Pretty straight forward topic, and I am asking so I can craft a backstory for a human priest I am making. I am aware that there are unofficial timelines on various websites, and I have looked at those but I am having trouble accepting the fact that each expansion apparently took place within a single year in-game.
Thatās the rub lorewise. Though if this is for RP many people use the real time method, meaning itās been 16 years since Vanilla started.
Personally that model makes way more sense to me. All these cosmic threats seem kind of trivial if they could be sorted out in a calendar year. It also makes me feel bad for the residents of the universe.
Every single year for a decade has been a banner year for genocide and/or nearly missed extinction/planetary enslavement.
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And these events always start on a Tuesday. Curious.
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Generally itās been confirmed itās 1 to 1 how many IRL years have passed except the few times Blizzard has stated its been more time.
The wowpedia timeline has more info.
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It certainly makes all the doomsday cults make sense.
I thought 2020 was rough. Imagine 1914, 1939, 1955 and worse back to back to back. Iād embrace chaos and want to destroy it all too if every Tuesday I was just waiting for the next monstrosities to come screaming out of the sky/ground/a portal/my own mind.
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It is a bit silly that they decided each expac lasts a single clean year every time, but thatās how it is canonically. The latest, and most up to date, version of the timeline comes from the Ultimate Visual Guide. Warcraft 1 is labeled as āYear 0ā - think of the Opening of the Dark Portal as the Birth of Christ from a real world perspective using BC/AD.
The UVG was released when Warlords of Draenor was current, and the timeline reaches up to that - 31 years after Orcs & Humans, placing it at Year 31. Assuming that Legion and BFA also lasted a year each, that puts us currently at at least Year 33, and at most Year 34.
So approximately 33-34 years have passed since the events of Warcraft 1.
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According to wowpedia, Thrall was approximately 31 years old during the events of Legion. Furthermore per Chronicle Volume 2, Thrall was born 1 year after the Dark Portal was opened.
So depending on the timeframe of Battle for Azeroth, and taking into account the 1-2 year year for each expansion, then itās been either 32 or 33 years since the opening of the Dark Portal and thus Warcraft 1.
They only did it so they wouldnāt have to deal with things like āAnduin getting married and producing an Heir and a Spareā and more generally āHumans die faster than every other race in the gameā
If theyād done 2 years per 1 year of IRL, such that each patch is roughly a year and a half, which would make sense because itās war and stuff, Anduin would be an old man by now, Tess would be queen, Jaina might be dead, etc.
Itās my most hated aspect of the lore since returning to WoW. It just makes everything slightly stupider.
Like I thought Anduin was in his mid to late 20s. Thatās still pretty young but heād be an adult, presumably trained for this position for most of his adolescence and all of his adult life. Then I find out heās like 19. And I imagine to the older by decades or millenia leaders its gotta feel like when a 16 year old IDs you for a R rated movie.
And as all these events occur in a year- I guess NāZothās black empire invasion was foiled in a season if not a month it not just a long weekend.
Must be pretty embarrassing. Scheming for countless eons in the darkest depths of the deep. Only to completely get dismantled by one teenage dragon and the ever meddling murder hobos in the span of a childās Christmas break.
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That canāt be right. Thrall was 24 during Warcraft and there was a 4 year jump from that to the start of WoW. Three years from Vanilla to Legion is insane, especially since he has kids now.
Speaking of Thrall, he moves like he is in his late 30s and 40s, similar to Metzen himself.
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I remember reading through one of the in-game lore books for the artifact weapons (I forget which one) and reading a line that said something like āEven though itās been four years since the Lich King was defeated at the Frozen Throneā¦ā and just stopping in my tracks.
Anduin isnāt even the only one in that situation, and Iām not sure if thatās better or worse. Talanji is supposed to be eighteen as of Shadows Rising, and is queen of an entire empire. Lilian Voss grew up in the Scarlet Crusade, which given the current timelines means that she at most is currently in her mid-20s, probably younger, and now serves as the interim leader of the Forsaken. Darion Mograine was in his late teens when he died, which would put him in his mid-to-late 20s now, and in his early 20s when he founded the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Nineteen-year-old Anduin fits right in. Speaking of whichā¦
The rough timeline on Wowpedia places the beginning of Warcraft III at 20 years after the Dark Portal opened, which would make Thrall about nineteen at the start of the Third War. Orcs donāt age at the same rate as humans.
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Everybody in this setting is either 18 or 18,000,000 I swear to God.
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I pulled 24 from the Warcraft 3 manual. I mean, they can retcon it but thatās an actual written down number.
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I donāt doubt you, but Blizzard hasnāt been consistent with ages and timelines, so we make do with what our most recent information is. In order for Thrall to have been 24 during Warcraft III, heād have to have been born on Draenor, not Azeroth, given what else weāve been told about the passage of time.
Seriously. Sometimes it seems like most of the humans who would be middle-aged now got killed off in the First, Second, and Third Wars, and that age group hasnāt done much better in WoW. What famous characters are left of Varianās generation aside from Jaina?
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Iām looking at the citation for the timeline, and itās pulling from a 2004 website. So strange they would blunder their own timeline so early on.
Thrall and Arthas were originally the same age in WC3 and their drew parallels to each other, young leaders trying to save their people. Where as the ācharming princeā ended up damning himself and turning on his people, the āmonster warchiefā found redemption and purpose for his.
Did they age Arthas down into a teenager as well, or just forgot about the comparison? How old is Jaina now, she was a year younger than Thrall and Arthas. Gosh, I hate change.
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As far as I know, Arthas and Jaina have been left the same age. Arthas: Rise of the Lich King sees them both in their mid-20s at the beginning of the Third War, and that was published in 2009. It would be very difficult to retcon them as being any younger without completely wrecking their relationship history, so I think weāre safe there. I think Thrall is still supposed to be comparable to them in terms of mental maturity, but he came of age faster, so he can be younger than them in terms of actual years while still being in a similar stage of life. As far as I can guess, Jaina is meant to be in her late 30s currently.
Well with all the flying danger going on constantly it gets to the point where the only way you can still be alive is that you havenāt been at it long enough to get killed, or youāre just that good at not dying. 
Also this.
Keeshan might count, but heās B-list at best, and is probably one generation too old since he fought in the first war. I canāt think of a single non-human who hasnāt been mentioned, half because most other races have much longer lifespans.
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Weāre year 33-34 at the moment. Theyāre still sticking to it being 1 xpac= 1 year, sadly.
Which doesnāt make sense as xpacs have taken longer than a year between releases more than once before.
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