Guild Wars 2

The Mouvelian calendar in use in Tyria was originally slated to have only 360 days, but 5 ‘extra’ days were ‘discovered’ by the asura as detailed by Angel McCoy here to better line up with the Gregorian calendar. I quoted said post here for convenience.

“Friends and fellows. Due to recent (amazing!) reasoning by scholars of the Astronomagical Society, we are pleased to announce that we have added the five hidden days to our calendar year! That’s five extra days we’ve recognized for you to advance your work before the annual review. Gifts and gratitude are unnecessary. We merely acknowledged them officially; we did not create them. May all your projects be almost as successful as ours.” — Mikk

As previous to these five days each season was slated to have 90 days in it, how is it that these extra days are distributed? Are they spread somewhat evenly between the seasons or are they tacked on at the end? And how are leap days counted in?

It would be kinda nice to get an official word on how these new days fit into the Mouvelian calendar so I can properly use it instead of the Gregorian calendar for my chara’s birthdays.

EDIT: Also, on what day of the Gregorian calendar does the first day of the Mouvelian calendar occur?

SynfulChaot.3169:

As previous to these five days each season was slated to have 90 days in it, how is it that these extra days are distributed? Are they spread somewhat evenly between the seasons or are they tacked on at the end? And how are leap days counted in?

Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know.

Half of the reason why I say the change was a blatant retcon and done kitten. It doesn’t even take into account that, unlike the Gregorian calendar, the Mouvelian calendar’s New Years Day is on the first day of Spring (Wintersday being the last day of Winter). That’s the middle of March for us!

So comparing the two, Tyria is effectively at the end of “February” or beginning of “March.”

It’d be nice to not only get a mention about those five days fitting in, but how the Mouvelian calendar suddenly got months (never mentioned before Flame and Frost except for the Canthan calendar) and why this idiotic thing was done to “sync up” the calendar despite the New Years not fitting in. We only experience Wintersday during December because it fits with our Christmas and New Years – not their New Years.

Not to mention a syncing up would lead people to believe that these major events happen on a bi-weekly basis… despite the whole 2 hours of night cycle going on mechanically… Why doesn’t Tyria just go on high alert every other Tuesday?

The change makes no bleeding sense.

As I see it, the change makes perfect sense in a ret-con sort of way.

The original intent of the calendar, created long before the Living Story, was to encompass just the world of Tyria. As the continued with the Living Story, though, the difference between the Mouvelian calendar’s 360 days and the Gregorian calendar’s 365 days would become apparent as the Living Story is supposed to be occurring in real time.

Why does the Living Story have to occur in real time though? There’s no need for it. I mean, the very nature of the day-night cycle them made while developing GW2 counters this “real time” business!

NOTHING in the game has supported real time creation and even if they seamlessly alter the game’s lore and mechanics to show real-time, you still have an issue with the bi-weekly updates: everything major happens every two weeks. Every Scarlet terrorist attack, every push into enemy territory or enemy pushing into good-guy territory, etc. will be done on a predictable timetable. But the entire basis for Scarlet, for example, is that she’s not predictable – something that “real time” updates happening bi-weekly completely counters.

Thus once more, this attempt is kitten, because they’d either need to break the bi-weekly updates and keep it truly real time with updates happening more “chaotic” by appearance (rather than nth x of the week/month/year); or alternatively they need to drop the “real time updates”. Otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense. Either the characters are permanently holding the idiot ball (as draxynnic often calls it) or it happens in whatever timeframe ArenaNet says it happens rather than a predetermined updating system.

And let’s face it, if ArenaNet wants to say that five months’ worth of updates only takes place over a few weeks in-game, they should be able to. Locking themselves in with this kitten attempt of “real time” updates only hinders them.

All those points aside, their current official statements are that the LS does occur in real-time and that the Mouvelian calendar does have 365 days in it.

