ZOS, just advance the timeline, please.

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO

hcbigdogdoghc wrote: »

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

Actually, let's revisit the official stance:
Q:

As I've learned recently, it seems all of the events in the game from Orsinium to Elsweyr occur in 2E 583. But according to lore in-game, the event in which Euraxia Tharn conquered Rimmen was known as the Frostfall Coup, implying that it happened in the month of Frostfall. Multiple character claim Euraxia conquered Rimmen 6 years prior to the events of Elsweyr, and the Coup happened in 2E 576. That would, in a literal sense, place the current year in 582, which doesn't make sense with information that's already been established. Does this mean that the events of Elsweyr occur prior to Frostfall of 583, which is why they're still saying the Coup happened 6 years prior?

And lastly, are there any plans to officially move the timeline forward into 2E 584?

A:

So, time in-game is personal to you. Given that multiple players can play content in any order, we've resisted the push to advance to 2E 583. For that reason, we assume that all events of ESO take place in 2E 582.

This answer remains completely incompatible with the information we are getting in-game. NPCs constantly reference the timeline. Unless there has been some kind of mass disassociation event, everything is taking place within a year of the base game. In-game time is in no way "personal to the player".

What they are saying is that they are afraid to move on with the timeline because they don't want to alienate and confuse players.

But idk why they don't get it, players that cared will still want to do everything in order anyways, forcing players to start in the latest chapter and throwing prologue quests in starting cities are what's confusing story focused players. That's not to mention about all the recurring NPCs, people playing out of order will still get confused, like seriously what's the point?

Saying everything, the entire base game, all zone DLCs, all dungeon DLCS, all chapters, and ALL future content took place within A YEAR seriously causes problems in the lore.

Is Tamriel the size of Hawaii? Because this is the only way the story can make sense, since they deny that we are in a dragon break.

Oh you are totally right. I misread that response as the timeline being up to player interpretation. This is so much worse.

Crazyprophet

Yeah leave it ambiguous I reckon.

In any case I just headcanon a timeline and ignore references against it. I refuse to believe all this stuff happened in one year. Time flows ever onward.

WeerW3ir

thats what you get if you make 1 year long storylines ^^ instead of actually expanding the story after summerset. they decided to do this 1 year long mess. and they continue it!! even after 2 year. we need a story which is longer than just a year. we need the story what the base game had till summerset.
main story > thieves guild, brotherhood > wrothgar > morrowind > clockwork > summerset.
summerset finihed it. murkmire as a good start for something big. but ended up a small dlc without any meaningful happening. catty land could have make an op start for a new story to stop the threebanner war. but no. they went with dragons.

just imagine a full story like this.:
Right after summerset. right after the failure of 3 god. Dagon would have plan his little plan to pull of the same mess as they wanted. Murkmire would have still happen, but we would have actually get a little hint, by some dremora, or something weird and outworldish. Elsweyr would have happen too, but with more focus on stopping the war. Tharn would have manage something but then Dagons agents would have fail it. the war is still going on for now. Your old friend would have show up. (titanborn as she did now.) she would have drag you into skyrim for clues about what dagon is actually planning. you getting dragged into the story of western skyrim and the reach. but at the reach. after the vampires messing , you would have realise Dagon is indeed trying to invade Cyrodiil and you must go there.

JD2013

They are, unfortunately, at the point that there are that many main stories and DLC that I don't think they can.

Crazyprophet

I actually liked the Year-Long stories, and I REALLY liked that it wasn't "Evil Daedra Invading Tamriel Plot #81237243." The Year of the Dragon and Greymoor were kinda refreshing tbh.

Ekzorka

MaisonNaevius wrote: »

The date is kept at 582 to avoid disturbing players who play in any order. Although they don't care.

The question is why devs adapt TESO for players who don't care? If they took a TES lore and expecting TES fans, they have to respect it.
ZoS have an unconvincing excuse that the "poor newbies" should not be separated with other players, but hell who's actually speaking about a splitting? Just come up with another game convention with Vestige's time traveling as it was made with resurrection via a soulgem - that's all! No need to harm the timeline and lore.
Orsinium was the first step to advancing the timeline, but then it was deleted. Too bad, too bad...

Ekzorka

Crazyprophet wrote: »

I actually liked the Year-Long stories, and I REALLY liked that it wasn't "Evil Daedra Invading Tamriel Plot #81237243." The Year of the Dragon and Greymoor were kinda refreshing tbh.

Yeah, "Season of the Dragon" is "Skyrim v2" and "Dark Heart of Skyrim" is "Dawnguard v2".

hands0medevil

I don't feel it is necessary. I'm getting older irl. I want my chars to stay forever young

Lizzrdd

Its kind of funny this topic comes up....I have thought of this game as a Dragon Break for many years now....

They have painted themselves into the corner as far as lore and time go. For some reason they dont want to move on to actually having Tiber Septim appear in person it feels. Just a theory...
But rationalizing it as a Groundhog Day Dragon Break keeps me from over thinking it a bit.

