What's the lore behind not noticing the Broken Isles before?

[nanoneo]

Hey,

just want to know why we did not discover the broken isles yet. the nightfallen empire, the highmountain empire. after reading the comics, they seem to have a long history. they cant just be risen from the sea or sth like that.

could someone explain this to me?

thank you very much in advance

edit:
or did i just not notice some fat panda pushing his last breath around the isles vanishing them?

[bmjclark]

In WC3 Maiev visited it but there hasn't really been a reason to go back since then. It's not that no one noticed, just that there was no reason to go there. At least that's how i understand it.

[Qualia]

Azeroth is pretty much a medieval-themed fantasy world (admittedly, with some exceptions of high technology creations - trains, airships, etc.). It wouldn't be too far of to have unexplored zones. Just like our world up until recently (relatively), the zones could be there but no one dared, bothered or had sufficient preparations to check them out.

[Derpleton]

We've been a bit busy with Illidan, The Sunwell Invasion, The Amani Trolls, The Zandalari Trolls, The Lich King, The Drakkari Trolls, Deathwing, The Twilight's Hammer, Lei Shen, The Mogu, The Sha, The Mantid, The Iron Horde, The Burning Legion, The Infinite Dragonflight etc. etc. I think you get the idea nothing world ending has been going on in that part of the world until now so adventurers didn't bother going there

[Nevcairiel]

There is no reason to assume we never noticed it, we just never had a reason to go there.
Lore contains references to the broken isles before, afterall.

Pandaria had a Lore reason why we never saw it (the mist), but Broken Isles has always existed, just not in game-play.

[Highwhale]

Maybe Broken Isles was something similar to Bermuda Triangle? Everybody heard about it but no one wanted to check for themselves.

[omeomorfismo]

probably because an expedition in a not so well know isle without having good reasons is too expensive?

[Deleted]

No one cared about the place.

[Deleted]

Hey,

just want to know why we did not discover the broken isles yet. the nightfallen empire, the highmountain empire. after reading the comics, they seem to have a long history. they cant just be risen from the sea or sth like that.

could someone explain this to me?

thank you very much in advance

edit:
or did i just not notice some fat panda pushing his last breath around the isles vanishing them?

We knew they are there, we just didn't really have a reason to visit the place, or particularly care about its inhabitants-

[Alvito]

People have been there it just wasn't a hot spot of travle for most. Malfurion talks about it when you get your moose mount. Sure that was just added with HFC but there has been mention of some of it before.

[Mehrunes]

Azeroth is pretty much a medieval-themed fantasy world (admittedly, with some exceptions of high technology creations - trains, airships, etc.). It wouldn't be too far of to have unexplored zones. Just like our world up until recently (relatively), the zones could be there but no one dared, bothered or had sufficient preparations to check them out.

Well, speaking of sufficient reasons, given Broken Isles location, it would have been hard for Dath'Remar's Highborne to miss it during their journey to Tirisfal. And as someone said in the thread about Blood Elves capturing Suramar, it would have made sense for them to settle there in the first place had they known it didn't sink during the Sundering. Which they should have known with the new positioning of the Isles. And even if they missed them back then for some reason, they would have went past them during the travel to Northrend (either times, but especially in WotLK). So even if they had no time in WotLK (though the Horde did have time to check out Strand of the Ancients that was more out of the way), it's rather weird it didn't pick Reliquary's curiosity.

[Kralljin]

Makes no sense, plain and simple.

Maiev acts like the Broken Isles are brand new during Warcraft 3, yet in Legion the very HQ of the Wardens are on the Broken Isles.

Mistress, we followed Illidan's course due east as you asked, but these strange islands do not appear on any of our maps.

http://wow.gamepedia.com/The_Broken_...(Warcraft_III)

[Golden Yak]

Makes no sense, plain and simple.

Maiev acts like the Broken Isles are brand new during Warcraft 3, yet in Legion the very HQ of the Wardens are on the Broken Isles.

At that point, they referred only to the islands containing Tomb of Sargeras, which was raised during WC2 by original flavor Gul'dan. The other islands with Suramar and stuff have been added retroactively nearby, and people just never knew/cared about them before.

[My User Name]

We've been a bit busy with Illidan, The Sunwell Invasion, The Amani Trolls, The Zandalari Trolls, The Lich King, The Drakkari Trolls, Deathwing, The Twilight's Hammer, Lei Shen, The Mogu, The Sha, The Mantid, The Iron Horde, The Burning Legion, The Infinite Dragonflight etc. etc. I think you get the idea nothing world ending has been going on in that part of the world until now so adventurers didn't bother going there

Adventurers?

Let me remind you that the players are not the only moving characters in this universe. There are many offscreen sailors like the royal navy of Stormwind, Bloodsail pirates, Darnassian fleet, Orcish navy etc etc,

The thing going on here is that why the islands never appeared on maps and they were treated like newly discovered if they were never actually hidden in the first place

[Deleted]

Makes no sense, plain and simple.