With those two officially stated points in mind, shall we try to answer the queries instead of saying why it should not be?

Well as I said in the very beginning, none are known and quite honestly it’s possible to predict how they function. We’re given next to nothing about it. Just “there’s now five more days to the calendar” with no reason why it is other than ’it’s just been discovered this is so.’

With no foundation, you cannot build.

True. That’s why I’m asking what the foundation is. Perhaps someone will find some lore posting you and I have missed somewhere or perhaps ANet will grace us with an answer.

*crosses fingers*

Either way, I’d love to have my RP charas birthdays listed with the Mouvelian calendar instead of the Gregorian.

And what I’m saying is that there is no foundation for those questions to be deduced. The only mention of the Mouvelian calendar, beyond the use of putting dates to events, in GW2’s timeframe has been that very interview.

If you’re wanting simple dating for your character’s age: the game began in 1325 AE (same year as Zhaitan’s death and the Karka invasion), and is currently in 1326 AE (the year of all of Scarlet’s antics so far; once Wintersday is over, it’ll be 1327 AE given current state of things). So if you want your characters to be, say, 28 when Zhaitan died then said character(s) will have been born in 1297 A.E. In regards to dating, it is done in the format of <Day> <Season> <Year> – e.g., 09 Season of the Phoenix 1326 A.E.

So long as you avoid going above the 90th day of a season, you don’t need to know where those five days are placed in the year (of if there’s a leap year).

There was discussion (sorry for the alt-link), here:
http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/page/1/m/2737230/viewthread/5911959-gregorian-to-mouvelian-calender-conversion-charts/post/33247796#p33247796

Now, of course, there’s things missing / don’t perfectly line up, and the calender is being remade (I suggest reading the first post, going to the end of the thread, and reading backwards like you would do in build threads). It might help out with the days, where they are, and how to mathematically do it in you head. However, I do agree with Konig when it comes to,

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If you’re wanting simple dating for your character’s age: the game began in 1325 AE (same year as Zhaitan’s death and the Karka invasion), and is currently in 1326 AE (the year of all of Scarlet’s antics so far; once Wintersday is over, it’ll be 1327 AE given current state of things). So if you want your characters to be, say, 28 when Zhaitan died then said character(s) will have been born in 1297 A.E. In regards to dating, it is done in the format of <Day> <Season> <Year> – e.g., 09 Season of the Phoenix 1326 A.E.

So long as you avoid going above the 90th day of a season, you don’t need to know where those five days are placed in the year (of if there’s a leap year).

But yup!

I actually read that full discussion before posting here, but ANet doesn’t really ever post there so I figured I’d bring an official inquiry here where ANet might see it.

And while I could do ‘simple’ dating, I find it to be too inaccurate for my tastes. I’d like to do precise dating instead, which does require a bit more details.

If you read that thread there is discussion about if the days are tacked on at the end or if they are spread throughout. As we don’t even know that we cannot be assured of any day past 90 Season of the Zephyr. And that’s if we ignore leap years and assume that 01 Zephyr = January 1st.

ArenaNet doesn’t really post here (as in the lore forum) either. I think we’ve seen a grand total of 6 posts since the forums went up. And at least two of them was just in response to the Scarlet hate.

Either way, 01 Season of the Zephyr would actually equate our Spring Equinox – most often being March 20th – and not January 1st. As I made mention before, the Mouvelian calendar – despite ArenaNet’s attempts to ‘sync up’ the calendars – starts (had and still) with the first day of spring (“Season of the Zephyr” is synonymous with “Spring” – Phoenix with Summer, Scion with Fall, and Colossus with Winter).

So if you’re wanting the most accurate, the best you can really do until we get more details about the mysterious-new-5-days is just put every season at 91 days and count day 1 of spring as March 20th. Until ArenaNet does further retconning, the worst you’ll get is 2-4 days shy if in Summer, Fall, or Winter.

