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Tiergan · **07-22-2015, 04:56 PM**

Okay, so I heard that the entire span of time from 2.0 to 3.0 was actually just one year (or more than a year, but not more than two).

Tiergan was 27 and born on the Sixth Umbral Moon (December) while Lurial was 28 and born on the First Astral (January.)

Leilani was 14 and born Second Astral (March).

I've been RPing that Tier is now 29, Luri is now 30, and Leilani is 16.

Should they all actually just be one year younger? :Flails wildly?::

Seriphyn · **07-22-2015, 05:51 PM**

Is there a lore/dialogue reference to it being a year between 2.0 and 3.0? I just go with one and a half atm.

Even if it was 1 year rather than 1.5 (September 2013 to June 2015? math is hard), maybe not as dramatic as it could be.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **07-22-2015, 05:55 PM**

They never really tell us how long it's been in terms of game time since 2.0 started, which makes these things hard.

It's ultimately an RP choice in how you'd want to advance the timeline, since one (or more) of three things has happened:

Time flows as fast as it actually does in game, which means YEARS have gone by
Time flows as fast as it does IRL, which means about two years have passed
Time flows at some arbitrary speed and until they reference the current date in game, we'll have no idea.

But what happens on our character's nameday then? Who knows?

Sounsyy · **07-22-2015, 06:12 PM**

Pretty much what Franz said...

As (per the Lore team) time in Eorzea exists in a time bubble. It does not advance along the real world cycle because it is an MMO and they cannot exclude new players from old content. So... technically... less than a year has passed between 2.0 and 3.0 in terms of the MSQ. However, this is not really conducive to RPing, so we're forced to make concessions and most people consent to RP real time passage or just avoid aging their characters.

I personally say Sounsyy is 31 or 32 depending, but am vague on which. Early thirties also works for me.

But here's the official answer:

Fernehalwes Wrote:Before I move onto question two, allow me to veer off onto a little tangent: there have been several threads about Hydaelynâ€™s timeline not matching up with Earthâ€™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 thatâ€™s happening in the Simpsons. 23 seasons gone and Lisaâ€™s still 8, Maggieâ€™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 Iâ€™m sure most people wouldnâ€™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. Itâ€™s for the greater good!

Quote:Q: Long ago, you mentioned that 1.0 took place in a â€œSimpsons Time Bubble.â€ Are we still in a bubble? Or does time move now that we know Patch = Canon?

Fernehalwes: Itâ€™s still a bubble; you have to have a bubble. There are players joining in Heavensward that are starting at the beginning. The bubbleâ€™s just gotten bigger.

Melkire · **07-22-2015, 06:25 PM**

Time to save the day with Five Minutes in MS Paint! *

For those who don't quite get what the hells Fernehalwes is on about with his bubble analogy:

[Image: 5VyRXZr.png]

When 2.0 came out, the "bubble" of time was small and spanned only from release (1.0) to current content (2.0). With each subsequent release of patch content, the MSQ grew in size and the time spent in-universe progressed. In other words, the bubble "got bigger" and then spanned from 1.0 to 2.55. With the release of HW, we now have a timeline that spans from 1.0 to 3.0.

What's important to note is that anyone new to the game these days is always entering at the same place and time in the bubble. It just so happens that with the re-release of FFXIV (a.k.a. ARR) that 1.0 content is no longer accessible. New players join up and hop into the bubble at 2.0, and they gradually progress and catch up with the rest of us, whether we be at 2.55 or 3.0 or whenever.

Essentially, the situation is elastic.

* Bubbles are not to scale, and the scale depicted should not be taken to be indicative of the relative length of passages of time.

Sin · **07-22-2015, 07:27 PM**

Oh... time.

What a cruel and disorienting mistress.

It's your choice mostly till they actually release something concrete. Best you can do is take a stand and then be ready to retcon.

Personally, I prefer to let the holiday events dictate passage of time, and new patch releases dictate progression of world story.

The more time that passes between events the more realistic the world seems. Helps to avoid the feeling of living in a world where every two years(coinciding with expansion releases.) there's another world threatening disastrous event.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **07-22-2015, 07:38 PM**

I generally just skirt around the issue altogether.

"Oh, Franz is in his mid-40s".

or "Yeah, he was alive then."

By not trying to say a character's age in absolutes, the issue doesn't impact timelines. But then, what happens if a character needs to grow up or age increase? That's up to the RPer and the people they RP with. Everyone goes at their own pace.

Tiergan · **07-23-2015, 10:25 AM**

(07-22-2015, 06:12 PM)Sounsyy Wrote: So... technically... less than a year has passed between 2.0 and 3.0 in terms of the MSQ.

But what about the One Year Since Calamity Anniversary event that occurred? That felt pretty actual-lore-based-event-ish because it was actually more than a year since the Calamity - which suggests that's just when they decided to move up in terms of world time.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **07-23-2015, 10:34 AM**

Part of the issue with using a seasonal event as a timeline is that everyone still enters the timeline at the same time.

