It differs in the way that … it just doesn’t make sense. It’s “game time.” It’s pointless to think of it any other way.
Examples:
In Legion (many will be able to relive this moment, I’m assuming) for the DK campaign, the Lich King tasks you to do some various things to acquire your Legendary. I don’t remember the exact lines, but he says something along the lines of “it’s been two years since the events at Icecrown Citadel and the fall of Arthas…” and yet, when Legion released, it had been 7-8 years since the events at Icecrown! Here, time is very much compressed.
But then we have characters like Nomi, who started out as a young apprentice chef, and 2-4 years later, he’s … 2-4 years older. Still can’t cook worth a toss, but his timeline seems 1:1.
Yet Li Li is perpetually an inquisitive, percocious tween. Like, I’m talking from W3 to MoP to anything else… she has NEVER aged! lol At what point couldn’t she have grown up and become one of the new “central cast?”
Anduin OBVIOUSLY grew up before our eyes. I don’t think that was in real time, but it’s prob not THAT far off. How old was he in Legion, 14? In BfA he’s prob 20. Now he’s prob 26’ish. Totally spitballed those numbers, but they’re prob not that far off, and follow real-time somewhat loosely (better than many other examples).
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to square all of these characters and incidents. There is only ONE solution: you simply have to accept “it’s just a game.”
The problem is that Blizzard had an opportunity to create THE MOST UNIQUE piece of storytelling in history. THIRTY PLUS YEARS of an evolving story, that millions of people interact with. There is no precedent for such a thing, there likely will never be anything like this – EVER.
The sad part is, they continue to just use it as a patchwork backdrop for high school-level story lines.
The Warcraft universe could have been SOOOO much more.
