Regarding Times, Dates, Years and Eras

[Luciende Talnoch]

In the diary entry I posted earlier today (last night? I do not remember exactly...) I specified the time, date, year and era. I got that information from here, and I formatted it all based loosely upon this template. I wanted to ask- because the chronological timeline of the Elder Scrolls lore places the events of the Elder Scrolls Online game sometime in 2E 582 to 2E 583-, do we count time as if we were in the current events of the lore (which, could easily become lore-bending to lore-breaking), or do we count time as if it were moving on sequentially? If the latter- is the date I mentioned accurate, or are we slowing down or speeding up time? Because we only have until E2 896 to play with (which is the year Tiber Septim completes his conquest of Tamriel).

[Cillian]

Before I answer, welcome! My character is Cillian, and thanks for interest in the guild! But as far as time, it's always a tricky thing in mmo's... in game expansions changing times vs actual days and years in game, but I do like the date keeping that you linked to. Likely the linked time is the closest we'd get to official trackable time, sequentially moving forward, which would be my choice. Curious what others think.

[@sylverdubs]

It’s always just a question of where your timeline fits with the quests for the “Vestige”. Sticking to the real timeline works, to a point. If you’re playing the main quests as your own, then you’d be farther behind. For example it’s accepted in the lore and the subsequent DLCs that we’re past the three alliance war. Mannimarco is defeated. If your character is experiencing the main event ICly, then technically Mannimarco isn’t defeated nor is Molag Bal.

I agree with Ian. It’s tricky in mmos.

My personal preference is to forgo the timeline. Stick to “somewhere in the era” that way the lore remains while being flexible.

Not everyone can defeat Molag Bal. No everyone can be the Vestige. So just dive into the flowing timeline without making waves. That way everyone can mingle without requiring some form of time merging everytime someone new comes along. RP in an mmo involves merging with the story without influencing or forcing it.

I hope I’m making sense

[𝐊𝐀𝐓 ᴀᴋᴀ 𝓡𝓮𝓭 𝓥𝓲𝓹𝓮𝓻]

i've been mulling over how to answer this question.

Taking into account what the others have said, here we go.

First, there is an addon i recommend, and use, called Clock - Tamriel Standard Time, which is listed in the Addons section. It shows the moons, the time, and the date.

And here is a Calendar of Tamriel, which has all sorts of fun info.

i'm new to ESO, so i wanted to take some time to read, and research before answering.

i highly appreciate you wanting to keep as authentic as possible. However, as Anwen has mentioned, and as Ian mentioned, trying to keep up with Tamriel time in relation to our, real life time, can become tough, tricky and down right confusing, as time advances in ESO 4x faster than our actual time.

i think it would be acceptable, to gloss over Tamriel Time, when it comes to trying to plan events, setting dates and such. We have people all over the world with their own time zones, and then Tamriel moving at light speed. So, i'd say, set a date in our time, and just have our characters ICly 'see it' translated into Tamriel time/date.

For diary entries, same thing. If it comes up that you absolutely NEED a hard core Tamriel date, by all means, try to figure out the calendar, match it up as best you can with our date/times and there you go.

Otherwise, just have that be something we fluff over for the sake of just making it work.

As Anwen mentioned, we are taking the game at our own pace, dates and times are not going to always match up. i refer to things like that as different time shards.... Our characters all exist at the same time, just some have accessed different shards than others have. (Different stages of a quest line etc).

Luciende, you are coming in at a very special time. You're on the ground floor of the guild in ESO. This is where we are laying our foundation that may last years and years.

How do you feel about what we've said?

[Luciende Talnoch]

Thank you for including me in this discussion! I am not a (fully-fledged) member yet, so I truly appreciate it. As to what was said...

Regarding events planning: I think that having them set in a time based upon our out of game world would be best. IC-wise, we can always act as though the time "translated". An interesting possibility arises here though: how do we handle in game time's progress during the event? Perhaps, if we all (or, at least, the DM) have the add-on previously discussed, we could base the event's happenings around the IC "start time" that the clock happens to show? That opens the can of worms of how time progresses- do we progress it from that "start time" using the out of game time's pace? Or does the DM determine an appropriate time window for what happened in the event? This bears more discussion, I think- but this is a more nitty gritty detail.

