Timeline and Age Changes

[Grakor456]

It never hurts to take things with grains of salt, or to compromise when given conflicting sources of lore. The D20 may not be good basis for classes or gameplay, but as far as flavor lore goes, I don't see why it can't be viable, even if Blizzard just goes "lolwhatevs" about it. Until something in WoW itself directly contradicts it, I see no problems in incorporating other ideas. Again, I'm of the idea that most ancient high/blood elves are descendents of highborne elves, or are just old, period. More recently born elves probably lack this exceptional mortality.

The quote given to me was on the WoW-Europe site. That's pretty much a far stronger lore source than the d20 books.

The d20 books are fine as flavoring in terms of lore, but they always bow to other lore sources (the novels, the official sites, Blizz responses, etc.) due to their non-canon status. Keep in mind that in both cases, lore bows to gameplay, not the other way around. The d20, while its lore is fine for its own purposes, is not something that can be trusted for WoW lore for many reasons. The first being that they're outdated and were written during Classic, but also because the writers took short-cuts and put in many spells and other things from the game that they based the system off of: Dungeons and Dragons. Elven ages are one of those things they took from D&D 3.5. Also, there were things put into the d20 that were made *solely* for the d20 because it'd be interesting to have in a pen and paper game, but aren't canon for the MMO for obvious reasons. Many of the prestige classes fall in this category.

So in short, some of the d20 lore is fine as long as it isn't contradicted by what we see in-game, in the novels, or information directly provided by Blizzard, in which case it loses out. In this case, there is a contradiction.

[CappnRob]

It never hurts to take things with grains of salt, or to compromise when given conflicting sources of lore. The D20 may not be good basis for classes or gameplay, but as far as flavor lore goes, I don't see why it can't be viable, even if Blizzard just goes "lolwhatevs" about it. Until something in WoW itself directly contradicts it, I see no problems in incorporating other ideas. Again, I'm of the idea that most ancient high/blood elves are descendents of highborne elves, or are just old, period. More recently born elves probably lack this exceptional mortality.

The quote given to me was on the WoW-Europe site. That's pretty much a far stronger lore source than the d20 books.

The d20 books are fine as flavoring in terms of lore, but they always bow to other lore sources (the novels, the official sites, Blizz responses, etc.) due to their non-canon status. Keep in mind that in both cases, lore bows to gameplay, not the other way around. The d20, while its lore is find for its own purposes, is not something that can be trusted for WoW lore for many reasons. The first being that they're outdated and were written during Classic, but also because the writers took short-cuts and put in many spells and other things from the game that they based the system off of: Dungeons and Dragons. Elven ages are one of those things they took from D&D 3.5. Also, there were things put into the d20 that were made *solely* for the d20 because it'd be interesting to have in a pen and paper game, but aren't canon for the MMO for obvious reasons. Many of the prestige classes fall in this category.

So in short, some of the d20 lore is fine as long as it isn't contradicted by what we see in-game, in the novels, or information directly provided by Blizzard, in which case it loses out. In this case, there is a contradiction.

Well, like I said, combining ideas and coming to creative solutions can make a good compromise, but I understand what you are saying.

[Grakor456]

http://www.wowpedia.org/Valeera_Sanguinar
http://www.wowpedia.org/Tarenar_Sunstrike
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/...741?page=5 Post #86

First conclusion: Ages and lifespans are a pain in the neck to sort through, with many, many contradictions.
Second conclusion: It would seem that Elves reach adulthood at the same age humans do by most sources of official lore. In fact, it is likely the case that *all* of the playable races do so, save for perhaps Draenei.
Third Conclusion: It may be best to just scrap the current age table and just put "This is adulthood age, this is maximum lifespan" and let people go from there.

[CappnRob]

http://www.wowpedia.org/Valeera_Sanguinar
http://www.wowpedia.org/Tarenar_Sunstrike
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/...741?page=5 Post #86

First conclusion: Ages and lifespans are a pain in the neck to sort through, with many, many contradictions.
Second conclusion: It would seem that Elves reach adulthood at the same age humans do by most sources of official lore. In fact, it is likely the case that *all* of the playable races do so, save for perhaps Draenei.
Third Conclusion: It may be best to just scrap the current age table and just put "This is adulthood age, this is maximum lifespan" and let people go from there.

Works fine for me

[ImagenAshyun]

Once again, draenei get the shaft for lack of clarification on aging. Oh, well. No point in beating this dead horse.

[Grakor456]

Once again, draenei get the shaft for lack of clarification on aging. Oh, well. No point in beating this dead horse.

Unfortunately, we only have two things to go on for Draenei age of maturity:

1. The Draenei Orphan's flavor text, where she comments that despite the fact she's the kid and you're the adult, she's probably older than you. This could just be a joke, or it could be a legit reference to her age, it's hard to tell.
2. In Rise of the Horde, Durotan sees a draenei child around his "age" (he was around 12 at the time I would estimate by the descriptions) in appearance, and then remembers that draenei live a long time. He then summizes that she may very well be not his age at all. Later, when he goes to raid the same town, he sees a girl roughly her age, and thinks it may be the same girl, but isn't sure. This in itself doesn't really tell us much since it's all Durotan's thought processes, and the draenei themselves refuse to divulge how old they are (Durotan asked, and the guard that was escorting them only said that he himself was old enough to remember the landing on Draenor.)

So, it's hard to say, really. No firm dates have been given...but I do think the 2000 number is a bit ridiculous.

[ImagenAshyun]

It is rather ridiculous, but as I said, it's a dead horse topic. We may have to remain vague for the Draenei or stick what is implied and known until something more solid is published.