Steve Danuser confirms a Dragonflight Timeskip

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I too would have liked a longer skip but the issue is NPC and Player character aging out of being able to fight range.

How old is too old to fight? There were historically some pretty old Roman generals who did fight on the battlefield, not to mention old knights who fought in the middle ages.

Honestly I don't like how disruptive this is for roleplayers.

I can understand if a player prefers for their character to be extremely young, in their teens or twenties. If a player character was at least 20 when they began in Vanilla (year 25), then they would be at least 35 in Dragonflight (year 40), 5 years away from entering into middle-age. If you have played a second generation character that came into the story later on, like a Pandaren or an allied race, then the player character could still be extremely young, but ofcourse that character would have missed out on at least half of the story which would be incongruous with how the player character is treated in WoW (it makes little sense for a Wandering Pandaren who had no prior military experience when they joined one year ago to be handpicked by High King/Warchief as the leading general on Draenor in WoD).

It doesn't matter if it's 1, 5, 10, 100 years time skip. The story will still be shit, it's nowadays Blizzard after all.

Also this.

So I guess my characters are homeless for three years, with nothing to do. Not like they would take the time to Build A House somewhere, to: settle down, retire, show off trophies, etc. Shame there wasn't an in-game reason to add a feature like player housing.

By this point, the player character should be one of the most famous people in the world, like the Warrior of Light from FF14 but 10x over given that the WoL saved multiple continents and worlds. He should be able to settle almost anywhere.

I'd like to imagine that my character retired to his farm at Halfhill in Pandaria. Maybe he shows up at the garrison every now and then (has someone has become the garrison commander? Am I an honorary commander now?).

I really hope this is true, it annoys me when the story is told in other mediums instead of within the game.
Books should only be used to expand on the story.

Guess what.

Dragonflight is getting a book!

Just another thing for people to bitch about if they decide to shift an event.

Maybe Blizzard should hire writers who can actually plan ahead and stick to the plan.

- - - Updated - - -

Not really. They’ve hinted quite a few times that time moves differently in the Shadowlands - so although that entire storyline occurred over 2 years on Azeroth it may have felt less in the Shadowlands.

I get the feeling that the stories of WoD and Shadowlands took place over a very short period of time, like maybe weeks to a few months at most. You and a handful of characters are going on a journey with a handful of objectives. You're not really burdened by logistics or the need to wait for your leaders to decide what to do next after a patch.

Most WoW expansions feel like they would have taken place over at least a couple of years. You have several different military campaigns that happen, and then more campaigns that happen in the patch content that would have had to have lots of time occur for the Horde/Alliance leadership to decide what to do next, military planners to get everything organized, asset buildup, logistics of intercontinental travel, and then the actual deployment. In Cata, there is no way that a Horde character could participate in the Stonetalon campaign AND the Barrens campaign AND Sylvanas' invasion of Gilneas AND Garrosh's invasion of the Twilight Highlands AND the Vash'jr campaign, AND the events at Mount Hyjal, let alone everything else that happened.

[Lupinemancer]

I actually think more short sotries detailing the "slice of life" of several races that are not connected to the main game, would be nice. These stories are be set at any point and are just fun little stories about the daily life of being a Gnome, or what Trolls are doing when they are not fighting enemies. Fun little stuff like that.

[Rockefellah]

So all of Outland, Northrend and Cata took place in 4 years? That seems.. wrong. Way way too much in a short period of time.

Time doesn't make sense. Going by in real life years and the transition years it should be 14 years between Vanilla and start of MoP.

Warcraft (Vanilla) 25 years after dark portal
The Burning Crusade 29 (3 in game, +1 year transition)
Wrath of the lichking 32 (2 in game, +1 year transition)
Cataclysm 36 (3 in game, +1 year transition)
MoP 39 (2 in game, +1 transition)

Yet shadowlands is supposedly happening in 36 also. I am really curious to this internal timeline.

[DatToffer]

Not to complain but 5 years feel like a bit of a wasted oppertunity here, a bigger timeskip would've allowed for Azeroth (and the old continents) to evolve and change much more and also given them the excuse to update the old world a bit. Thinking more like 10/20+ years here.

Which is exactly what they didn't want to do, thus a smaller timeskip.

[Kharli]

Time doesn't make sense. Going by in real life years and the transition years it should be 14 years between Vanilla and start of MoP.

Warcraft (Vanilla) 25 years after dark portal
The Burning Crusade 29 (3 in game, +1 year transition)
Wrath of the lichking 32 (2 in game, +1 year transition)
Cataclysm 36 (3 in game, +1 year transition)
MoP 39 (2 in game, +1 transition)

Yet shadowlands is supposedly happening in 36 also. I am really curious to this internal timeline.

