100% will be going along with the time skip. Considering I and my guild never respected Shadowlands as a place we could go in and out of, none of our RP included it. So we just had a life on Azeroth. That will just be continued through the years to the point where we are actively ‘live’ acting again.
We will recognize the time skip, but since our guild has a massive living story with tons of red strings at any given second, the storytellers of the guild will probably just ‘auto resolve’ some of those red strings as things that took part while we were off-screen (in the skip). This is communicated to everyone to allow for them to write it into their story or maybe they took a long vacation or whatever they want to write. Then the members can choose what they want to do with said information, what they would have been a part of or learned doubt second hand, etc etc. But the key here is communication.
As far as people that don’t want to recognize the skip, then they may no longer be a good fit for the guild. It happens. Just like people that wanted to ICly be to Shadowlands, we didn’t recognize it as a place for people to waltz in and out of. Worked out fine for all. They find a place that fits their playstyle and we continue with ours.
If this happens it will be addressed if it needs to be but as far as her partner, not a risk as we have hoped for this skip since it was announced before the release of Shadowlands. If another acquaintance or long-term friend feels like ignoring it, Sefi will smile and nod just like she does today with people that talked about having tea in Shadowlands for the afternoon.
In the end, I don’t think anyone needs to ‘skip’ time. You can still write your stories that took place during that time off-screen (skip). It is really no different than making a new character and writing a backstory saying you fought in Outlands but you boosted them today. So you write what happened in those couple of years. It may not be as ‘fun’ as acting it out at the moment, but there isn’t this solid end and start with missing time.
I too plan on going along with the time skip when it hits. Filling in the gaps is as relatively simple as just going and living a normal life for a while for the first time in a long time. And then figuring out the details from there-on in. Hell, it’s not like we’re going INTO Dragonflight with some world/cosmos shaking nemesis rearing their head again. It’s an expedition! So that right there even means that everyone and their mother may not necessarily be taking the first boat/zeppelin/portal/etc out to the Isles ICly. There’s no full on call to arms at launch.
All that aside though. I feel it gives people some leeway to work with in the end.
In the end, I don’t think anyone needs to ‘skip’ time. You can still write your stories that took place during that time off-screen (skip). It is really no different than making a new character and writing a backstory saying you fought in Outlands but you boosted them today. So you write what happened in those couple of years. It may not be as ‘fun’ as acting it out at the moment, but there isn’t this solid end and start with missing time.
Yea, it’s this. This really isn’t some grand dramatic thing. It’s no ‘worse’ for RP than the fact that in canon all this mess since Vanilla has been happening in one year chunks or so. You can write stories that happen during the skip, nobody’s saying to treat this like non-existent void time.
Okay, but this is the big question - what if some of the people in the guild say that they’re not doing a timeskip for their characters? No stories, no autopilot, they’re just not going to recognize that several years suddenly passed. What happens to the stories that they personally have been involved in, especially if there’s a handful of people all in the same plot, and some skip and some don’t?
Just to put it out there, I’m sure the answer isn’t “They get KICKED because they HAVE TO!” Working out the disconnect is possible, obviously, it’s just unnecessary mental gymnastics that didn’t have to happen as far as I’m concerned, and the fault lies with whoever is doing the writing for Blizzard.
Or, I can not recognize that time has skipped ahead at all, the way that people have ignored other parts of the game canon because I don’t want to skim over a few years of my characters’ lives, even if I could do a flashback montage of the highlights if I super wanted to. I imagine that a lot of people will choose that, especially people who hardly pay attention to the game’s canon story anyway. They won’t even realize what the implications of the plot are on their characters.
All I’m saying is, for those that do dig in on the game’s story that they notice that a time skip happened, hashing out the implications for everyone’s characters and the characters and organizations that they interact with is going to be a gigantic hassle that didn’t have to be inflicted on people.
I’m glad for a time skip, personally. As much as I enjoy live time, day to day roleplay, being able to enact big changes that I’ve wanted for my character without having to wait years is a nice surprise.
you ‘can’ not recognize it, yea, but that’s gonna be pretty hard to pull off. Like, yea, I’m sorry but most people are going to acknowledge it and it’s going to be part of the base world status quo. Shadowlands was easy to ignore because it was literally a magic side-realm you could only enter by a specific magic portal, you can completely ignore it way easier than ‘it’s objective lore fact that multiple years have passed, and we will be acknowledging the timeline’.
Like, if you can find a group who’s also down for that awesome, that’s great for you and I hope you have fun, but it feels weird to try to make some kinda elaborate ‘gotcha’ out of it that keeps circling back to ‘well what if I want to ignore that?’ when the only answer is ‘well my character will likely think you’re very weird and tbh I’m not sure how you’ll interact with the ‘greater world’ but enjoy if that’s your bag?’
I think when it comes down to Timeskips atleast in canon it’s ether confessing in terms of TRP or just overall lore in general. Plus we don’t know what happens to the other races besides the main ones like Void Elves, Gnomes, and etc as far as lesser races. Plus I wonder if the Alliance ever gotten back parts of lost towns and lands again like Theramore, Hillsbard, and etc?
My only problem with the time skip is I want a more definitive number than “several” so I know how old Hal’s orcish son is.
Another character is currently pregnant also, and due around Christmas if we don’t speed things along. So I need to know how old that child is so I can decide whether she can return to active duty.
Every Xpac ever has had some form of the greater or lesser time skip.
Personally speaking, I quit WoW entirely from 2011 through 2017. When I did return I just wrote in my profile a rough backstory explaining my Paladins absence for those years, He was on Pilgrimage. Gradually as I rekindled with old friends & made new ones, I’d add in these players to flesh out the meat & potatoes of my character’s backstory absence.
As for the more extremist Roleplayers who are dependent on Group RP and thus must explain what their characters have been doing; Your friend group/guild can organize an event that’s roughly a Flashback to the 7 years’ time skip and fill in that gap gradually with a group/guild campaign.
TLDR: I think worrying about worrying over the Timeskip is nonsensical. As Roleplayers we have the liberty to write whatever tale we want regardless of any Time Constrained.
It alleviates it, yes. An entire new generation can’t be born, but soldiers can come of age, supplies can recover etc. Obviously it’s not perfect but I prefer a some time skip rather than no time skip.
im willing to bet the wedding is going to be in a flashback cutscene
“oh no i lost my beloved’s ring! You must retrieve it!”
Pick it up, cue cutscene, your character is there in a tux. everyone else in elfy stuff, you get a tux
In a blue post they said FIVE years has passed since the start of SL, and TWO of those years were spent in the SL if a character went. So if you didn’t go to the SL, then a full five years has passed.
I do believe there will be some stuff added, a sequence with the wedding. Probably some changes with the pre-patch, and from what was said, probably changes with patch updates like they did with the Forsaken, maybe before DF launch? Maybe after?
