So, time skip incoming?

[Newname1234567890]

People have said this pretty much every expansion.

Its a odd detail to say time moves differently if it wont come into play.

[Zyky]

Taken from front page interview:


So will next expansion be a time skip? If so how far into future we will end in? Are they gonna revamp whole azeroth again?

Not gonna lie, i wouldn't mind neo-orgrimmar.

We already knew time skip was a thing related to Shadowlands, we found out about it in Legion during a Death Knight class campaign quest. My speculation is that N'zoth didn't actually die and he just fucked with our minds to make us think we won(or it was literally all a vision of the future and therefore N'zoth couldn't have actually died) and we're going to come back to a fully corrupted old god world.

[Nefarious Tea]

Taken from front page interview:


So will next expansion be a time skip? If so how far into future we will end in? Are they gonna revamp whole azeroth again?

Not gonna lie, i wouldn't mind neo-orgrimmar.

Yeah I think we're getting one this time. Back in WoD, players speculated we'd get one, but the devs were always vigilant about going like "no, there is no time skip happening; time is the same in both places and at a certain point in the story [I forget where] a portal to SW is opened for resupply."

But this time Ion straight up says time flows differently and that is definitely now a possibility.

[Plehnard]

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries Anduin has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Azeroth. He is the Master of the Alliance by the will of the light, and master of a million zones by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a golden-haired prince writhing invisibly with power from inexhaustible recesses of his human potential. He is the High King of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Well that would also mean as well that he'd be nothing but a rotten corpse barely hold together by machinery. That's at least a small plus.

[Gurbz]

Doesn't have to be a time skip. Could be a time compression. Based on Ion's statement, it's just as likely that they could say time would move faster in SL than on Azeroth. So we get back thinking we've been gone for a year or more, and everyone back home is wondering how we cleaned all that up during our lunch break.

In fact, I can think of at least a dozen different ways to spin what Ion said to end up with little or no change at all but still have his statement be factually correct. So don't get your hopes up for anything drastic changing unless they come out and plainly state that any sort of time shenanigans are happening.

[Highelf]

There is nothing like a good old timeskip to spice things up a little.

Or to realize that they have fubar'd current lore and need to start fresh.

[DemonHunter18]

hopefully, half of the cast die of old age.

then they can give us Azshara expansion and try to fix their legendary Nazjatar.

[LemonDemonGirl]

I wonder how different Zandalar will look. Will Dazar'alor be so big it pretty much takes up half of Zuldazar? Will the Necropolis finally be rebuilt?

Will Talanji be an old woman? lol

[Maxilian]

hopefully, half of the cast die of old age.

then they can give us Azshara expansion and try to fix their legendary Nazjatar.

Well... if the time skip do happen, the faction leaders will not die, cause they are being trapped in the Shadowlands together with us.

Though that would leave the factions leaderless for a big period of time, so by the time we go back, things could have changed a lot, to the point that the people would not accept the old leaders back to their post.

[DemonHunter18]

Well... if the time skip do happen, the faction leaders will not die, cause they are being trapped in the Shadowlands together with us.

Though that would leave the factions leaderless for a big period of time, so by the time we go back, things could have changed a lot, to the point that the people would not accept the old leaders back to their post.

if we are lucky, we flush those leaders in the very first patch and gg.

[Maxilian]

if we are lucky, we flush those leader in the very first patch and gg.

That's plausible.

Though i think we will still keep Velen, the Lightforged gall, Turalyon (if he doesn't die in the pre-exp book), Alleria, maybe the Void Elf head (depending how the void stuff affect his lifespan and, in general, he's an elf), the Blood Elf council (depending how much time passes, again... elves), maybe Malfurion and Tyrande (They are quite old though, so they may not survive much longer) but having in mind that Blizzard pointed out that they wish to work with the Burning of Teldrassil story after Shadowlands, i expect her to survive.

[Adoxe]

We've been expecting a Time Skip at the end of Legion and then again ever since Blizzcon last year, so yeah I'd fucking hope so.

[DemonHunter18]

Though i think we will still keep Velen, the Lightforged gall, Turalyon (if he doesn't die in the pre-exp book), Alleria, maybe the Void Elf head (depending how the void stuff affect his lifespan and, in general, he's an elf), the Blood Elf council (depending how much time passes, again... elves), maybe Malfurion and Tyrande (They are quite old though, so they may not survive much longer) but having in mind that Blizzard pointed out that they wish to work with the Burning of Teldrassil story after Shadowlands, i expect her to survive.

they can still survive a lot of centuries since they weren't really THAT old before they got their second source of immortality, AKA Nordrassil during WotA.

[mickybrighteyes]

honestly, time skip might be the only way to properly advance the plot enough to set shit up in a decent way.

[Kyphael]

Warcraft 40k. The God-Emperor rules the heavens atop his actually used Vindicaar. Back on Azeroth, the night elves are still farming pumpkins.

I want to play this WoW. Except trade in God-Emperor with God-Empress Light Waifu #1, Yrel.

[Saltysquidoon]

Then the time skip happens and it's like one year and nothing's changed it's just a device to have everyone act out of character so they fit into a plot set up in a book no one will read.

[Blayze]

You guys are missing the best narrative trick of all for the end of Shadowlands.

It's over, we won, all the enemies are double-dead.

Bolvar opens the way back to Azeroth, and...

...it's not fucking there anymore.

[huth]

People have said this pretty much every expansion.

This is the first time a dev has said it IIRC.

- - - Updated - - -

they can still survive a lot of centuries since they weren't really THAT old before they got their second source of immortality, AKA Nordrassil during WotA.

I think they were actually fairly young, at least for Night Elves. So they probably have over a millenia left.

[Jastall]

I strongly doubt we'll see some massive world revamp, Blizzard has learned with Cata that it swallows up too many resources better spent elsewhere. They're not going to redo every faction capital or bring half the zones in the post-Shadowlands status quo or move the timeline 20-30 years forward or anything. My guess is just that shit will have gone down while we're away and 10.0 will be us fixing it, with a bunch of model updates showing that characters aged.

Then again, who will age given that a good number of faction characters, including the important ones, are in the Shadowlands with us, just trapped as of 9.0?

[Kaleredar]

Well I suppose if they wanted to make the concept of shadowlands even more jump-the-shark then sure, throw in a time skip.