No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Maudib]

I mean you didn't quite in TBC... or LK... or Cata... when flight was present in all of those and MoP too. If flight was so objectionable, people who really feel that way would have quit then, not played those 8 years.

Of course he didn't.. because he didn't care about flying being in game... it didn't bother him.. at least not enough to create a thread about it or actually unsub because it affected his game so adversely.

But... In less than 2 weeks.. so many people cancelled their subs with the reason "Flying removed" that they not only did a 180, but began the task of fixing all the bugs they should have fixed in beta related to flying. It was their intent all along to not allow flying... they simply had their asses handed to them in the form of hundreds of thousands of cancellations.

[emilylorange]

I mean you didn't quite in TBC... or LK... or Cata... when flight was present in all of those and MoP too. If flight was so objectionable, people who really feel that way would have quit then, not played those 8 years.

I think your issue may be there are truly very few people who are 'anti-flight', and the term is a piece of rhetoric meant to polarize. Of course these people don't exist in large numbers, you guys invented them as a straw argument to knock over.

Your constant need to compare WoD to other expansions seems to rely on only acknowledging one point of comparison - flight - and insisting that must be the major cause of it's failure. It ignores that WoD is just a general piece of trash. If it had flight at 6.0 it would have been a piece of trash you could view from above.

I generally don't care about flight. Only got it last week. It's hilarious - the garrison isn't built for it and you're a maniac flying on a flaming phoenix while your followers walk to their missions below.

In comparison, Tannan is a goddamn train-wreck that is required in order to GET flight, but is intolerable without it. Someone suggested maybe the problem is Blizz is incompetent. I'm leaning towards that.

I maintain no-flight would have been fine if Blizz had done it right and produced a game worth playing. They didn't, they had to walk it back, they failed to even walk it back properly, turned out the game wasn't worth playing WITH it, and here we are fighting this circle again.

I'm not anti-flight, I just felt willing to try something different and people took serious offense to me saying so.

[clevin]

I think your issue may be there are truly very few people who are 'anti-flight', and the term is a piece of rhetoric meant to polarize. Of course these people don't exist in large numbers, you guys invented them as a straw argument to knock over.

I see significant pushback here against bringing back flight. I'll call those people anti flight. If you prefer another term, fine but they argue for no flight or for flight at the end of an expansion. You might think they're imaginary, but that would indicate you're not reading the posts.

Your constant need to compare WoD to other expansions seems to rely on only acknowledging one point of comparison - flight - and insisting that must be the major cause of it's failure. It ignores that WoD is just a general piece of trash. If it had flight at 6.0 it would have been a piece of trash you could view from above.

I'm not arguing that at all. People argued that flight was bad for the game. If no flight was better then WoD should have seen some positive lift in subs from all of those people coming back. It didn't. Similarly, if flight really hurt the game we should have seen some negative impact on subs from TBC on, but instead we saw millions of people take up the game.

It's not that flight was a sole or even major reason either for prior success or current failure, but if it's neutral WHY REMOVE IT?

I maintain no-flight would have been fine if Blizz had done it right and produced a game worth playing. They didn't, they had to walk it back, they failed to even walk it back properly, turned out the game wasn't worth playing WITH it, and here we are fighting this circle again.

I'm not anti-flight, I just felt willing to try something different and people took serious offense to me saying so.

Agreed on the quality of WoD. But even here you don't provide any reason for removing flight or delaying it to the end of the content patches. THAT is what I don't see - any coherent reason to do either of those things vs simply giving us flight in 7.0 or at the least letting us complete the achievement in 7.0. How is the game better for this new way of treating flying?

Cowdog - I realized why I keep objecting to your schemes... it's not that they're bad etc, but they are DISincentives which in my experience are the wrong way to go about things. I've never liked using disincentives on the behavior you don't want people to do... instead, incentivize the behavior you DO want people to do.

