No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[rda]

Okay then, I disagree that you have shown that Blizzard are cutting back on costs and implementing mechanics with the intentions of forcing players to sub longer than previous expansions.

OK. Apparently you think that your "I farmed instances all the way through WotLK, too" counters the argument you replied to. It doesn't.

Please observe that:

* in WotLK, you didn't have to farm the same instances for the entire addon - they added 4 instances in patches (not so in MoP, not so in WoD),
* in WotLK, they added a heck of a lot of other content in patches, too (not so in WoD),
* the number of tricks reusing the same content has grown from WotLK to WoD enormously, use the list as a guide.

I am not sure what else you want as proof.

WotLK: tons of content and *a few* reasons to do *some* of the same content for a long time (eg, gear for alts).
WoD (soon, Legion): little content and *tons* of reasons to do it over and over and over again trying to compensate for little content.

[Connll]

Okay then, I disagree that you have shown that Blizzard are cutting back on costs and implementing mechanics with the intentions of forcing players to sub longer than previous expansions.

Now you are being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. -.-

[Dhrizzle]

OK. Apparently you think that your "I farmed instances all the way through WotLK, too" counters the argument you replied to. It doesn't.

Please observe that:

* in WotLK, you didn't have to farm the same instances for the entire addon - they added 4 instances in patches (not so in MoP, not so in WoD),
* in WotLK, they added a heck of a lot of other content in patches, too (not so in WoD),
* the number of tricks reusing the same content has grown from WotLK to WoD enormously, use the list as a guide.

I am not sure what else you want as proof.

WotLK: tons of content and *a few* reasons to do *some* of the same content for a long time (eg, gear for alts).
WoD (soon, Legion): little content and *tons* of reasons to do it over and over and over again trying to compensate for little content.

My point is that I could farm the same instances constantly and still receive some sort of advancement for my character. Even my raiding main had a reason to pop into the heroics that existed at launch. This isn't the case with WoD, you can very quickly get to the stage where rewards are minimal and you can unsub without feeling that your character will be left behind.

If anything that was a mistake on Blizzard's part. With minimal work they could have boosted what you can get from the dungeons through higher i-lvl sets or items that boost your current armour. In fact that's what they did in 6.2 with the return of Valour, because players wanted reasons to sub and run through the older content.

[rda]

My point is that I could farm the same instances constantly and still receive some sort of advancement for my character. Even my raiding main had a reason to pop into the heroics that existed at launch. This isn't the case with WoD, you can very quickly get to the stage where rewards are minimal and you can unsub without feeling that your character will be left behind.

If anything that was a mistake on Blizzard's part. With minimal work they could have boosted what you can get from the dungeons through higher i-lvl sets or items that boost your current armour. In fact that's what they did in 6.2 with the return of Valour, because players wanted reasons to sub and run through the older content.

All this means is that in WoD they missed one of the previous things that was adding longevity before. They did many others instead - apexis, the legendary, the garrisons, etc, see the list. And they made an attempt to reuse instances in WoD, too, see mythic instances.

Add the big difference in added content and I am not sure how you get from this that no, they weren't cutting back on costs and no, they weren't instead designing things trying to keep people hooked to the same few pieces of content that they had (because that's much easier than adding content).

[Mafic]

What they are doing right in Legion in my opinion is the professions system which encourages exploration. What they are doing wrong in Legion is forcing players to traverse on the ground because they don't want artifact power treasures scattered throughout the world to be trivialized supposedly.

Sorry Blizzard, but the average age of your player base is closer to 30 years of age than 9 years old and another easter egg hunt is not a good reason to justify grounding players from being able to fly or because of more jumping puzzles (which the WoW engine is poorly made to support). Another reason why is that artifact power is so easier to obtain from dungeons, arenas, battlegrounds and raids that it makes no sense wasting time to look around the world for artifact power. If you are a player with limited game time in Legion and you have a choice between farming Artifact power and professions you are probably going to choose professions. Because, the reward is greater in terms of time investment (eg ranking up a blacksmith spell to rank 3 means less mats needed which means more gold for you).

