Ion just hinted at a 10.0 revamp.

[Blayze]

sylvanas: Before the final blow was struck, i tore open a portal in time, and flung the champion into the future where my evil is law

Into the Shadowlands, where my bae's in the Maw!

[Soon-TM]

If time works differently in the Shadowlands, there are three possibilities:

1) Time outside the Shadowlands is moving faster than inside the Shadowlands, in which case, when we leave it will be a MUCH later date than when we entered - Much later than it should be. (Ex.: If we're there for two months, a year could pass on Azeroth.) This is likely the path they intend to take, as the other paths don't really offer much in terms of story potential. This offers both the possibility of "How do we get back" if they choose to go that route, OR "What's the situation and how can we help here" in the future of Azeroth without our heroes. Whatever happened in the un-clear amount of time we skip, is basically entirely Blizzard's to write with no input from us, as the entire expansion will be dependent on these stories which are likely written through books.

2) Time outside the Shadowlands is moving slower than inside the Shadowlands, in which case, when we leave it will be a MUCH sooner date than it should be. (Ex.: If we're there for two months, it could only be a few days on Azeroth.) This offers absolutely no story potential. FFXIV ran with this idea in their Shadowbringers expansion, specifically to make it so the main world is absolutely not affected whatsoever by their current AU story. It's basically just saying "Oh you're basically in the hyperbolic time chamber, you're meant to be solving this story in however much time it takes to solve, and getting back to what you were doing before since nothing has changed from when you left."

3) Time outside the Shadowlands holds no bearing on time inside the Shadowlands, in which case, when we enter and when we leave have absolutely no way of being predicted. (Ex.: One time we enter, we stay for two months, and we leave and it's only been 5 minutes - While another time we enter, we stay for two months, and we leave and it's been 16 years.) This is the least likely of the three options. It basically makes the future chaotic - We have absolutely no way of predicting when we end up, when ANYONE ends up, and Blizzard would need to write in a way to remove this in order to get the story back on track.

Without one of these three possibilities, there is absolutely no reason to consider that time in the Shadowlands works any differently than on Azeroth, and it's simply not worth considering as a possibility. The fact Ion hinted that it's something we'll explore in the next expansion, means one of the above three is true.

An interesting post. I think that the first option is the most likely, if only because option 2 offers no potential for future stories (and it would feel lame af), on top, and option 3, while offering a lot of potential, would be especially whacky to work with. As far as I can tell, only a small handful of HIGHLY skilled sci-fi writers have managed to make those "oscillating" (so to speak) timelines work... And I really doubt that Danuser & co. will be able to pull off something like that... In a non-cringey way, that is.

[Wolfrick]

I wonder which Alliance city will be genocided by the Horde this time? Ironforge?

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Eastweald better be protectorate zone by the Argent Crusade for the Foraken, and Alterac better rejoin the Horde

how about making Stratholm for the argent crusade its own nation, where both horde and alliance can come to and do their Reputaiton quests and more interesting stuff.

When it comes to ALterac I think they would try to rebuild their own kingdom, but beeing neutral and make their own faction which would be Neutral to the horde and alliance, it would really fit them and beeing in the mountains they could be a very good trade hub.

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If we’ll ever see a revamp of ALL the old zones, it will be for 11.0 when the game will achieve the 20 years milestone. The work to do is overwhelming, if they really have this idea I hope they started working on it yesterday.

They have, just think about it Legion, BFA and Shadowlands... have been doing alot of updates to base elements of the game and done alot of Upgraded Grapics on NPCS and different world envierments, so the most thing they would have to do is to plan the Lore and do it right.

[Cosmic Janitor]

WoW would feel trash going back to being mere adventurers, I don't play RPG's to remain some random pleb for the entire game. Rising through the ranks and becoming a commander was one of the best things in WoW.

