The Dragonflight Timeskip - What, How, Why? Help
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- World of Warcraft Dragonflight MIGHT have a timeskip? Dialogue that has appeared on the alpha between Shaw and Greymane suggest it has been "Several years" since the end of Shadowlands and the beginning of the new expansion. What is the timeskip? How would it work, what would it perpose be, and why is no one telling the Horde about it? Taliesin talks about the new info
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Several years of peace - peacetime could be a relatively unexciting time that serves as pure set up. The Forsaken have reclaimed Lordaeron, the night elves have found a spot for their new home, Gilneas repopulated, Thrall's kids will be young adults (the "Sons of Thrall" sounds baller), Vol'jin returns as a Loa (what kind of Loa though? Lots they could do here including a new model design), maybe Talanji widens her empire, given that Velen deviated from the strict path of the Naruu - will their be a philosophical divide brewing concerning light and void? Lorthemar and Thalyssra shipped? Did anyone find Gallywix? Will the Void Elves finally be given some semblance of identity? Will obesity and diabetes rates among Kul Tirans drop? yeah maybe a time skip is a lot of work but if they pull it off, it be cool.
Vol'jin will likely replace Rezan as the Loa of Kings, and help Telanji.
Gallywix is sitting in the bar in Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
@@kyvanrae Yes, but we don't know what's he's doing, or why he's there in the first place. He never died, as far as we know, and portals are now open to the SL.
I think the time skip is happening, considering the wonkiness of the SL distorting time.
"Will obesity and diabetes rates among Kul Tirans drop?" 🤣🤣🤣
Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z!
A time skip would make sense if they want this to be a fresh start or as Danuser said “the start of the next book of Warcraft”. It would also help show how Stormwind fared without Anduin and would give time for Vol’jin to “return” as a loa on the horde side
Steve DaSnoozer
I feel like the time skip would make sense, it’s like the characters at the beginning of every expansion so far don’t even acknowledge the time that’s passed despite the fact that they age. The “returned from the shadowlands” is likely our first return after the portal was open and we were lost in the maw for the first time. Not. 2-3 additional years after defeating zovaal. I don’t think it’s so much a time skip as acknowledging that time has passed. We have been “in the shadowlands” for 2 years, who says that 2 of the horde faction leaders got married and we weren’t invited. Maybe elves have private ceremonies which only family are allowed to attend. (Or maybe they don’t allow other race, just elves) and tyralian has been in charge of the alliance since anduin was first kidnapped at the start of the expansion.
I mean, WoW has a day/night cycle. You can't tell me Legion wasn't two years. I have a stack of notebooks tracking every sunset and sunrise.
Do we assume that a year on Azeroth is the same as on Earth? Because it works differently for planets in our own universe, let alone a completely different one
That's a joke.
@@Whydoesthissitesuck yes actually, there is a demon Hunter joke that says: “being in stasis for 10 years gives you such a kink in the neck” it was a 10 year difference from TBC to Legion, therefore Azeroth time and Real world time are 1:1.
Tali you need to interview this person like yesterday
730 days per year, your wrong
Imagine being a Dracthyr walking into Stormwind…and seeing Onyxia’s head hung up like a trophy. What a welcome.
“Isn’t that the boss’ daughter?”
I mean... They'd probably not even actually know who she is except through second-hand accounts and stories. They'd recognize her as a Black Dragon, but that also requires Onyxia to have been killed recently, when in the actual story, her head is most likely a Skull mounted elsewhere, alongside Nefarian. But that also requires us to have reclaimed their remains after they were stolen for the Blackwing Descent Return in BFA.
@@ShadowReignhart ramains that were turned into a black scale for our necklace
Every expansion being 1 year long is terrible from a narrative stand point.
Think about what it would be like living through these six years: An undead plague rips across Azeroth, a dragon exploded both continents, a horde/alliance war, Orcs from another timeline invade, SPACE DEMONS INVADE, ANOTHER horde/alliance war, ANOTHER undead plague.
How is Azeroth not massively depopulated?
This has always annoyed me too. And it makes all of the expansion villains look like bigger pushovers than they already are. It's ridiculous to think that nearly 20 irl years have passed since the start of vanilla, but only about a decade if that has passed ingame. And when we look at some of the BIG expansions, specifically stuff like the war in Northrend, i have a very hard time believing that war lasted 1-2 years. Stuff like Northrend and other bigger campaigns i see (realistically) having been 3-5 years.
all that "massive threaths" was in 1-2 zones and "armies" was 30 v 30 people. Technology IS HERE u can SPAWN TON OF NPC, but they dont, becouse all that big threats are exaggerate.
It's not all 1 year, otherwise the day/night cycle wouldn't make sense.
WoW takes place in real time. That means it's been exactly the amount of time, in universe, as has passed IRL. Nowadays an expansion lasts about 2 years. So SL happened over two years in game, in lore, along with IRL. Blizzard has stated this several times.
@@monkeysk8er33 Even at 2 years, it is ridiculous.
@@krim7 It's a science fantasy universe. It's not meant to be "realistic." Lol
Everything is entirely believable within the established lore. Any time something that gets added to expand on it, it gets even better. Not once have they added a new concept that just didn't align with Warcraft as a whole. Warcraft is serious, but has some of the zaniest moments and concepts of all of fantasy. WARCRAFT has the perfect mix of silly and serious tones. Prime example: the gnomes.
My guess would be the skip of a few years would be so when Anduin and sylvanis have time to have their walkabout in the maw.
Yes, Anduin and Sylvanas have been doing alot of “walking”…
@@ironghost-ug2si He's a sub, she's a dom. I think we all know what's actually happening in the maw.
@@sweetfry anduin may or may not be referring to her as mawmy in 10.0
In the cinematic when he was talking to her in the maw tho, he said “farewell Sylvanas” implying he left afterwards. I think he might have returned to Azeroth, just not to Stormwind
I love you used the term walkabout.
one reason to have a small timeskip would be to provide adequate time for Forsaken occupying Lordaeron, Night Elf getting settled, and having had a few years of lasting peace between horde and alliance to go along with the crossfaction play (especially as they said they're now considering cross faction guild). right at shadowlands, just after the fourth war, its a bit complicated. but add a few years, the NE with a new world tree, and forsaken co existing with Gilnean, and suddenly you have lore grounds for new exceiting stuff, without the overall setting having to change in terms of characters. enough time has passed that we can have peace related stuff, but not enough that you need to change all major protagonist models
a Pair=2, a Few=3, a Handful=5, Half a Dozen=6, Several=7+, a Dozen=12, a Score=20
"My Leige, I found one of the draconic spies! They thought they could pass as human by wearing a hat but no hat could hide those horns or face scales from my magical cunning!"
Tali I very much disagree that a few years is a useless timeskip.. a lot of things can happen in that time.. just look at what's been happening in the real world the last 2 years.. lot of stuff is fundamental different now after covid.. and Azeroth has had multiple world threatening/altering event as bad as or worse than covid in the past in-game decade alone
I think a couple years makes sense. That way they can give certain characters "more time" to be established in their new roles. Like the council in undercity etc.
Taliesin, you crack me up. Consistently quality entertainment. Cheers!
I'm so happy you're discussing this and bringing this to light because it's been really frustrating, especially as an RPer who keeps track of their characters' age every expansion etc.
The way you describe evi, i love it
I get this an older video (from July) but I love that the devs actually came out to explain this just to stop the rumor mill. Shadowlands took 2 years from start to end, and Dragonflight is 3 years after the end of Shadowlands. Grand total of 5 years since Shadowlands starts till the beginning of Dragonflight. They also solidified how long each expansion took lore wise.
I love this, Simply because its at least a move towards more realistic time. BUT ALSO, This is now Year 40 (in the timeline). Anduin was born around Year 15, so now he is in his mid twenties. Thrall is ~39-40 years old. Khadgar is now 61-62 years old (and can finally start looking his age)
You said it perfectly.
Dang timeskip. I came back to Azeroth and I got 4 kids, an ex-wife crying about back child support, I'm homeless, and my Morning Glory Dew stash is all flat.
Sounds to me like it is setting it up for Anduin to show up at the end of Dragonflight. I had never before heard that each expansion is supposed to be one year in Azeroth. I'm hoping Sylvanas doesn't show up when Anduin does.
I've never understood the "each WoW expansion = 1 year lorewise" cause, I could be misremembering but, didn't one of the DH starter area cinematics say there were ten years between the attack on Black Temple and them being released from the Vault of the Wardens?
The funny thing would be if they take it out for an alpha patch then put it back in later with the correction of "Seven" instead of "Several."
I think there's so much merit towards the idea of having a time-skip storywise (Danuser's fresh start, giving the world time to advance events like the new nelf tree and the Worgens getting Gilneas, giving Anduin time to grow and change on his journey away and Turalyon to rule for a decent time as regent) that it feels a little odd to be questioning an in-game line of text about a time skip so thoroughly.
Like yeah, it's an alpha, it could change. We know Wrathion's been a part of WoD and Legion storylines in alphas and been yanked. But I'd approach this more as a "it's in the game until it isn't" than to not believe it immediately. And as for it being for 2024's new players questing through Dragonflight into the next expansion, two things - why include that dialogue in the code now instead of later? And also, that doesn't change the timeline or context for Shaw's investigations into quests leading into Dragonflight.
I like the idea of a timeskip between xpacs. It makes my character seem more real. Like he’s had some time off in between all the crisises in game.
What doesn't make sense (and most people forget this part) is it is within the lore during the questing that the DKs *DO* make two-way portals from Oribos to Azeroth, explaining how we got a boat-load of troops in, also that the Watchers or whatever said mortals as a plural to accommodate our needs. I've had several arguments with my fellow RPers about this.
For me the bigger takeaway from that dialogue is Turalyons position and views. His distrust/dislike of dragons and being liked by the nobles could be a great segway to a future expansion. What is this dialogue happened near the end of dragonflight?
He disliked dragon because black dragon had attacked stormwind in past so it was natural reaction 😒
"You're forgetting about the timeskip, I'm worried about your kids"
-I don't wanna meet this person in real life, what a horrific misfortune that would be
This is why I love Paizo's Golarion setting because the timeline lines up with real-time years. If a book was published in 2007 the events of that adventure occured in 4707 AR. If it was 2022, then it happened in 4722 AR. It works temporally and it also helps players keep track of this nonsense.
Also bare in mind that certain characters are actually much older now, for example we have seen anduin age up and the girl from the children's day holiday.
The whole time goes differently in the shadowlands actually comes from a DK quest [don't remember if it was a garrisons or legion mission table] where some DKs go to the shadowlands and comes back saying 'ay yo my man, we waz gun fa liek 4 years an shiet! wat chu meenin' we waz gun fa 3 daze?' exact quote.
I just can't believe that Dragonflight is 7 years after Shadowlands...Crazy!
So actual foreal metrics going on here:
Few is 1-4
Several is 5-9
A Pack is 10-19
Lots is 20-49
A Horde is 50-99
A Throng is 100-249
A Swarm (almost forgot about this one) is 250-499
Zounds! is 500-999
A Legion is 1000+
So several could very well mean 7, funnily enough.
Was thinking of doing this comment myself, happy someone else did :D
I think the game desperately needs a timeskip, but I doubt it will happen. Azeroth could use at least a couple years to breath without a world-ending threat knocking down its door. Dragonflight seems like a perfect time to insert a few years of rebuilding and renewal for a world full of people who have been repeatedly traumatized by existential threats for nearly 40 years. Aside from the sword, there isn't much that actively needs dealing with that couldn't be dealt with several years after our characters getting home.
And I say this as a roleplayer. I will happily deal with the hassle of plotting out what my characters have been doing during a few years of downtime if it would let the story breathe a bit.
Turalyon that knob that got his sword blocked by a bare hand.
Might have missed if you mentioned this, but it's my theory:
As far as Azeroth is concerned, we were only in the Shadowlands for a few days, but in the Shadowlands we were there for a long time because time is different. So we are picking back up 2 years since the start of Shadowlands in Azeroth, but we've been back in Azeroth for a couple years.
Horde do now have a reference to the timeskip with a conversation between Lor'themar and Thalyssra.
I assumed by this they meant after Anduin talked to Sylvanas in the cinematic he disappeared for multiple years since then.
In Legion, Salanar the Horseman said "Greetings, Deathlord. Years have passed since we first met, but for me it has been mere days".
Blizzard actively wrote 'time working differently' into the game. It is not 'just a handwave explanation' of something.
"Several years" is still wild for me as an RPer. I have to think what ALL my OCs did for those years AAAAA
Honestly I've always just assumed (or headcannond I guess) that there was always a gap in time between expansions
The way I was raised to understand that kind of nomenclature, several means four. A couple - 2, a few - 3, several - 4, many - 5+. At least that's what I was taught.
Haha, That comment about Anduin growing a beard got me. I'd love it if he came back with one and was battle hardened.
Time to start digging through the whispers… the golden one has been on the vacant throne for a while
If we say a year passed for each expansion that would mean that between vanilla and shadowlands it's been 8 years 9 if you include vanilla as an additional year.
I can accept orc hair grows faster than ours, but damn Thrall’s exploded in that one year between Legion and BfA
As for the "time is different there", though, isn't that directly stated in the expansion-opening questing in the Maw? We go in saying the leaders were abducted only hours or days prior, but Jaina say in "A Moment's Respite" they were struggling for survival for weeks if not longer in the Maw, going on about so many events she'd experienced we ask her for clarification in the dialogue during "A Flight from Darkness" if she's really saying she'd done as much as she said.
If I recall, Danuser later clarified what Ion meant by time working differently. It isn't that time flows differently. It is just the perception of time. Time is infinite when you shed mortality. Sylvanas even talks about life as being a momentary flicker. Because to the realms of death, that's what a mortal lifetime is.
If they keep this in the game I believe "several years" would have the most impact on Anduin's storyline and character development rather than the entire game in general. Maybe his time in the Maw or self-reflection, perhaps he comes back a Shadow Priest, or a mix of Paladin/SPriest kind of like Draca having more Rogue like abilities in Shadowlands.
oh just what we needed, more off screen lore developments.
Actually time passing differently in shadowlands was established back in legion, where Salanar the horseman comments that while it's been years for you since you got my help, it has not been long for me (few days or so) he mentions this when you talk to him in the dk classhall from legion. But I'm fairly certain that with the realms being opened to each other, time was likely passing consistently thr same between the two.
So what does Turalyon have against dragons?
The horde slept through the thanos snap and reversal. And now when people reference it they are like...... yeeeeeeeeeep.
I would assume several years have passed since Shadowlands because the Horde and the Alliance's main focus would have been on the Scourge immediately after returning and the WoW team probably felt players have had their fill of the dead and chose to skip time and just say it's under control.
I don't think it will stay. I believe it to be placeholder dialogue. Maybe Blizz has it there on purpose as a tongue in cheek reference to how long it's felt since we had a new expansion knowing that it will be reported by those at Wowhead, etc.
Let us not forget what Anduin looked like at the end of one of the Legion promotional comics, all beardy and gray. Perhaps his time reflecting in the Shadowlands aged him decades?
Think we might get massive intro explaining what happened during all those years. Like the one we got in classic after WC3.
It makes more sense for time in game to be like real world time, because we do follow a calendar and have holidays in game...
Camus, my Belf DK, is timeless. He could careless what year it is.
Bronze Dragon Introduction Patch?
"Adventurer, the Power of the First Ones is all around you! We need to act with haste! Your power is needed in the future, several years from now when the Dragon Isles come back to life."
Horde toon: “The fruit in this bowl is rotting… that’s so weird, I swear just the other day it was a painting of a pretty woman lay… “
I thought the official look on the timeline of WoW was changed after Cataclysm that the length of the expansion was the time it was out.
Great video, please allow Evitel to go uncensored for one month!
I like the time skip idea to emphasize the amount of time that anduin has been missing... to show that he needed time to battle with the thought of him (unwillfully) betraying his friends... some people probably need time after that
This early assumption about a time skip has the potential of being "We are stranded on Draenor" all over again.
Also you were on point about RPers, and that 1% is all over the forums and Twitter.
Using anduin as a basis it's a reasonable timeframe for each expansion to have been 1 year, and using salanar that is consistent between wrath and legion. The reason for this time skip is likely to set a basis of changing the world and at the least, restoring lordaeron and gilneas, the night elf tree would probably take longer to grow. But yes it's likely been 3 - 5 years after the events of shadowlands allowing for the factions to recover, given each faction was left in questionable states following the events of bfa, especially the horde.
I don't believe the "several years" mentioned has anything to do with time passing differently in the Shadowlands, but I'm fairly certain that the concept is also brought up by the Jailor in the Sylvanas novel so I think it goes beyond Ion just making a passing comment. I wish I had a page reference, but I listen via audiobook so I don't know where to find it exactly.
I have been hoping for a timeskip. The Night Elves must just be having an absolute fit with War of Ancients, then 9,000 years of peace and then have the War of the Shifting Sands, and then in the last 20 years its been wars against the Horde, Legion, Undead, Invasion of Outland, Defeat of the Undead, Dragon Apocolypse, Old Gods, Horde again, Horde Again but Iron this time, Legion AGAIN, HORDE AGAAAAIIIIN, most get freakin' genocided, and now Dragon Apocolypse... again. Seriously those poor guys since they've lived through a lot of it have to be rocking themselves in the corner in constant fear of what world ending event or war is happening next.
I don't think us opening portals in Oribos to SW/Org are canonical. It wasn't in WoD, where we were canonically trapped in Draenor the entire time despite the portals in Ashran.
Also, in one of their interviews they did mention there were a few old world updates they were going to do, but didn't say anything specific. We know about Uldaman of course, but they implied a few zone updates too, maybe nothing major but some areas like Undercity being recovered. That could be a reason for a small time skip instead of like 50 years where you expect MASSIVE changes to take place in the world. A few years' timeskip is enough to move a few pieces across the board for story relevance where necessary.
The quest text changing in 10.2 (or 11.0 etc) would make sense, esp as the original text is the alli peeps not trusting these “new” dragons. Which becomes strange text after the dragons have been fully integrated into the alliance for at least a year. Does this text imply that anduin doesnt show up for the whole expac? 🤔
I like how Tali explains things, cause he is "less kind of a gamer, and more kind of a human" 😆😁
Aging in WoW is hard for Blizz to pull off because (1) they don’t want to lose connection to a lot of the important characters from the beginning (like Khadgar or Jaina), and (2) they largely haven’t been great bringing compelling characters that they’ve introduced since into the larger story. So a lot of the lore important adult characters don’t age but young characters like Anduin and Wrathion going from being literal children to looking like full adults in just a few years
I read this as “I don’t trust dragons” being a drak PC, and anduin being gone being anything else
Very late to the party, but I like the idea that the Horde don't get a time-skip notification and we don't notice because we were changing Warchiefs every expansion anyway, who who'd raise an eyebrow at someone new on the throne??
Wrathion asking after Anduin "We are allies" THEY WERE ALLIES!!!
I always thought the expansions take two years canonically, because it makes the world feel more real, and because a lot happens during the expansions. So you can imagine my shock, when one of Nobbel's videos confirmed each expansion takes place within a year. But then again, the entire pre- time skip story of One Piece happens within a few months, so it's not uncommon in fiction.
I did make it work with my characters, though. My human warrior, Eriza Redshield, was 19 during Legion and she's 21 in Shadowlands. Although I made her during Legion, she canonically began her journey during Cataclysm, meaning she was only 16 at the time. So Eriza is young, but she has become one of my strongest characters in these few years.
I could make a time skip of several years work too. It wouldn't have much of an impact on my characters, since most of my human, orc, and troll characters are quite young, undead don't age, and elves and draenei have lifespans ranging from a thousand to over 10 000 years.
Those are Drakthir visages, dragons can perfectly copy other races. If the game was real time the timeline still wouldn't match up since there is a time skip before the start of most expansions historically, Legion to Shadowlands is the exception.
Even if it is several years after we went to Shadowlands that's not unusual. Most, if not all, the expansions have taken place a couple to a few years after the previous one.
If a time skip should ever happen at the same time as making sense this would be the perfect time for it. It could be such a good way to show that anduin has been gone for a long time and is still struggling, it explains why wrathion has grown up so much too, and it could be used to tell lots of stories which require in game time to set up such as light vs void and such.
It really makes a lot of sense to me.
A skip would also explain how the seed that tyrande got matured so quickly, and could be the explanation for why we can already plant it (if we do end up planting it in dragonflight and having it grow big)
I also don't agree that a few years is useless for a skip. You've said it yourself before "it makes no sense that characters in stories never evolve when centuries pass in a story, when in real life all it takes is a few years for shit to go down (like look at covid). A couple years in wow could have tons of things evolve and happen with different characters. Not useless at all.
I hope the horde is more welcoming. After all Thrall stood in as proxy Erath Warden.
personally I think its less than a year of ingame time that has passed for each xpac. I mean if we follow the story of the raids (which is the mainsotry line) we see the strory play out at the start of the patch and then replay it for months. That we have more winter veils and stuff are not story driven aspects of the game so I dont think we should take them into consideration when estimating how long time it has passed in-game for each xpac
Maybe the time skip is to account for Calia's letter to Genn, so that Gilneas can be brought in sometime during Dragonflight?
I love how you voice Turalyon, but you completely actually SOUND like Shaw! Mindblast!
If there is a time skip, they will probably release a book or warbringers type content covering that period.
Gameplay and Story Time are two separate pieces of the pie. What we experience as a gamer is never the same amount of time the characters, story wise, experience passing. So, it makes sense with the whole one expansion is one year thing, even though we experience two years of content. Storywise, we would not be grinding, raiding repeatedly, daily quests, etc between major patches. It just doesn't make sense to think all our time we as players spent is how much time is actually passing.
The holidays are also outside the story beats and a side thing for players to enjoy.
So, it genuinely does not bother me at all to consider the actual time passing is much shorter than the real time that passes in a game. It happens in every game where story is central. An NPC is not waiting at a spot for you for several months while you sidequest. Storywise, you continued to the spot immediately as you were called to it.
I think that having real/game time not being the same is fine, but I think it should actually go in the opposite direction. It stretches plausibility that all of the world-scale events of a given expansion could happen in a single year, and then flow immediately into the next conflict the next year with no gaps in between. It should be like 3 to 5 years for most expansions, which you could explain by saying that there were about 2 years, give or take, of relative peace after each expansion's story that aren't gone into because they don't make for good gameplay. You can leave those in-between periods to the novels and such.
"I'd like to turn some of those horns into a trophy!"
Trophy s go on the wall in a house
Player housing confirmed XD
In the US severals legal definition is ONE or MORE. Crazy, I know but it’s true. The most common use is two or more but in the US it simply means some amount.
So is there the posibility to, if this conversation comes live to retail, being on the pre-patch so it happends like a "several timelapse" between expacs OR a conversation from the beggining of DF and makes the time between the pre-patch and DF as if that was "several years" difference? 🤔🤔🤔
whispering to my friend about how Dragonlands is seven years after worlds of warcrafting: shade countries
So Turalyon is still talking about hostility and skepticism to newly arrived dragons and then mentions a timeskip.
My guess? Timeskip to explain Anduin being completed with doing dailies for his atonement. Probably Sylvanas as well.
13:40 I was sort of wondering why all visage forms are high elves in a lore standpoint. Dragons can have any race or even a tree for their forms. Now obviously the real reason is because bliz isn't going to make a class creator that has a giant amount of options for every race ever. I just want an in lore reason why every drakthyr chose a high elf for theirs.
real talk, i feel like time would pass in between expansions anyway. It just makes more sense that things would escalate over time, and having exploration, rebuilding armies, restoring coffers and war chests. endless wars will drain resources and moral of the people.
I was hoping that hundreds of years had past. We step back into the world to be greeted by a land we don't recognise.
NPCs are different, cities have advanced, the NPCs stare at our characters in awe as the "heroes of the past" that disappeared ages ago.
Plot twist: They just really wanted to feature Sylvanas in Dragonflight too but now she's busy for several years gathering back the souls in the maw xD
Was really hoping with the time skip and the plauge cure made...Greymane would carry his sorry, historically incompetent behind back to Gilneas...
That will be the standard answer for anything someone doesn't understand. "That was in the seven year gap."
I don't know what Shaw means by "heroes returned from the Realm of Death". I go back to Stormwind all the time to do auctions and stuff. Literally since launch.
As a Horde player: "oh the time skip, yeah wasn't there a Flock of Seagulls or something?"
What's that, a mysterious conversation maybe happening in the future in the expansion about dragons where we know and expect the time travelling dragons will do a thing and where we know we're going to have scenarios involving time travel.
MuSt Be A tImE sKiP.
Regarding the usefulness of a time-skip encompassing only several years, I think this is the first solid disagreement I've had with one of your conjectures - I'm just about always 100% onboard with your takes.
Now if Blizzard wanted to jump straight to an expansion focusing on the Light as a malevolent force I think a significant time-skip would be warranted. Not because nobody is expecting it, after all we have the Mag'har introduction, but because the pieces in play (factions, leaders, world events, etc.) aren't quite in a current position to make that dramatic of a move. For all intents and purposes, the Horde is still grappling with the betrayal of a warchief and pursuant revolutionary change in leadership of a council instead of a warchief; the Forsaken are surely under greater scrutiny despite the Desolate Council no doubt doing what they can to distance themselves from Sylvanas' leadership and that's on top of their culture dealing with the return of Calia Menethil. All-in-all, I think the Horde are simply in place of needing a breather. Likewise, the kingdom of Stormwind has likely been making adjustments to Turalyon as King instead of Anduin and so he'd be shoring up his power as a long-term monarch instead of a temporary stand-in; the Nelves are coming off their vengeance high, and I'm sure there's as many who aren't so ready to forgive-and-forget as Tyrande underwent (not that she forgave Sylvanas, but had to relinquish her hatred) so there's that divide in their populace; Nelves and Gilneans are also in need of a more permanent home as they've mostly been operating out of Stormwind, if I'm not mistaken.
The tensions are absolutely there from an interracial point of view and the cultures of Azeroth are at a crucial point of simmering down after dealing with such radical change. If only a year or two has passed from Shadowlands conclusion then nobody is in a position for _another_ radical infrastructure shift. A time-skip of _several years_ allows us to bypass all that tension and get to the juicy imminent explosion to come, because there's absolutely no way this situation resolves nicely or there'd be no plot to continue. Example: Turalyon shows signs of being an authoritative militant which is in great contrast to Anduin's more relaxed leadership, and if only a couple years pass since Shadowlands then it would honestly be a large jump for the populace of the Alliance to simply fall into line behind Turalyon's domineering personality. Skipping ahead several years, however, allows enough time for the populace of the Alliance to have become more sheepish with their new defacto leader, or reliant on Turalyon for being a bedrock amid the fear that Anduin isn't coming back (because we have to remember that the citizens of the Alliance aren't the heroic adventurers that our characters are, most of the general populace will be freaking out at a sudden power vacuum represented by an absentee King. This then sets up an expansion to be that conflict with the Light when/if Anduin returns, tries to retake the throne, and is surprised that...half the people don't want him to and Turalyon is unwilling to relinquish it. A short time-skip lets us bypass the drama and gets us to the tipping point without trudging through the contextual character interactions that lead up to that moment.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the details of political intrigue as much as anybody willing to read through the Wheel of Time, but WoW isn't the sort of MMO that structures its gameplay around that slow buildup. Their gameplay stories are usually structured around us either arriving to the moment before shit hits the fan, or having to deal with the shit that's already struck.
Remember how long Anduin was ten.
so not to make a fuss about it or anything but I remember in an english lesson there was a table that said the following:
Single = one
Couple = two
Few = Three to Four
Some = Five to Six
Several = seven or more
Varian was a generic model stuck in a semi-hidden cell under Alcaz Island for years. Still have screenshots of that somewhere 😂
Maybe the time skip is so they can bring Sylvanas back. "Hey, guys! I finished rescuing all the souls in the maw! We cool now?"
For warcraft in general there have been time skips. Different for wow itself but not the previous games. Maybe blizzard feels it's long enough to skip time because there isn't a true sequal coming. I don't mind Bellulars idea of Azeroth having some time to rest from catastrophes.