For example, instead of making flight harder or more annoying or somehow limited... make ground travel have an advantage. Here's an idea: If I'm riding on the ground, I will occasionally see portals that I can enter either solo or with up to 4 others. Those take me to scenarios where I can get cool stuff... think the treasure room scenario, etc. There's no lore there and the gear isn't good enough to be 'forced' but they're fun things.BUT.... you can only see them from the ground. You can't see them at all if you're flying, even very low. Now, if I want to, I ride on the ground hoping to see and enter one of these. If I'm in a hurry to get somewhere or just don't care about these things, I fly. Boom, an incentive to be on the ground.

[Connll]

I maintain no-flight would have been fine if Blizz had done it right and produced a game worth playing. They didn't, they had to walk it back, they failed to even walk it back properly, turned out the game wasn't worth playing WITH it, and here we are fighting this circle again.

This is a relevant portion of the pro-fliers concerns. WoD was a sub-par product in every sense of the word and each one of its components (except raiding). The attitude the devs showed towards flight has "bled", so to speak, to the other aspects of the Xpac.

Seeing the trainwreck that was the handling of Flight in WoD (actually, WoD in general), and the fact that the developers are simply going to repeat everything in Legion, is cause for concern.

The more time passes, the more we see that they were, indeed, happy with how WoD developed. The "lessons" they learn were not on how to make a better product or consumer experience, but how to better string as many people they can, into thinking the things will be different in Legion.

And those, among many MANY others, are reasons why the pro-fliers are in this thread, doing what they can to pressure for change, or, at the very least, teach as many people as possible, so that they can make informed choices.

[emilylorange]

I see significant pushback here against bringing back flight. I'll call those people anti flight. If you prefer another term, fine but they argue for no flight or for flight at the end of an expansion. You might think they're imaginary, but that would indicate you're not reading the posts.

Don't mistake noise for consensus. I said they exist, but not in large numbers. The vast majority of people have not voiced an opinion, and MMO-C tends to have pretty skewed opinions at that (I mean, look at any poll involving raiding).

You can call people who disagree with you whatever you want, of course, but you appear to do so to intentionally split into 'us and them', rather than try to make any sort of understanding. Things are not as black and white as 'flight good ground bad' (a comical paraphrasing, not directed at you personally).

I know I'm basically asking for nuance and grey-area in an internet 'discussion', which will never happen, but at least I asked.

I'm not arguing that at all. People argued that flight was bad for the game. If no flight was better then WoD should have seen some positive lft in subs from all of those people coming back. It didn't. Similarly, if flight really hurt the game we should have seen some negative impact on subs from TBC on, but instead we saw millions of people take up the game.

Again, you are using flight as the one point of comparison. It's fun to do that, but I can do that too and make similarly oversimplified arguments to ridiculous conclusions.

You present correlation as causation and your argument stems from there. Even as you say you aren't, you do it again.

Agreed on the quality of WoD. But even here you don't provide any reason for removing flight or delaying it to the end of the content patches. THAT is what I don't see - any coherent reason to do either of those things vs simply giving us flight in 7.0 or at the least letting us complete the achievement in 7.0. How is the game better for this new way of treating flying?

Again, you are trying to polarize the subject and make me your enemy. I am not. Why I am on the hook to repeat for you what Blizzard said, when we both know that just restarts the circle for another 215 pages? I'm not Blizzard. I'm not responsible for them. Do not make me responsible for them.

I stated I'm largely on the fence, because whether or not the design is good depends on how it interacts with a million other decisions that I cannot have access to as someone not even in the alpha, and will not see the results of until hindsight sets in.

Change is not inherently bad or good. What happens is more complex than you want to pretend it is.

This is a relevant portion of the pro-fliers concerns. WoD was a sub-par product in every sense of the word and each one of its components (except raiding). The attitude the devs showed towards flight has "bled", so to speak, to the other aspects of the Xpac.

I think the timing of how these events unfolded suggests more a failure of project management than 'attitude'. They failed to deliver many things they presented. It is no wonder the game is lacking. They did poorly. They overpromised or underplanned (impossible to know from outside), and instead of doing what they probably should have - delayed - they pushed it out the door anyway to meet the holiday release deadline. Flight may amplify that for some people, that's fine, but again, correlation is not causation. I maintain WoD is still awful with flying, because it is a poorly made product. Flying over the poorly made product doesn't change it for me, beyond maybe making it a little sadder.