The profession quests in Legion are not trivialized by flying because from what I have seen it requires interacting with the world and multiple ranks for each spell. Thus, by grounding players they are increasing the time to complete professions quests by at least 20%. This artificial gating via ground mounts isn't necessary as professions quests (especially for crafting profession) requires three ranks to fully realize each crafting spell. This is excessive time gating and they are in danger of repeating the failures of WoD.

People will notice no flying destroying the immersion of the Legion expansion and it will not be savage if you are stuck in Dalaran ala WotLK. A lot of players did that when flying mounts were available. That number is going to jump two fold in Legion, because the players that used to explore via flying mounts to do their dailies in WotLK will give up on that idea in Legion. Especially true if there is a bounty that requires them to go to High mountain. I feel sorry for Hunter players that have to degrade themselves with that flight path from Dalaran all the way to High Mountain for their class hall every single time. That is sheer tedium to the max.

At least Blizzard did learn that a central hub has to be close to the leveling/questing content in Legion which is why they are doing a copy and paste of the formula that worked in the past (WotLK) and avoiding the mess that was WoD's capital cities (top five worst decision in WoW history easily for me). In WotLK, whether you used a flying or flight path it was fairly quick to access the Argent Dailies as an example, or even to do Wintergrasp battles by queing up next to the NPC. But you also had the option of traveling further with a flying mount or setting your hearth away from lagging Dalaran in Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra because of these optiions. In Legion you lose these options, because the only way to access the class hall is via Dalaran portals or flight path for hunters (haha).

[Deleted]

[SNIP]And I find that a remarkably silly point. WoD had the least stretched content of all the expansions. TBC and MoP locked heroic dungeons or their currency rewards behind reputation grinds. WotLK and Cataclysm locked head and shoulder enchants behind reputation grinds. All of those expansions stretched 5 man content by offering new tiers of currency rewards as later raids were released, none of them offered such a quick and easy path to raiding as WoD's LFR did. In fact the main criticism of WoD that I can see is content wasn't stretched far enough, 5-mans and daily quests didn't offer enough of a reward and quickly got to the point where they were only worth doing if you enjoy them.[SNIP]

Well, specifically in BC heroics you got epic loot from end bosses, you got crafting patterns from trash, and some of these blue items were quite good and stayed valuable even throughout raids. You were rewarded while farming for better rewards. You also could get dungeon tier sets from BC dungeons, a concept which they have scrapped later, to my regret (just like crafted sets with set bonuses). Later we got badges we could farm to buy epic loot from vendors, and Magister's Terrace with epic loot.

TBC heroics were no stretched content at all. The only huge mistake with reputation grinds was MoP with double-gating. Everything else was fine. WoD ruined reputations by combining worst possible grind with least appealing rewards.

[Glorious Leader]

Well, specifically in BC heroics you got epic loot from end bosses, you got crafting patterns from trash, and some of these blue items were quite good and stayed valuable even throughout raids. You were rewarded while farming for better rewards. You also could get dungeon tier sets from BC dungeons, a concept which they have scrapped later, to my regret (just like crafted sets with set bonuses). Later we got badges we could farm to buy epic loot from vendors, and Magister's Terrace with epic loot.

TBC heroics were no stretched content at all. The only huge mistake with reputation grinds was MoP with double-gating. Everything else was fine. WoD ruined reputations by combining worst possible grind with least appealing rewards.

The mistake from mop was the removal of the dungeon tabard. Double gating sucked but if you kept the tabard not only would it not have been as bad yoi would have provided continual reason to run dungeons. You could do dailies or dungeons or both.

[Dhrizzle]

All this means is that in WoD they missed one of the previous things that was adding longevity before. They did many others instead - apexis, the legendary, the garrisons, etc, see the list. And they made an attempt to reuse instances in WoD, too, see mythic instances.

Add the big difference in added content and I am not sure how you get from this that no, they weren't cutting back on costs and no, they weren't instead designing things trying to keep people hooked to the same few pieces of content that they had (because that's much easier than adding content).

