The thought of a time skip genuinely frightens me. From the “Azeroth is in ruins” line it makes me think that the Scourge are still running rampant when we are sucked into the Shadowlands. If a significant amount of time passes what will the world be like? There will be a lot more undead roaming the world when we get back if that’s the case.
I’d prefer a reset more than a timeskip at this point.
The flow of time in Azeroth is already weird. I outright disregard their official timeline. Don’t tell me an expansion I played for three years actually took place over a year. It’s been 15 years since the events of Vanilla and anyone who says otherwise is a victim of Infinte Dragonflight time terrorism related confusion.
Suffice to say I don’t think a time jumps necessary. Whatever they want to do can just be done. Entire cities can be built or destroyed in the length of a cutscene. Stromgarde got rebuilt and redestroyed like two hundred times, basically overnight, in BFA. We don’t need a time jump whatever they want to do can just happen. This isn’t the setting to stress about logistics in.
Just no more time traveling nonsense please. If we return to Azeroth after the Shadowlands and find that 10 years has passed and the world has been rebuilt and revamped (better graphics) in the style of Cataclysm, cool. But no more alternate reality crap.
No timeskip happened after WoD despite time being weird between Draenor and Azeroth, so I don’t really think they are planning it, no.
On the one hand, yes.
On the other hand, this is the team that did WoD and then dropped the multiverse. Or who added what they describe as “genocide” to a prepatch, and then decided to think about what to do about it after the expac was over.
I’m not sure these guys are very consistent about laying down plot hooks and following through with them.
I immediately saw it as a means to explain why characters that may have been dead for decades will have the same progress as those who died much more recently. Like Uther has been dead since the RTS and is probably at similar progress levels as Kael, and I am guessing both will be resolved by the player being there after 15 minutes.
The whole “We’ll have to see” is just leaving people guessing and not spoiling everything. I mean, the game isn’t even out yet, I really doubt they will be teasing the expansion after Shadowlands already. At least I hope they aren’t. Is this expansion just a setup too, oh god.
I honestly took the “We’ll see” and being cagey abut it as not even Blizzard knows yet if they’ll do a timeskip or not. The Shadowlands time distortion-thing isn’t new from this interview, it was established in Legion during the DK order hall questline, when Salanar the Horseman said that from his perspective it’s only been a few days since the DK starting zone.
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This is Blizzard we’re talking about. The same Blizzard that had a main character say this:
And went literally nowhere with it. Then, 30 seconds later, they said this:
Then, have the game director say two months later “It’s just a ceasefire, the tensions back to how it was prior to Legion.” (Can someone source this for me, I can’t seem to remember where he said that.)
I hate to beat the pulpified horse, but this is the same Blizzard that decided the Highmountain Tauren, Lightforged Draenei, Nightborne, and Mechagnomes would immediately go to war with the people that just liberated them. The Blizzard that forgot about the Draenei during the War of Thorns, or Sylvanas’ threat to skewer Stormwind. (Maybe that’s the Shadowlands Prepatch, will wait).
Like, it’s definitely in Blizzard’s nature to say something, waggle their eyebrows mysteriously, and then forget they said it two weeks later.
(Observation): Given how a few years on Azeroth resulted in 30 or so years passing on AU Draenor, I think we can assume our time spent fighting the Iron Horde and Gul’dan was about a weekend or so back on Azeroth.
(Commentary): As far as a time skip goes, I’d like to see one used to revamp the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, honestly. How that happens is really up for speculation. Here are some Azeroths I wouldn’t mind returning to.
Post Apocalypse: The Heroes and several of the leaders of the Horde and Alliance ventured forth into the Shadowlands to save the world and never returned. Meanwhile, the Scourge rampaged across the world. Class Orders rose to the challenge, and were ultimately destroyed without the guidance and strength of their leaders from Legion. The Horde and Alliance coordinated their forces and barely managed to survive and end the rampant Scourge. The world is a devastated wasteland in desperate need of healing and rebuilding. Just as all seems hopeless, these ancient heroes of the past return to Azeroth after so long, galvanizing the Alliance and Horde. You, the Player, will guide your faction into a Renaissance and help rebuild the world!
Threatened Paradise: The heroes and several leaders entered the Shadowlands to save the world. The Scourge threatened to utterly devastate what was left of Azeroth in their absence. As happens, a new generation of Heroes rose up to answer the call! These new legends thwarted the rampant Scourge, and established a lasting peace between the Horde and Alliance at long last. Lands long since devastated by Fel, Undeath, Blight, or the Void were cleansed in joint efforts. It was a glorious age to be born into and live through… but as we return, it is coming to an end. Old Hatreds are surfacing for reasons unknown. A threat lurks in the shadows, and politicians subvert the authority of this new generation of heroes with their plots and machinations.
Yep, I’d put money on it that Ion hintin’ at a possible time skip after Shadowlands is Blizzard realizin’ how much they screwed the pooch on the Burning of Teldrassil and will use this as a means to handwave the resolution of it instead of actually addressin’ it.
My money is on a 5-10 year time skip between Shadowlands and 10.0 and maybe we’ll get a book that describes those years we missed.
It’s so when we come back, and Azshara has conquered the Horde and Alliance, we won’t question the logistics of how it happened in just 2 years, and simply get to the part where we start forming a rebellion to overthrow her.
We go back in time to turn sylvanas good. Oh blizzard so sneaky.
“How much time will pass during Shadowlands?”
“Wait and see, we think you’ll be surprised”
1 expansion later
“It was 1 year in game time, surprise”
But we’re not even canonically trapped in the Shadowlands. Being able to port around is certainly still canon.
I do not think there will be a time skip nor a soft reboot. In the same interview, we got this at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/621194557?t=03h50m34s :
We were wondering if, lore related, is it possible to travel from Shadowlands back to mainland?
Ion: Yes. The reality is even gameplay wise, even if we wanted to tell that story at some point, gameplay needs to override even those lore concerns, so we would never set up a world where players can’t revisit the old world to do transmog or to play with their friends or do all the content there. Initially, as players venture into the Shadowlands, you will fight your way out of the Maw, find an escape that was thought to be impossible, and as you establish an initial, you know, foundation in Oribos, at that point you’ll be able to forge a connection back to Azeroth, back to Orgimmar or Stormwind, you capital city, that will let you move back and forth. It also lets us bring a few other characters from the world of the living, from Azeroth, into the Shadowlands to work with us and aid us. A notable example would be Bolvar.
We’ve also seen datamining of Shandris joining us in the Shadowlands. I do not think Blizzard will be having these characters come into the Shadowlands with us only for Azeroth to move on without them. Especially not when there will probably be more moments during Shadowlands where we head back to Azeroth for a quest reason or another before popping back into the Shadowlands again.
Right. Blizz does a decent job taking the RP ecosystem into account with this stuff. Lots of RP folks have a strong preference for staying within the bounds of canon and the established universe as much as possible. Being told that, canonically, your toon is stuck in Oribos and the Shadowlands would be really rough for a lot of RP people.
That’s because time wasn’t funky between Azeroth and Draenor.
We went to the past in Warlords, but the Dark Portal was an anchor in time. That means, no matter what, the A/U Draenor portal will bring them to Azeroths current time in WoD+however many years have passed.
It is not time moving differently. It’s literally different amounts of time.
I would love for them to do something about the mess the made of that faction war. But I don’t see any chance of it.
We destroyed the Dark Portal from Draenor’s side the moment we got there. It’s why AU Gul’dan was trying to form the Black Gate in its stead.
already happened with wod