I think it’s a bit unreasonable for everyone to suddenly expect people to wrap up plots and characters by the time the prepatch happens. Most folks aren’t gonna be returning until dragonflight hits and gotta catch up with people again.
Not to mention people just… Gotta catch up with others as a whole. I’ve not been RPing for example because of life, but there’s people who I’ve RPed with in org who I hadn’t seen in ages because they’re coming back only after dragonflight releases.
I think it’d be reasonable to have folks kinda play a bit of catch up 3-4 months after it releases. Because let’s be honest, people are gonna be playing content not RPing if they got the expansion. And that’s including things like Christmas where people are probably not gonna be on WoW at all.
That’s how I’m swinging out at least. I saw one guy here say their guild isn’t making it canon until January 1st which makes sense to me. After the holidays, and most folks are probably starting to wear down on the content. It’s lost it’s new feeling by then.
So I just personally say let the first 3 months be a grey area. That way guilds and players can at least catch up their characters a bit. And play the content.
Thing is, the timeskip is frustrating me because I got two characters right now who are going through some pretty big developments. One in particular I have in a guild going through a campaign that is highly relevant to his backstory and is super involving for him. But right when this campaign ends later this month we’re jumping right into the timeskip.
So, all the aftermath RP, and reactions to their new developments? Nope, don’t get to do any of that, I gotta hit the fast-forward button immediately and leap 3 years ahead skipping all of it.
And it’s kinda depressing honestly.
You’re right that a large part of the draw to roleplay is watching my character change with life’s events, but that’s specifically why I’m dreading this timeskip. Because it’s actually preventing me from being able to watch my character change and is forcing me to skip over their life events.
So talk to the people in your campaign and agree to postpone the timeskip a bit as it pertains to you and your group. Get your aftermath RP in, and then when you’re reasonably satisfied with that, skip forward. I’ve mentioned groups of people creating their own bubbles in which to play in a previous post, and that seems like the easiest and most-obvious solution to the unfortunate clash of timing between your campaign and the canon narrative.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “catch up” as it pertains to people who haven’t been playing and the timeskip. To me, the timeskip is a great way to explain the breaks and absences many people have taken. “Oh, I was off doing blah blah blah being this or that and taking care of whatever.” That kind of thing. The timeskip seems more of an issue for those who didn’t take breaks or otherwise stop roleplaying and who are currently neck-deep in the middle of their own storylines or campaigns. In which case, I’d suggest the same solution I suggested above to you. It’s exactly what Axiann and those participating with him are doing as you referenced.
There is no server canon if you do not wish to follow it. No one is forced to say they knew that the Kor’kron trials existed, or the couple of plague events, or anything else specifically. If a new group of Dwarves want to come along and RP and not acknowledge the existence of the Mead Hall, for instance, they’re fine. No one’s guild has to acknowledge the actions of any other guild’s activities, past or present. If you’re both in the same zone, you can be fighting different enemies at the same time, or the same one, and no one should be giving anyone grief about this.
Now, if you want to follow a server canon event, that’s fine, too. Same with heroes, leaders, etc. If you want to acknowledge, that’s fine. But if you don’t that’s also fine.
WrA is not a server canon server.
As far as the time skip, if some people want to do it, fine. If it doesn’t fit your character, vague it up some and say it’s been days, weeks, or whatever. It’s lore, but there’s plenty of other lore bendy stuff that we do in RP that this isn’t a big deal.
People can definitely do whatever they want, but I do think that it is weird to characterize this as “server canon”. If the pre-patch includes materials with in-game characters referencing time passing, it is just… regular canon.
Which can be ignored! If people don’t want to acknowledge time passing, or even the entirety of Shadowlands, that’s fine. But it isn’t players or some elite guild forcing headcanon onto people, it is just what is being written.
If people don’t want to RP it yet the only problem I see is how they deal with the lizard lads suddenly showing up, since they’ll be playable too in the pre-patch but I guess existing in a less-ambiguous time location adjacent to DF-era events, and I hope the introduction of a bunch of wacky dragon characters to the cities isn’t soured by people not wanting to accept that they exist yet.
True but at the risk of spoilers, Dracthyr and Dragons are not one and the same. They’re a new thing, related to dragons sure, but not in the way that we understand them.
Even though it is looking like we might be able to fix our campaign finished before Pre-patch, I was thinking about this. Was probably going to let my guild know that are campaign is before the time-skip and ask them to not bring their Dracthyr to us just yet.
As for my Rp, was going to keep my characters to the guild. We are going to have a break anyway so people can enjoy the expansion and return to Rp later.
It could pose a challenge for those not acknowledging the timeskip. Like “I’m an evoker wielding powers of all the dragon aspects, I’ve escaped the evil spaghetti monster of the north and I’m part of cool dracthyr army #17 watch me do bronze dragonflight and green dragonflight magic at once.” Not gonna sound like any dragons we know lol. It’s gonna be confusing for the people who don’t want to acknowledge timeskips. They might need to avoid public RP hubs or not engage with certain RPers for it to work.
But look at the same time there were Kyrian RPers in Orgrimmar with the Shadowlands Prepatch so I suppose we simply have to deal.
If you’re not acknowledging the time skip yet when pre patch hits, you probably know you’re an exception to the rule and likely understand that in general RP space, you’re in current (3 yrs ahead) times. Most people concerned are talking about guild campaigns and story lines, so it’s easy to keep those insulated to the people involved.
I can’t imagine we’re going to have any witch hunts where some RPers are hunting down the few stragglers who refuse to accept that time has moved forward yet.
I now want to seriously do this. Just RP a squad of Bronze Dragons and violently throw stragglers into the future. “There’s no time to explain, Azeroth needs you IN THE FUTURE!”
~ Docbrowmu
I feel like people who don’t want to acknowledge the time skip will just be vague about things like what their specific character did across the time period.
It won’t be so much of a “omg we suddenly have dragonnnnzzzz!” issue so much as a freeze their character in place so that they don’t have to write off years of character development as being off screen. So Bob the Shaman goes to sleep on the last day of SL and wakes up on the first day of DF with virtually no changes to his personal storyline. Whether there are or have been dragonnnnzzzz for years doesn’t matter to the character’s story.
And they probably won’t go around advertising loudly about the server that they’re not really acknowledging it. It’ll probably be a quiet decision so it’s not disruptive to others. So, Bob got back from SL yesterday. There are dragonnnnzzzz today. Bob continues on trying to deal with his PTSD that he got from finding out his ancestor’s spirits are uhhhh…
In a world where characters tend to sleep for very very long times (must be quite nice). I’m sure you could find ways of making your character go dormant for a few years if you don’t want to rp the time skip out.
Whether that be magic related, a self isolated journey, an exile, or just taking a nap as a druid.
I’ve decided to RP my characters as denying the time skip, and everyone else who acknowledges the time skip as playing an elaborate prank
Most of my characters outright think Draenor and the maghar orcs aren’t real because that expansion lore sucks so it’ll be easy for me to ignore this too