Shouldn’t it be impossible to link the two calendars though? Ok, so both have 365 days, but the duration of a day is not the same in-game versus out of game. In-game, a full day / night cycle does not take 24 out-of-game hours.

How many Tyrian days occur within the time of one real-time day?

Let’s assume that the Tyrian day / night cycle completes 4 times within one Earthen day (24 real time hours). If so, Tyria’s 365 day year should elapse in only one quarter of an Earthen year. We should celebrate Wintersday four times per calendar year!

Am I missing something obvious?

No, you’re not. That was actually one of the complaints I made about how the game (even just the Living Story content) cannot reasonably be occurring “in real time” despite ArenaNet’s latest attempt.

BTW, it’s a 2 hour for both day and night (day lasts for 70 minutes, night for 40 minutes). At least per the wiki. So you’d be getting 12 Tyrian day to 1 Earth day if you take it directly. Though obviously days and nights last longer than such a short time in lore (several hours each – seems to be closer to more like the length of Earth days).

Personally I don’t think you should not be trying to tie 01 Zephyr to the spring equinox, Wintersday in it’s original form is a sort of divine “groundhog’s day” to determine the length of winter. I doesn’t make much sense to be determining such a thing right at the spring equinox when regardless of the outcome “winter” will only ever last maybe 1-3 more weeks and things are likely in fact already thawing by Wintersday.

Except that it is directly stated to be the spring equinox, and back when that whole “how much longer will we be huddled up shivering” thing actually was the point of Wintersday, it was enforced by beings who could overwrite your RL notions of when the snow thaws and when it stops falling.

Not to mention that I myself live in a place where at least one year out of every two the largest snow of the season comes within a week on either side of the equinox.

Wintersday is celebrated as the “last day of Winter” – what’s determined isn’t how long winter lasts, but how long snow and coldness lasts. As Aaron said, it is explicitly stated that the first day of the Season of the Zephyr is the first day of the year (see any GW1 manual of if unable, the table on any wiki page for the calendars such as this one.

Things like the spring equinox are solar events, rather than terrestrial events, while the weather is more terrestrial than solar. The two can influence each other, of course, but only to a degree. Now, in GW1, the length of “winter” was said to be controlled by Grenth and Dwayna, but that only strengthens the notion that Wintersday did not control when the spring equinox would be.

In Tyria, the equinoxes and solstices are static – unlike on earth – by the calendars’ standards. The weather, however, is not.

Why are people trying to link the day/night in game mechanic to lore… It is quite obvious that the day and night cycles in the game don’t function as a real time representation of how long a Tyrian day is. The only reason day/night last 2 hours in the game is so that players have a chance to experience both regardless of when they can play/what time zone they live in.

The reason it was brought up is because the change in the calendar was done to sync up the Tyrian timeframe with our own – for real-time story progression. Literally something happens in Tyria every other week (or whenever there’s an update). This conflicts with other known facts and representations of lore and mechanics – the clash of lore, mechanics, and “real-time progression” logic is what brought up the mention of the day/night cycle under the argument that “if the updates are meant to be represented with real-time, then the rest should be too, including the day/night cycle which clearly isn’t otherwise years would be 12 times shorter in Tyria than for us.”

@Foxx That’s exactly the point we’re making. The passage of game time, as portrayed in real time, is a purely mechanical contrivance, and so the devs attempting to link the two in lore with the calender retcon is of necessity going to fall flat on its face. The two were never meant to sink up, and it is far too late to change that, especially with only a declaration that reads as if it was thrown together on the spot.

Perhaps the company has it’s reasons, but unless they care to share them myself and many others will naturally feel put off by unnecessary and ill-advised changes.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

-snip-

So dev’s have since suggested that it is an actual representation of the Tyrian passage of time O_o? -confuse-

“The connection between the Mouvelian calendar and our real-world calendar is a practical one.” Meaning, they want their in-game calender to line up with the real world calender.