I'm looking forwards to my 4th Moonfire Festival. I got one in 1.0 and I've been there for both in 2.X. But if a new person were to start playing, then those never happened.

It brings up another problem with MMO continuity. These events are more for an IRL timeline that's been inserted into the game world. For lack of a better concept, it's basically a FF8 time compression. There are all these things happening, our own time ones continue, but the world around us is effectively timeless.

How else do we explain Domans and Au Ra popping up from seemingly nowhere for new players?

Hammersmith · **07-23-2015, 10:42 AM**

I made a timeline and noted points in the lore against where mine was alive.

Since he's not tied directly into MSQ events, and we know rough times of stuff like Cartineau ()5-6 years ago) or Ala Mihgo falling (20~ years ago) you can start defining your char's age not by numbers, but by years removed they are from major, static, events that aren't involved in the elastic time bubble of the MSQ.

Worked well for me so far.

Gegenji · **07-23-2015, 10:44 AM**

I don't really have my characters cleave that closely to the MSQ. If new things have happened, such as the opening of Ishgard, I obviously try to pay some tribute to that... but I feel the RP "time bubble" is quite a bit different from the MSQ's. In the MSQ it's only been a year or so between 2.0 to 3.0. However 2.0 has been around for... what, two years now? So, that's still two years of possible RP time that has happened.

Rather than twist myself into knots in trying to figure out the temporal discrepancies, I'm sticking to one year real time = one year RP time. So, to me, Tier is still 29, Luri is still 30, and Leilani is still 16 (we even had a big event for that one!). And Chachan will be 17 at the end of October, and will be 18 next year regardless of any other major MSQ time-skewing.

After all, if you stuck purely to IG time... you go through how many days in the span of one real day? Five? Ten? I don't know the specific math behind it (and I don't think I really want to delve into it), but that means that Eorzea has progressed the equivalent of (sticking a random number there) six months our time, if that. Which also conflicts with having birthdays that correlate to dates in real-time.

We already handwave the accelerated Eorzean Time for days, so why not years? Especially if it's something as minor as "is my character a year or two years older"? It's not like you're trying to say that some inconceivable amount of time passed between when you started and now (like a Naruto timeskip or something).

Basically, if you have RPed them going through the two real years as two RP years, stick to it. You RPed that time and it's better to just stick to that rather than bend over backwards for the MSQ time-bubble. I don't think anyone will fault you for it.

Berrod Armstrong · **07-23-2015, 10:51 AM**

I have a numbered age for Berrod: 23. I can place things that happened to him in the time before the opening of 2.0, since we're given solid years for that. For the bubble however, I have chosen to let him remain 23 until such a time when the devs announce exactly how much years have passed or what year it is. For this reason I leave birthday/anniversary events out of my own roleplay (but will still happily participate in the birthday/anniversary events of others!).Â

I've found that his age relative to when I started playing him has been mostly irrelevant -- instead of focusing on that number I focus on his character growth. Alternatively, you can use a general designation like 'young adult' or 'early thirties', 'teenager' or 'middle aged' if you wish to avoid having to mess with numbers for aging!

Sin · **07-23-2015, 11:00 AM**

I think that if I join up an MMO late.... like lets say I joined up now I would not RP as starting from the beginning. Whenever I joined, the events going on right now in the world is what's going on.

If I make a character now, then I would still roleplay it as Ishgard being open and Nidhogg being awake and raging and all that.

I would just simply understand that whenever I do the level 15 MSQ quest where Raubahn is giving his rousing speech that that happened in the past. I conform to the current world events, not the other way around.

Does that make sense? I try and keep up with current events like the Au Ra immigration, and then take the MSQ and other pre-HW quests as having happened in the past.

So the 4th Summer Festival is coming, and I just joined up, then that's... that's what it is, the other three did happen and I either was there or wasn't depending on the backstory I crafted for my character.

Seems simple to me.

Shoshopu · **07-23-2015, 12:24 PM**

I joined up right when that "One Year Since Calamity Anniversary event" was going on, and coming right out of GW2 a few months before and the way its living story worked, I just assumed it was confirmation a year had passed since A Realm Reborn started. Both GW2 and FFXIV have calendars that easily translate into our own calendar, so... I celebrate my characters' namedays on the IRL equivalent day, and I basically have time pass in real time. It's never really been an issue since my character has little to do with the MSQ, anyway. This method probably has some discrepancies, sure, but any method would either have discrepancies or be purposefully vague. It's just up to you!

Seriphyn · **07-23-2015, 05:15 PM**

If you speak to an NPC near the dragoon monument not far from Falcon's Nest, he mentions it has been 'five years' since the Calamity, just as it said at the beginning of 2.0. Alas.

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Halp! How old should my characters be? :V

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes