Wildfire Riders

I suspect they're leaving it intentionally vague. They've never placed hard dates on significant events previously, other than the occasional "x number of years later". If anything, my own assumption leads me to believe that it was a few months after the Lich King's fall that the elemental unrest occurred and Deathwing reemerged, and it's been less than a year since then that the world has moved into the state it's currently in.

Tarq wrote:So here's a few thoughts on the timeskip. (Buckle your seatbelts. I'll try and be brief. And pretend I'm sober.)
Insert epic freakin' post here

This is my prefered method of handling RP/IRL time conflicts and remembering history in an enjoyable way. The series of events is what's important, not the specific date. Unless it's a birfday or deffday of course.

WoW for me seems to break down into two types of RP: The type you can do In-Game, and the type you can do outside of it. In-Game there's the the RP within the limits of the games rules (IE, no Same-Faction pvp except dueling, most gnolls are mobs and kobolds don't gift candles etc.) while Out of Game there's more imaginative freedom to be had.

My preference in general is more towards the Out of Game style, but I also want to play the game and have fun at the same time. Fun is paramount here.

As for who does what during schroedinger's timeskip they'll have to figure it out and in the sharing of those events people will collaborate stories where they they want and discard those that don't fit. There are all sorts of reasons and plot tools to help smooth out any rough edges (Like for the babies, late delivery, early delivery, different pregnancy periods due to race etc.) It might not feel awesome or fit exactly the way you want, but that's part of the give-and-take of RP.

Just as a heads-up; Illi is not yet pregnant. FYI.

For me the year jump is easy. Sol was in retirement while I was playing on Thorium Brotherhood (I came back because I missed the RPs!). What really concerns me is the uber "YOU are the hero of <insert zone here> and chosen by <insert epic god-like being here> to solve all of our problems!" aspects. That, combined with phasing of content.

How are people dealing with that, beyond the "Oh, we put out all the fires, but they started again" trope?

Solmandar wrote:How are people dealing with that, beyond the "Oh, we put out all the fires, but they started again" trope?

This particularly has been something I've referenced and discussed/thought about a few times. Short answer: it's a game and it's an exaggeration.

Long answer? I'm going to paraphrase here, but for most of the races/class types, your character is considered to have been about since the beginning of Vanilla (according to "the game"). The game assumes that your character had a hand in or helped with most/all of the content of the game - the old world raids such as BWL and AQ40, the expeditions out to Illidan's Draenor and the Sunwell, back out to Northrend to take down Yogg and Arthas. You may not have done some/all of them in actually, but the game *assumes* so. So, naturally, by Wrath and Cataclysm, the NPCs have "heard of you". They recognise you, or have conversations between one another about the Champions of the Naaru being on their way, or ask you to babysit their Princeling son. The game says; You're a massive hero, and everyone knows you.

And, you know - this is a fantasy RPG. And that's cool.

However, it's also an MMO, and a part of the MMO where we RP. So not everyone can be "the most awesome famous hero Azeroth has ever seen!" Not everyone was able to get the killing blow on Nefarian, or recover Illidan's warblades, or been there to witness Arthas' defeat firsthand. So (and please note, this is just my opinion of how best to deal with this) it's best to have metaphorically taken the game's proclaimations of your famous awesomitude with a grain of salt. You're a powerful hero, for certain, but you're no Thrall. No Sylvannas. No Fordring. You're the cult indie band to Varian Wrynn's U2 (yes I hate each equally).

I think it also ties in to the concept that the "game world" is a recapped, truncated version of "Real Azeroth", or the Azeroth we RP. The world doesn't really take 30 minutes to fly from top to bottom. The cities don't really only have a population of 20 people, all of whom are there to repair your gear or teach you how to brew potions or tell you to collect seventeen raptor horns for some godforsaken reason. We see the "game world" view of a much richer, involved, and foremost theoretical world.

So I know I play Illi as "famous, but not that famous". She's known. She's traveled the worlds. She's been present at some major events/battles/happenings. She has a history. So your average Stormwind or Orgrimmar denizen may have heard of the Half-Faced Elf, and may know something of her situation and her backstory. Or they may not. They may have read about her in the papers before, or through rumour. Some people may know more, maybe because they're soldiers, or know of the WFR, or what have you. Some people may know less - I'd imagine there aren't very many Tauren farmers who know who Illi is. But I certainly don't think Varian Wrynn personally requested that she babysit his prince. And I wouldn't think anyone we play with (with the exception of Delion, natch) would've.

BUT, this is all just my philosophising on the subject, and my personal point of view and opinion. This is far from canon - but I hope it helps

tl;dr

Remember that this is a game made for gamers and not for roleplayers.
Suspend your disbelief.

This is becoming needlessly complex.

Tif, I don't think being that dismissive is really warranted. If you're not interested in Illi's (or anyone's) exposition of the subject, you don't have to read it.

For myself, I tend to incline to the same "Azeroth writ small" view beautifully illustrated by Illithias, with the caveat that someone has to have done the superextraawesomecool things. It's really all in your audience - if you're roleplaying with a tiny group of friends in a vacuum, where there's nobody who will be affected by your saying "Yep, we killed the fuck out of that Arthas," go for it. Whatever makes you happy. The larger your community of collaborators, the more you have to expect to compromise. And as Tiforis said, this game wasn't designed for roleplayers, so at a certain point we do just have to handwave things.

Not to belabour the point, but we ARE a bunch of roleplayers. Yes, Sol took down Molten Core with 39 other people, attacked Blackwing Lair and won, killed the fuck out a flying snake god in Zul Gurub, stood on Onyxia's neck after forging a blade in her breath, and even tracked down the Missing Diplomat as far as the quest line would allow. Did I do more with him outside the confines of the game? Yes, absolutely! He was the Black Warden of the Order of the White Tower, a father, a husband, a lover, a confidant and many other things (including an absolute pie loving scumbag who was pretty damned bitter and jaded). I have been playing the game since before day 1, I think I am a bit used to trying to suspend disbelief that Ony just has a really long corpse run

Is he a Hero? Sure! But through every major questline now it is not "help us do blah" it is "YOU are the hero!" It is a definite departure and personalizes the game much more. From a gamer perspective? It's cool. I like it. People play games to be the hero. From an RP perspective? If we're all THE big gorram hero...

My question was not so much aimed at HOW to deal with such disparity, but how people are choosing to explain it for themselves and their characters or even in a larger group sense.

Chryste did, in fact, babysit Anduin Wrynn.

And she taught him how to break a man's forearm off and use it to stab him in the throat.

Hopefully, he won't tell his dad what he witnessed.