Crazyprophet

Lizzrdd wrote: »

Its kind of funny this topic comes up....I have thought of this game as a Dragon Break for many years now....

They have painted themselves into the corner as far as lore and time go. For some reason they dont want to move on to actually having Tiber Septim appear in person it feels. Just a theory...
But rationalizing it as a Groundhog Day Dragon Break keeps me from over thinking it a bit.

Despite was Zenimax has said - It has to be a dragon break, at least to some extent. Even if we assume the timeline is linear.

Like who's the reigning monarch of Shornhelm right now? That depends. :P

opaj

Lizzrdd wrote: »

Its kind of funny this topic comes up....I have thought of this game as a Dragon Break for many years now....

They have painted themselves into the corner as far as lore and time go. For some reason they dont want to move on to actually having Tiber Septim appear in person it feels. Just a theory...
But rationalizing it as a Groundhog Day Dragon Break keeps me from over thinking it a bit.

What does Tiber Septim have to do with anything? I want time to advance, too, but that would involve a jump of hundreds of years, which is something that would probably be more divisive among lore hounds and RPers.

To be fair, the singleplayer games don't really handle the passage of time very well, either. The calendar advances, but the world doesn't change. In Oblivion you experience the final year of the third era, but the fourth era never begins no matter how many years you spend rotting in a Bravil prison for skooma-related crimes.

I can maintain an internal calendar, like others here. It sure would be nice if ZOS would stop using characters and events that have clear begins, middles, and ends, though. The use of Darien Gautier, Lyris Titanborn, Abnur Tharn, and Sai Sahan in the yearly stories really throw a wrench in things if you decide to play out of order.

ealdwin

Ekzorka wrote: »

MaisonNaevius wrote: »

The date is kept at 582 to avoid disturbing players who play in any order. Although they don't care.

The question is why devs adapt TESO for players who don't care? If they took a TES lore and expecting TES fans, they have to respect it.

Who knows. You’re talking about the people who littered High Rock and parts of Hammerfall with Ayleid ruins that have no business being there, because they couldn’t be bothered coming up with a different ancient elf tile-set. Or completely erased notable cities that were mentioned in first era texts for who knows why. Not to mention raising impassable mountains where paths should be and shifting entire coastlines, resulting in city locations being altered.

At somepoint, game mechanics will require the sacrifice of lore and sense. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

Lizzrdd

opaj wrote: »

Lizzrdd wrote: »

Its kind of funny this topic comes up....I have thought of this game as a Dragon Break for many years now....

They have painted themselves into the corner as far as lore and time go. For some reason they dont want to move on to actually having Tiber Septim appear in person it feels. Just a theory...
But rationalizing it as a Groundhog Day Dragon Break keeps me from over thinking it a bit.

What does Tiber Septim have to do with anything? I want time to advance, too, but that would involve a jump of hundreds of years, which is something that would probably be more divisive among lore hounds and RPers.

To be fair, the singleplayer games don't really handle the passage of time very well, either. The calendar advances, but the world doesn't change. In Oblivion you experience the final year of the third era, but the fourth era never begins no matter how many years you spend rotting in a Bravil prison for skooma-related crimes.

I can maintain an internal calendar, like others here. It sure would be nice if ZOS would stop using characters and events that have clear begins, middles, and ends, though. The use of Darien Gautier, Lyris Titanborn, Abnur Tharn, and Sai Sahan in the yearly stories really throw a wrench in things if you decide to play out of order.

My bad...I thought he was born earlier in the 2nd era.

Zephiran23

We haven't even had a change of season yet. 2E 582 has a long way to go.

Necrelios

We simply don't know enough about Nirn's orbital pattern. For instance one year on Neptune is 60,190 days on Earth.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Necrelios wrote: »

We simply don't know enough about Nirn's orbital pattern. For instance one year on Neptune is 60,190 days on Earth.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Calendar

DreamsUnderStars

Let's not forget if we are going to apply any sort of realism to this setting* (and speaking mainly of the original main quest), we would have to be globe-trotting super heroes. Plus the logistics of moving troops around and travel; most of this was sorta simulated back before One Tamriel when you could only do Soul Shriven every five levels.
Also of note some of these quests have you running around the planet from one end of Tamriel to the other with no sense of time passing, especially not in the dialogue. Like for example: "We need you to take this message to a person in Wayrest, hurry, time is of the essence!" (and you're standing thousands of miles away in Stormhold or something.) And then they act like it was just an evening stroll down the street.

The timeline in the game is a huge mess since we can do the game in any order we want, but it would be pretty cool if someone could work out how and where what happened in a canonical fashion then those that want to could play the game in that order.

*And yes we are applying realism, eating, drinking, farming, having to walk/ride everywhere, sleeping having kids are realistic and they all happen in game.

DreamsUnderStars

Necrelios wrote: »

We simply don't know enough about Nirn's orbital pattern. For instance one year on Neptune is 60,190 days on Earth.

