I was hesitant to write some of this, because I didn’t want to come off as a petulant child whining because he can’t using his flying dragon pixels. That was very much the attitude towards pro-flight people before the Hazzikostas megaton, but the overall opinion towards flight seems to be shifting.
Before Blizzard came out and said that they are essentially shelving flying after 7+ years, I was in the neutral camp on the whole flying debate. I just assumed it would be enabled in Draenor eventually and I’d live without it until then. The announcement that it’s never, ever going to happen for any future content has put me firmly in the pro-flying camp.
I decided to wait a while before writing this so I could let emotions cool down and gain some perspective. I’m not going to threaten to quit the game over this, but it is another check on the list of the things that are making me slowly lose interest in WoW.
“The world feels larger, feels more dangerous [without flight].”
– Ion Hazzikostas
The world doesn’t feel larger to me. Pandaria felt larger than Draenor, much larger. Now, I haven’t measured which is actually bigger but flying did not seem to detract from Pandaria’s epic scope (nor Outland’s, nor Northrend’s). On the contrary, the world seems enormous when you are high above it. I love gliding over new Nagrand.
As for the “dangerous” bit, I haven’t once felt like I was in danger in Draenor. Maybe part of the reason is because I am a hunter and the combination of a pet, Feign Death, and Camouflage makes all potential danger a non-issue.
Getting dazed off my mount is an annoyance, not a danger.
I can see the value of staying on the ground as I level up (at least for the first time). I wonder if all of the treasures in Draenor are a part of the reason they didn’t want to have flying. As much as I like hunting — I mean using an addon to pinpoint — every treasure, I would rather have no treasures or jumping puzzles at all if it meant I could fly after I reached max level.
Back to the “danger” argument. There are plenty of ways to make flying dangerous. Flying in Burning Crusade was quite dangerous if I remember correctly. I seem to remember being dismounted a great many times, whether it be flying over an enemy town, or getting knocked off by a kaliri.
In addition to flying guards above enemy camps and towns, you could have things like:
- Tornadoes
- Gale force wind currents that could dismount you if you AFK flew into them
- Let’s say there’s a zone with a volcano in it that’s constantly erupting, spewing chunks of lava in the air that could hit you
- More high-flying enemies. Why not a bird equivalent of a Whale Shark or Fel Reaver? Sky patrols of dwarves on gryphons and orcs on wyverns and gnomes/goblins on gryocopters.
- Certain areas in zones where flying over is risky. Turrets or something on the ground that can shoot at you if you fly over.
Instead of closing the book on flying altogether, wouldn’t it be more interesting if they embraced flight? We had an underwater zone, why not have a zone which requires a flying mount?
- A cloud city like Bioshock Infinite.
- A mountain range where you travel from peak to peak, and the whole zone takes place above the clouds (falling below clouds = death).
- An immense lava field with islands you need to fly between (along with noxious fumes and lava spouts as hazards in between said islands).
- Another zone like Storm Peaks, with a lot of different levels, built around the use of flying mounts.
I’m not saying it all needs to be built around flying mounts, but why not some of it? Why can’t there be some flying zones, and some ground zones? We have hundreds of flying mounts like drakes which just look absolutely stupid on the ground — from a visual and lore perspective it is painful to look at. Oh, your dragons can fly in these areas but these areas are magically bad and your dragon’s wings no longer work — err, except for the flight path mounts and NPCs… they have special magic dust on their wings which makes them work.
I know Blizzard puts gameplay above everything, but stuff like this hurts my immersion. Speaking of immersion…
There’s more room for exploration, for secrets, for discovery and overall immersion in the world.
-Ion Hazzikostas
I used to casually explore on my flying mount all the time. When I was bored, I didn’t AFK in cities, I flew around. That is, until Warlords of Draenor.
Flying enables exploration and discovery for me. Without flying, any travel I do in Draenor has been boiled down to a science. I look at the most efficient way of getting to point A to B, whereas in the past I would simply launch myself into the air and fly there. Sometimes I would run into something along the way.
Now I have flight paths, mage tower portals, and my Aviana’s Feather. I take the portal closest to my destination (99% of the time this is Blackrock Foundry), then use the feather and land on my destination as if I was flying there anyway. The funny thing is, this method can actually be faster than flying would have been in a lot of cases.
I skip over content, making the world feel smaller. If that’s not an option, I AFK on a flight path — again, making the world feel smaller.
