if any.

That's my point eventually. It's not so much about ONE time bubble, but many time bubbles put after one another in a time flowing forward at an unknown pace. I tend to treat my RP as such, is all. I'm not that twisted to start doing it in a non chronological mess of course.

You all bring up good points.