Untrue. Each month has 30 days, there are 12 months and there are 7 days in a week.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Calendar

Necrelios

DreamsUnderStars wrote: »

Necrelios wrote: »

We simply don't know enough about Nirn's orbital pattern. For instance one year on Neptune is 60,190 days on Earth.

Untrue. Each month has 30 days, there are 12 months and there are 7 days in a week.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Calendar

Oh yeah I see what you're saying. Almost thought I found a loophole 🧐🤓.

Aetherderius

We're just playing in the Elder Scrolls version of 2020. The year drags on forever and more terrible things keep happening.

Ekzorka

DreamsUnderStars wrote: »

Also of note some of these quests have you running around the planet from one end of Tamriel to the other with no sense of time passing, especially not in the dialogue. Like for example: "We need you to take this message to a person in Wayrest, hurry, time is of the essence!" (and you're standing thousands of miles away in Stormhold or something.) And then they act like it was just an evening stroll down the street.

I don't think that Tamriel is so huge, maybe it's a bit bigger than Australia. I make a conclusion based on the number of cities and their location on the continent -- with TES technologies local peoples can't travel so far between at least 2 cities, they have to build on their way a few towns/villages more. Also there were a quest that mentioned a one-day travel between Riften and Ivarstead.

ealdwin wrote: »

At somepoint, game mechanics will require the sacrifice of lore and sense. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

Well, it could affect on player character, but can't work on NPCs. You can't write a good story for a character who live out of time, because you'll be limited in a plot. And we can see this limitation in some quests with some characters.

Tensar

The problem with the actual storyline is that they can't even tell a good story involving many years in the game. News players don't care about the logical order, they could only tell where to start to follow the storyline and that would be enough for news players.

I really hope ZoS will do something with the timeline.

Nagastani

When I first saw this I thought they meant something like advance Elder Scrolls to the modern era.

Imagine like a Call of Duty type game except it's Elder Scrolls instead. Would bring the Dark Brotherhood to a whole new level. Everyone would have a Blade of Woe attached to their Ak-47s.

Firstmep

Don't think it's gonna happen.
Zos has found their formula for churning out new content with reusing the same concept every release, delves, public dungeons, skyshards etc.
Dark anchor type mechanic etc.
And I guess it works for them.
I don't see them dedicate time and effort to go back to old zones and rewrite them.
I wouldn't expect a wow cataclysm type zone rework for eso, like ever.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO wrote: »

What you don't buy story beats like Abnur Tharn becoming decrepit a week after the Planemeld?

Well that whole planemeld thing did take a lot out of poor Abnur.

Soulshine

Honestly, a lot of this could be alleviated if they just turned OFF all the danged NPC screaming and stalking in every major city, which ends up confusing new players on what and where they need to go.

Not saying they need to be removed, just saying to shut them the heck off so we don't have to hear "Dragons! in your own homeland," and "do you KNOW! how long I've been LOOKING for you!?" every time we are on a new alt that has not completed any of the stuff your main has done.

And before you go and say we can pick up the quests they have and then they will stop shouting, it's not a solution. There is no reason in the world to have nearly an entire quest journal taken up by prologue/intro's on a new char.

They could even just color code the icons over these people to correspond with the order of the timeline.... any number of things could have been implemented better than the current state of the game just throwing all this stuff ad nauseam at new people in the game like a bad quest salad with way too loud announcers.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Aetherderius wrote: »

We're just playing in the Elder Scrolls version of 2020. The year drags on forever and more terrible things keep happening.

Or is 2020 the real life version of eso!🤔

WeerW3ir

Firstmep wrote: »

Don't think it's gonna happen.
Zos has found their formula for churning out new content with reusing the same concept every release, delves, public dungeons, skyshards etc.
Dark anchor type mechanic etc.
And I guess it works for them.
I don't see them dedicate time and effort to go back to old zones and rewrite them.
I wouldn't expect a wow cataclysm type zone rework for eso, like ever.

holy damn. that would save the game. and bring back my friends.
i mean. why they cannot do something with the original zones?

Athan1

The OP is right but tbf it would also be immersion-breaking if one zone is in 582 and you teleport to another which is in 584. Makes no sense.

A big mistake, like pointed out, is that tutorials for DLC zones are in the starter zones, which completely confuses and spams new players. It's super annoying.

The most immersion-breaking aspect in the timeline and DLC is that apart from a couple of references, all DLC zones ignore the 3 banners war, which should be ongoing even if the timeline had advanced. Again makes no sense.

Tensar

Athan1 wrote: »

The OP is right but tbf it would also be immersion-breaking if one zone is in 582 and you teleport to another which is in 584. Makes no sense.

It's already like that, you finish base game storyline and you still see darkanchors everywhere. You didn't start base game storyline and you see old dark anchors in Markarth and Orsinium. Same with Summerset and geysers.

They could just advance the timeline. No more immersion breaking than what we got now. (it would be less immersion breaking)