While I would like to agree with the genal premise, if you think you are commander right now then you don't know what a commander is. You are essentially a child with god tier powers that gets ordered around whenever it matters and you have a few goons you can send on missions to placate you for the remainder of the time. You don't command anything. You don't strategize, you don't give orders. We are free-lancing heroes.

[Knaar]

Im more thinking as a timeskip periode... we're in Shadowland for 2 years, Azeroth ends up 20+ years old and everyone that remained in Azeroth rebuilt the world and a new order is in place which will (obviously...) become the next vilain of 10.0

[Goladir]

In the latest Ion interview concerning Shadowlands (Which is still going at time of writing)
Ion stated "Time moves differently in the shadowlands. Not exactly a X3 or a X10 timewarp persay, but we'll have to see the full extent of this when our characters come out of Shadowlands [into the next expac].

10.0 revamp bois.

And yes, it's too goddamn early for 10.0 discussion, but here you go.

Maybe that is why we see a old Anduin in the Legion comics. Maybe we get stuck in Shadowlands for a while or time goes faster for us but not in the world of the living / Azeroth. Maybe vice versa.

[threads]

it would be cool if we come back and nobody knows who we are and we are back to being random adventurers

[tangers58]

I want to see Quel'thalas updated so badly. But at this point I have no expectations for that, they will most likely continue updating single zones when it makes sense storywise, like they did with Arathi and co. in BfA.

You mean when they cut corners by slapping new NPCs in old zones instead of making new content?

[Eapoe]

Come back to a dead world as the sword we all forgot about finally causes Azeroth to bleed to death in the decades (days) we have been gone. World no longer sustains life. World of Warcraft ends because, in the infamous words of Dark Helmet, “ Good is dumb.”

[Super Kami Dende]

While I would like to agree with the genal premise, if you think you are commander right now then you don't know what a commander is. You are essentially a child with god tier powers that gets ordered around whenever it matters and you have a few goons you can send on missions to placate you for the remainder of the time. You don't command anything. You don't strategize, you don't give orders. We are free-lancing heroes.

We are quite literally referred to as the Commander during stories, we also lead the major Assaults on everything, we are the ones that lead the Warfronts, we are the ones that lead the Expeditions, we are one of the highest rank People in the Military of the Factions.

[plz delete account]

What if the baddie IS the Vindicaar?

What if WE are the baddies?

[Soon-TM]

What if WE are the baddies?

Not in a world where Golden or Danuser are in charge of writing.

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We are quite literally referred to as the Commander during stories, we also lead the major Assaults on everything, we are the ones that lead the Warfronts, we are the ones that lead the Expeditions, we are one of the highest rank People in the Military of the Factions.

Lolno. We may be are referred to as Commanders, but we don't actually command anything. Even in warfronts, aka the in-game battles, we are not commanding !@#$, we're just footmen/grunts with OP gear. Did we command ANYTHING during the war campaign, or during the battle of Dazaralor? Oh right, we were just following orders from whatever bigwig was in charge.

[Zandalariprelate]

No he didn't

[Confucius]

I don't see how this confirms anything other than the fact that there's more story post-9.x.

there's a story?

[Makorus]

Not in a world where Golden or Danuser are in charge of writing.

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Lolno. We may be are referred to as Commanders, but we don't actually command anything. Even in warfronts, aka the in-game battles, we are not commanding !@#$, we're just footmen/grunts with OP gear. Did we command ANYTHING during the war campaign, or during the battle of Dazaralor? Oh right, we were just following orders from whatever bigwig was in charge.

Uh, we are certainly commanding people, i.e. all the War Table stuff that are conflicts that are beneath us, same as in WoD? The War Campaign stuff is just spec ops, high importance stuff where they need us. We clearly are high ranking part of the respective factions.

[chiddie]

how about making Stratholm for the argent crusade its own nation, where both horde and alliance can come to and do their Reputaiton quests and more interesting stuff.

When it comes to ALterac I think they would try to rebuild their own kingdom, but beeing neutral and make their own faction which would be Neutral to the horde and alliance, it would really fit them and beeing in the mountains they could be a very good trade hub.

