What year is it?

[RiniKett]

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!

[Aoi Fukiku]

 

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

[Gegenji]

356faqb9JnU

 

Obviously. :roll:

[Jessika Saphir]

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.

[Brynhilde]

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.

[Gegenji]

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.

[Melkire]

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.

[Sounsyy]

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:

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?

Or the death of Sultana Nanamo Ul Namo may have a very specific date attached to it in lore. As it is a major world event.

 

 

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.

[Flashhelix]

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.

[RiniKett]

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.

[Melkire]

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.

[Brynhilde]

Thanks, Sounsyy!

 

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

[RiniKett]

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.

[Jessika Saphir]

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

[Sounsyy]

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.

 

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' date=' 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.[/quote']

 

 

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.

[RiniKett]

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.

 

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' date=' 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.[/quote']

 

 

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.

 

I understand that time in the game, as far as the official story goes, will not pass for the player. My question was more for the personal keeping of our characters and interactions between them. To the game, we are each the warrior of light, but none of us RP as such as it would...Well, I'm not sure an explanation is really needed to get that point across. My goal is keeping a personal record of this event happened for this character at this time, marriage- I mean Eternal Bond Anniversaries, Name Days, My character got this scar during the grindstone on *Blank*, on *blank* Rini found the world's largest chocolate chip cookie, etc etc. Random things like that. To say our RP has no time would technically be the collapse of the universe as everything would happen at once...Or something like that...Sorry if I'm confusing, my head hurts...I think I need a Doctor.

[Sounsyy]

My question was more for the personal keeping of our characters and interactions between them. My goal is keeping a personal record of this event happened for this character at this time, marriage- I mean Eternal Bond Anniversaries, Name Days, My character got this scar during the grindstone on *Blank*, on *blank*

 

I would say that that specific path would necessitate the use of a RL parallel timeline and just hope for the best. Hope no conflicting in-lore date gets released that would force a retcon. In which case you could start from the 1st Year of the Seventh Astral Era and work your way up as years pass. I think this would cause the least amount of issues in RP as most people still RP as the Calamity happened 5 years ago - at least, that's from most chat I've overheard in places like the Quicksand, people still refer to "5 years ago." Or can start at 3rd Year of the Seventh Astral Era and try to find people who are like minded about the timeline. Or just neglect putting Years into the diary/record at all. Just sun/moon - 28th Sun of the Third Astral Moon - this happened.

[Ryanti]

I tend to operate with mild vagueness in terms of what the exact dates are. My interpretation is that it is currently year 1 of the Seventh Astral Era. At the same time, I take into account this MMO time bubble. So personally, since Ryanti set himself out in the world at the beginning of 2.0, I generally say that he has been out and about "For a year and some."

 

I generally tend to think that it is not exactly year 2 yet, but it has been year 1 for 'a while'. This is because I heard it being year 1 a few patches ago but I have not heard of a year 2. Because of the time bubble, my character has done quite a lot in a single year. But that is true for all MMO'S. I find it easier to base time on a vague notion of slowly passing over the RP's I have versus trying to be specific about the years passing.

 

Speaking of eras, I do think the declaration of the Seventh Astral Era is reminiscent of the 'Mission Accomplished' fiasco IRL. Premature declaration. Seems kind of silly to me that the Dragons rise again at the beginning of an Astral Era. I was a bit surprised when that was declared, I feel like the Umbral Era was way too short.

[Grott]

There's a lot of complicated answers here and a lot of interpretations.

 

I just figure ARR came out in 2013, and the official word was that it was 1577 at the time. It's 2015 now... so it would be 1579. I guess other people are seeing this differently?

 

I didn't even know there was a debate on it. I just count it as 1579 and roll with it.

[Stormwind]

I tend to operate with mild vagueness in terms of what the exact dates are. My interpretation is that it is currently year 1 of the Seventh Astral Era. At the same time, I take into account this MMO time bubble. So personally, since Ryanti set himself out in the world at the beginning of 2.0, I generally say that he has been out and about "For a year and some."

 

I generally tend to think that it is not exactly year 2 yet, but it has been year 1 for 'a while'. This is because I heard it being year 1 a few patches ago but I have not heard of a year 2. Because of the time bubble, my character has done quite a lot in a single year. But that is true for all MMO'S. I find it easier to base time on a vague notion of slowly passing over the RP's I have versus trying to be specific about the years passing.

 

Speaking of eras, I do think the declaration of the Seventh Astral Era is reminiscent of the 'Mission Accomplished' fiasco IRL. Premature declaration. Seems kind of silly to me that the Dragons rise again at the beginning of an Astral Era. I was a bit surprised when that was declared, I feel like the Umbral Era was way too short.

 This really got me when they declared the end of the Umbral Era. I remember talking to some people after that and was like, "So that's it? Three leaders from one continent say its over and that's it? Nothing to do with the worlds aether, nothing to do with anything just, "Hey, was won this big military victory, Umbral Eras over everyone!"

 

I feel like maaaaaybe SE kind of jumped the gun on that, like you said very "Mission Accomplished" feel to it.

