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".
• 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".
![[Image: tUzrT.png]](https://puu.sh/tUzrT.png)
