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

[lolwhatadumbthread]

i honestly think people read into this shit too much lol.

[Golden Yak]

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.

It would depend on how far away it really was. If the tomb was far enough away, at most you would get an unusual tide. It wouldn't necessarily cause any tectonic activity, especially if its basically a floating piece of land held above the waves with magic.

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.

I think you're right that no explanation will be forth-coming.

[zoutyboy]

I agree that there has been a lot of sailors of the years since at least the Broken Shore was raised. There are a lot of sailors that are trapped by the sea giants in Azsuna so maybe they weren't able to go back and tell people about the islands.

As to the confusion about the Wardens and chasing after Illidan, how long have the Wardens been using the Vault of the Wardens?

We know 100% that Illidan was released by Tyrande in Kalimdor from within a barrow den (Warcraft 3 campaign). Maiev chased him, long story short she is there when he dies at the Black Temple. The Wardens take his body to prevent anything from happening to him and lock it up in the Vault. The first time the Vault is mentioned is in Legion. So we don't know when it was created.

[Rockwood]

The Broken Isles were always there but the Ruins of Surmar / Tomb Of Gul'dan / Broken Shore was the part of land that was sunk by the Sundering but was raised and sunk by Aegwynn and then later raised by Gul'dan.

The Broken Isles were a place that was there but non one went to but the natives and some rare sailors (like pre-Columbus America)

Night Elves stayed to their selves around Kalimdor until the 3rd War. Illidan was kept in the Barrow Dens below Mount Hyjal until the 3rd War.
Humans were concentrated on building civilization. Maybe some sailors have tall tales about the broken isles but the isles were discovered by a sizable Navy.
High/Blood elves ...... I have no clue why they didn't know about it since they sailed around after the War of the Ancients. Maybe they knew just didn't tell anyone.

Maiev discovered it after following Illidan who was following dead Gul'dan's memories. After she caught/killed Illidan she went back the Broken Isles and discovered the rest of it and set up camp as she rebuilt the Wardens which became the Vault of the Wardens. Where they imprisoned the Demon Hunters when they came back. (post B/C - preWrath)

After the Cataclysm, some Gilneans settled a small part of the Broken Isles.

I would love if they came up a reason with no one went there cause it was "CURSED!" in one of the comics or animated shorts.

[RigidCannibal]

It's really simple. They even said it at either Blizzcon or Gamescom. We knew about them, but didn't have any reason to go there.

They were retroactively added in, because Blizzard wanted to have things like Highmountain and Suramar be more than soggy ruins.

[Raugnaut]

First, you need to think of actual distances. From my understanding, you can generally only see ~10-12 miles out while at sea on a boat. Now, we don't know the actual size of Azeroth (For all we know, it could be 100k KM in diameter), but given the enourmous size of various creatures/plants and the like, we can say that Azeroth is likely larger then the earth. Given the presence of the Maelstrom (A gargantuan whirlpool with effects on the currents for hundreds of miles) most seafarers would likely avoid it at all costs (If you get caught in it, and the winds bad, and you don't have a mage with you, you are more or less fucked). The Broken Isles had close proximity to the Maelstrom, so most sailors wouldn't even go near it due to not wanting to get stuck in the Maelstrom. In addition, from what the cinematic shows, compasses no longer worked near the Broken Isles. Most sailors would likely see that their compasses stop working, and get the hell outta dodge, because when compasses stop working in a magic world, you don't know what the fuck is causing it, and 80% of whats causing it would likely kill you.

So yea. My own pet theory as to why nobody discovered the isles until now was that the seas of Azeroth are huge, a dangerous place, Maelstrom, so the only ppl who would even think of going to the Broken Ilses are suicidal idiots, and its rare for suicidal idiots to have a suicidal crew, and be funded on a suicidal mission.

[Jokubas]

My answer used to be: it didn't matter to us until now. The fact that parts of it never sunk and had civilizations, I think, changes that, but maybe not in any major fashion. The people living on the Broken Isles either didn't need to leave or didn't know they could. The Stormreaver clan was wiped out and Gul'dan was killed. Illidan probably wouldn't have told anyone about it, and they may not have listened to him if he did (and he only knew about it to begin with because of Gul'dan's skull). Maiev, who hid information that was crucial to saving her own queen, may not have felt any reason to tell anyone about Suramar. In other words, the people who knew about the Broken Isles either died or may very well have kept that information to themselves.

The only thing remaining that I can think of, is whether the druids on the Broken Isles had contact with Kalimdor druids through the Emerald Dream.

[Seifross]

As others have said, the player character was too preoccupied to bother visiting.

There doesn't need to be a reason for it suddenly appearing on the map any more than did for any other expansion. Why did Northrend suddenly appear? That wasn't exactly a mysterious or hidden island.

"The Broken Isles were always there but the Ruins of Surmar / Tomb Of Gul'dan / Broken Shore was the part of land that was sunk by the Sundering but was raised and sunk by Aegwynn and then later raised by Gul'dan."

This as well. The entire Broken Isles weren't raised (which I believe is a retcon), but just the one part of it.

[Benomatic]

We knew it was there and kept away. Its haunted, overrun with murlocs and naga, there's the tomb of sargeras, demons, the trapped avatar, the remains of gul'dan. Its highly avoided for a reason.

[ryudaraku]

One reason for Suramar not being found is the Whole Nightwell Barrier, it may have made it invisible, undetectable to anyone who didn't already know it was there (like the Legion)

[Zuben]

The official lore seems to be "no reason to go there". Despite there being plenty of reasons to go there.

[Deleted]

Broken Isles aren't anything new, until now though, they were just considered as abandoned isles with some hermit people living on them.

- - - Updated - - -

The official lore seems to be "no reason to go there". Despite there being plenty of reasons to go there.

Until now they were isles with an empty tomb with some tribes and creatures living on them, or so people thought. Rest of Azeroth fought war after war and had no real reason to go there. Reason why we're going there now is because Gul'dan summoned the Legion there.

[My User Name]

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.

By never appeared on maps I didn't mean the in-game maps, I was quoting one of Maiev's troops from Warcraft 3 campaign.

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

[themengsk176]

Naga might have been making it a dangerous place to travel to, thus restricting travel to large well armed forces or the foolhardy. I am sure this question will be answered at some point.