We'll have to agree to disagree here. Personally I found the Legendary quest to take less than a couple of months, definitely not something that would keep me logged in indefinitely. Apexis and Garrison activities I enjoyed but the rewards did not seem especially compelling and what they offered did not seem to be much of an incentive to keep subscribed.

I know that forum noise isn't much of an indicator for what the playerbase really think about the game, but there does seem to be a large number of people saying that WoD did not offer many reasons to stay subbed for extended periods, and the changes to Valour and Mythic dungeons show that Blizz thinks it was a mistake not stretching the 5-man content like they have in previous expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, specifically in BC heroics you got epic loot from end bosses, you got crafting patterns from trash, and some of these blue items were quite good and stayed valuable even throughout raids. You were rewarded while farming for better rewards. You also could get dungeon tier sets from BC dungeons, a concept which they have scrapped later, to my regret (just like crafted sets with set bonuses). Later we got badges we could farm to buy epic loot from vendors, and Magister's Terrace with epic loot.

TBC heroics were no stretched content at all. The only huge mistake with reputation grinds was MoP with double-gating. Everything else was fine. WoD ruined reputations by combining worst possible grind with least appealing rewards.

I think we have a different definition as to watch stretched content is.

I consider content to be stretched if Blizz make a simple/cheap change to the game that makes it worthwhile for players to continue using it. Upping the rewards from heroic dungeon currencies I would consider stretching them, as it means that players can run the same dungeons for the entire expansion whilst continually advancing in player-power.

The new Valour system and, arguably, the Mythic difficulty added to 5-mans are examples of content being stretched in WoD, but they were added late in the expansion's cycle and as a response to player feedback.

[Deleted]

Asking a person why you want to be able to fly is about as stupid as asking some one why they want to live m8.

But coming this late in this thread asking a question that has been answered hundreds(thousands?) of times already by so many passionate people who love flying and seeing the world freely from any point in the sky might be even more stupid...

I see you are a very hostile person. I'm not trying to stir up some shit, I'm just asking why you are passionate about flying after you stated you were. I'm not going to read 4000 posts of people bickering, that would be stupid when I can just ask you. But I see you are not a person worth engaging with.

- - - Updated - - -

I would assume he's one of those that's actually not interested at all in understanding the other "sides" perspective, he's just here to stir shit up and argue for the sake of arguing. There's no other logical explanation to it. Since as you pointed out, there's plenty upon plenty of well constructed posts in this thread already answering that exact question of his. You don't even have to look that hard to them them either.

I'm not interested in understanding another players perspective because I asked him in a polite way why he is passionate about flying? Come on... You might call me lazy for not being bothered to read through a thread with 4000 posts to find out why he feels that way, but I just can't be bothered to read through all the drivel in this thread. He staded he was passionate about flying, I asked him why. I don't see that as stiring up shit.

[Mafic]

All this means is that in WoD they missed one of the previous things that was adding longevity before. They did many others instead - apexis, the legendary, the garrisons, etc, see the list. And they made an attempt to reuse instances in WoD, too, see mythic instances.

Add the big difference in added content and I am not sure how you get from this that no, they weren't cutting back on costs and no, they weren't instead designing things trying to keep people hooked to the same few pieces of content that they had (because that's much easier than adding content).

If Blizzard only views subs as cyclical and focused on box sales..then they don't care about replayability or longevity. They thought they could kill flying off as a result but they learned a hard truth.

What other MMORPG developers they know that that travel is in the top five importance in game design which Blizz thought they could be lazy and skip this step with in WoD. Along with how fluid and kinetic combat feels with abilities/spells, quest/reward system, difficulty of NPCs/encounters, and centralized hubs for players,

[CheeseSandwich]

I see you are a very hostile person. I'm not trying to stir up some shit, I'm just asking why you are passionate about flying after you stated you were. I'm not going to read 4000 posts of people bickering, that would be stupid when I can just ask you. But I see you are not a person worth engaging with.

- - - Updated - - -



I'm not interested in understanding another players perspective because I asked him in a polite way why he is passionate about flying? Come on... You might call me lazy for not being bothered to read through a thread with 4000 posts to find out why he feels that way, but I just can't be bothered to read through all the drivel in this thread. He staded he was passionate about flying, I asked him why. I don't see that as stiring up shit.

