What year is it?

[keyguardactive]

So the live version of the game shut down in 2012, and I think at the time the in universe calendar roughly matched up to the real world.

 

But, like, is that still true? Is this one of those comic book sliding timescale things where now is always now? Or did time pause for the seven years between live and homecoming and it's 2017 in Paragon City? 

 

What is the date, in universe? 

[Glacier Peak]

Time travel and multiverse means it's whatever time it needs to be. There's some in game clues to the time being later than 2012 though. 

[huang3721]

It is up to you. The game doesn't explicitly tell us the year.

 

IMO, judging by the Rikti War's effect on the populace, it was probably around 2004. My hunch is all the post-Praetoria War events took place within the first decade of the 21st century. 

 

However, Homecoming devs add their own story from issue 27 onwards, so maybe the year is closer to the 2020s. Who knows?
 

[LegionAlpha]

Any health problems or reactions due to the temporal distortions or interdimensional shifts due to the "blink", must be reported to the D.T.A( Department of Temporal Affairs) or D.I.A( Department of interdimensional Affairs) for full psychological evaluation. 

[Worm_Kalpa]

5 hours ago, keyguardactive said:

Is this one of those comic book sliding timescale things where now is always now?

I think this is the closest option.  With the Bicentennial badge and associated plaques added by the HC devs, the in-game year is at least 2023.  

 

One issue with matching the game's timeline to time close to our present is that it would be a massive undertaking updating the aesthetics and writing from the early 2000s when the game first came out.  For aesthetics, I mean elements like clothing, car models, etc.  The writing for a good chunk of the game is influenced by and in the context of the social, technological, etc. trends in the early 2000s.  You can see this in a lot of blueside dialogue, the history plaques, and the lore bible.  The HC devs have added modern elements like smartphones or a reference to 'snapgram' in a new story arc. 

 

So it's at least 2023 but in a "don't think too much about it" way

[mechahamham]

I don't remember who said it, but someone mentioned the entire 'War on Drugs' theme, which was fairly true to comics of the 1980s and 90s, aged like whole milk. It's somewhat shy of being offensive or racially charged in CoH the way it is IRL, but still pretty jarring.

 

The most egregious example I can think of off the top of my head is the 'Heroic' tip mission in which you're fighting against people who've lined up for Superadine, including the aging boxer hero, Stalwart: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Mission:Tip_-_Denmark_Wants_Muscles_This_Friday

 

In 2024, if I were to come up against an older person who tells me, "You don't understand. I'm aging and in pain. I need these opiates to function.", my reaction would NOT be to 'Arrest' them and let the Popo deal with them. Instead, it'd be more like, 'You're right. I don't understand. Can you get Narcan for if you OD? You know a lot of folks die from bad Fentanyl these days, right?'

[WumpusRat]

There are a few things here and there that still portray the game as being in the 2000's instead of the 2020's. 

Mr. G's rogue arc, for instance, mentions that "you're trending on some popular blogs" when you're doing your big power play. Not "social media", it specially says blogs. 🙂

[Yomo Kimyata]

erp

Edited April 21 by Yomo Kimyata

[Techwright]

4 hours ago, huang3721 said:

It is up to you. The game doesn't explicitly tell us the year.

 

IMO, judging by the Rikti War's effect on the populace, it was probably around 2004. My hunch is all the post-Praetoria War events took place within the first decade of the 21st century. 

 

However, Homecoming devs add their own story from issue 27 onwards, so maybe the year is closer to the 2020s. Who knows?
 

 

The recent plaque in Talos Island facing Dark Astoria gives the year of the Mot attack as 2012, so Homecoming definitely holds that 2012 is at least happening, though additional plaques elsewhere might move the needle even further into the future. 

 

We've also now got smartphone related emotes like texting.  Not sure when those were added, and while it's true that one could text on a Blackberry in 2009, it does point to a time after 2004. 

 

Frankly the blending of various technologies old and new, phones, cars, etc., gives the game a distinct alternate universe feel, much like the 1989 Batman movie blended 1930s/40s aesthetics with late 1980s aesthetics to create a fantasy Gotham and made it timeless.

[Haijinx]

The cars and brick cell phones look 90s though.

 

So it's comic book time.

[Snarky]

My “meta plot” take on it is simple, yet complex.  Also, absolutely true.   
 

Journey with me…;
 

The CoH/CoV starts when you create a character.  Day one. Every single character has the same day one.  Now, it is about to get through the looking glass weird.  
 

As you progress from level 1 to 50 (and this could take 3 hours in an event like mapserver.  Or years.) The game. Does not.  Change.  Ever.  Day one.  It looks like the clocks turn, day turns to night, to day. But CoH/V time is “stuck” on a specific day.  
 

The Menders know this.  They take advantage of it.  They want your help. To 1) fix all the things wrong with today. ( admitted by them, although they leave out the “today” part) 2) find a way to move the whole world past “day 1”.  ( they will never admit this and probably not all Menders know).  

[Haijinx]

13 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Cellphones yes, but the cars, many of those are boats and seem pretty 70s to me.  But then there's computers on a lot of desks, so who even knows?

Look like 1990is computers though

[Worm_Kalpa]

8 hours ago, Techwright said:

Frankly the blending of various technologies old and new, phones, cars, etc., gives the game a distinct alternate universe feel, much like the 1989 Batman movie blended 1930s/40s aesthetics with late 1980s aesthetics to create a fantasy Gotham and made it timeless.

