See that's what is confusing me. I understand there was build up in Wrath to the events that happened during the Shattering. But I assume it is another jump ahead a year or two between what we had before the patch and what he had after. Most of the new world had to have sprung up after Deathwing came and went nuts, but I don't buy the whole idea that Orgrimmar was being rebuilt, all the other changes, etc. while we were in Northrend.

I know what Chilton said in an interview, but it doesn't make any sense to me to have this NOT be a time jump. It'd be nice if we had a definite statement one way or the other.

I think I remember reading somewhere that it was measured more in years? (maybe a couple?).
After all, the've needed some time to do the re-building you can see all over the place. New orgrimmar/Azhara/Stormwind wouldn't have been build in a month.

Anyone want to clarify this for us?

How fast were grunts able to build all those fortresses in Northrend? Now that the war's over, all those grunts are back in Orgrimmar. I'd say that a month isn't stretching much. Two months would be plenty of time.

When we did quests in classic, it was assumed things changed behind us, but without phasing technology (like we have now), the world stayed exactly as it was. It's been a major gripe of RPers for years.

Most of the starter zone voice overs and other information seem to say it's been not that long at all since Deathwing shattered the world, and/or it's been months since the Lich King's end and the fallout from the campaign in Northrend has a major impact on the economy still, at least in Stormwind.

A lot of the changes we're seeing could have already been in place as a retcon (like many of the major architectural alterations), or renovations that have been ongoing in the background while characters have been away in Outlands and Northrend for the last few years. Some of them we started ourselves when we leveled through those zones, but then we left for later places. There was often assumed to be a moving forward in time as you leveled in zones, hence some NPCs appearing later and remembering what you did for them before.

My problem with a time skip is the blank spot for ongoing player plotlines, as well as character development from playing through something like this with all the build up it received. Do I suddenly age my characters, and their various relationships, a few years? What happened in the meantime? How'd those hanging plot threads resolve? It can work great in a TV show, less so for open RP.

WoW's been going for 6 years, and most RPers have assumed time's been moving on despite the visible world remaining static. Now it's appearance is finally catching up to the changes made over the last several years.

If we can pretend to be magical dwarves or warrior cows, and all the wild stories players come up with in between, why is it so difficult to pretend these things were occurring at the same time in the background as well? The Catalclysm is just a good way to finally visually make the changes many players have wanted to see or assumed in the last few years of gameplay.