I'm in favor of the timeskip

Lore Story Forum
144

You missed my point.

I said that they are ‘trying to regain player trust’ with their recent actions, which is really all they can do as there’s no ‘instant trust gain’ cheat they can activate. And your response to that was “Well that’s not good enough.”, as if there is some ‘instant trust cheat’ button that they can hit that somehow works and they’re not hitting it.

You set the bar so high by saying that, that you made it impossible for Blizzard to clear. They can only try to regain trust. They can’t just instantly do it at the drop of a hat.

Time will tell whether or not Dragonflight actually does pump out more content that is satisfying, but so far I’ve not heard many complaints about what’s there, and it really doesn’t look like there’s a catch, because all the things that would normally be a ‘catch’ and have been in previous expansions, mostly revolving around borrowed power systems, aren’t a thing in Dragonflight.

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145

This joyus occasion must then be the Gnomes, Worgen, Night elves and Forsaken all rebuilding their homes then right? Not just a stupid inconsequential marriage between two characters that means nothing to our characters.

I get you have writers who like to write these kind stories but how about getting some more writers on board to fill out other important parts of the story. Players have a vested interest in where each faction is and how they going and you refuse to tell us. i feel you are leaving us out by focusing on stories like these.

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146

Hey Blizz. Timeskips are good, we needed one. But they must actually impact the world. At least lead to minor changes such as updated dialogues and NPCs in the various outposts and villages.

If they don’t, then “3 years have passed” is just a blue post on a thread.

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147

While I appreciate the answer, I’d much rather some world building be established through dialogue for hints of things we’ll see in the future.

Using Gilneas as an example, although this applies to many locations and groups.

We don’t need Gilneas added as a playable city right away, but the state of the city has constantly fluctuated for a decade, sometimes it’s occupied by Horde and other times it’s abandoned and sometimes it’s just a blighted hole in the ground.

I don’t want the time skip to hold off on the state of the city for the sake of the player being present. It could be mentioned the land was reclaimed, the 9.2.5 diplomacy mentioned by Calia paid off and the city is in a current state of reconstruction.

Things like this can co-exist with players being introduced to the area in a compelling quest chain that compares to 9.2.5’s Undercity quest chain.

I’d rather know the city was in the process of rebuilding than just ignored, because it gives me hope that eventually we’ll return to the zone and it’ll be a bustling city. It gives me perfectly justifiable in-universe headcanon that my character worked on the reconstruction during the 3 years off.

If we’re holding off for a 9.2.5-esque quest chain compared to the Undercity, we’d still be leaving the city in a state of disrepair and unusable by the end. I don’t think many people want that? Ultimately, I’d argue people would want the final result more.

Not suggestions but just throwing it out there that rebuild can still occur and you can still make a compelling chain out of it. Perhaps Genn handled logistics in Stormwind the entire time, and he invites us to see Gilneas on his first visit since the Catalysm and initial reconstruction.

Perhaps we visit the city with the refugees that formed Bradensbrook or Surwich, and it’s as much an introduction to the city for them as it is for the player.

Things like that, rather than players left idle and the world feeling like it paused while Night Elf and Worgen refugees lived in squalor on Stormwind streets.

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148

TL;DR, we don’t need to see it right away but you can establish events. The world shouldn’t be static for three years.

The fact the Dracthyr opening quest on Alpha has you heal homeless Gilneans and Night Elves, knowing it’s been 5 years since BfA ended is terrible.

Just a casual mention that many returned home to Hyjal/Gilneas or giving them jobs and roles in Stormwind to showcase integration rather than being left behind would be massive.

If they are left behind and the refugee camps still exist five years later, we need something addressing government’s failure.

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149

Even seeing something as simple as Theramore rebuilt would be nice. The phase of it prior to destruction still exists. All that would be needed is a few NPC changes and that’s it. There needs to be some minor but meaningful updates to the old world.

It’s beyond unbelievable for there to still be Night Elves and Gilneans living as refugees in Stormwind and other such things at this point.

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150

It’s a simple, basic concept. Things change when time passes. Using a time skip on an isolated island expansion while the rest of the game languishes in Cata is a waste. Please relay this to Steve or whoever decided this nonsense.

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151

I feel like people read the post that Steve Danuser made, but didn’t actually bother to try understanding it before dropping a comment.

What Steve basically did was confirm that there is a 3 year gap between the end of Shadowlands and the start of Dragonflight. Then he said that no major world changing events are happening during that time because they want to have players play through those events in-game.

Now I’m not sure how long folks have been pottering around on these forums, but one of the constant complaints I hear, especially when Blizzard releases a new novel is “Why aren’t we seeing these events in-game? Why do we have to buy a novel to know about these events?”

It’s a legitimate complaint.

In line with that, players also complained during the Cataclysm revamp that major changes happened in the world without there being any sort of build up that the players got to experience. There were no missions for Alliance or Horde players to see the destruction of Southshore for example, it just happened off-screen as part of a patch update. Likewise with the many Night Elf losses in Darkshore and Ashenvale. No build up, just BAM, this happened, deal with it.

So now they’re actually confirming that this will be a thing going forward, that major events like the reclaiming of Gilneas will be events that play out in-game and ya’ll are complaining saying that they aren’t changing anything!