Great explanation and example.  Batman: TAS from 1992-1995 is another example since it also blended the noir style of the 40s and 50s with elements from other decades.  Which makes sense since it was inspired in part by the 1989 movie.  There was an episode where the villain was the former star of an in-cartoon show with a 50s 'Leave it to Beaver' look but the episode takes place about 15-20 years later.  It's about taking different elements from different decades as needed and blending in a way to be timeless, as was said before.

 

As for time and various technologies, it makes sense that an alternate universe with superpowers, mad science, heroes, villains, supergeniuses, magic, etc. would have some technologies change at different rates than our universe.  I know there's the superhero genre trope of villains and heroes not using their tech or abilities for anything beyond fighting/committing crime.  But the COH universe has instances where the trope is not followed.

[Techwright]

49 minutes ago, Worm_Kalpa said:

As for time and various technologies, it makes sense that an alternate universe with superpowers, mad science, heroes, villains, supergeniuses, magic, etc. would have some technologies change at different rates than our universe.  I know there's the superhero genre trope of villains and heroes not using their tech or abilities for anything beyond fighting/committing crime.  But the COH universe has instances where the trope is not followed.

 

On target, and I'd add that one of those techs not used for anything other than fighting is the medical teleporters.  Last I knew, the real world has only been able to teleport small amounts of information.  So with those, the timeless factor is achieved by sci-fi projection down the timeline, as well as the old-school phone booths and cars from days gone by.  And, of course, we've a story arc dealing with the fallout of severely restricting that medical teleporter technology.

[MrAxe]

The CRT monitors have got to be a clue as to the year. Although there's far better tech than that so it's a very odd mismatch.

[Luminara]

 

[Player2]

The speed at which the days and nights cycle around suggests that we might be fast approaching the year 3700.

[huang3721]

On 4/21/2024 at 11:41 AM, Techwright said:

The recent plaque in Talos Island facing Dark Astoria gives the year of the Mot attack as 2012, so Homecoming definitely holds that 2012 is at least happening, though additional plaques elsewhere might move the needle even further into the future. 

 

I can't find the plaque. It's a history plaque, isn't it? I am going to visit Paragon City once again tonight. I've spent too much time going back and forth between Praetoria and Pocket D.

 

20 hours ago, MrAxe said:

The CRT monitors have got to be a clue as to the year.

 

^Maybe the Corp can't disrupt its operations during the transition to newer hardware.

Edited April 22 by huang3721
Or, maybe Statesman is a money pincher? (Just kidding)

[Scarlet Shocker]

Let's see...

 

I was in Cimerora, around 200 BCE

 

I was in Crash Site around 2003 CE

 

I was in RWZ right after a revamp and Praetoria before Cole blew it up and after he blew it up. Then I went back and spoke to Tina Mac who sent me after some geezer she referred to as Tyrant

 

Finally I went to Ouroboros at the end of the known universe and all of time and spoke to the last Kheldian and Mender Silos.

 

and all of this took me just a couple of hours.

 

What year do you want it to be?

[huang3721]

25 minutes ago, huang3721 said:

I can't find the plaque. It's a history plaque, isn't it?

 

Nevermind. I found it.

[Random Axis]

I'd guess the low teens since contacts are reluctant to give me their cell phone number, and I have to walk back to them after the first mission to report completion personally.

[Player2]

4 hours ago, huang3721 said:

 

I can't find the plaque. It's a history plaque, isn't it? I am going to visit Paragon City once again tonight. I've spent too much time going back and forth between Praetoria and Pocket D.

 

 

^Maybe the Corp can't disrupt its operations during the transition to newer hardware.

I would love to see these screens (and even the computers themselves in some places) be updated in the next patch.

[keyguardactive]

11 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

What year do you want it to be?

 

It's mostly my trying to understand my hero's motivation and disposition. As you play through the game you participate in events that took place in the past, so you're moving through time as you level up. 

 

But I'm trying to pin down things like, at max level, from my character's perspective, how long has Statesman been dead? Was that weeks ago and it's still fresh? Or has Paragon city been without it's nominal Paragon for years now? The Mot Crisis was, as we see in this thread, in March of 2012. Are people's bruises still fresh, or have the nightmares had time to fade? 

 

I'm just the sort of dork that wants his headcannon to fit within the official framework. 

 

 

 

 

[UltraAlt]

On 4/20/2024 at 3:12 PM, keyguardactive said:

What is the date, in universe? 

 

There are still pay phones and CRTs for computer displays.

And the timeline is constantly sliding around due to all the messing with the timelines - I think they call it Mending, but it sure seems like "messing" with the timeline.

 

So yes.

 

On 4/20/2024 at 3:12 PM, keyguardactive said:

Is this one of those comic book sliding timescale things where now is always now?

 

It does seem to be "now" from the perspective of your character when you are solo or "now' from the perspective of whoever on your team has the star.

[El D]

My supergroup treats it as the modern year (as is seemingly hinted at via the new history plaques and zone details) and the out-dated technology is just a stylistic choice for the narrative/time capsule from when the game was first published. Similar to how Gotham in Batman The Animated Series was deliberately retro but set in the 1990s timeline-wise.

 

If you need an in-universe handwave, all the villain groups and massive, world-shaking events that have continually disrupted the most important city on Primal Earth (and in many cases, the rest of the globe) is as good an excuse as any why tech in some places has seemingly stagnated. There's plenty of agencies and institutions in the real world that still run on increasingly outdated computer and electronic systems after all, and we don't have Nemesis or the Council or the Rikti invading every other week.

 

Alternately, perhaps the CRT monitors, brick phones, and old school cars are just 'retro-themed' but containing modern technology inside them. People love that kind of stuff IRL too.