Sorry, I was making a different post elsewhere and wasn't really using my own intelligence here…
@tigerlilly:
I agree with you on most parts, but I'd would still feel awkward for Luffy to conquer the grandline with 17. The same age he started his voyage. Roger, an extremely experienced pirate and at the moment worlds above Luffy when I comes to strenght (but not for long anymore I assume 
) took three years to make it through. Luffy conquering the grandline in less than 12 months really stretches it…And personally it destroys some of this adventourous feeling of a long dangerous voyage through the seas of the world for me, if a teenage boy just whoops through like it's nothing .
Now, for Roger's situation, he did take "three" years to head through, but they might have gone through some problems involving the trip towards "Skypiea" and they might have gone the other way since officially I don't recall them saying that Roger heading the Knock-Up stream way.
That whole portion of the trip may have taken a lot longer than I suppose Luffy's whole trip from GL start to finish… I just think that Roger took too many shortcuts since he was more carefree and adventurous than worrisome of his own imminent death that would come.
So, he may have gone through the "Drum Kingdom" pathway and ending on the same island that Blackbeard followed for a little while. I think he took the same course that Blackbeard's crew took to getting into the Grand Line.
But I agree that Luffy will become what legends are made of, so he'll definitely take less than Roger's three years.
Now, as far as Luffy goes; he often skips loads of islands as he heads towards the future… He is often involved with "plot-based" events dealing with saving kingdoms, rescuing crew members, and then some... He doesn't have the same sort of "easy-going" pace that the strongest man of the world had. He is always rushed, so it may be that Luffy is more than able to make haste upon his whole voyage.
I'd actually probably suspect that Luffy gets close to Raftel in under a year, maybe a few months after that... This is because his quests are so sudden and he isn't really ever allowed any time to lay back and relax.
I know that the anime does it a lot, but the manga is just too sudden.
So, assuming Oda won't slow down the manga for some "time-skip", Oda should follow the trend he has set towards the pace of moving Luffy forward... By that, Luffy'd reach the end in like another 3 months or so...
I think you got me wrong on this one. I'm not actually talking about a timeskip of ten years, but rather Luffy rapidly aging ten years due to Iva's Hormon treatment. I know it has never been implied that Luffy actually ages ten years, but rather that he will "lose ten years of his lifespan", meaning he would hypothetically die with 80 instead of 90 years. But Luffy aging ten years would fit into the funny side effects seen by Iva's fruit. As said it would only result in Luffy physically aging, no time has passed and he would stick with the mind of a 17 year old.
Yes, I reckon I did…
Now, he has "biologically" aged like 10 years closer to his death, so you could argue that his body did mature by ten years... Since all of his blood cells were destroyed and reborn continuously, he has brand new blood cells that are basically there.
But, it's hard to assume that Oda would not label Marineford as an adventure if this is true...
To be honest, I just think that this is so crucial towards what the setting of this movie is... There's nothing that can be argued over what would happen and what can happen since the movie starts to get in the way.
If Luffy got his age increased during ID, then that wouldn't really make much sense that his "last" adventure was him as a 17 year old and stuff for the movie...
I would agree with you that Luffy's body has "aged" in a way... After that "miracle cure" Iva provided...
And that's what every great story is made of: Some nice conflict! It would make the straw hat's ride to the One Piece more bumpy. Since it was pretty much established that the New World was ruled by pirate emperors, the Government earning some power and daring to step into the New World while pursuing Luffy, would add some dynamics, don't you agree?
Not really, if it was a year long then you'd have to cover all the future movements of the year to come and deal with all those things…
It's like counting things with characters that aren't doing anything notably big;
- Vivi
- Enel
- CP9
- Spandam
- Morgan
- Nami's village
- Luffy's village
- Baratie
- Kaya
- etc.
It's a little too much work for it to deal with… I'd assume that Oda wouldn't do a time skip because he would probably leave out some important things that he'd want us to see... Perhaps how the FI looks during peace, rather than war and stuff...
I'm just envisioning some Atlantis like "adventure" over at FI with them having a Sky Island like experience, minus the powerful ability of Enel and stuff... Just a small journey.