I can't speak for him, but at a base level, I am passionate about flying in WoW because it lets me see the world I just leveled through in a new perspective. It allows to stop at any time will travelling efficiently and investigate something that peeks my interest. It lets me go back to base quickly if I forgot something. It lets me get to where I want to be fast, with the flexibility to stop on the way.
It lets me find hidden corners of the map. It lets me soar over tree tops, swoop under bridges and skim lakes and rivers. It fulfills a fantasy of flight, of taking to wing on an epic dragon I earned through perserverance, skill, payment or luck and feeling a wonder in that.

I'm also passionate about it in terms of gameplay because while it is in a 'back end of the expansion' state of limbo, there will be no content made for it. No netherwing or sky guard dailies, no dragon blight dailies or areas only reached by flight, no jade forest races and stories behind us earning our flying mounts, no more TLPD or Aeonaxx to hunt down.

A lack of extra things to do at max level, when a player usually unlocked flight, because flight has been delayed until all ground content has been completed.

[SirCowdog]

I'm not interested in understanding another players perspective because I asked him in a polite way why he is passionate about flying? Come on... You might call me lazy for not being bothered to read through a thread with 4000 posts to find out why he feels that way, but I just can't be bothered to read through all the drivel in this thread. He staded he was passionate about flying, I asked him why. I don't see that as stiring up shit.

The thing you need to recognize about entering this discussion is that there are people who've been around since the beginning and have VERY strong opinions on it. They've dealt with explaining their POV time after time after time, only to have people troll and ignore legitimate points. So when someone comes into the discussion this late and doesn't even want to bother to try to do any research before opening their figurative mouth....well....you shouldn't be surprised at the reaction.


Suffice to say, most people are passionate about flying being in WoW because it's been a core part of the game for nearly a decade. It's part of what WOW is. It's become a key part of the enjoyment of the overall experience for a LOT of people.

Taking away flight was supposed to have allowed Blizzard to create a better experience. And for some people maybe it did. But it came at the cost of ruining the experience for a lot of other people. Blizzard tried to put the genie back in the bottle and failed.

[Zalamander]

I see you are a very hostile person. I'm not trying to stir up some shit, I'm just asking why you are passionate about flying after you stated you were. I'm not going to read 4000 posts of people bickering, that would be stupid when I can just ask you. But I see you are not a person worth engaging with.

I'm not very hostile at all but I have seen trolls making posts that look more genuine than your "supposedly not"? troll post in this thread.
So lets act serious, firstly you ask a question I and many others answered here hundreds of time already. That's basically like asking without caring about the answer and that's pretty impolite if you ask me.
Neither did you give any arguments to why you don't like flying, just claiming you think it has always been a mistake. So it simply led me to assume you are one of those old "It killed world PvP" or something else kind of people who has already been shot down since that's a very wrong and bad argument proven wrong in every way already for example.

But I'll do you a great favor and sum up the entire situation, since its a bit confusing when there are several camps with different interests on both sides of this argument.

The against flying side:

The blizzard white knights:
These are the fanatic blizzard fans who simply almost never think or act of any own interest but simply agree on blizzards every argument. None of these players cared at all about flying, some probably even liked it(when blizzard liked it) but many of them showed up disliking flying recently as soon as blizzard started posting some arguments of why flying was a "problem" in the game.
Usually buying arguments like, having to force players to be grounded to make the appreciate the hard work of blizzards art team.

What these think the pro-flyers think: nothing really, they don't care what anyone think as long as they remain loyal to blizzard.

The old timer raider/world PvP:er (no, not all old timer world PVP:er and raiders are here thanksfully)
These folks usually have "it killed world PvP" or "it made the game unsocial" as arguments against flying.
Its easy to understand why many people would fall into believing these simple answers just because they are simple. That doesn't in any way make them right.
World PVP for example, Oh you can fly away so the gankers can't catch you since you can only fight on the ground? simple it was flying who killed world PvP? You only need to think one step further to realize that its just as easy to flee from a world PvP gank fest on an epic ground mount, flying has nothing to do with it.
You can take the thinking to a third step and realize that there was more than flying added in late vanilla and TBC, namely battlegrounds and arena that made PvP very rewarding compared to ganking in the wild.
Yet, world PvP never died. it remained in the game together with flying and was still awesome(in many cases thanks to flying) in every expansion... until WoD.
I honestly believe we would have had a lot more awesome world PvP and other social encounters in WoD as well if there would have been flying at max level from the start.