The Burning Crusade happens in year 26, yes a year after Vanilla wow.
Wrath of the Lich King happens in year 27(yes.. this is silly now)
Cataclysm happens in year 28-29.
Mists starts in year 30 ending in year 31
Warlords starts in year 31
Legion starts in year 32
Battle for azeroth in year 33.
- a 2 year gap here -
Shadowlands is between year 35-36

Dragonflight= year 40, so there is about 4 years between shadowlands and dragonflight

basicly its a year between each expansion in lore, TLDR: our heroes run from one end of azeroth to another as massive threats rise up.

SOurce:https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Does time still pass once we clear a raid? So if its 6 month between patches, does 6 months pass ingame too?

[Lochton]

Brilliant news!

Especially for roleplayers who were in the confusion about how long "several" was going to be.

So happy they finally revealed some numbers!

[Yarathir]

Ok.

The story still sucks, though.

[Rockefellah]

The Burning Crusade happens in year 26, yes a year after Vanilla wow.
Wrath of the Lich King happens in year 27(yes.. this is silly now)
Cataclysm happens in year 28-29.
Mists starts in year 30 ending in year 31
Warlords starts in year 31
Legion starts in year 32
Battle for azeroth in year 33.
- a 2 year gap here -
Shadowlands is between year 35-36

Dragonflight= year 40, so there is about 4 years between shadowlands and dragonflight

basicly its a year between each expansion in lore, TLDR: our heroes run from one end of azeroth to another as massive threats rise up.

SOurce:https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

Would be way better IMHO if they went by actual years, also makes much more sense with the ingame calendar and holidays.

Coming of age, dealing With Ragnaros, the black dragon shenanigans, AQ, Hakkar and Naxx all in one year is just ridiculous.

[Nerovar]

So all of Outland, Northrend and Cata took place in 4 years? That seems.. wrong. Way way too much in a short period of time.

Their "official" timelines they put out never made much sense. They cemented it in the ultimate visual guide iirc. Never understood why you would want to deliberately squish time to make the events even more condensed. Back in the old lore it was much more sensible. Classic was 4 years after Hyjal, TBC was 20 years after the Dark Portal last closed (Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal), Cataclysm takes place 10 years after Hyjal.

So in the "original" timeline it would have been something along the lines of:
Classic - year 25 (4 years after Hyjal as referenced by the original Cinematic trailer)
TBC - year 28 (Beyond the Dark Portal is year 8 according to the official website back then and the official strategy guide and the Quest "Through the Dark Portal" establishes the 20 year slumber of the portal)
WotLK - I don't know any exact reference but it would either be 29 or 30
Cataclysm - year 31 ("A decade ago, a great battle took place here on the summit of Mount Hyjal." from the Quest "If You're Not Against Us..." )

This is obviously still pretty dense but at least it's pretty much the same amount of time that passed IRL and not just 3-4 years.

[Kharli]

hopefully, what they will do moving foward= 1 year IRL = 1 year in wow

[Malorne the White Stag]

Night elves and worgen are still refugees in stormwind, but hey at least we get to see two characters getting married! Seriously, whats the point of a time skip if everything is the exact same?

[Razorice]

The Burning Crusade happens in year 26, yes a year after Vanilla wow.
Wrath of the Lich King happens in year 27(yes.. this is silly now)
Cataclysm happens in year 28-29.
Mists starts in year 30 ending in year 31
Warlords starts in year 31
Legion starts in year 32
Battle for azeroth in year 33.
- a 2 year gap here -
Shadowlands is between year 35-36

Dragonflight= year 40, so there is about 4 years between shadowlands and dragonflight

basicly its a year between each expansion in lore, TLDR: our heroes run from one end of azeroth to another as massive threats rise up.

SOurce:https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

It's kind of funny in this perspective, considering "IRL" the zones are wayyy larger than in-game, so our characters would literally Light-speed from one part of continent to another while dealing with threats just so another, bigger and badder threat arises 1 year later. it's ridiculous!

[BaumanKing]

Can we get short stories for all leaders pls? Not just “A Moment in Verse part 2”.

[thilicen]

Imagine an expansion that is actually set in a "calm" period like that, where we focus on the more local threats, the Van Cleefs of the world and what have you instead of some massive global world-ending yada-yada every single time?

[Snufflupagus]

Ye, wheres housing! how could our player characters ever live "normal" life without housing. :P

Pretty much all other MMO's have it but not WoW, probably because blizz devs think features cannot be maintained beyond their introductory expansion... everything must be scrapped everytime!

I’ll pretty sure it’s because housing is a trash feature that would add nothing to WoW.

[Imasquishy]

so...... boring . seems to be there theme of DF . we coudl already see it with how boring DF trailer was. this is just extnding it.

So...We can expect you to sit this one out?

[BarosanuNr1]

[...]Mists starts in year 30 ending in year 31[...]
SOurce:https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

5.4 alone lasted longer IRL than the entirety of MoP did lore-wise

[GUZ]

Peace for a while = massacre incoming.

[Gurkan]

I’ll pretty sure it’s because housing is a trash feature that would add nothing to WoW.

That is pretty much Dragonflight