This is all because of the tools I have been given to accomplish my traveling. Blizzard is so desperate to get me to enjoy traveling without a flying mount, but it’s not working.
I am not immersed in Draenor because I’m never out there. I’m either raiding, or I’m in my garrison.
Just recently I started working on Sha’tari Defense reputation because I was looking for something to do outside of my garrison or Blackrock Foundry. The Alliance mount looked really cool, so I thought I’d start the grind.
It’s sad that one of my only options (for my interests) was a dull rep grind, but hey, it’s something. So I went riding through Talador and noticed something: the zone was entirely empty. I only saw the odd player here or there (and they were all below level 100). I had the rep farming mobs all to myself, there was no one there to casually group up with. My ride to this rep farming location was done without any danger, though I will admit it was nice to see the world again after months of being cooped up in my garrison.
I thought Mists of Pandaria did it best. The main landmass supported flight, but the various special islands (Isle of Thunder, Isle of Giants, Timeless Isle) did not. In fact, Isle of Thunder may have been my favorite overall zone in all of MoP, and there was no flight. I think no-flying zones can work when appropriate, but I think the main world should be flyable.
Knowing that their current plans are to never have flight in the future is a big turn off for me. The dozens of flying mounts I earned will have to waddle on the ground with their wings tucked in from now on.
I didn’t know I cared this much about flying until they came out and said it’s not going to be a thing anymore.
This has been an incoherent rant, and if you made it this far I applaud and thank you for listening to my ramblings.
It might be time for me to accept that the developers are taking the game in a direction that doesn’t align with what I’m looking for in a MMO. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Here’s hoping 6.2 re-invigorates my love for WoW.
Update: I’m happy to report Blizzard is adding in flying sometime in 6.2 with the new Draenor Pathfinder achievement. I’m glad they listened to everyone’s feedback and came up with a solution that satisfies both the designers and the players.
I actually don’t miss flying. Half the time I forget you can even fly in the old areas. Most people spend their time in the garrisons any ways, gathering is a joke, and with a strategic place of your hearth combined with garrison hearth can get you most place pretty quick.
If they where to add flying back in Draenor then they would have to take out a lot of the world puzzles, but I am ok with that the prizes are not that great any ways.
If flying involved other aspects then what it is would be great, but the stage of flying and the risk of it now its just a method to get from A to B now, but I can do that other ways. Maybe if they added aerial combat and the above type zones you where talking about then the impact would be more on my feelings.
To add an idea, maybe if you completed the zone’s quest it could unlock flying for that zone.
It doesn’t matter to me either way, flying doesn’t make or break the game for me, the boredom does. But Im to the point of only logging in for raids and now I’m even dreading that.
These are all opinions, not trying to change anyone’s mind. We are all entitled to our own opinions.
Yes, I respect your opinion. I know there’s a lot of people who are still in the neutral camp when it comes to flying. As you said, there’s many other problems with the game right now other than no flying. I too only login for raids nowadays, but maybe 6.2 will change that. I just wanted to put my 2 cents in on flying and leave it at that.
I miss flying. But I don’t think I would if there was anything to do in Draenor. Maybe no flying is okay, IF the world supports it, but conversely to your point flying is okay, IF the world supports it.
I agree totally. My other complaint is that WOW is making it harder and harder for the average player who just can’t quite go as fast as the seasoned or younger players to play. For example Im 69 yrs of age and play for the fun of it with my son who lives out of the state and I can’t get in dungeons because I just cant get through level 8 in proving grounds, which keeps me from advancing in gear etc. Even though I have been playing for abut 4 yrs now . I am so frustrated, I can’t even play the game some days, so i play Plants and Zombies, and look for a game that is like wow to switch to. I have tried every day for at least 2 hrs in the proving grounds since it started and haven’t made it yet. Maybe I suck as player but, I pay my good money, so I should be able to play and not have restrictions put on me because I am not a competitive player like those that like to bully you when you don’t play to their expectations.
What class are you ? Are you talking about silver proving grounds?
you need to do silver proving grounds to get into heroics and LFR
Just heroics, you can skip into LFR with high enough ilevel without silver.
Kay, I was in your same position on the proving grounds until just this week. I finally broke through 8:8 DPS and could enter the heroic dungeons. Sadly, now that I’ve been running LFR BRF, my gear outstrips anything that I grabbed in those heroic dungeons. The key to proving grounds, is all about positioning. Right place, right time. (see my blog). I hope that helps.. It is a very painful hurdle that I thought was a good idea until it hit me..
