No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Eapoe]

I agree with you and in fact since i first replied to this thread my point was extremely clear, if Blizzard had a problem with fly being a simple transportation they should have invested time and resources to change and rework it into a real gameplay feature.
But the reality of this change has always be for the sake of saving time during the design of the zones, Blizzard mentality is locked into always invest most of the time into instanced content and especially for the super restricted mythic one.

As I've posted before (I'll try and shorten it this time), this conception of "more time spent on instanced content" is just wrong. Let's compare:
Years of development time spent designing a world. Designing gear. Designing mobs and NPCs. Designing new toys. Designing new talents. Reworking new talents. Designing new bases. Quest lines. Lore. Raids. Dungeons.
The new xpac so far will have 1 raid, 5 zones, quests, daily quests, leveling, pvp, dungeons, etc. are you going to say that Blizzard spends more time in a development cycle creating 1 raid and 5-7 dungeons than say 5 new zones (basically a large island) with sprawling quests, leveling functions, treasures, regular mobs, elite mobs, named mobs, bases, world raid bosses, talents, collectibles? People just feel like all this time is spent on instanced content because during the cycle of the patch it is the most talked about part of it. Also keep in mind, while the new raids are being designed, so are new collectibles, mounts, quests, zones, etc.

[SirBeef]

Also, if you want to do a quest with your friends, you could just share it. You know, like in the older days when you were not forced to go to a Garrison of another player to be able to get a quest.

Fuckers.

That just doubles the chance for loot and rewards per day if that were he case. There are enough quests that you can safely move to a different part of the zone if the area you are in is too crowded.

[WowIsDead64]

Well number one it's not about it being easy. That's exactly the wrong mentality to have, you shouldn't desire it to be easy to do this when your goal is create really fun, memorable and fresh content in a game like this.

I think in terms of creating new zones and so forth, one of the first things I would have done which I can understand would probably be very controversial at first but certainly not so much players couldn't adapt, is to not even have flight paths in new zones post TBC, but instead make it mandatory to get epic flying in order to continue leveling in new zones.

If they had done this it would have been a natural gate to content, and natural gates are perfectly fine and totally acceptable as opposed to an artificial gate to content we already unlocked which really isn't fun or desirable.

Sure some people would complain but honestly it was already very possible to get the gold needed to purchase epic flight just from leveling in Outland.

The thing is it made sense to have Flight Paths in older content when you were leveling and so on and exploring the old world zones where everything was already settled and what have you (not to mention the old world at that point physically could not have flying mounts due to the game design), but after that in each and every expansion from WOTLK on the situation was we were going into new territory we had not yet settled and breaking new ground exploring new places and building new strongholds and so on.

That premise in and of itself should have made it a logical step forward in the game to simply not have flight paths and instead have flying mounts available all the time. This would have fit in perfectly fine with WOTLK, and could have easily led to a lot of cool content, in fact to some extent there are still elements in game that show they were going in that direction (as per we were promised on the game box to have such content featuring flying mounts) as there are times in the game where you don't really have a traditional flight master and so on, but a creature such as a dragon or something that flies you to a new area and there are quests such as when we are invading Ice Crown and setting up a fort where we fly on Bronze proto drakes and use them for combat.

That stuff was cool, they should have expanded on that premise and failed to live up to it and could have made it something really cool just starting with a simple change in game design by not having flight paths in new zones but making epic flight mandatory to begin leveling Northrend. That alone would have resulted in a game where flying mounts had no reason to be put behind a new gating system, not to mention that it's very nice to get on your flying mount when exploring newer areas and checking out the views and what have you. Something that could have been actually expanded as a gameplay feature as part of that theme of exploring new areas and breaking new ground. Like maybe you had a quest where you had to get on your mount and scout a new area suitable for a new stronghold or you had to check out an enemy base from a safe distance or something.

Outside of that, they could have also designed the new zones so that while you could use flying mounts at any time and in any new zone post level 70, there were systems in place to make it something that wasn't a really simple way to avoid combat and so on, by putting features in zones such as flying mobs or turrets on buildings and so forth to attack players on their mounts when they got too close or something. And perhaps as a safety feature they could have given players a parachute if they were dismounted in such a way while leveling.

All things that would have not been incredibly difficult to put in the game and would have only improved immersion rather than flying mounts instead being something that really breaks immersion.

I also don't think that not allowing flying mounts in certain places (like capital cities and main faction hubs and so forth) was at all a bad game design.

Also I don't think that designing zones with things that add a sort of platformer aspect to the game is bad at all. If anything that is a clever and fun way to utilize already existing in-game mechanics, and makes for quite fun game design when done properly.

Outside of that, you simply can't shut out all complaints in a video game, people are always going to complain about something, and content becoming stale and old is just par for the course when we're talking about a game as old as this. The game *is* stale and old, I enjoy it enough but if I wasn't already so heavily invested in this game and had a lot of friends who played, I would have no interest in playing it. At least some major shifts in this regard would have made the game feel somewhat fresh if they had done it before, at this point it would really be too little too late although certainly a welcome change as opposed to gated flying all over again.

You should understand, that Blizzard EXPERIMENTED with flying combat and quests in the past - between WotLK and Cata. If such experiments aren't successful, they usually add them as fun quests. The result of this experiments - this quest. As you can see, they failed. But it doesn't mean, that content, designed for flying, isn't possible. For example I have several ideas about flying content. "Sky diving" race quest for example, where you have to reach finish as fast, as possible, while balancing between dive speed and amount of control, required to avoid obstacles. But of course it needs realistic flying mechanics, like in Firefall for example. I guess, Blizzard are too lazy to implement something more, than this.

- - - Updated - - -

That just doubles the chance for loot and rewards per day if that were he case. There are enough quests that you can safely move to a different part of the zone if the area you are in is too crowded.

Of course it won't work with current World Quests, that are designed around being the same for all players. But Blizzard can implement new system, that will be designed around having different personal quests. For example you can do as many quests per day, as you like, but you will get only one reward per X hours. Remember? Raid lockouts work the same way now.

[SirCowdog]

Also I am not familiar with this CowDog you speak of

I've been a pretty heavy advocate of full integration of flying into the content design since early WoD beta. I was also heavily involved in this thread for around 300 pages. I've recently taken a break after Blizzard announced flying halfway through Legion because I didn't think there was much more to say foe the time being.

[Shakou]

You gave a perfectly sufficient explanation of removing flight paths in favor of flight. You then went on to say, paraphrasing of course, "take things we don't like from the ground (boundaries and mobs being tedious) and put them in the air in the form of cannons and mobs that patrol around."
First, how does you being knocked off the mount matter at all if you parachute safely to the ground? You mount back up and fly off. Much danger, such immersion.
Second, how does removing flight paths in favor of free range flight make content for the game for flying? It's just removing one afk factor for another, only instead of tabbing out you just autorun in the air and minimize while doing something else.
Third, how did Blizzard take away your mounts? You still have them, you could still fly around the world (not current until implemented for WoD of course), and you could still use them on the ground. You are trying to make something seem much more dramatic than it is.
Fourth, you are not adding content based around flight, like you propose Blizzard does. You are stating to design a game where it's the basic travel, and while that could have happened, it was not and they do not want it that way. Per their post, it detracts from the world, and makes it feel smaller and less dangerous.
Fifth, you detract from the strength of your points in your post by saying to design content FOR flight, and then try to say that making flight the only travel method, other than foot, does that. It does not. Your post demonstrates that you say you want something, yet have no idea how to actually do that and just want flight for flight. You say design content for flight, yet make a post about not making content for flight, but rather leaving the game as is and making flight available in lieu of flight paths.

Wow, aren't you just an adorable bucket full of hostility and aggression.

First off, I would like to thank you for not actually reading my post at all, miscontruing things I actually posted, and exhibiting no actual curiosity about my thoughts on this subject at all or showing any interest in actually having a discussion about this.

That out of the way I'll respond to some of your post here as effectively as I can if I can bear to actually read through it all.

Uh actually I did not say anything at all about removing mobs from the ground at all, or anything at all that could be even slightly construed into "mobs being tedious" unless you are intentionally misinterpreting my post because you're a sad and angry person with nothing better to do than be hostile for no rational reason whatsoever. Furthermore, my suggestion about having mobs that could attack you and dismount you (but perhaps some sort of safety feature to save you from instantly dying ) from your flying mount is all about immersion so how you could say this is just not that when like ya it totally is and any idea I have about this is just bad and whatever else you had to say is beyond me but whatever moving on.

What I did begin to talk about was about Flight Paths being a pointless system in the game in a world with flying mounts, and how it would actually add immersion to the game if we had to use our flying mounts to explore new territories, which for 4 expansions strong now have all been completely new areas that players and races in the game world had not stepped foot on in some cases for thousands of years, if not never at all in the case of places such as Deepholm.

For obvious reasons that I should not have to explain like this is some complicated thing to understand, having flying mounts shouldn't be something that makes you capable of complete avoiding combat and so on in the game world. The current system allows players to just use their flying mounts to get around anywhere out of any real danger at all and taht is exactly the problem with them and why they're so immersion breaking.

But hey whatever, let's assume you have any good point to make here at all and not even consider that Blizzard ACTUALLY went along with alot of these same ideas I have spoken of here in Cataclysm with the design Deepholm, where there simply are no flight paths and they're not necessary, and there are also flying mobs that will attack you if you get too close. The zone is ACTUALLY designed in a similar way as I described they could have done with much of the new game areas starting in WOTLK. Maybe you didn't like Deepholm, but it's easily one of my favorite zones in the game, it's just a very unique place that was very cool to quest in and actively encouraged exploration because it didn't even have flight paths.