Seeing the trainwreck that was the handling of Flight in WoD (actually, WoD in general), and the fact that the developers are simply going to repeat everything in Legion, is cause for concern.

The more time passes, the more we see that they were, indeed, happy with how WoD developed. The "lessons" they learn were not on how to make a better product or consumer experience, but how to better string as many people they can, into thinking the things will be different in Legion.

And those, among many MANY others, are reasons why the pro-fliers are in this thread, doing what they can to pressure for change, or, at the very least, teach as many people as possible, so that they can make informed choices.

I mean that's fine and you are welcome to say what you like and hold your opinions, but this is drifting back towards rhetoric. It's not an 'informed choice' if it ignores significant differences within the development process between Legion and WoD.

I'm not saying Legion is all that and a bowl of cheese, I'm saying your starting assumptions are flawed. Be a cautious, informed consumer, encourage it in others, but don't spread misinformation to bolster your position or present opinion as fact - or, at least, don't do so and expect the results you want.

[Connll]

I think the timing of how these events unfolded suggests more a failure of project management than 'attitude'.

Extremely unlikely. If WoD sucking was acknowledged as a failure by the devs, they wouldn´t be repeating almost all of their mistakes.

It IS extremely likely that this *is*, indeed, an attitude problem (among others), because otherwise, they would take their time to reflect on WoD´s many, MANY negative points and rectify most, if not all of them. Instead, we are seeing a bull-headed determination of making everything the same, only putting a thin coat of paint before saying that they "learned" form their mistakes.

I mean that's fine and you are welcome to say what you like and hold your opinions, but this is drifting back towards rhetoric. It's not an 'informed choice' if it ignores significant differences within the development process between Legion and WoD.

Absurd.

This thread is a treasure trove of information about the history, current state, and trends of development concerning WoD and Legion. Anyone who spends some time here, reading those posts, WILL leave better informed than before, and capable of making decisions based in a enhanced "data pool", so to speak.

This, by itself, has value.

[emilylorange]

Extremely unlikely. If WoD sucking was acknowledged as a failure by the devs, they wouldn´t be repeating almost all of their mistakes.

It IS extremely likely that this *is*, indeed, an attitude problem (among others), because otherwise, they would take their time to reflect on WoD´s many, MANY negative points and rectify most, if not all of them. Instead, we are seeing a bull-headed determination of making everything the same, only putting a thin coat of paint before saying that they "learned" form their mistakes.

Absurd.

This thread is a treasure trove of information about the history, current state, and trends of development concerning WoD and Legion. Anyone who spends some time here, reading those posts, WILL leave better informed than before, and capable of making decisions based in a enhanced "data pool", so to speak.

This, by itself, has value.

At the risk of being extremely flippant, I think you mistake volume for quality.

You cite history and ignore it.

A big issue with flight in WoD is the yes maybe no maybe no yes ok posts from the team that contradicted each other - they had no goddamn idea what to do. That is not 'attitude', that is goddamn piss poor planning and communication. That's unacceptable. I'm with you on that. They should have been solid and clear from the outset, instead of yanking people around.

Which they appear to have done, up front, this time. You know what the plan is. You don't know the details, exactly, because they don't appear to exist in full yet, but you do know the general outline. Whether or not you agree is a different argument, but hey, points for actual communication (is that a thing we award points for? I don't feel like it should be, lol).

The issue is not that history has repeated itself - the issue is you don't like the result again.

As I said, you cannot assume everything is the same and base your opinion on that, when you already know it isn't.

Well, I mean. You can, it just doesn't make sense.

[Nihilan]

What some of you are forgetting is that Blizzard does not develop expansions serially. At any given moment, they may be working on the current expansion, the next, and maybe even the one after that. This is why their WoW dev team is so huge, but we get so little content to show for it. Much of Legions core systems were developed in parallel with WOD. They came up with a notion they liked, and thought "this is so cool we want it in the next expansion too". Hence we get stuff like follower missions and Garrison 2.0 in Legion's Class Halls even though there has been an enormous outcry against them during WoD.