What these think the pro-flyers think: They just want to be able to travel fast and avoid world PvP.(Flying is just a way of transportation)

The neutrals
Most players are probably here, they don't really care either way. They just keep playing the game in ignorant blizz, not really reflecting over what features in the game making them like it or not. They come and go. cancel sub for a while when they get bored of the game even without asking them selves why they got bored.


The pro flyers

The traveler
I believe the smaller part of the pro-flyers resides in this group. They are mostly neutral but care about flying as a convenience mostly.
This smaller group is what most people against flying think 95% of the pro-flyers are and is what makes it the most frustrating to have to argue about it.

The flyers (I'm here, here is the answer you are looking for)
The misunderstood masses I suppose, who surely in many cases find flying as a convenient way of transportation at times yes but it's far from the main reason.
Flying is freedom. freedom to move to anywhere in the air and look at the world from infinite angles and really appreciate the art teams hard work.
Flying is a completely different way of experiencing the world, I usually feel it as stage two in any WoW expansion.
Stage one is I experience all zones while leveling up. Stage two is I reached max level and made my investment into flying and feeling how it was well worth it, now getting to experience the world again but different. Seeing how the zones had a completely different shape from above compared to what I thought as I leveled up.
Using my cool flying mounts, dragons and other things that look amazing in the air as well.
For us who LOVE flying in WoW its really hard ti understand how anyone can even argue against it. And its even more frustrating seeing someone thinking I only want flying to avoid world PVP or Im lazy wanting to AFK to fly straight to somewhere. Whyyy? there are already flight paths for AFK flying.

WoD, the first ever expansion without stage two... :< a feeling of emptiness reaching max level and just look at the sky, longing to experience how this zone looks from there.

[SirCowdog]

The pro flyers

The traveler
I believe the smaller part of the pro-flyers resides in this group. They are mostly neutral but care about flying as a convenience mostly.
This smaller group is what most people against flying think 95% of the pro-flyers are and is what makes it the most frustrating to have to argue about it.

The flyers (I'm here, here is the answer you are looking for)
The misunderstood masses I suppose, who surely in many cases find flying as a convenient way of transportation at times yes but it's far from the main reason.
Flying is freedom. freedom to move to anywhere in the air and look at the world from infinite angles and really appreciate the art teams hard work.
Flying is a completely different way of experiencing the world, I usually feel it as stage two in any WoW expansion.
Stage one is I experience all zones while leveling up. Stage two is I reached max level and made my investment into flying and feeling how it was well worth it, now getting to experience the world again but different. Seeing how the zones had a completely different shape from above compared to what I thought as I leveled up.
Using my cool flying mounts, dragons and other things that look amazing in the air as well.
For us who LOVE flying in WoW its really hard ti understand how anyone can even argue against it. And its even more frustrating seeing someone thinking I only want flying to avoid world PVP or Im lazy wanting to AFK to fly straight to somewhere. Whyyy? there are already flight paths for AFK flying.

WoD, the first ever expansion without stage two... :< a feeling of emptiness reaching max level and just look at the sky, longing to experience how this zone looks from there.

You forgot two groups:

1) The legitimate anti-flight group: These guys actually believe that the game can be better without flight, and that flight is actually causing problems for the development of the game world. Despite the example of WoD, relatively sound arguments can and have been made to support a game with no flying.

I don't agree with this group(obiously), but they have a fairly stable platform to make their points from, citing that the lion's share of the game is in instanced content(dungeons, raids, BGs, arenas, etc), where you have NEVER been able to fly without some goofy mechanic such as the Occulus or raid against Malygos.