As to your second point, making the game designed so that you use your flying mounts to get around to new areas and not having flight paths works in the same way that using flying mounts and not having flight paths as eating a double bacon cheeseburger is not eating a chopped salad. And uh, last I checked you certainly can tab out in the game as it currently is on your flying mount with auto run turned on, but most of the time you're going to end up somewhere you do not want to be, stuck against the side of a mountain or something, or even dead due to flying out too far into the ocean and getting fatigue. So whatever, yet another not-so-actually-good-at-all point you made.

Your third point is pure nonsense, when a new expansion comes out obviously you are spending the majority of your game time playing the new expansion and not going out into old zones so you can enjoy the nostalgia of using your flying mounts which you are no longer able to use to fly around in current content. Cute how you're accusing me of being overly dramatic when you are being absolutely venomous and hostile and hardly making a single coherant point that doesn't come across as unreasonable poorly thought out goobly gook from an overly emotional man-child.

Fourth, I did start to get into some ideas for content based around flying, but gave you an opportunity to expand the conversation instead of listing out every last little thing I could think of in bullet points only to be attacked by what appears to be some ridiculously hostile 15 year old on the internet. Who seems clearly more intent on trashing other people here than having a normal human conversation.

Fifth what the actual fuck are you talking about? How in the fucking world does a game that requires you to often travel vast distances in the game world being designed to require you to do so on your flying mount not constitute a game designed around you using your flying mount to travel said vast distances? And who in the world said anything about it being the only travel method, as if you literally cannot walk from one camp of mobs to the next without getting on your mount? What are you on pal?

Excuse me but I'm done here. If you're capable of handling a normal conversation and not being a complete jackass just here to act like your opinion is somehow better than mine due to the sheer fact that you have one, try again otherwise take a hike buddy.

[Spiral Mage]

Ultimately this problem boils down to the simple fact that they put a system infront of all of you for 9 years, and constantly reinforced it with more and more rewards that all of us have invested a great deal of time into, and after doing that, they suddenly removed it while offering nothing worth the loss of years of work on our parts, as compensation in return. And it wasn't enough that they did that in WOD, they promised it would be reinstated very early on, and then lied .. lied some more .. stalled, stalled some more .. before finally honoring their word, a near year after giving it .. and also abandoned the expac in the same announcement.

And even after all of those obvious mistakes and the dishonesty, they seriously believe this is a good model to pursue a second time.

You do not put a reward system into a game for as long as they have, watch players work extremely hard to earn rewards based on it, and then come along and slap them in the faces by removing it. Especially when you have absolutely nothing to offer as compensation for the decision. There is no part of that which could be deemed as smart.

Though, while I was as frustrated as anyone else about all the mounts I worked hard to get, being made essentially useless to me .. I also don't entirely understand why it even matters. In the end, we all AFK in a location, and sit in queue all end-game long. We seldom fly anywhere. Granted, the rare times we do, it's great to be able to pull out an incredible looking mount and let it stretch it's wings, and take us to the heavens for a brief time on our way to whatever objective we have in mind that day.

[wing5wong]

Your third point is pure nonsense, when a new expansion comes out obviously you are spending the majority of your game time playing the new expansion and not going out into old zones so you can enjoy the nostalgia of using your flying mounts which you are no longer able to use to fly around in current content. Cute how you're accusing me of being overly dramatic when you are being absolutely venomous and hostile and hardly making a single coherant point that doesn't come across as unreasonable poorly thought out goobly gook from an overly emotional man-child.

You can use the mounts still.
Its funny too, because your post is the one that comes across as venomous and hostile, not theirs.

Fourth, I did start to get into some ideas for content based around flying, but gave you an opportunity to expand the conversation instead of listing out every last little thing I could think of in bullet points only to be attacked by what appears to be some ridiculously hostile 15 year old on the internet. Who seems clearly more intent on trashing other people here than having a normal human conversation.

You really didnt mention anything content wise outside of having cannons to shoot things out of the sky, but giving them parachutes in case they did, or did i miss it as well?

THere ARE plenty of opportunities to expand the travel system. adding cannons to buildings isnt one of them.
Its not somethnig that will fit in legion, either.

Fifth what the actual fuck are you talking about? How in the fucking world does a game that requires you to often travel vast distances in the game world being designed to require you to do so on your flying mount not constitute a game designed around you using your flying mount to travel said vast distances? And who in the world said anything about it being the only travel method, as if you literally cannot walk from one camp of mobs to the next without getting on your mount? What are you on pal?

What? lol

its quite funny just how defensive people get here when an argument is given to them

[Eats Compost]

You and Blizzard seem to not understand, that there are different ways to "actually play the game" and enjoy content and that this ways can change with time. I highly recommend you to read "Designing Virtual Worlds" book - "bible of MMO developers". Big improvement of MMOs in comparison to earlier game genres - is that they cater to widest auditory of players, not some narrow niche.

When you look at the current online gaming environment, that statement doesn't really ring true anymore. MOBAs and competitive shooters are capturing absolutely gargantuan audiences, and they're achieving this with a focus on a very specific and refined game structure. The paradigm has shifted; MMOs are the ones capturing a restricted audience, not the reverse. The novelty of "an RPG, except with other people" does not carry the same weight and unchallenged appeal that it once did.

A lot of Blizzard's recent efforts with WoW have involved them playing catchup in this area. They've been trying to create a more refined experience that can feasibly compete with these other experiences, which is why they've been adapting raid flexibility and adding focus onto challenges with smaller group scale. When we're talking about the outdoor experience, flying has always been a huge pain in their ass for that kind of design goal, because flying has an interaction with content that directly contradicts the refinement of the engaging experience that they're going for.

[Malackai]

You should understand, that Blizzard EXPERIMENTED with flying combat and quests in the past - between WotLK and Cata. If such experiments aren't successful, they usually add them as fun quests. The result of this experiments - this quest. As you can see, they failed. But it doesn't mean, that content, designed for flying, isn't possible. For example I have several ideas about flying content. "Sky diving" race quest for example, where you have to reach finish as fast, as possible, while balancing between dive speed and amount of control, required to avoid obstacles. But of course it needs realistic flying mechanics, like in Firefall for example. I guess, Blizzard are too lazy to implement something more, than this.

- - - Updated - - -


Of course it won't work with current World Quests, that are designed around being the same for all players. But Blizzard can implement new system, that will be designed around having different personal quests. For example you can do as many quests per day, as you like, but you will get only one reward per X hours. Remember? Raid lockouts work the same way now.

the idea you have reminds me of FF leve system.
Simple little quests (xp rewards, some items/mats etc) different objectives gathering/fighing/combat or transport quest where you end up protecting a npc or guiding it to a specific location) these take allowance to start and allowances generate x per x hours.
These are personal quest so if your not in a group people cant mess with your objectives however if you have a friend you can inv him and if he has the quest he can sync up when you start it or if he doesn't but just want to help out he only getx xp form the mobs you kill during the quest.
These quests atm are purely for leveling alt classes/gatherers and crafters atm. but there might be an form where they can be made useful even for max leveled characters.

Now that more info is being released about these world quest they are starting to sound more like the Fates I am used to in FF only x amount can be up at a time in a zone. but instead of having it being based on contribution its in quest form.

Dont know the more I am reading the more it seems I have to settle with just leveling and doing the storyline and basically giving up on the rest .

[Incarnia]

I am also in beta and the only place that annoys me is Highmountain. Legion has a retarded amount of content when you compare it to WoD. WoD didn't suck because of no flying

Read what I typed again. I didn't say that WoD sucked because of no flying.

[Shakou]

You can use the mounts still.
Its funny too, because your post is the one that comes across as venomous and hostile, not theirs.


You really didnt mention anything content wise outside of having cannons to shoot things out of the sky, but giving them parachutes in case they did, or did i miss it as well?

THere ARE plenty of opportunities to expand the travel system. adding cannons to buildings isnt one of them.
Its not somethnig that will fit in legion, either.


What? lol

its quite funny just how defensive people get here when an argument is given to them

Oh look someone else who has no imagination, and can't give me a response to anything I actually posted chiming in with their useless two cents. What's funny is how some of you people are shit posters and act ridiculously smug and hostile toward ideas you do not agree with when your posts are utterly banal, inane and full of passive aggressive nonsense.

Are you here to have an actual discussion about ideas and points of view here or just to cause disruption and arbitrarily claim someone's posts aren't good because they're new here and you're someone special?

Cuz like bruh. Bored already.

Not trying to be a dick but, you people obviously just don't fucking like ideas that aren't yours and eat up Blizzard PR like it's candy. I mean good lord.

All due respect buddy, you sound to me like just some gamer with an opinion that isn't even very well expressed and thought out and not someone whose very knowledgeable about game design or actually making games and figuring out how to make those systems work and how they add flavor and nuance and give people a fun and immersive experience and so on.

In other words, no actual knowledge of the topic? If I'm wrong I'd love to hear it but so far all I got was a half-assed overtly smug response from you and other dude in here who just happens to be on the offensive against any person in this thread who has posted about anything that involves ways they could better utilize flying amounts in this game which you know already exists. You're literally doing nothing but criticizing other people's ideas and offering none of your own.

I mean, it's not like we're asking for some kind of completely game breaking change here, or that there's any way to even do something in this game that's going to win any of you over because it's an old and tired game on it's last legs really.

Get some perspective please, and maybe actually have the decency to read and respond in some constructive way to people if you're going to respond at all, because when you shit post and it's very clearly and blatantly shit posting, don't expect a pleasant response. People aren't dumb and I'm not worried about getting what at best will likely be a minor infraction on my account for posting like this in response to you. So don't insult my intelligence and post things like "well you didn't actually post anything about what you were actually posting about and your idea is terrible" and get bent out of shape when I'm not a really nice guy to you in return and do not take you seriously.