People ask themselves "how can Blizzard be so stupid as to repeat all the mistakes from WoD?", when in fact Blizzard has long since been set on their current course. It is less about Blizzard not listening than it is about them already being committed. Maybe they might make the popular changes later in this expansion when they have time and resources to implement them, or maybe we dont see them until the next expansion. Of course by then they will have lost another few million subs. Ultimately Blizzard's own inertia is what keeps them from being able to adapt to its playerbase's wants.

[SirCowdog]

All of those hazards are artificial ways to nerf flying.

Jesus, Clevin....really? Aren't you taking this too far? I guess Icecrown was one giant nerf to flight, then. Maybe we should remove all buildings, or just let flying mounts work inside all buildings, because those are nerfs to flight too.

Be reasonable, here.

- - - Updated - - -

You can call people who disagree with you whatever you want, of course, but you appear to do so to intentionally split into 'us and them', rather than try to make any sort of understanding. Things are not as black and white as 'flight good ground bad' (a comical paraphrasing, not directed at you personally).

I know I'm basically asking for nuance and grey-area in an internet 'discussion', which will never happen, but at least I asked.

We've actually had that quite a few times in this thread and others. But inevitably someone comes along as says something stupid, like: "FLYING RUINS WPVP! TROLOLOLOL!!!!!!"

And the whole thing starts up again. Believe it or not, there have actually been some pretty reasonable discussions where people came to agreements. The problem is that Blizzard themselves turned flight into the centerpoint of the WoD trainwreck. They told us that by removing it they could create a better game. What, then, are we supposed to think when that 'better game' is actually a steaming pile of garbage? And when new people come out of the woodwork to defend Blizzard, often claiming the same tired nonsense reasons about how harmful flight is, over, and over, and over, ad infinitum?

It's not that most pro-flight people aren't willing to be reasonable. From my experience being in the discussion from the WoD beta, if anything it's the people who HATE flight that keep turning this into an angry argument instead of a reasonable discussion. I don't think everyone who doesn't jump on the flying bandwagon is a hater, but there ARE a lot of haters.

[emilylorange]

We've actually had that quite a few times in this thread and others. But inevitably someone comes along as says something stupid, like: "FLYING RUINS WPVP! TROLOLOLOL!!!!!!"

And the whole thing starts up again. Believe it or not, there have actually been some pretty reasonable discussions where people came to agreements. The problem is that Blizzard themselves turned flight into the centerpoint of the WoD trainwreck. They told us that by removing it they could create a better game. What, then, are we supposed to think when that 'better game' is actually a steaming pile of garbage? And when new people come out of the woodwork to defend Blizzard, often claiming the same tired nonsense reasons about how harmful flight is, over, and over, and over, ad infinitum?

It's not that most pro-flight people aren't willing to be reasonable. From my experience being in the discussion from the WoD beta, if anything it's the people who HATE flight that keep turning this into an angry argument instead of a reasonable discussion. I don't think everyone who doesn't jump on the flying bandwagon is a hater, but there ARE a lot of haters.

During the WoD discussion on the official forums I saw several people who would identify as 'pro-flight' Godwin the thread. Not one. Several. At length. Many times. Pretty amazing. Not a 'reasonable discussion'.

But I don't base my opinion of you on that. I don't assume you would do that. I don't assume all your friends do that, just because you happen to agree with someone who made an asinine choice. I don't assume you're all just basically wrong because some dude made a hideously offensive metaphor.

Even within your post telling me that you're being nice, you insist it's 'the other side' that causes the problems. That's not how a heated discussion works in anything but a simplified, biased view that exists to demonize your detractors and make yourself seem more reasonable.

This does not instill me with great confidence. It's okay to have heated discussion, it's okay to disagree, it's dishonest to pretend that those you disagree with have only negative personality attributes. You seem to understand that. It makes life simple but it's a lie.

It is not 'one side' that has made this a nasty topic.

We all made it awful. "You guys" all helped. A lot.

