When is timeskip?

[Kròm-cenarion-circle (Kròm)]

When does the time skip kick in?

Now or at the next patch when dracthere are released?

[Laugh-kaelthas (Laugh)]

@Kròm-cenarion-circle

when dracthere are released?

Probably this.

[Ataxerxes-dalaran (Ataxerxes)]

Yeah, when we get dracthyr and when the invasion events start, that’s probably the end of the time skip.

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

@Kròm-cenarion-circle

When does the time skip kick in?

It’s not a skip, it’s just that three years are currently passing in the lore while we play. The two years in SL ended when we killed the Jailer, closed the break in the veil and left. In game, we’re passing through three years now, lorewise. In real time, it’s just us playing a game.

[Rosenivy-area-52 (Rosenivy)]

I keep reading that its saying we were in the shadowlands for 2 years. and then dragonflight is 3 years after we come back

Eugh I hate time shenanigans because Blizz ( and wowhead ) keep being vague

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

That’s what I’m saying. But don’t forget, once we killed the Jailer, dealt with Sylvanas and the break in the veil was closed… we were done with SL. So those two years are now over. We’re in the three year period right now.

[Rosenivy-area-52 (Rosenivy)]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for some reason this article I’m reading makes it sound like “Okay its been 2 years now that you’re on azeroth. Begin the countdown cuz we’re jumping 3 years from right now” Like say you go from 2022 to having a blink and now you’re in 2025

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

Probably poorly worded. Those articles sometimes are. Hehe.

[Rosenivy-area-52 (Rosenivy)]

Like even WoWhead made it sound like that.

I swear Blizz is either VERY on the nose with their descriptions or they’re beyond vague. There’s never any in between

Edit: To quote this one

“The timeline gaps between expansions tend to be consistent at around one or two years, starting from year 25 in World of Warcraft (25 years after the initial opening of the Dark Portal in the first Warcraft game). Unlike previous expansions, however, Blizzard is introducing a three-year time-skip between the end of Shadowlands and the beginning of Dragonflight, bringing the start of the new expansion to year 40.”

I’m just going with this lol

[Jaggér-area-52]

Just like tooltips. I was messing around with my prot warrior today and defensive stance says something like reduces incoming damage by 20% there is a comma outdoing damage by 10%. From the tooltip it seems to read that the stance reduces incoming and outgoing damage, but that can’t be right. It’s like they forgot a word in the outgoing damage part.

[Karat-anubarak (Karat)]

@Jaggér-area-52

Just like tooltips. I was messing around with my prot warrior today and defensive stance says something like reduces incoming damage by 20% there is a comma outdoing damage by 10%. From the tooltip it seems to read that the stance reduces incoming and outgoing damage, but that can’t be right.

No, that’s accurate. Its a trade-off; you take less damage but also deal less. If you want to deal more damage as Prot you can use Battle Stance but you’ll also be squishier.

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

Basically, we did similar in Cata. We went through WotLK for, I think, one year, then there was I think another year of downtime. Originally, it was going to be 5 years of downtime.

@Rosenivy-area-52

between the end of Shadowlands and the beginning of Dragonflight

Yep, exactly. So we went into the Shadowlands in year 35, we were out of Shadowlands in year 37 and we go into Dragon Isles year 40.

Danuser’s explanation is MUCH better.

There has always been some amount of time passing between expansions, though rarely has it been called out in game. We maintain an internal timeline of what year each expansion begins, and the gap between them has either been one year (as with earlier expansions) or two years (as with most of the later ones). But NPCs in the world don’t talk about how the Burning Crusade took place in the year 26 after the Dark Portal opened, or how we rediscovered Pandaria in the year 30.

When you look back at the Warcraft timeline, one of the things you’ll notice is that a lot of massive, world-changing events were tightly clustered together. This is especially true for WoW, which since launch has seen a multitude of invasions and catastrophes back-to-back in the chronology.

With Shadowlands representing the closing of one book in the Warcraft saga (as we mentioned in interviews around the release of our Eternity’s End update), it felt like an opportunity to give Azeroth and its inhabitants a bit of breathing room before Dragonflight ushers in the start of our next major storyline.

Shadowlands began in the year 35 after the opening of the Dark Portal, and Dragonflight will begin in the year 40.

Given that the events of Shadowlands took place over the course of two years, that leaves a few additional years that we are fast-forwarding through. Our purpose here is not to have a litany of events take place outside the game that you need to read about in a novel or other media to understand the state of the world. The goal of the fast-forward is to provide the people of Azeroth with a slice of “normal” life without a major threat looming over their heads.

When our heroes return from the Realms of Death, you can imagine them easing back into their lives and duties without an immediate crisis to address or enemy to fight. With the Alliance and Horde honoring the truce signed after the Fourth War, the average Azerothian citizen will be able to enjoy a time of stability and reflection.

That said, we plan to offer a digital short story on our website that details one particularly joyous occasion which has been referenced in the alpha build. It’s going to be a fun and charming read, but it won’t be necessary in order to understand the events of Dragonflight.

Besides stretching out the WoW timeline a bit, another benefit of this fast-forward is that it will let our younger characters get a little older, allowing some of them to take a larger role in future storylines. Yet not so much time will be passing that you’d expect characters who are already adults to look significantly different.

[Réynn-emerald-dream]

So we skipped 3 or 5 years?

[Rosenivy-area-52 (Rosenivy)]

@Thallia-sentinels

Yep, exactly. So we went into the Shadowlands in year 35, we were out of Shadowlands in year 37 and we go into Dragon Isles year 40.

Danuser’s explanation is MUCH better.

Yeah the way a post was worded threw me off. You made it sound like “Okay end of Shadowlands. Only one year is gonna go by and thats the time skip”

waves it off My boy gonna be drunk for the whole skip anyway lol

[Karat-anubarak (Karat)]

@Réynn-emerald-dream

So we skipped 3 or 5 years?

From the beginning of Shadowlands to the beginning of Dragonflight, it’s five years. From the end of Shadowlands to the beginning of DF, its three.

[Jaggér-area-52]

Well that is interesting! I figured it was a screwed up tooltip.

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

@Réynn-emerald-dream

So we skipped 3 or 5 years?

Shadowlands began in year 35.

We killed the Jailer, sentenced Sylvanas, listened to Anduin’s PTSD, closed the veil in year 37.

We go to the Dragon Isles in year 40.

There’s no skip, per se. We’re IN the three year chill out period right now.

[Brewmistress-trollbane (Brewmistress)]

@Thallia-sentinels

one particularly joyous occasion

Is Anduin getting hitched, and is it to Jaina or Wrathion