Maiev acts like the Broken Isles are brand new during Warcraft 3, yet in Legion the very HQ of the Wardens are on the Broken Isles.



http://wow.gamepedia.com/The_Broken_...(Warcraft_III)

Those isles were raised by Gul'dan during the Second War.

[Kralljin]

At that point, they referred only to the islands containing Tomb of Sargeras, which was raised during WC2 by original flavor Gul'dan.

Those isles were raised by Gul'dan during the Second War.

This still doesn't make any sense.

As said above, Wardens Headquarters were just around the corner, any person even near the southern shores of the Broken Isles should have at least noticed:

1.Aegwynn raising the Tomb of Sargeras and put the body of the Avatar of Sargeras in there
2.Gul'dan raising the freaking Broken Shore from the sea floor
3.Battle between the Twilight's hammer / Stormreaver vs. Blackrock Orcs
4.Illidan and his Naga causing trouble there
5.Illidan wrecking the Tomb of Sargeras from the inside with the Eye of Sargeras

Finally, Maiev sent help right off the bat towards Kalimdor instead of contacting the Warden Headquarters or the Druids of Val'sharah, i guess both people would have been more than willing to help, and the latter would've been able to contact Malfurion via the Emerald Dream.

[Deleted]

This still doesn't make any sense.

As said above, Wardens Headquarters were just around the corner, any person even near the southern shores of the Broken Isles should have at least noticed:

1.Aegwynn raising the Tomb of Sargeras and put the body of the Avatar of Sargeras in there
2.Gul'dan raising the freaking Broken Shore from the sea floor
3.Battle between the Twilight's hammer / Stormreaver vs. Blackrock Orcs
4.Illidan and his Naga causing trouble there
5.Illidan wrecking the Tomb of Sargeras from the inside with the Eye of Sargeras

Finally, Maiev sent help right off the bat towards Kalimdor instead of contacting the Warden Headquarters or the Druids of Val'sharah, i guess both people would have been more than willing to help, and the latter would've been able to contact Malfurion via the Emerald Dream.

Can still be easily explained. Maiev and her Watcher rarely left the Barrows, so they probably had outdated maps.

[Golden Yak]

This still doesn't make any sense.

As said above, Wardens Headquarters were just around the corner, any person even near the southern shores of the Broken Isles should have at least noticed:

1.Aegwynn raising the Tomb of Sargeras and put the body of the Avatar of Sargeras in there
2.Gul'dan raising the freaking Broken Shore from the sea floor
3.Battle between the Twilight's hammer / Stormreaver vs. Blackrock Orcs
4.Illidan and his Naga causing trouble there
5.Illidan wrecking the Tomb of Sargeras from the inside with the Eye of Sargeras

Finally, Maiev sent help right off the bat towards Kalimdor instead of contacting the Warden Headquarters or the Druids of Val'sharah, i guess both people would have been more than willing to help, and the latter would've been able to contact Malfurion via the Emerald Dream.

I don't know the whole story behind the Warden's vault, but they did notice at least the last 2 since Maiev went out chasing Illidan and finally chased him to the Tomb.

In terms of realistic distances, we don't know the location of the tomb relative to the Warden's vault. It could be separated by many miles - its possible that yes, no one noticed the Tomb being raised in an otherwise empty area of ocean, same with the orc wars, especially after 10,000 years of nothing happening there. There's no reason for wardens to send scouts out to keep an eye on an empty patch of sea.

[Derpleton]

Adventurers?

Let me remind you that the players are not the only moving characters in this universe. There are many offscreen sailors like the royal navy of Stormwind, Bloodsail pirates, Darnassian fleet, Orcish navy etc etc,

The thing going on here is that why the islands never appeared on maps and they were treated like newly discovered if they were never actually hidden in the first place

But every continent has been treated that way, we knew Northrend was there before WoTLK and it wasn't on the map in TBC and Vanilla.

[Kralljin]

Can still be easily explained. Maiev and her Watcher rarely left the Barrows, so they probably had outdated maps.

So they are that outdated that they can't even find their own mainbase on it?



Red circled Island is the Isle of the Watchers, if they came from Kalimdor, they sailed right past it.

And even if they did, then it's still open why Maiev did not even try to contact her own sisters for reinforcements.

And this still doesn't explain why basically everyone ignored that the Broken Shore was raised from the seafloor, i mean such an event should be followed by Earthquakes and so forth, with some people investigating it considering how night elves are attuned to the nature.

There's no reason for wardens to send scouts out to keep an eye on an empty patch of sea.

I think if you raise an entire Island from the seafloor, the aftershocks are noticeable even miles away.

And the Broken shore was raised twice.


I personally doubt that Blizzard will bring up any explanation why the Broken Isles were basically nonexistant up until Legion, simply because they then had to go down and explain why no one noticed the Isles during Wc2 / Wc3.