I hear their introducing flying in the next xpac of Final Fantasy XIV…:-P
Yeah, that made me laugh when I heard about it. Salt in the wound.
I know at least 10 people that have already subbed to FFXIV because of this.. Really hoping Blizz reverts the decision and says “Sorry, our content does suck. We’ll fix it!” :/
It’s interesting to me how many people have come up with great ideas for a compromise on flight. I main a druid, so I particularly feel as if I’ve lost a big part of my class not being able to fly. Especially when NPC druids can do it right in front of me…
This was the main reason I boosted a druid… Ouch!
I can do without mounts, but with two realms filled with flyers, then damnit I want all that money back. I notice Blizz isn’t saying anything about that. I always thought it was ridiculous for every toon in one account to pay the full amount. They’re all one family…the uncles couldn’t have taught the others to ride???
are all the same arguments that I have been going on about since their initial announcement pre wod launch. Blizz is as guilty of nostalgia and rosy colored glasses at the player base. Whenever they get nostalgic, someone suffers. Remember triage healing? “We remembered back to vanilla when everyone was hurt all the time because healers had to use small heals just to keep you alive or be oom” cata healing was born. Blah blah blah.
They need to knock this well meaning horseshit off
Probably the best write-up I have seen on this issue. Give me flying at max level, and I have no issue with making the sky a fun and dangerous place as well. Heck, if you can get attacked on your flying mount, maybe add the ability to do combat against flying mobs while flying? And if my mount “dies”, I go falling to the ground below. Main point is there are a ton of fun things Blizz could do, adding another fun dimension to the game, rather than taking the easy route and just wiping out flying. I just hope that Hazzikostas reads this website. He NEEDS to see this.
As ever the ideas to make a gameplay element interesting are fantastic and Blizzard is doing themselves a disservice by not listening, but what I really came here to say is that screenshot at the beginning of your post is magnificent.
Very much agree, Bendak. Flying makes things bigger for me–gives me a better sense of the world as a whole, instead of disconnected zones. I was fine with the no flying till l00. I didn’t care that we never got it on places like Timeless Isle. It didn’t even bother me when it was put off to possibly a later patch in WoD. But I think they’re overvaluing that “makes the world more dangerous” thing. At max level, I’m just not out there running around. I’m in my garrison (now). In Mists I was using flying to go talk to Wrathion. To meet a group for Sha of Anger. To take screenshots. If I hit Pandaria on an alt now I STILL can’t fly till 90. So what’s the big deal with keeping things this way?
I think Mists did most things right. Even the dailies were fine — if they had made some tweaks to the Golden Lotus ones (have it only offer 6 or so a day, not keep opening up new areas so that the total was something like 20 a day, and not gate other reps behind it) then I don’t think anyone would have complained. Reforging, Justice/Valor, harder LFR. SCENARIOS. I was pretty OK with all of it, and am not liking the substitutions they made.
That said, I’ve enjoyed this expansion. There’s a lot I like. They just need to stop changing things for the sake of change.
I share your pain on this one. IMO why the hell are they still rewarding flying mounts if they don’t intend on letting us fly anymore I see this as a slap in the face… I love this game but I’m slowly losing my interests in it because of some of the unnecessary changes in the game… I am a firm believer in if it isn’t broke DON’T fix it….I hope we get our flyers back
IMHO, They have a lot of revamping to do if they truly embrace the no-flying ever again. Starting with the sale of flying mounts on the real-money store. Top it off with all the “glory to the ___ raider” achievements still rewarding flying mounts. I want to drive my own Flame Leviathan, not a wing-clipped proto-drake.
I agree with you on this. I love to just get on a random dragon and just fly.. With no destination, just roam around.. And like you said sometimes I would find something new that I missed from the ground.. And for instance, in Isle of thunder they gave a lore reason for why we couldn’t fly! In the intro scenario we are shot down from out mounts by lightning!
You touch on the main reason why it’s going away, and largely I think it’s lack of skill and/or imagination @Blizz. Instead of taking flying away, they should make flying as dangerous as being on the ground. A good example is how you’d get dismounted if you flew over Garadar in Nagrand (Outland) as Alliance. At this point, I can fly over ORGRIMAR and not get shot down. Somebody dropped the ball there. Somebody either doesn’t want to think in three dimensions, or can’t. Either way, they should be replaced with someone that can’t.
