Timeline question

[Kilieit]

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".

[Kazukata]

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. :lol: 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.

[Valence]

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

[Sounsyy]

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

 

I don't really see any point of it, other than to say "well technically this is correct".

Honestly, though, I'm kind of surprised to learn that so little time has passed in the lore.

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.

 

Two' date=' um…years ago.[/quote']

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' date=' less sophisticated Faust model.[/quote']

Come' date=' 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.[/quote']

 

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.

[Valence]

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.