When you look at the current online gaming environment, that statement doesn't really ring true anymore. MOBAs and competitive shooters are capturing absolutely gargantuan audiences, and they're achieving this with a focus on a very specific and refined game structure. The paradigm has shifted; MMOs are the ones capturing a restricted audience, not the reverse. The novelty of "an RPG, except with other people" does not carry the same weight and unchallenged appeal that it once did.

I will agree with you that MMO's are currently experiencing a somewhat lingering phase, but what WowIsDead was actually talking about was how MMO's more than any other genre of video game, appeal to the widest range of demographics. There's something for everyone in an mmo like WOW which attracts everyone from hardcore pvpers, people in it for the lore and art design who get really into cosplaying and so on, hardcore raiders, and every type of player in between. Ranging from such dramatically different demographics as business professionals, soccer moms, military personal, and high schoolers, college kids and even the ounger children of people who got into MMOs early on in their rise to the scene.

Furthermore companies like RIOT completely exaggerate the claims of how many people actually play their games on any basis, let alone regularly. For example, when they were claiming to be the #1 played game in the world or something along those lines a year ago there was a report regarding the character Lee Sin when he was the top selected play in the game, which listed the percentage of games he was played a month, as well as the actual number of games (something like 2 million a month) and he was selected in about 1 out 3 matches, which means that about 6 million matches total are played on average every month in LOL.

This is In direct contrast to this the number 1 champion in DOTA 2 at the time was used in 10 million matches in the same month for roughly 3/10 games. Literally some of the top 5champions in League of Legends at the time were played in less games per month than the top ten in DOTA 2.

I don't even know how HOTS figures into all this but to say the least the MOBA scene is not actually as big as it is claimed to be and is majorly hyped well beyond actual numbers that indicate how many people are really playing their games on a regular consistant bases. Companies like RIOT also fail to report at all on how many accounts are actually just SMURFS and so on or a second account someone made because they were banned, their reports on the size of their player base literally does not differentiate between active players, SMURFS or inactive accounts.

Not to mention, these games appeal to a much smaller range of demographics. LOL (or any MOBA) isn't the game of choice for married couples, young adults, teenagers and even families, and they're also free to play. So it is very easy to maintain multiple accounts than it is in a game like WOW.

MOBA's might be popular right now, but I think it could be easily argued that their popularity already peaked and was highly exaggerated to begin with. Even when they were claiming to be the most popular game in the world, in reality there were less people playing it than World of Warcraft at the time, a game which in case you did not notice is nearly 12 years old.

Also if you think MOBA's are just a massive audience that dwarfs MMO's today you're only talking about WESTERN MMO's because that is not the case at all if you include China's MMO Market, which as of 2011 was only a mere 100 million active players. No joke.

You're comparing apples to oranges to bananas here with your inclusion of shooters, and clearly on an actually world wide scale, no MOBA's and Shooters are not more popular than MMO's.

This is purely popular sentiment expressed in some western gaming journalism and repeated until it's become gospel by gamers who do not really know better.

A lot of Blizzard's recent efforts with WoW have involved them playing catchup in this area. They've been trying to create a more refined experience that can feasibly compete with these other experiences, which is why they've been adapting raid flexibility and adding focus onto challenges with smaller group scale. When we're talking about the outdoor experience, flying has always been a huge pain in their ass for that kind of design goal, because flying has an interaction with content that directly contradicts the refinement of the engaging experience that they're going for.

Some of this rings true, but this sounds to me like more or less simply touting the same claims made by Blizzard about these "design issues", when of course in reality they're just feeding a line and haven't really worked at doing more to make Flying Mounts more immersive and fit in better with the rest of the outdoor experience.

There are plenty of things they could do to change this that are very practical, including adding obstacles to zones such as flying mobs that attack you or turrets and archers and such on buildings that target players on flying mounts. They could also limit the distance players are able to fly above the game world in order to avoid interacting with those and other elements. They could have completely done away with flight paths outside of Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outlands, and if you weren't aware or forgot, Flight Paths were already useless for any purpose other than wanting to AFK to get somewhere from TBC up until the release of WOD.

In CATA you also were not stuck on your ground mount when leveling up and exploring new zones. Hell they even introduced the first zone without Flight Paths at all in Deepholm which I feel was totally a shining example of how to design new game zones with using flying mounts in mind.

I also felt that similar steps to introduce content that feature flying in MOP were a step in the right direction but ultimately fell short because after you arive in Pandaria and engage in a dog fight above Jade Forrest, you were stuck on your ground mount until you got to maximum level. Despite the fact the zones were pretty clearly designed with flying mounts in mind.

