Speaking of the Night Elves and the Long Vigil got me thinking.
Wow’s universe sure is stagnant, is it not? Thousands upon thousands of years, and both the night elves and the Zandalari, civilisations that are portrayed as very tradionalist and isolationist are both getting their 's clapped by far younger but more innovative races ( See the orcs vs the night elves, plus the Battle of Dazar’alor). And the rest of the races seem to have only innovated to a certain degree and then decided “Nah, this is fine.” and just… stopped developing.
Whereas humans IRL went from the time of the Roman Empire to the atomic bomb in just two-thousand years.
Now, if Blizzard was trying to tell us stories about how stagnant societies inevitably cause their own downfall, then I would understand. But… somehow I doubt they thought about that…
Ignoring that time where humanity was stagnant for thousands upon thousands of years and then suddenly had an technological explosion driven by innovation.