Regarding diary entries: Honestly? I cannot foresee any case where a skilled roleplayer would NEED a hard and fast set date for this. Time is mutable and we can play around with it in many ways... That being said- I DO think a year would be nice to decide upon, and we progress said year along with out-of-game time. So, for instance, today (3/21/2022) could be the 21st Morndas of First Seed in 2E 590 (I chose the 590 because ESO was released in 2014, and its events occured 2E 582, so, 8 years would make it 590). That, of course, goes back to the original problem, and it also means that the in-game events aren't all immediately RPable. We could, of course, say that each out of game calendar year corresponds to an IC calendar year and leave it like that without going into actual dates- but that again means that some in-game events are OOC.

So, honestly, I think it depends, and I am flexible as to where we go with this. Do we want a realistic, down to the details world to work with, up to and including the actual time? If so, I'd recommend the first system I laid out in the bit about diary entries (where out of game today would be in game the 21st Morndas of First Seed in 2E 590). If we want a hybrid, then we should probably go with the year-to-year correspondence and not go into more detail. But- if we want to RP certain in-game details, then we need to set the year as 2E 582, and we CANNOT set a hard and fast date! Why? Because, for instance, I mentioned in my diary entry that I had to liberate someone from the Grave in order to find an object- what if said object was in Headman Bhosek's palace? If the time is later than a certain point in game that is playable, then it's no longer his palace, and as such, I shouldn't call it by that name. So, this is a very complicated point that we really need to hammer out.

[Xrailax]

I would say you guys are vastly over thinking this. It is difficult to apply standard times to a fictional world. For example, in EverQuest 2, 4 days pass in a single real time day. There were no era's to consider, no change in the date structure when a new empire showed up.

Also, you run into the issue of new players who are still going through original ESO content, not having been through the advance time line of the expansions. It's at the very least, a time consuming job to translate game time to real time.

I would suggest, that for journal writing, use whatever the current era/year is in game. And run with it.

[Eira Frostcaller]

I've always thought of timelines in MMO RP as rather fluid, more like in a book of fiction than in one's real life. Time moves forward from some event or another, but there's nothing that says in the fiction of our RP world we can't go back and enact, or revisit, something that would have happened previously. I personally don't have an issue with a storyline involving a particular PC being on a different timeline than that of another PC. A simple, yet common example, "You can't be at the tavern roleplay in Skyrim tonight because your character is actually somewhere off in Hammerfel?" Well, who dictates that both events are actually happening at the same time? What do we gain, if anything, by being so hidebound to 'official' timelines? It's fiction, it's storytelling.

[𝐊𝐀𝐓 ᴀᴋᴀ 𝓡𝓮𝓭 𝓥𝓲𝓹𝓮𝓻]

Hey there! Thank you for chiming in on the discussion!

i was with you, until you said this.

Mar 29, 2022 18:07:02 GMT -4 Eira Frostcaller said:

A simple, yet common example, "You can't be at the tavern roleplay in Skyrim tonight because your character is actually somewhere off in Hammerfel?" Well, who dictates that both events are actually happening at the same time? What do we gain, if anything, by being so hidebound to 'official' timelines? It's fiction, it's storytelling.

People can play anyway they want to. It's their money, their time spent.

However, for those in this guild, your statement would not work.

You are IC at all times when on your Cheshire Cat character. Therefore, if your character is anywhere, doing one thing in game, that is where they are. Although our characters are fictional, they generally don't have clones of themselves running around, unless they are one of the very rare special people able to create Companions, of themselves. Even then, the resulting non-person, is still not the -real- main person, who is off doing whatever it is they are doing, caught up in whatever time shard in their time, that has them needing help again.

Jane can't be relaxing in the tavern on 'Friday' night, with Bella, while at the same time out delving in a dungeon somewhere. (well you CAN if that's what you're playing the game for, to say such things), but it wouldn't work in this guild. It would cause way too many problems.