I think the answer to this isn't some easy fix, but is a matter of taking much more time to flesh out and develop quality outdoor content and make much more lively (and larger) zones, including areas that aren't just there for the awesome view that are only reachable on your flying mount and that you have to put some effort in to find (perhaps because there is fog and such), enemy locations that are defended with flying mobs and turrets, eliminating Flight Paths and introducing content such as racing events and such, and even mounted combat similar to what they did with Nagrand in WOD. I seem to recall a few very cool quests in WOTLK that involved flying, such as the quest in Stormpeaks where you used a harpoon to jump from proto drake to proto drake and kill enemies attacking you, why on earth didn't they expand on that sorta thing?

Maybe they could even do something cool like introduce weather to zones that actually gives you a benefit to using a flying mount, such as a gusting breeze your mount has a chance to catch which temporarily gives a speed bost, or bad weather that impeeds your ability to fly such as thunder storm systems, tornados, blizzards in higher elevation mountain regions, or thick fog as I mentioned above.

It's not that I think Blizzard is just too lazy and unimaginative to implement these kind of things and do them right, or that doing things of this nature would even require building new tech or something or updating the game engine (although at some point in the near future it's really not gonna hurt) it's just that I think Blizzard is much more concerned with maintaining the status quo in their game and not shaking things up too much, and in doing so they typically end up going way too far and just do something stupid that no one asked for at all like Garrisons and making Arms warriors a class you could practically play on a Super NES controllerin WOD.

Of course they'll probably never do anything like what I'm suggesting but I think it's a good start to conversation I just don't see happening with fans very much at all who don't seem to really be that enthusiastic about this game in general, and for me and at least some other people a welcome change to artificially gating content and systems we already unlocked.

Hell maybe some of these new zones implemented in some future expansion could even have giant aerial battles taking place at random times where it is unsafe for players to use flying mounts and you have to use your ground mount to get to a safe distance or fight you're way out.

I'm sure I don't have every single angle figured out but good lawd it's so silly to me that some people cannot seem to see through Blizzard's PR regarding Flying Mounts and that Blizzard's current design philosophy has everything to do with trying to force players to stay subscribed for longer periods of time when they sort of have a ship with a good sized leak that really needs some fixing up to rise above.

If I were in charge I would be thinking of creating drastic, and controversial changes like this that have the potential to be very cool, and really focusing most of my effort on that, because unless they really want this game to slowly die out they need to step it up. I say, throw in everything including the kitchen sink.

[Deleted]

When you look at the current online gaming environment, that statement doesn't really ring true anymore. MOBAs and competitive shooters are capturing absolutely gargantuan audiences, and they're achieving this with a focus on a very specific and refined game structure. The paradigm has shifted; MMOs are the ones capturing a restricted audience, not the reverse. The novelty of "an RPG, except with other people" does not carry the same weight and unchallenged appeal that it once did.

A lot of Blizzard's recent efforts with WoW have involved them playing catchup in this area. They've been trying to create a more refined experience that can feasibly compete with these other experiences, which is why they've been adapting raid flexibility and adding focus onto challenges with smaller group scale. When we're talking about the outdoor experience, flying has always been a huge pain in their ass for that kind of design goal, because flying has an interaction with content that directly contradicts the refinement of the engaging experience that they're going for.

Then it is even more dumb to remove flying from the open world. We already have no-flying in all dungeons, raids and PvP instanced areas. Scenarios have all been without flying as far as I remember. Brawler's Guild and pet battles are without flying. There is exactly one part of content where you can fly, the open world AFTER reaching level cap, and it's even not fully utilised (no flying update for BC starting areas without flying at the revamp of the Classic areas in Cata, several isles without flying from various expansions, too).

Pro-flyers only have a part of the open world as content available to them, and now it's even get cut. This is not fair at all.

[Deleted]

To be honest. If Blizzard has their stuff together and enables flying after a couple of weeks/months into this expansion instead of "3 weeks before the next addon" (exaggerated for effect), then I don't really mind the no-fly thing.

Especially with this new "treasure" thing that they introduced in WOD, flying is actually counterproductive and just invites to skip content.

I think the only reason for flying is the resource gathering (herbs, ores) anyway after you're max level. Everything else you can easily use the standard taxi service.

[WowIsDead64]

When you look at the current online gaming environment, that statement doesn't really ring true anymore. MOBAs and competitive shooters are capturing absolutely gargantuan audiences, and they're achieving this with a focus on a very specific and refined game structure. The paradigm has shifted; MMOs are the ones capturing a restricted audience, not the reverse. The novelty of "an RPG, except with other people" does not carry the same weight and unchallenged appeal that it once did.

A lot of Blizzard's recent efforts with WoW have involved them playing catchup in this area. They've been trying to create a more refined experience that can feasibly compete with these other experiences, which is why they've been adapting raid flexibility and adding focus onto challenges with smaller group scale. When we're talking about the outdoor experience, flying has always been a huge pain in their ass for that kind of design goal, because flying has an interaction with content that directly contradicts the refinement of the engaging experience that they're going for.