That said, if they’re incapable of addressing the unfair (yeah yeah go ahead and throw your little rocks) advantage of flight over ground-based questing / content, the only other choice is to remove flying. I prefer that to the way thing currently are. Though if I have flight, I’ll use it, to keep even with everyone else.
You touch on one other thing. Silence. A Certain Gaming Blog pointed out all the blogs that came out against The Unflight, but none that were in favor. Why? Probably like you, anyone that’s okay with it probably isn’t moved to chime in. So I think the stats on that are somewhat skewed.
Fully agree.
Flying should be embraced and made interesting – there are plenty of ways to do that if Blizzard applies themselves to the problem. It’s actually a huge opportunity for them.
No flying won’t get me out in the world. It will keep me in instances and my garrison. There is no fun in taking the shortest route to your destination and getting dazed off on the way. It certainly doesn’t feel epic as would befit the commander of a given faction on Draenor. Flying through a continent made my character feel powerful. Made it feel like master of its domain. And at this point in the expac, we are exactly that.
Make flying dangerous. Make it fun. Integrate it into the game. Lower the flight ceiling as well – it doesn’t need to be as high as it is.
The irony is I was looking forward to getting out and flying around the world when I thought it was coming later in the expac. I’d be ok if it required the LoreMaster and treasure achieves on your account and L100 per character to unlock it. Seems reasonable – that way they know I have worked through the content and found the treasures as intended…
But now – meh. Not going to unsub, but it sure isn’t going to get any of my 11 L100 toons out into the world. Big fail, Blizz.
One of the rewards for reaching max level in the past has been the the ability to fly. Essentially graduating from having to slog through all the ground based deterrents, to the freedom of self-directed determinism. For me, it has always been a major reason to reach max level on my many alts. Pandaria was particularly well done in this respect and I can still remember the feeling immense relief I always had when each and every character I have reached max level, earning the freedom and ease of flight. It made the whole world feel new and exciting all over again. Sadly, in this expansion, there seem to be few, if any incentives to reach max level on an alt. The jumping puzzles were fun at first, but I’ve done them all. I’d gladly see them all go away if we could have flight at max level. I’ve been plenty patient waiting for Blizzard to update our flight status in Draenor. I’m very disappointed that it won’t happen. But the thought of no flight ever again has really taken a lot of fun out of the anticipation of what new things will be coming along in the future. I’m not so sure I care that much about new expansions that won’t allow flight just because someone at Blizzard thinks they know what I like in a game better than I do.
Nice post. I agree with you on a lot of points… Especially how big the world feels in relation to MoP.
For a bunch of us, flight has been a powerfully enriching part of WoW precisely because it isn’t dangerous. Some of us are parents with small children who need tending. Some of us are handicapped people who might have to pause play to deal with an acute episode of whatever our problem is. Some of us are people of any sort who simply want to be able to pause to take a phone call. Some of us are people who are, for whatever reason, easily fatigued (mentally and/or physically) and simply need a pause. If you are basically healthy and not susceptible to distractions, you may have no idea how important and helpful it’s been to be able to mount up and zoom up long enough to deal with whatever it is from real life that’s intruded, whether it’s seconds or minutes.
All this talk of making flying dangerous has, for us, the same effect as denying flight altogether: “If you can’t be at enough of a peak to manage the nuisances and annoyances of random ground travel, you don’t really deserve to play. Good luck with some other game.” Many of us have been here a good long while – some of us before flight, and remembering what a struggle vanilla could be – and we don’t actually want to go. We just want WoW to continue offering a sensible accommodation to the many things that make us need to have a safe zone handy at our discretion.
This is in addition to all the stuff Bendak has already written well about.
Well, look at it this way… you can “pause” on a ground mount by finding a safe spot to AFK (usually), and I don’t think flying should be any different. But flying over an enemy town or city? Yeah I think you should be attacked 🙂 Like it was in BC. You also wouldn’t AFK in a place where the Fel Reaver was pathing (or maybe you would and that’s what made him so notorious), so I think air-based equivalents could be cool for that as well.
I understand your point though. I’m just trying to present alternatives since they seem so hopped up on the “danger” issue.
Oh, I understand. My response is mostly to say “this talk of danger is bogus”, but obviously that’s less persuasive to the devs.