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They have, just think about it Legion, BFA and Shadowlands... have been doing alot of updates to base elements of the game and done alot of Upgraded Grapics on NPCS and different world envierments, so the most thing they would have to do is to plan the Lore and do it right.

The graphic part is not an issue. The issue is reworking thousands of quests and all the things connected to them (loot, rep, etc.). The amount of work to do is insane.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Uh, we are certainly commanding people, i.e. all the War Table stuff that are conflicts that are beneath us, same as in WoD? The War Campaign stuff is just spec ops, high importance stuff where they need us. We clearly are high ranking part of the respective factions.

As I said, the war table is at best something to placate the god tier toddlers that the player characters are so they feel important. In reality even there we are just pencil pushers since all we do is sign off on missions. You might be right that the whole commander feeling worked better in WoD and to a degree legion, but in BfA we are at best a squad captain of the handfull of followers we have. Everything we do is dictated by someone else, if we are lucky we get to pick which orders we fullfill first. If we were actual commanders we'd be capable of giving march orders, which you could maybe RP if you are a guild leader but that's about it.

There is a reason why recently they've settled for champion/hero. It's the thing most applicable to us. Pretending we are an official military figure within our faction is at best misguided, flat out misleading at worst. We aren't. We have no political power, we have no power to advise our superiors, we can't do shit in this regard.

[Craaazyyy]

I would rather interpret it as the exact opposite. 2 years of Shadowlands aren't getting us 30 years ahead or so. You are constantly going back n forth via portals. These progression steps would need to be reflected every major Patch. It's more likely that just because Kael'thas died 12 years ago he doesn't have to have been in SL for the equivalent of 12 years.

But then again, some people only hear what they want to hear.

going back via portals has nothing to do with it.. lorewise you will stay in shadowlands for the entirety of expansion. Like in WoD lorewise we were never going back and forth just because we were using portals. Also when u use some portals you basically go back in time lorewise

[Sondrelk]

I would think it is far more likely what some other poster mentioned in regards to this:
The time difference is more a plot device to explain why things have not changed diddly squat in the time we were in Shadowlands, and how the feral scourge invasion is not really a problem running rampant as you would imagine such a thing being for 2 years or whatever time an expansion lasts.

Not to mention, this is hardly the first time Blizzard has heavily hinted at timeskips, or generally implied that time moves differently in whatever zone you are in. It was played up to no end how time moves differently in the Twisting nether, and in the end it was solely used to explain how Alleria and Turalyon had been fighting the Burning Legion for Millenia despite only a few decades passing in our time.

[TheVaryag]

In the latest Ion interview concerning Shadowlands (Which is still going at time of writing)
Ion stated "Time moves differently in the shadowlands. Not exactly a X3 or a X10 timewarp persay, but we'll have to see the full extent of this when our characters come out of Shadowlands [into the next expac].

10.0 revamp bois.

And yes, it's too goddamn early for 10.0 discussion, but here you go.

What I read from that was "We have no idea how the story will go after Shadowlands or how Time differences will work yet, depends where we wanna take the narrative to suit our gameplay" cause remember, Gameplay first! Screw Lore, story, consistency, world building etc. that's blizzard's mantra. Not even kidding, look it up.

By the way, If they DO a timeskip the game will die. SW:TOR did that too, a 5 year time skip storywise that ruined the story consistency, ruined RPers and their storylines (Minor issue but still a factor), everything became muddled and untrackable. To me, trying to find ways to timeskip forward or back a few years tell me blizzard have no competant story tellers, another reason to put ontop of the fact that they do retcons every year which tells me you don't have any good lore people in the dev team.

Doing such skips Is like them trying to "Reset the board" and If you just had good story tellers and lore people you could do that yourselves without a timeskip, but then, why would a billion dollar company hire someone competant in such a thing when their first worry is gameplay, not lore.