[Sounsyy]

Speaking of eras, I do think the declaration of the Seventh Astral Era is reminiscent of the 'Mission Accomplished' fiasco IRL. Premature declaration. Seems kind of silly to me that the Dragons rise again at the beginning of an Astral Era. I was a bit surprised when that was declared, I feel like the Umbral Era was way too short.

 

Fernehalwes addressed this at the Lore Panel as well.

 

F: So, officially, it’s the Seventh Astral Era… but there’s still… a lot of stuff going on. Who are the Grand Company Leaders that they can just be like, “Okay, it’s over, we’re done!”

 

MCKF: This is a very political thing. Basically, five years ago, you had half of your world destroyed because Louisoix stepped in and tried to stop things and only half stopped things. A lot of people did pass away during the calamity and their livelihood as been destroyed and they have to rebuild and go into the shroud to move felled trees and rebuild their farms and it got a lot of people down. If you look at some of the NPC dialogue, one thing we did in 2.0 was, we thought you know if my life had been destroyed I’d be all depressed, I’m just trying to rebuild things and get back on my feet. SO we’ve tried to put that kind of text into these regular NPCs. You have all these people in these nations that are very down. They had this big war with the Garleans, they won all these great battles, it was the first time in thousands of years the Grand Companies were formed and then “hey we made… DIDN’T make it” so basically the GC leaders were waiting for something good to happen and they grasped onto that and said “ok! umbral era is over mission accomplished we’re done!” to hopefully bring peoples spirits up. It’s a morale thing, you can’t have your people depressed all the time, they won’t be productive thinking “why should I farm? Another Bahamut is gonna just destroy my fields.”

 

F: So we have that quest line, Chronicles of a New Era.. so we ARE in a new era then?

 

MCKF: Yep. When they announce it, that’s it. But it’s weird because if a new player picks up the game and starts today they’re still in the Umbral Era, it’s in that time bubble.

[Ryanti]

Fernehalwes addressed this at the Lore Panel as well.

 

That makes much more sense to me. The date changing being a manmade thing. A political thing. Because to me it felt VERY mission accomplishy lol.

 

I can't believe it is truely an Astral Era yet, and probably never will In the MMO itself. It might even come back to bite those GC leaders in the ass. Umbral Eras seem to last a good amount of years. Perhaps not as long as Astral Eras but I think they definately can be as long as one. You are talking 1500 - 3000 years there.

 

Now, maybe this is the first Umbral Era where mankind prevented the apocalypse (Stopping Bahamut) but does that REALLY mean the Umbral Era is over? What does the Umbral Era mean?

 

To me, it is not about war (that happens in Astral Eras), a cycle of destruction and creation of civilization OR cataclysm. (Happened Sixth Umbral Era and Fourth Umbral Era but other Umbral Eras were slow burns like the Fifth, and we don't know about the others yet). To me, the only thing that is consistant is that Umbral Eras are eras that are full of great challenges and great change.

 

Umbral Eras are eras where civilization and its people have to be strong and face great challenge, and as a result there will be great change. And shit will get worse before it gets better. BUT eventually the fruits of those generations will bear golden prosperity for years to come. Hence Astral Era.

 

Does that sound like 3.0? It does to me. So I think the natural state of the world is still Umbral. Despite the calendar date being used as a tool of hope.

[RiniKett]

Personally, and I want to emphasize personally, I feel as though the time the developers have put in the game for day and night and the time bubble in general is more of a game mechanic than lore. The more I think about the information that has been provided, and thank you all for the massive amount of information given, the more I tend to feel that this is another Lore vs Game Mechanic argument.

 

While it is completely understandable as to why the time bubble is there for new players to experience the storyline in ARR at a set time so that everything happens chronologically, I still find it hard to believe that we as roleplayers, characters that divulge away from the game mechanic of being a warrior of light, being the only Whitemage(Shots fired), and being this path driven character that is set by the developers would follow something set for the story rather than the stories we are writing everyday. As Roleplayers, we deviate from the game mechanics and base our world off the lore we know. Because of this cross over, I am starting to feel it will never be possible for everyone to agree on the dates or time. There are the gray areas that are going to be debate and somethings are as black and white as they can be such as IC resurrection....Right? Again, I think it all boils down to the player and how they personally feel about what is given.

 

What I won't understand is if this time bubble is there to give new players a chance to feel that they are there in the story of ARR and the bubble will shift for the expansion then....What happens to the players starting fresh again? Do they go back in time? No, they start in that year of the story and move forward. When I explain this to my friends who I want to join the game I literally tell them "It's a Final Fantasy that you play, it feels like a Final Fantasy, it sounds like one, it looks like one, and it has a story like one. The only difference, is you have one character that goes through the story and you occasionally have to group with other people to progress. Then when you finish the story, it's like any other MMO."

 

Personally, I think the community is the blood of the game rather than it's story. The story, while nice, will never change, but each and every day on our server will be unlike any other. I tend to like the thought of that.

 

Thanks again for all the help and interest. Sure saves me the time from finding this myself! And hey, maybe we will get lucky someday. It took Blizzard 10 years before releasing an official timeline for WoW and 25 years for us to receive one for Zelda.

 

Cross your fingers.

[coldReactive]

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.

Yoshida said that the time between the end of 2.55 and Heavensward is about a day to a week.