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152

I’m realizing that I’m apparently in the minority on this one, but as a high-continuity daily life roleplayer I’m super, super annoyed that my hand is being forced on my characters, including my characters’ NPC children, needing to be aged up a few years and I need to find a way to put their ongoing plots and personalities into narrative stasis or go into writer-mode to fill in the blanks on my own instead of active-roleplayer-mode with the full perspective of the interactions driven by other players that would have made an impact on my characters over time…so that you can basically age up a few of the game’s NPCs a few years.

I have several characters that it makes no sense for them to have a lull where not much happens for a few years. I have characters at the beginnings of relationships, I have characters in dire situations that wouldn’t logically all hold for the same three years. Nor am I particularly interested in just writing resolutions and pauses into all of those situations instead of roleplaying them, which I am here to do.

This is going to be a narrative hand grenade for server projects, guild RP and RP done with any kind of adherence to normal time and continuity as basically every roleplayer now has to figure out what in the world they’re going to do with their ongoing stories.

So that you can make it a little less weird that Anduin might get married or something, I assume. Because you guys don’t have the patience to let time pass to tell whatever super cool story you have in your head.

To the detriment of my stories, that have never really needed more than the basic framework of yours to go on prior to now, that could coexist in the same world that didn’t mandate that every single character in the game observe the narrative pause that you want to throw in like you’re lobbing C4 into MY characters’ lives. You’re hitting the fast-forward button on the cooperative football game of my stories because you want to watch the parade and basically going “Oh, you know, no big deal, just assume who won in the meantime”. And I’m pretty salty about that.

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153

We’re not talking about major updates, at least I am not. I’m talking about “minor” changes. Such as, having the NPCs in Silvermoon not act like they joined the Horde 5 minutes ago, or update the dialogues and NPCs in the Echo Isles so the player doesn’t believe that a guy named Garrosh has just been appointed warchief. Surely that can be done.

That being said, even when it comes to major changes… the Gnomes have been super close to retaking Gnomeregan for more than 10 years. So forgive me if I’m not exceedingly confident in those changes being shown in the game very soon.

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So that they can age up a handful of characters who are kids now to be the new focus of the story, apparently. Which kids? Who knows. Three years isn’t enough time for a big age-up unless they’re kids we haven’t seen for a while, like Li-Li Stormstout.

Also to make it slightly less side-eye if Anduin gets married now, or is expected to get married now.

And no, I don’t think that either of those things is a good enough reason to force a soft reboot of everyone’s ongoing RP storylines.

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Perhaps the Pandarans will have had time to clean up Vale of Eternal Blossoms?

I wonder of the denizens of Azeroth have had time to fix all the stuff that got blown up in all those dragon attacks and other acts of destruction by the vandals of the world :wink:

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156

The Nightborne story shouldn’t be tied to the Blood Elf. There are already so many similarities. I don’t want them to be grouped as the “elves”.

The marriage could be acceptable if he is labeled consort instead of husband. Nightborne are ruled by those with magical talent and it doesn’t appear he has any.

Alternatively, if we promoted Valtrois as the Grand Magistrix and relegated Thalyssra to a side character that would be satisfactory as well.

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157

Its already mostly fixed as of BfA.

Lorewise, Astanaar was retaken and so was Southshore. Darkshire is also retaken and I assume we have fixed other stuff. The big problem is we dont see it ingame.

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You have to do a bunch of BFA quest lines to get it to that point. It’s not the default state of the present world for chars that didn’t play through BFA. In addition it’s complicated to do after the fact as there are a whole bunch of bugs in the questlines as they pass through stormwind castle in particular.

This is my point.

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159

In this particular instance its is an issue of WoW wanting to have its cake and eat it too. The reason it is not the “default” is because there are still some story significance to it tied to MoP content itself. WoW is both evolving and in its own weird time bubble.

And my point is the lore is already there, which at least we get even if we don’t see it. No it is not idea but at least we know the world of Azeroth continues to move forward even if we are not directly involved.

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I understand that this is the lore forum and all, I’d just like to see the present state of the world as the default timeline in the game for all new characters (and have the state of the in game world suitably maintained after long periods of time in game pass). Surely Z’Noth is still not presently attacking Vale of Eternal Blossoms when my newly created character passes through? Zidormi does a great job of letting us visit the other timelines to complete our journeys there when we need to.

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161

It’s because of their similarities that this union is even possible. It remains to be seen whether or not the Nightborne will receive their own narrative growth in the future, but consider that as of 9.2.5, the Blood Elves did receive their own questline that was completely Nightborne free. There are worst fates than being tied to the single most popular race in the entire game, like being entirely forgotten after being introduced.

I don’t see Lor’themar ruling over Suramar; he barely wants to rule Quel’thalas.

Now I know you’ve lost your mind. Thalyssra is the rightful leader of the Nightborne - y’know, after defying the odds and leading a successful rebellion that freed her people and saved them from their dependency to the Nightwell…? Just as Thalyssra is the rightful leader, Valtrois is her rightful subordinate - she doesn’t have the temperament to lead.

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That’s not really a hot take here. People want to be shown something happened, not told.

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We likely have a much different perspective on Thalyssra from each other. She saved the Nightborne from the Legion, but I wish we could have redeemed Elisande. The Grand Magistrix ruled Suramar for 10,000 years!

The Nightwell is part of the core identity of the Nightborne. Valtrois knew it and hopefully could restore it fully!