And of course there were plenty of places in BC where one could afk safely in the air – it was the norm, in fact, with danger zones being specific. If that were the case again, I’d be fine with it again.
I was in the neutral camp, but after reading your thoughts I’m now pro-flight. My poor wing-clipped dragons… 🙁
my poor wing clipped $25 sparkle pony!! :{
An appreciated perspective on flying. I liked how you took some of the quotes and directly responded to them.
I understands Blizzards reasoning when it comes to flying since it allows you to bypass a lot of threats. However, I think there is a a flaw in their reasoning. Once we get to max-level and our gear improves (even LFR level gear) quests that were once challenging become trivial. It not like anything apart from a worldboss can compete with a big red pet & friends (aka stampede) at the moment.
I think this is what worked in MoP. Initially Isle of Thunder and the TImeless Isle were relatively dangerous when you first went there. Things could (and would) kill you if you made mistakes and not being able to fly is what made the content challenging.
So I think it’s ok to prevent flying in zones that are current content but in 6.2 we should be able to fly in Draenor apart from Tanaan Jungle.
If I could just complete left-over quests (and experience some more story arcs) by flying I probably would get out of my garrison and do so. However in the current situation I’m just not interested in riding around in to complete quests I skipped when leveling. It’s not challenging or interesting it’s just annoying that I cannot fly.
I think the band-aids like Aviana’s Feather and the Mechashredder 5000 (Gorgrond) make things worse. They allow us to fly but with 1 hand tied behind our back. It shows us what is possible and fun but is withheld from us.
Blizzards current design decisions seem a bit random at the moment anyway. The give us the convenience of getting mythic raid gear by sitting in our garrison clicking a few buttons but they don’t want to give us the convenience of flying.
“Blizzards current design decisions seem a bit random at the moment anyway. The give us the convenience of getting mythic raid gear by sitting in our garrison clicking a few buttons but they don’t want to give us the convenience of flying.”
This is a good way of summing up why I am so bloody confused with what Blizzard’s actual design goals are at the moment.
I think The Grumpy Elf hit the “nail on the head” in his recent post. Flying, No-Flying, delayed content, missing content, future expansions, direction going forward – all of this largely unknown or unclear to the players due to one key reason… Mismanagement. None of us really knows what their reasoning has been or will be because, quite simply, Blizzard doesn’t know either. I don’t really expect that to change much until they get their act together.
One of the consequences of no flying is a much flatter landscape. Draenor doesn’t have huge mountains like Northrend or Pandaria, it has no floating islands like Outland and isn’t multi-level like some Cataclysm zones or again Pandaria. This makes Draenor feel kinda lacking compared to previous expansion land masses, all because they need to keep the world flatter to allow all ground mounts to be able to go anywhere. Ultimately lack of flying makes the world feel smaller.
Flying is a big topic, for sure. Ultimately I think we need to trust the designers to give us a good product. Much like we have expectations when seeing a film by Hitchcock, Altman or Kubrick — each new film may be different but we like their style and panache.
I’ve loved all the player solutions, wanting dearly to have flying in current and future content. My own is since we DO have flying in all of the old world; pepper our Azeroth with world bosses. Have the Fel Reaver stomping on Gadgetzan, for example and make the rewards substantial. A zone wide call to arms, fly over and join a group for a kill.
And (since they say no flying in future content) I guess the Burning Legion won’t be spewing into the Blasted Lands nor will we be battling in a revamped zone like Arathi Highlands. It’ll have to be a new continent or a new planet, eh?
Why can’t we attack flying mobs in the air while riding a mount? Fly for fun or flyff was the first mmorpg I played, it was free and easy on my PC. We had the idea on the back of a box in one of the earlier expansions but why can’t we have it? If a free kiddie mmorpg can do it, why can’t blizzard?! This can make immersion in the air. Also, they say you won’t explore content because u don’t see a cave or a hidden area, well I was using a flight path over an area and said that area looked cool (red blood mushrooms in draenor). As I flew over, I saw a treasure on top of the mushroom. Made me want to go find that treasure, but it was a pain to go fly back after Ianded at my other destination. Then I forgot about it, until this rant xp. So, flying ruining immersion and exploration and discovery is a mute argument.
Also, as for draenor being dangerous, is like saying pandaria was dangerous. The only really dangerously dark looking areas were near brf. Everything else was pretty. Not many mobs patrolling to make it feel dangerous, etc.
