Ion just hinted at a 10.0 revamp.

[Moneeshotz]

Well, Ion said we're going to deal with Sargeras' sword at some point. Since Blizzard works 2 expansions in front of live. That would mean 10.0-3 would be dealing with that sword and most likely the Void.

If there is a time shift, that means we need to pay attention to who comes to the shadowlands with us. Jaina, Anduin, Thrall, (insert mortals-anything but an troll//undead/elf/draenei) will age if not in SL. From the comic, Anduin is an old man. This would mean we might see mortals randomly pop up in the Shadowlands. Might be a 9.3 moment where we get aid from "champions" who died during the time spent in Shadowlands.

This makes me question why Tyrande is confirmed in SL. She's already immortal in the sense of aging slowly. They spent time on Jaina, so if she doesn't come with us, she'll surely die off. Then there's bringing Thrall back into the picture, if he doesn't come, he'll be dead too. Also can't forget the entire Horde council - most of them age and will look entirely different if we jump to Anduin being an old man.

I have a feeling if they don't fill in the plot holes, the story is going to become an extreme mess. I can already see 10.0 being the Dragon Isles/Void Expansion with Chromie taking us back to see what happened while we were in SL. I hope not, it's better to just leave characters dead. I can also see Wrathion/Ebonhorn having a ties to the Dragon Isles and the Void corrupting them.

i think in the "macro" storytelling, it can line up and seem cool. I think the loose ends will be too hard to wrap up.

We still haven't dealt with the Infinite Dragonflights yet, expecting probably a time change/dragon themed xpansion, cata 2.0 prolly.

[Razac]

Except that our character can walk between "real" world and Shadowlands and it's explained in-game, so time skip makes no sense unless something goes down in the final raid.

Wasn't that being able to walk between the Maw and the rest of Shadowlands, as once in the Maw no one can escape but we gain the power to.

[chiddie]

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.

[Romanthony]

They said the same thing about argus, which explained why it was a Thousand year war, and look where that ended up going.

[plz delete account]

They don't necessarily have to kill off all the characters who stay behind. 10.0 could feature a mix of new heroes and older characters who have aged.

The Humans would be lead by an old and wise Anduin.
As the two immortal leaders of the Alliance, Tyrande and Velen will still lead their people.
Dagran will be of age and leading the Dwarves.
Mekkatorque is old already so I expect he'd die of old age during the skip. A good chance to bring in a new Gnome hero.
Genn will have passed away as well, leaving Tess in charge of the Worgen.
The Tushui are lead by an older Aysa Cloudsinger

On the Horde:

Durak, son of Thrall leads the Orcs while his father wanders the earth as a wise and ancient shaman.
Baine is the ancient leader of the Tauren and spiritual leader of the Horde.
Lor'themar is immortal and Lillian Voss probably isn't going anywhere soon either.
Gazlowe has just been instated as a new goblin leader and is well liked so I can see him sticking around.
I can see a new hero leading the Trolls as currently they don't have much a leader.
I think a new leader for the Huojin Pandaren would work as well - the Huojin Pandaren work best with a young hotheaded leader.

zappy boi 4 darkspear leader

- - - Updated - - -

They said the same thing about argus, which explained why it was a Thousand year war, and look where that ended up going.

Actually, it just explained how Turalyon had lived to be a thousand without dying, actually.

[Drusin]

As long as Zidormi is around to send me back ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Usernameforforums]

I hope they don't go the "distant future" route, but maybe instead it's a few decades later and the world has mostly recovered from the Cataclysm. Portals to main cities could simply just be for gameplay and not necessarily in the story. I think it would be a neat idea that these legendary heroes "die" and Azeroth evolves without them. Then when we come back Captain America style we could go back to being adventurers and not CHAHMPYUHNS

We are currently around year 33-34, 13-14 years of world of warcraft. Depending on how they take it, we might come back and see Anduin as an old man. Next expansion might be the void lord expansion if this is the case, or we’ll have another filler expansion then the void lord expansion.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Timeline_(unofficial)

[lollerlaban]

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.

That's not how time works in WoW though.

[Hugnomo]

It's most likely that Ion's comment only impacts the story during and coming-out-of Shadowlands, not the rest of the game. It would be quite the waste for them to implement Chromie leveling, only to render it moot by pulling a Cataclysm revamp yet again.

Well since you can choose, it'd just be an additional option at level 10, not a substitute. 0-10 would still be the exile's reach or og starting zone.

[wildcardNS]

This is the best Half-Life 3 teaser yet. So hype.

[kranur]

Like the idea of revaming kalimdor and ek and removing all links to all expansions and moving them to caverns of time.

[Selastan]

I don't think it means a timeskip. I think us beating the Jailer will undo everything the Jailer did, and revert the world all the way back to the day Sylvanas died, but this time the Val'Kyr aren't there to save her. Everything after that sort of skips ahead, and everything plays out just like it would, up until the same amount of time happens. Including our heroes, but we have no memory of it. For JoJo fans, just imagine everything from the end of Wrath to the beginning of Shadowlands, however many years that was, was erased by King Crimson. People who died are alive, people who are alive have died, the Legion and N'zoth are threats again, and we apparently still fought and beat Deathwing, though.