MOBAs are more popular, cuz they're more accessible and cuz most of them are F2P. As I've already said, I play MWO from time to time too and have invested about $500-700 into it (I have dozen of heroes, permanent camo specs on all 'Mechs, about hundred 'Mechbays and at some point I even bought some ordinal 'Mechs to have early access to them and cuz I needed CBs for other purposes), cuz it's easier to play sessional game, where one match takes 5-10 minutes, when you have too few time or don't have proper mood to play Wow (and no flying - is one of the reasons), but I don't like this game, as I like Wow, cuz it lacks many things, I need, including long term progression. Collecting 'Mechs for the sake of collecting 'Mechs - isn't really fun thing. I enjoyed it, when I started to play it, but I burned out of it after playing about 3k matches and now I play it lesser and lesser. So Wow - is the only game, you still may want to play even after 12 years of playing it. So, yeah, MOBAs - are games, that are perfect for lazy developers. They are accessible and milk money for nothing ($20 per one single model) and barely have any content, that developers should invest resources into (one map once in a half a year) -> they have large player and, therefore, cash flows. But they're too shallow to keep players playing for a long time. For example MWO will stop to be playable for majority of players, once they'll reach Tier 3, so all devs need - to milk enough cash from you till this moment. They are like soap bubbles, that seem to be large, but are empty inside and will blow some day.

[Maudib]

To be honest. If Blizzard has their stuff together and enables flying after a couple of weeks/months into this expansion instead of "3 weeks before the next addon" (exaggerated for effect), then I don't really mind the no-fly thing.

Especially with this new "treasure" thing that they introduced in WOD, flying is actually counterproductive and just invites to skip content.

I think the only reason for flying is the resource gathering (herbs, ores) anyway after you're max level. Everything else you can easily use the standard taxi service.

In Legion, they really haven't done much if any "jumping puzzled" for treasures.. they are just there to click on. After max level they are totally and utterly worthless... and hardly worth clicking on while leveling. They no longer give EXP like they did on WoD I understand.

Max level and "at some later content patch" are two different things.

[Eats Compost]

I will agree with you that MMO's are currently experiencing a somewhat lingering phase, but what WowIsDead was actually talking about was how MMO's more than any other genre of video game, appeal to the widest range of demographics. There's something for everyone in an mmo like WOW which attracts everyone from hardcore pvpers, people in it for the lore and art design who get really into cosplaying and so on, hardcore raiders, and every type of player in between. Ranging from such dramatically different demographics as business professionals, soccer moms, military personal, and high schoolers, college kids and even the ounger children of people who got into MMOs early on in their rise to the scene.

Furthermore companies like RIOT completely exaggerate the claims of how many people actually play their games on any basis, let alone regularly. For example, when they were claiming to be the #1 played game in the world or something along those lines a year ago there was a report regarding the character Lee Sin when he was the top selected play in the game, which listed the percentage of games he was played a month, as well as the actual number of games (something like 2 million a month) and he was selected in about 1 out 3 matches, which means that about 6 million matches total are played on average every month in LOL.

This is In direct contrast to this the number 1 champion in DOTA 2 at the time was used in 10 million matches in the same month for roughly 3/10 games. Literally some of the top 5champions in League of Legends at the time were played in less games per month than the top ten in DOTA 2.

I don't even know how HOTS figures into all this but to say the least the MOBA scene is not actually as big as it is claimed to be and is majorly hyped well beyond actual numbers that indicate how many people are really playing their games on a regular consistant bases. Companies like RIOT also fail to report at all on how many accounts are actually just SMURFS and so on or a second account someone made because they were banned, their reports on the size of their player base literally does not differentiate between active players, SMURFS or inactive accounts.

Not to mention, these games appeal to a much smaller range of demographics. LOL (or any MOBA) isn't the game of choice for married couples, young adults, teenagers and even families, and they're also free to play. So it is very easy to maintain multiple accounts than it is in a game like WOW.

MOBA's might be popular right now, but I think it could be easily argued that their popularity already peaked and was highly exaggerated to begin with. Even when they were claiming to be the most popular game in the world, in reality there were less people playing it than World of Warcraft at the time, a game which in case you did not notice is nearly 12 years old.

Also if you think MOBA's are just a massive audience that dwarfs MMO's today you're only talking about WESTERN MMO's because that is not the case at all if you include China's MMO Market, which as of 2011 was only a mere 100 million active players. No joke.

You're comparing apples to oranges to bananas here with your inclusion of shooters, and clearly on an actually world wide scale, no MOBA's and Shooters are not more popular than MMO's.

This is purely popular sentiment expressed in some western gaming journalism and repeated until it's become gospel by gamers who do not really know better.