The only even mild exception to this, within the guilds standards, is when you are on your Cheshire Cat character, your character is mentally connected to a version of the guild hall's living room. It's like a small pocket of virtual reality within their mind, where they can 'see' and interact with others in the guild, while their physical form is out in the world, doing whatever it is they are doing. The importance of which, affects how strong their image is seen by others. Example, if they are out fighting in a dangerous place, their image would be flickering, as it is requiring much more brain capacity to focus on their life and the task at hand, than it is, focusing on the connection of the guild hall link.

[@sylverdubs]

Actually I think Eira’s point was more along the lines of:

“How are you here in Skyrim tonight? Weren’t you -just- in Hammerfell an hour ago?”

The context being that Hammerfell and Skyrim aren’t exactly an easy horse-ride away.

Like the time-shard concept you’ve adopted, Kat, I think Eira agrees that you might be questing at a different time while being able to make it to the tavern. This without having to worry about the logistics of travel or changing out if your armor, taking a bath etc before going to a social outing.

Rather than being in two places at once.

[Luciende Talnoch]

Aye, @sylverdubs, that was my impression as well. But- all of this leaves me, and us, at a standstill! I, for one, have been putting off my journal entry- for a dangerously long time, what with the weekly requirement of an RP on the forums being considered- until we have a more concrete answer... Are we any closer to a consensus? I'll be in game on and off all day too, if any one would like to discuss this in real time.

[@sylverdubs]

Don’t constrain yourself with a day. The facts of the diary are what’s important.

If you need a time frame mention something like “it’s been a few days since my last entry”.

Even then it’s obvious that diary entries are in sequence. I’ve never used dates in diary entries and it never confused anyone. If you need to write a date, continue with the one you’ve already started using. I’m fairly certain most readers will skim the date , understanding that entries are in sequence and then proceed to reading the entry itself which is vastly more interesting.

Just go for it.

[@sylverdubs]

I just checked and no one uses dates in their diaries, including in the gang member section.

You’re free to use the dates you want without it clashing with anyone else.

[𝐊𝐀𝐓 ᴀᴋᴀ 𝓡𝓮𝓭 𝓥𝓲𝓹𝓮𝓻]

Mar 30, 2022 6:23:37 GMT -4 @sylverdubs said:

Actually I think Eira’s point was more along the lines of:

“How are you here in Skyrim tonight? Weren’t you -just- in Hammerfell an hour ago?”

The context being that Hammerfell and Skyrim aren’t exactly an easy horse-ride away.

Like the time-shard concept you’ve adopted, Kat, I think Eira agrees that you might be questing at a different time while being able to make it to the tavern. This without having to worry about the logistics of travel or changing out if your armor, taking a bath etc before going to a social outing.

Rather than being in two places at once.

If this was the case, then alright. Although, wayshrines and portals are an accepted, and widely used means of transportation when horses are too slow.

Changing out of armor is easy, ICly speaking, the ol changing rune cane be used again, or ppl could change manually, and as for bathing, why not throw in a quick dip in the tub or whatever for added RP flavor.

It's all gravy.

[Eira Frostcaller]

Kat, you are taking a very literal approach to what I've said, which doesn't at all acknowledge the concept I am trying to describe, (which has absolutely nothing to do with clones running around in two different places at the same time, nor riding across the length and breadth of Tamriel in a space of a few hours.) Regardless, if I am not mistaken, your post does make it clear that for the purposes of this guild we are to take a very literal and linear approach to character timelines. That clarification is helpful to me but still begs the question, "what is today's date in game?" Because if it is to be a literal approach to timelines, we all need to be on the same page as to year and day. It also causes potential difficulties in explaining, every time, where my character was "all this time" if I can't log on for a week. Almost seems best to let sleeping dogs lay as far as time goes.

[𝐊𝐀𝐓 ᴀᴋᴀ 𝓡𝓮𝓭 𝓥𝓲𝓹𝓮𝓻]

Here are some helpful links that answer your questions, Eira.

Logging in and Out Explained ICly

What to Consider if You're Going to Be Away