[lordjust]

what did ion really say? who watched stream?
translation into text always sucks and causes overhype

The question asked was:

It looks like time runs differently in the Shadowlands than in Azeroth. Maybe that's why Uther, Kael'thas and other characters have been there for ages when it has been just a few years on Azeroth.

How does time go by in Shadowlands and what does that mean for our characters?

Ion's answer was:

"The answer is complicated. It's not like some science fiction movies where in a black hole or something time just moves faster, but time is different in Shadowlands. Time is a construct of order and structure and things in the Shadowlands are a lot more chaotic in a lot of ways. Think about how time moves in a dream to some extent. Where there isn't necessarily a fixed amount of time and things can bounce around. So the souls that have been in the Shadowlands, to them it might feel like they've been here for a very, very long time as they thought of their own personal journeys or discovery and evolution but it's not necessarily a, you know 3x faster or 10x faster. Time is different and what does that mean for our characters? Well, that's something we'll have to see as we come out the other end of this experience"

It doesn't sound like there has to be a timeskip. It might feel like an eternity but it doesn't mean that an eternity of time has passed. Uther has already earned his wings which is said to take hundreds of years but his soul entered the Shadowlands after we killed the Arthas so for Uther time passed a lot slower. For other characters, like the one from the DK questline in Legion, who entered the Shadowlands at about the same time as Uther, felt like just months passed instead of years. So for him time passed a lot faster. Could be we enter the Shadowlands and when we return just minutes or years have passed on Azeroth.

[Luxeley]

I want this to be true, I hope its true. Ion could be tipping Blizzard's hand for their plans after Shadowlands. And we do know for a fact Blizzard usually plans one xpac ahead during the beta. But then again, a similar opportunity existed with WOD largely due to the whole time warp theme.

[AthranThom]

I would say that the only reason time in the shadowlands might align with Azeroth time during the expansion is that giant hole to it over icecrown.

Thus in the end of Shadowlands where we will more than likely close it, there is a possible narrative direction of us having to do that from the shadowlands side. So when it actually closes we use our connection to Azeroth to travel back to it.

Only the moment the hole closed the time ratio shifted drastically so 10 seconds of us casting teleport to Azeroth or smth, meant 10 years in Azeroth time.

Enter 10.0 where leveling is basically us getting to figure out what kind of shit occured while we were gone.

My personal wishlist would be:
Dalaran rejoins Alliance fully(coupled with Blodd Elves and Nightborne giving the horde their own floating city)
Khadgar renovated Kharazhan and we become Either the Guardian or a member of the guardians of Azeroth
Humans cleanse Lordaeron and live in it with the forsaken that chose to leave and follow Calia
Thrall's son becomes so badass he dwarfs his fathers reputation
Baine becomes Horde Velen
Zappy boi for Darkspear leader
Vol'jin becomes the Horde Loa
Plaguelands get mostly cleansed and they fuse into one zone to quest in
The whole of Darkshore becomes the new Night Elven Capital fused with Ashenvale as one zone
We finally go back to Gilneas with Tess as Queen

There are much more i want but those are the main ones

[Orange Joe]

Timewarp doesn't really mean anything. We had one after WotLK.

When did that happen?

There was supposedly a 5 year or so gap between Wrath and Cata.

[Protar95]

Why would we go back? Knowing we can't GET back, and that going back has a chance to throw us even further into the future, why would we do it again?

This is what I mean by 'chasing people across timelines.' If we choose to stay in alternate-future Azeroth, it's not because we're stuck - It's because we've chosen NOT to go back to the Shadowlands, knowing we can't get back to our time. Knowing we could be flung into some far off future with no way of predicting when we arrive if we do it again, there is absolutely no reason we would CONTINUE TO DO SO.

Thus, the only reason we WOULD go back to the Shadowlands, is if the next big bad used the Shadowlands to go to a different timeline. Thus, chasing the next big bad across timelines.

I really think you're missing my point. You seem to think I'm talking about characters making multiple trips into the future via the Shadowlands. I'm not.

My point is that at first, time in the shadowlands will progress at the same rate as on Azeroth. And our characters won't be aware of the possibility that time might not work the same way all the time. So characters will pass back and forth between the shadowlands unaware that there's a danger of being flung into the future, because at that point, no one will have been. This will explain why we can pop back to SW or Orgrimmar to use the auction house, or why some lore characters may visit the shadowlands and then return safely to Azeroth (in the right time). During 9.0-9.3 there'll be no timeline shenanigans. It will only be in 10.0 that we return from our final mission to the Shadowlands to find that years or decades have passed. That's it. Just one trip to the future.

I don't know why you're talking about alternate timelines either. This isn't a WoD scenario with alternate universes. It's just a matter of time passing differently in different dimensions. If we end up on future Azeroth it is not an alternate timeline, it's still the prime timeline our characters and the main lore characters are all from.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I wouldn't read into what he said unless we got more hints about it later on.

[Aleksej89]

What? lol what a senseless idea.

[Newname1234567890]

There was supposedly a 5 year or so gap between Wrath and Cata.

I dont think there is? Whats your source?

There isn't. Chronicles Vol 3 places the invasion of Northrend at 27 ATDP and the elemental upheaval at 28 ATDP