Legion expansion Timeskip - how to handle

by **Praeceps** Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:38 pm

Greetings everyone,

With the new expansion hitting live in little over two months time I have not yet seen discussion on how to handle a certain situation that arises with it.

There will be a timeskip of about 5 years happening.

How will we as RP-community handle this? Five years is a long period, many things can happen in such a timeframe that could have consequences for our IC-world.

1. Characters could have died due to old age. And this goed for all races with perhaps Draenei excepted as they are possibly immortal. (http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Life_spans)
2. Characters that have fallen in combat / murdered / disappeared, even if we take the timeframe as a time of peace many things could still happen.
3. Mighty guilds that have fallen into disarray or small guilds that have risen to glory
4. Political situations could easily change in five years

The list of possibilities is potentially endless.

All I say this could be a golden opportunity to rehaul our current RP-situations and to make RP attractive again to the returning or new players that Legion undoubtedly will attract.

Even if we do not overhaul the entire situations there are still the small things we should all egree on (for example our characters aging five years).

So my point is there are opportunities on the horizon, but we will need to handle them as a community and see what we can and will do with them.

by **Charlie Blazesong** Sun Jun 12, 2016 12:41 pm

Hold on, first. Is it canon that it happens 5 years after WoD? Cause that's the biggest time difference an expansion has seen in that case.

by **Praeceps** Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:02 pm

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While the five years is probably mostly speculation it can be found on many sites and even the official forums.

It also makes sense that not just right after we down Archi gul'dan appears in azeroth finds illidan and suddenly has a new army at the ready.

Years will have passed (as indicated on Wikipedia, which is still a reliable source of information) and supported by the unofficial timeline (which might be retconned at some point ofcourse).

A whole different possibility might even be Blizz retconning most of the lore to fit the new timeline of the movie XD

by **Charlie Blazesong** Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:29 pm

It's already stated the movie won't be canon. It is very much in another reality so I guess canon in a way but not relative to our characters.

In terms of the actual timeline and such, the legion has an almost infinite amount of demons, I doubt it would take them five years to launch another invasion if they so choose to. Another thing that makes me sceptical that it indeed might be five years is the fact that the closest thing we have to a official timeline shows that every 2 years or so a new threat to the world seems to show up.

In other words, the armies of Azeroth is pretty much in a constant struggle as new foes keep popping up all the time. It might be different with this expansion but unless Blizzard states it themselves I won't really give much thought to it.

Source:
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by **Skarain** Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:39 pm

You have been roleplaying for 1 year more or less daily. Suddenly, blizzard's official lore comes and says that between point X and Y (Warlords > Legion) has been 5 years. What I would do, is simply add as many years to your character age from when they are born (year) and calculate how old they are if put to "present" (Born year 1 > Legion starts year 42 (speculation) = character 41 years old IC).

Only if writing a background for a character who have not been roleplayed actively, you need to think for "what have my character done these years".

You can of course take the years into account. Add something they have learned during the years. Maybe they've got older. Got some children. Have their children become older. Rise in ranks. Whatever that takes 'time'.

I don't think it's going to impact "active roleplaying" much however. We don't have to write "how the world have changed during these years". It have simply gone forward at a faster pace than how we perceive it RL. A simple march that you did in one evening might have taken days IC, and so-on.

These are my few cents. I have to wait to see the confirmed lore-post on how many years have it been between WoD-End and Legion-Start. If such have been given (dev-tweet, blue-post), do link!

by **Dolerien** Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:47 pm

Every expansion we have this 'dilema', and every expansion, everyone just accepts a time difference. Because there *are* years between expansions. We'll all have done stuff, but really, it doesn't matter, because we can't adequately say 'person X's relationship with Y has changed because of this, and Guy A and Girl B have been doing this, but Guy C found this thing and showed it to Q, who destroyed it so A and X don't like him anymore', it just gets massively confusing for no reason. If everyone has to think up five years worth of stories and how they interacted with every single person they know, we might as well just retcon the server lore and start over. Just carry on as normal. Your friends remain friends, rivals remain rivals, Alliance remains filth. Razz

by **siegmund** Sun Jun 12, 2016 2:50 pm

Honestly I don't see anythng official in those links. One is your run of the mill wikipedia which only says "years" which could as well be a minimum of 2 years and the other being a unofficial timeline on wowwiki.

Plus either way the amount of time the game is out usually gives a rough time of how long it lasted (even though that's kinda shaky but still ok enough) especially if you're playing the game time tends to pass naturally even when you're not really rping. Your character is still going to do their daily chores that you won't RP out and ingame events won't last so little time from the view of leveling/raiding.

In my opinion there isn't really a need for any year timeskips for RPers, becouse we already sort of timeskip all over the place in small doses for the sake of convinience when traveling with a boat or something similar.

It also makes sense that not just right after we down Archi gul'dan appears in azeroth finds illidan and suddenly has a new army at the ready.

Well sure, if you take the idea that you beat Archi the last second before the Legion expansion hits or if you go to the other spectrum archi was beat up when the first raid group beat him (Which would make an expansion hilariously fast). I myself just persume things happened at a sensible point in time and that they gradually happen over a period of time.

by **Cid** Sun Jun 12, 2016 3:48 pm

Vanilla - Cata roughly 5 years in between (seeing as Anduin grew up slightly), so not the biggest jump per se. It be big, yes, and many changes can come during that time, but we've managed that before (a majority of the Alliance can handle it, with their longer lifespans). So where do we count this new jump from? 5 years between Cata and Legion?

by **Webbles** Sun Jun 12, 2016 4:27 pm

I believe they're talking about the biggest jump between two successive expansions. So 5 years between WoD and Legion.

by **Cid** Sun Jun 12, 2016 5:40 pm

Ouch, yeah that might be a tad big timejump in a shorter timespan. More understandable then.

by **Ixirar** Sun Jun 12, 2016 9:34 pm

Don't remember sources and cba right now but there's no time skip happening. Expansions last 1 year each in lore typically.

by **Skarain** Fri Jul 01, 2016 7:07 pm

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Anroka-Moonglade wrote:This is exciting news, so I figured it may help other RPers to know, given how the dates things happened on Azeroth impacts backstories and such. The last official timeline released was in the Ultimate Visual Guide, and went up to the year 30. (http://wow.gamepedia.com/Timeline_(Ultimate_Visual_Guide).)

The new Legion Comic #1: Magni - Fault Lines confirms that it's 4 years since the Cataclysm pre-events began, when King Magni Bronzebeard was turned into a diamond statue, through a ritual meant to communicate with Azeroth. Making it now 32 years after the opening of the Dark Portal.
(http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/20166745/new-comic-world-of-warcraft-legion-1-magni-fault-lines-6-30-2016)

That means we now have an updated timeline:

20. The Third War.
21. The Battle of Mount Hyjal On Kalimdor.
22. Rise of the Lich King.
25. WoW Vanilla.
26. The Burning Crusade.
27. The Wrath of the Lich King.
28. The Cataclysm.
30. The Invasion of Pandaria.
31. The Warlords of Draenor invasion.
32. The Incoming Legion Invasion.

Pretty cool. Blizzard likes to be deliberately vague with dates, especially for new content. I think this is the first time they've so clearly confirmed the real-time lore year of an expansion this early. Good stuff for loremasters like myself.

by **siegmund** Sat Jul 02, 2016 12:35 pm

Nice a new comic, had hoped new ones would come out for legion.

by **John Blake** Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:36 pm

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I will assume Legion will be the beginning of 33.
I asked a GM and currently we are 32 (WoD).

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