I just finally hit 100 a few days ago (very casual player) and toggled my map screen and saw there are numerous zones in Draenor I have yet to step foot in. With the ability to queue for dungeons and battlegrounds from anywhere (my garrison) I have no need to travel outside it, flying would be the only way for me to truly explore Draenor. I only see myself going into these zones to gather the items to tame Gara.
Heres my comment on the topic and have strong feelings about it. Wasn’t one of my best video by far, but I think I made my point. Bare with me it was kinda long, sorry.
I did my comment on twitch because I didn’t want the reader to endure a wall of wall text.
http://www.twitch.tv/dionsol2/c/6733367
Dionsol
lvl 100 Undead underpowered casual Warlock
Terokkar US
“Dark Lady Watch over You”
just wanted to add my 2 copper to this thread:
i agree with you on just about every point, but that’s not what really irritates me about not flying. what really grinds my gears is that Blizzard is STILL SELLING FLYING MOUNTS FOR REAL LIFE CASH!!! in my mind, it’s the ultimate move: “Hey! I know you pre-ordered the Collectors’ Edition of WoD to get the really cool flying mount, but you can’t use it in WoD. Oh, and here’s another flying mount we’ll bundle with a pet (Grinning Reaver). And hey, while you’re spending, let’s re-skin the panther mount give it some cool effects, make it flying, then kick you off the magic carpet because we just made our $20 and we can do it.”
This has been my sore since the no flying thing was announced: WHY OFFER FLYING MOUNTS THAT YOU ARE REMOVING FROM THE GAME!? Blizzard’s item store has just become useless to me, and i will never purchase anything from them again – good cause (Argi/Grinning Reaver combo to fight Ebola) or not, i will never spend another penny in their store.
why even farm dragon mounts if I cant fly on em. they just look like a Gungan walking on hot asphalt
Who doesn’t want to fly? Ever since people saw birds we have wanted to. Every time I visit an area that I can fly in and the random mount comes up with a flying mount I feel a rush of excitement (probably also due to it being a rare happening as I am mostly stuck in the garrison). Seeing the world from new angles is always nice.
Traveling on ground isn’t dangerous, it just takes longer, especially with the maniac(s) that designed Nagrand and other zones for flying and didn’t enable it. I never liked no-flying on Timeless Isle either with Huolon and Garnia and some of the other rares dying in seconds; Just felt even more like a time sink waiting around for spawns. Starting out with no flying on TI and Isle of Thunder felt nice though, like the normal areas of MoP and WotLK, but when it was no risk it felt a waste of time.
Give ground mount some advantage, perhaps like the stables perk that it can interact with items and nodes. I also like the talbuk in Nagrand: mounted combat is nice. Just don’t enable it with flying mounts on pvp servers.
I’ve been paying Blizz for 9 years, during which I got the “Seeker” and the “Beloved” title, neither of which I would have done if I couldn’t fly. But it’s not just the fact that they are wrong about what makes a player more “immersed”. It’s also, (and more importantly in my mind), the idea that they are telling me that I can’t fly because I’m not immersed enough! Isn’t it their job to put out the content and leave the playing to us? Have they forgotten the nature of the relationship here? We pay them. I don’t want to ride down the same road over and over to satisfy some other person’s notion that it will make me more “immersed”. People in this forum have a lot of great and creative ideas, and perhaps the problem over their is creativity, but I think it’s a bigger problem.
Years ago I could level in higher areas, pick and choose quest lines, now it just feels more and more like being in a funnel. I have to do this before I can do this, so I can do that, and that will get me to there. It reminds me of that Simms game. I can’t get most of my alts into Draenor because I will not keep running that forced quest line. I remember the old video games like Zelda where you had to go one spot to the next to the next without even turning around. The beginning Draenor quests are a lot like that, but extra bland. Where is the Blizz that gave us quests to pick up screaming townspeople, the great murgle suit quest, and so many others? Perhaps they are spending too much time worrying about how many times I fly somewhere.
I agree. It feels as if the creators, instead of embracing a feature by creating new ways to experience it, got lazy and threw the entire feature in the trash. Without flying, I literally spend most of my time in my Garrison, or running around my Garrison waiting for the LFG queue for heroics and raids. Cutting flying has completely cut my desire to explore. There is nothing more irritating than trying to slowly get from point A to point B but then get dazed off your mount. I was extremely excited to get my boyfriend to play WoW, but now I’m not even sure it’s with showing to him if the devs are just going to scrap major features because they’re too lazy to come up with something more creative.