Hmm I'm not quite sure, if I get what you mean, but are you talking about the problem with the Log-Pose that almost forced them to stick there for a year?
No, the whole thing that I am talking about was that Oda intentionally selected a "quick" course for them to travel. When he showed that you'd have to follow "magnetism" and head towards each island one by one, it seemed rather boring… and repetitive... However, as a solution, he introduced a time limit and he made it more "suspenseful" and that was Vivi.
Having done that, he could skip the short islands and just head towards the next one and the next one without having to wait and stuff... Upon Little Garden, he basically said a "year" and such, which the SH crew would have been able to wait, or Nami would have died... Anyway, in order to make sure Nami was alive, he forced them to head straight to Alabasta.
Then, he skipped a bunch of islands and basically arrived at some random island to save Nami.
After that, he just got the story to finish up with Vivi and slow down the pace for the next saga.
Sky Island saga was slow; then he added some rush towards the next saga and then he kept the rush as he headed all the way to this current "arc."
So, I would say that he is doing this to make the manga follow some "suspense" and move towards Raftel faster than normal... In other words, he is trying to move it at a very fast pace by introducing other characters or problems that let them skip certain things...
I think that a similar thing will happen with the end of this war as well; I'm sure that there will be a faster pace after the crew regroups.
If yes, I have to say that's a completely different situation. Would Oda have decided to make timeskip at that point in the story, it would have been bad for the story progression: Arabasta would have gone down, destroyed without the presence of the princess and her saviours, who were stuck in little garden for a year.
Yes, but the point is that he was willing to introduce a year for a "log pose" set time… If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't have ever given the idea that a "time skip" was possible... He never again really did that and just continued forward as fast as he could to make the story interesting. They've skipped so many islands from the two "maps" we've seen of GL paths; Shakky's example and Crocus's example.
There's like "10 or more" islands during a path in the NW and he will probably cover like 5 or 6 of them...
But not only that, on top of that it would be extremely boring to reencounter the straw hats after a year on little garden. How could you possibly evolve after a year on one single island? But in the case we have in the current storyline, it would be pretty appropriate! The strawhats are seperated on different spots of the globe, each of them becoming stronger or smarter through different methods. A timeskip would underline this feeling of them being split up but returning much stronger than before, fit for the New World.
I'd assume it would be the same sort of thing… There ship is coated and they've got people after them, however, the whole "pace" slowed down that considerably... Seems a little fishy to me, he did add a lot of suspense towards certain characters wanting revenge.
Plus he hasn't even shown some other points in the manga that need details of.
Personally, I think Oda will just skip a week or two weeks at most.
I assume that SH crew may even handle an island without Luffy (despite it going against their motto) due to the dangers.
It seems so unnatural to just halt their progress. Most of those characters won't really "gather" any sort of significant advantage by being on that island, plus it seems something Oda only tried to do for a little.
If this war ends up giving the WG the win, and WB dies, then it'll add more pressure on Luffy to heal as fast as he can because at their current location, they're in danger...
Plus it also may be time for the revolutionaries to finally play a part, so Oda may be speeding up the pace for some "climax" he has planned before some resolution that Luffy gains...
I already adressed this point, I don't disagree. As long as he's not 17…
Yeah…
What would be disappointing? For the Straw hats to come back with new attacks out of the blue? It happened before with Gear second.
And just as tried to explain, them having new moves wouldn't be some kind of deux ex machina, but have some proper background explanation due to them being seperated. Maybe we'll even get some short of flashback to illustrate their respective development.
It'd be disappointing because of the drastic change in pace… I'd be wondering why Oda changed the pace of the introduction towards the NW like that...
A lot of things people expect from the NW is chaos and all this dark stuff going on, but if Oda slows down the pace and then increases the rate that time moves, it'll just make a reader feel like they missed out on all of the "fights" and amazing details…
It'd be pretty boring when you suspect Luffy and crew visit Elbaf and Lola's Island...
perhaps it will have something to do with the will of D. he will get stronger or something, unleash some power 
haki i guess hmmmm