[Deleted]

What some of you are forgetting is that Blizzard does not develop expansions serially. At any given moment, they may be working on the current expansion, the next, and maybe even the one after that. This is why their WoW dev team is so huge, but we get so little content to show for it. Much of Legions core systems were developed in parallel with WOD. They came up with a notion they liked, and thought "this is so cool we want it in the next expansion too". Hence we get stuff like follower missions and Garrison 2.0 in Legion's Class Halls even though there has been an enormous outcry against them during WoD.

People ask themselves "how can Blizzard be so stupid as to repeat all the mistakes from WoD?", when in fact Blizzard has long since been set on their current course. It is less about Blizzard not listening than it is about them already being committed. Maybe they might make the popular changes later in this expansion when they have time and resources to implement them, or maybe we dont see them until the next expansion. Of course by then they will have lost another few million subs. Ultimately Blizzard's own inertia is what keeps them from being able to adapt to its playerbase's wants.

To some extent the size of the team doesn't relate to how many expansions they work on at a time. Either the whole team works on an expansion for two years or half the team each works on each expansion for four years (delivering every other year). They still have that many people and should churn out content at the same rate. In practice there is a work flow with project dependencies etc so it makes sense to have people working on several expansions concurrently.

Yes their developments do take a long time and much is set well before we hear about it. One thing you didn't mention is that they considered launching Legion before WoD. So yes, they are like some super tanker that takes a long time to turn around.

Analysing the sub numbers is much harder. WoW has always lost a lot of subs but the new subs made up for it. Eventually that source of new subs slowed and concurrent subs dropped. WoD is actually the most successful expansion in WoW's history, in terms of how many players (re)joined to play it. Critics tend to focus just on the subsequent losses but it's actually doing better than MoP for long term retention (ie ignoring the cyclical variation) based on the activity figures from wowrealms, which always have been the best indicator of the sub figures. Aside from the disastrous overloading in launch week, I think a lot of people did re-sub to give it a try and then remembered why they'd quit in the first place. WoD has retained players remarkably well considering the lack of longevity of content outside of mythic raiding.

I also get the feeling they are being managed much more like a corporate software development now and much less like slightly more radical team they were in the first place. Hence I don't like people saying Blizz is getting lazy. I think the dev team is far more likely to be a victim of management and accountancy.

[Puunt]

Hi, joining the other shit-posters who have already said it. It's been confirmed since they introduced the pathfinder achi method of getting flying. No news here.

[SirCowdog]

Even within your post telling me that you're being nice, you insist it's 'the other side' that causes the problems. That's not how a heated discussion works in anything but a simplified, biased view that exists to demonize your detractors and make yourself seem more reasonable.

This does not instill me with great confidence. It's okay to have heated discussion, it's okay to disagree, it's dishonest to pretend that those you disagree with have only negative personality attributes. You seem to understand that. It makes life simple but it's a lie.

It is not 'one side' that has made this a nasty topic.

We all made it awful. "You guys" all helped. A lot.

When someone opens with their first post in the thread with: "Flying is bad because (insert already refuted concept X)", or opens with "Stop crying about flying like a little baby", it's pretty damn clear where they're at.

When I say "Anti-fliers" or "people who hate flight", that's exactly what I'm talking about. Not a stereotype, but people who have already established themselves as HATING FLIGHT. I'm not talking about some ambiguous group of people who may or may not care, that I've never met.

Anyway, I try as much as possible to avoid discussing people, and instead stick to discussing ideas. It doesn't always work, of course. I'm human just like everyone else.

[emilylorange]

When someone opens with their first post in the thread with: "Flying is bad because (insert already refuted concept X)", or opens with "Stop crying about flying like a little baby", it's pretty damn clear where they're at.

When I say "Anti-fliers" or "people who hate flight", that's exactly what I'm talking about. Not a stereotype, but people who have already established themselves as HATING FLIGHT. I'm not talking about some ambiguous group of people who may or may not care, that I've never met.

Anyway, I try as much as possible to avoid discussing people, and instead stick to discussing ideas. It doesn't always work, of course. I'm human just like everyone else.

All good. I probably look like I'm riding in on a high horse, demanding everyone behave to my standards, when really you have stated the heart of it - we're all just human. I'm plenty guilty for participating, as well.