They have done things I love, for me I think they do more right than wrong, but taking away our choices is really a bug for me. I don’t like the condescending statement that they want us to be more “immersed”. It doesn’t feel like a “what do the customers/players want”, but more an attitude of what they want. It really ticked me off, as you can see. I don’t want to lose autonomy, which is what happens when you can’t just fly wherever you want, and stop along the way for treasure, the odd quest, or gathering. And really, they should know that.
OMG! We WON!!! I was NOT expecting this at all.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19800551/dev-watercooler-flying-in-draenor-6-10-2015
The requirements for allowing flying do not seem unreasonable either AND…. we get a flying mount of of earning this too!! WOOT!
First off, I have not been to Draenor yet, but the list to get the mount…”You’ll earn this achievement in Patch 6.2 by mastering the outdoor environment of Draenor—exploring Draenor’s zones, collecting 100 treasures in Draenor, completing the Draenor Loremaster and Securing Draenor achievements, and raising the three new Tanaan Jungle reputations to Revered.”…seems a little steep. As I said, I haven’t been there yet and when I get there, I’ll do what needs to be done. Glad Blizz came to their senses on this.
Great result. I like how they have gated it behind playing the content they have, frankly, done an awesome job of creating. My coffee tastes somehow better this morning!
Indeed! Sad it took so much player outcry to change their minds when this should have been done in 6.1. I do agree with the gating and having done all the requirements but the treasures and the 3 reps already (rest is REALLY easy if you’ve quest leveled one toon to 100 already). So it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Also, was expecting it to be per toon or all level 100’s but granting flying it at all 90+ toons actually makes me want to level all my alts now! 😀
woot, questing and rep grindin is hard price to pay and id rather it be some kind of garrison achieivie but i guess i can do this again ( hunter was my second toon to lvl and i did a few quests unlike the first toon which i took my my time on)
Well I did act like a petulant child about it. I even wrote blizzard a letter threatening to quit if they didn’t have flying. Guess what? I quit.( I did play a little at first just to get the story. I’m all about the lore). I won’t play again until they re-introduce flying in current content. For me flying is not nice to have it is a must.
The world feels larger, more dangerous (without flying)-Ian Hazikostas. READ: we’re too lazy to make large expansions any more like Wrath of the Lich King or Burning Crusade so were going to take away flying and hope you don’t notice.
Well Ian we noticed. WoD is even smaller than MoP even though it’s 5 levels more.
As for the exploration part wrong again. I’m like Bendak shortest route from A to B. In other expansions I would do most of my exploring after I got flying.
Personally I think its just the laziness thing again they’re too lazy to do the extra programming necessary for flying.
And what really pisses me off is they try and come off like it’s a good thing. Like when they changed the cool-down for Death Knight runes and said yeah its much better this way because you weren’t using those runes anyways. Now there is a gigantic dead space in my rotation where I cant do anything except auto-attack. (my alt is a DK).
Don’t piss on my leg and try to tell me its raining.
I am understanding now why Ghost Crawler quit. The game is going down-hill
If you want flying do what I did hit them in the wallet, stop buying their products. 10 years I played and thousands in merchandise they will never see another dime from me again. I quit after I got to 100 on a few toons and I never looked back, didn’t even think about it until this article came up on my google+. My reason for quitting was more than just about flying but if enough people quit and voice an opinion the faster it will happen. My 2 cents.
Flying is coming to Draener!!!
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19800551/dev-watercooler-flying-in-draenor-10-06-2015
Flying will come, but Blizzard still seem reluctant to grant it. Forcing us to explore the world on ground mounts is fine. Completing Lore master of Draenor and treasure hunting may be good and releasing it with a later patch to avoid flying in Tanaan from the beginning is also fine with me, even though I’d want to fly in the other areas earlier.
Putting flying behind all those other achievements and rep grinds is a bit much though; It’s fine for us that have played the whole expansion and done all or much of it, but for new or returning players it’s annoying as hell.
As you mentioned it isn’t an issue for us who have played the whole expansion. Earlier today I did the apexis daily achieve thing, so barring the 3 revered reputations, I am all set now.
To address the new players thing. At least they Know they will be getting flight. When we started this expansion we had a vague hope. So it’s not as bad as it seems.