2) The Passionate Neutrals: This group doesn't actually care one way or another about flying as long as whatever is done makes the game better overall. If flying can be done in such a way to improve the game, great. If no-flying can be done in such a way to make the game awesome, good! They are not at all ignorant, often point out the flaws with WoD's approach, and can see the pros and cons of both sides.

Overall I like this group the best, since they're just interested in seeing the game progress and evolve instead of devolving and falling into cheap half-assed content like WoD tried to get away with.

Then there's people like me, who don't really fall into any group. I want flying in the game, but I want it in a form that requires some pretty radical changes to the fundamental mechanics and overall design philosophy of the open world. I'm not content to just get an easy mode of travel that lets me circumvent weak ground content. I want flight to be an entire new facet to the open world experience, with new mechanics, new zones, and content designed to challenge and engage someone on a flying mount.

I would rather have superior ground-only content(5-6x orders of magnitutde better than WoD) than simply slapping traditional flight onto the end of the expansion where it's useless. But I don't really think Blizzard is willing to go to the lengths of dev time and money to meet my expectations.

[Zalamander]

yes, yes I know I left some groups out, I'm at working lacking some time but.

I still think even WoD would have been a more interesting fun expansion if it had flying implemented exactly as all previous expansions for a few thousand gold at max level right away.
There is plenty of interesting content, sadly it's not very accessible so most people don't even know it exist. I found so many interesting things in the world I never saw before once flying was finally in.

[White Male]

You always could choose not to fly

WOD made so you couldn't choose to fly. Very few zones were designed around mandatory flight.


They should just make flight 100k per account every expac. Stir the economy up a bit

[Tusq]

You always could choose not to fly

WOD made so you couldn't choose to fly. Very few zones were designed around mandatory flight.


They should just make flight 100k per account every expac. Stir the economy up a bit

Choose to cripple yourself? What about no.

[Dsc]

I wish they would remove it. Flying changed wow in a bad way, second only to LFD/LFR

It has no place in an MMO.

[Mafic]

I wish they would remove it. Flying changed wow in a bad way, second only to LFD/LFR

It has no place in an MMO.

All modern MMO's incorporate flying or teleport beacons at this point. What you are asking is to drag the MMORPG genre back to 1999...I am not sure you were even a twinkle in your momma's eye back then lol.

[Gwennie]

You forgot two groups:

1) The legitimate anti-flight group: These guys actually believe that the game can be better without flight, and that flight is actually causing problems for the development of the game world. Despite the example of WoD, relatively sound arguments can and have been made to support a game with no flying.

I don't agree with this group(obiously), but they have a fairly stable platform to make their points from, citing that the lion's share of the game is in instanced content(dungeons, raids, BGs, arenas, etc), where you have NEVER been able to fly without some goofy mechanic such as the Occulus or raid against Malygos.

2) The Passionate Neutrals: This group doesn't actually care one way or another about flying as long as whatever is done makes the game better overall. If flying can be done in such a way to improve the game, great. If no-flying can be done in such a way to make the game awesome, good! They are not at all ignorant, often point out the flaws with WoD's approach, and can see the pros and cons of both sides.

Overall I like this group the best, since they're just interested in seeing the game progress and evolve instead of devolving and falling into cheap half-assed content like WoD tried to get away with.

Then there's people like me, who don't really fall into any group. I want flying in the game, but I want it in a form that requires some pretty radical changes to the fundamental mechanics and overall design philosophy of the open world. I'm not content to just get an easy mode of travel that lets me circumvent weak ground content. I want flight to be an entire new facet to the open world experience, with new mechanics, new zones, and content designed to challenge and engage someone on a flying mount.

I would rather have superior ground-only content(5-6x orders of magnitutde better than WoD) than simply slapping traditional flight onto the end of the expansion where it's useless. But I don't really think Blizzard is willing to go to the lengths of dev time and money to meet my expectations.

I like your passionate neutral category, and also your ideas for making flying content in and of itself (I've toyed with the idea myself). Flying is one of those issues where there's really good arguements either way. My preference is for no flying, but that's slight. I also had a blast when I earned Draenor pathfinder.