However, I witnessed upon entering that holding people to 'stereotypes' is absolutely a thing. The response to me saying 'it's not black and white' was literally someone demanding I justify why I want flight removed. He seriously had no idea how to handle what I said and instead defaulted to the assumption that I'm 'against' him and everything apple pie stands for, and after a brief bout of confusion jumped right back into attack mode.


If you are arguing with ideas, please be sure to argue with ideas actually said and not the ones you're pre-programmed to answer (not just directed at you, of course. Advice for all).

I said this two years ago and it turned sadly prophetic - you will get no where if you can't look beyond "if you don't like flying don't fly" and "if you like flying play a flight simulator"

And we haven't.

This debate hasn't moved an inch.

[Connll]

At the risk of being extremely flippant, I think you mistake volume for quality.

You cite history and ignore it.

Beware the psychological projection. I have never mentioned a word about quantity or quality.

What I have said, is that this thread is a treasure trove of information about this subject. and it *is* like you or not. Whomever take the (admittely long) time to read this thread WILL find pretty much everything that there is to know about WoD flight, and its history.

As I said, you cannot assume everything is the same and base your opinion on that, when you already know it isn't.

Again, psychological projection. You are accusing me of doing what you have just did, right now.

All you are doing is to repeat the same old argument "you shouldn´t talk about this because of reasons", which has been debunked again and again.

[emilylorange]

All you are doing to repeating the same old argument "you shouldn´t talk about this because of reasons", which has been debunked again and again.

You're snipping things I've said out of their context and refuting an argument I never made.

This is why these threads go in pointless circles for three thousand pages. Tactics like this. You're talking to a version of me that doesn't exist, while the real one sits here, increasingly convinced you're interested in being upset more than you're interested in finding a solution.

To that end, the real me says have a nice day.

[SirCowdog]

All good. I probably look like I'm riding in on a high horse, demanding everyone behave to my standards, when really you have stated the heart of it - we're all just human. I'm plenty guilty for participating, as well.

However, I witnessed upon entering that holding people to 'stereotypes' is absolutely a thing. The response to me saying 'it's not black and white' was literally someone demanding I justify why I want flight removed. He seriously had no idea how to handle what I said and instead defaulted to the assumption that I'm 'against' him and everything apple pie stands for, and after a brief bout of confusion jumped right back into attack mode.


If you are arguing with ideas, please be sure to argue with ideas actually said and not the ones you're pre-programmed to answer (not just directed at you, of course. Advice for all).

I said this two years ago and it turned sadly prophetic - you will get no where if you can't look beyond "if you don't like flying don't fly" and "if you like flying play a flight simulator"

And we haven't.

This debate hasn't moved an inch.

No, it's a good message. I wish more people on both sides would really stop to consider what the other side wants. I've changed my stance over the course of the argument. When it first started I was all "Give me flying or give me death!!!!" gung-ho!. These days I'm in favor of a more advanced approach that takes both flight and the ground game forward. It's not a very popular view, because people are too polarized on the subject to consider the possibilities.

To say that the debate hasn't moved an inch isn't really accurate. And I'm not just saying that because I've changed my views, but because other people have as well. But there are not many like that, I'll grant you.

[Connll]

You're snipping things I've said out of their context and refuting an argument I never made.

This is why these threads go in pointless circles for three thousand pages. Tactics like this. You're talking to a version of me that doesn't exist, while the real one sits here, increasingly convinced you're interested in being upset more than you're interested in finding a solution.

To that end, the real me says have a nice day.

Nooope. Lets take a look at just one example.This is but one of the things You said:

As I said, you cannot assume everything is the same and base your opinion on that, when you already know it isn't.

So, in ONE phrase, you assume you know what *I* think and what I am basing my opinion on (which is, frankly, insulting), and has the gall to say I should not "assume" things.

So... Yeah. Psychological projection.

I suggest you take some time and look at my post history; You will notice that I make an effort to cite the "why" I am saying something and the reasons I use to reach whatever conclusion. (But not always, of course. I´m human)

[Bapestar]

Oh no, you need to actually work to get something, the horror.

[SirCowdog]

Oh no, you need to actually work to get something, the horror.

Case in point, emilylorange.