I think what we mean by "demographic" is very important here. There are a lot of angles to take; we might be looking at age/sex/ethnic demographics, we might be looking at casual/hardcore demographics, or we might be looking at demographics defined by points of interest typically divided across genres. Quite frankly, the "hardcore/casual" divide has traditionally been one of the most difficult for a single product to bridge. The unification of those audiences used to be a uniquely strong point in MMOs, but what's so noteworthy about the MOBAs and some recent shooters is how well they managed to do it as well, and the manner in which they've done it is arguably more effective. I think you might also be overstating the demographic divides between people interested in story, raiding, quests, etc - most people playing the game are generally playing it for similar suites of reasons. As much as the genre used to be romanticized as a melting pots for all kinds of activities and draws, it's not really what they've been selling themselves on for a while.

In regards to popularity, it's still a pretty solid fact that the MOBA space experienced rapid expansion in a period where WoW (and MMOs generally) found themselves in decline. That's the key point to take away. Those two trends are not isolated from one another, either. There are a few big voids that MMOs previously filled, which are now more commonly filled by other genres. Also, I wasn't even thinking specifically about LoL. I was thinking more about the MOBA space in general. Also, regarding stuff like the Chinese MMO market; I'm not really too concerned about what's going on there, because there are a whole bunch of factors influencing what people play and what's going on there (not the least of which is payment models). Neither of us would be able to point to that as evidence as anything, at least regarding our own sensibilities and regarding the western game market.

Long story short; in the past few years, we've seen some pretty serious decline in the MMO market and some pretty serious growth in other online gaming areas, with MOBAs being a prominent example. And I don't think that it's a secret to anybody that a large group of consumers ended up moving from MMOs to those other options specifically because they ended up being better at offering what those players were looking for.

Some of this rings true, but this sounds to me like more or less simply touting the same claims made by Blizzard about these "design issues", when of course in reality they're just feeding a line and haven't really worked at doing more to make Flying Mounts more immersive and fit in better with the rest of the outdoor experience.

There are plenty of things they could do to change this that are very practical, including adding obstacles to zones such as flying mobs that attack you or turrets and archers and such on buildings that target players on flying mounts. They could also limit the distance players are able to fly above the game world in order to avoid interacting with those and other elements. They could have completely done away with flight paths outside of Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outlands, and if you weren't aware or forgot, Flight Paths were already useless for any purpose other than wanting to AFK to get somewhere from TBC up until the release of WOD.

In CATA you also were not stuck on your ground mount when leveling up and exploring new zones. Hell they even introduced the first zone without Flight Paths at all in Deepholm which I feel was totally a shining example of how to design new game zones with using flying mounts in mind.

I also felt that similar steps to introduce content that feature flying in MOP were a step in the right direction but ultimately fell short because after you arive in Pandaria and engage in a dog fight above Jade Forrest, you were stuck on your ground mount until you got to maximum level. Despite the fact the zones were pretty clearly designed with flying mounts in mind.

I think the answer to this isn't some easy fix, but is a matter of taking much more time to flesh out and develop quality outdoor content and make much more lively (and larger) zones, including areas that aren't just there for the awesome view that are only reachable on your flying mount and that you have to put some effort in to find (perhaps because there is fog and such), enemy locations that are defended with flying mobs and turrets, eliminating Flight Paths and introducing content such as racing events and such, and even mounted combat similar to what they did with Nagrand in WOD. I seem to recall a few very cool quests in WOTLK that involved flying, such as the quest in Stormpeaks where you used a harpoon to jump from proto drake to proto drake and kill enemies attacking you, why on earth didn't they expand on that sorta thing?

Maybe they could even do something cool like introduce weather to zones that actually gives you a benefit to using a flying mount, such as a gusting breeze your mount has a chance to catch which temporarily gives a speed bost, or bad weather that impeeds your ability to fly such as thunder storm systems, tornados, blizzards in higher elevation mountain regions, or thick fog as I mentioned above.

It's not that I think Blizzard is just too lazy and unimaginative to implement these kind of things and do them right, or that doing things of this nature would even require building new tech or something or updating the game engine (although at some point in the near future it's really not gonna hurt) it's just that I think Blizzard is much more concerned with maintaining the status quo in their game and not shaking things up too much, and in doing so they typically end up going way too far and just do something stupid that no one asked for at all like Garrisons and making Arms warriors a class you could practically play on a Super NES controllerin WOD.

Of course they'll probably never do anything like what I'm suggesting but I think it's a good start to conversation I just don't see happening with fans very much at all who don't seem to really be that enthusiastic about this game in general, and for me and at least some other people a welcome change to artificially gating content and systems we already unlocked.

Hell maybe some of these new zones implemented in some future expansion could even have giant aerial battles taking place at random times where it is unsafe for players to use flying mounts and you have to use your ground mount to get to a safe distance or fight you're way out.

I'm sure I don't have every single angle figured out but good lawd it's so silly to me that some people cannot seem to see through Blizzard's PR regarding Flying Mounts and that Blizzard's current design philosophy has everything to do with trying to force players to stay subscribed for longer periods of time when they sort of have a ship with a good sized leak that really needs some fixing up to rise above.

If I were in charge I would be thinking of creating drastic, and controversial changes like this that have the potential to be very cool, and really focusing most of my effort on that, because unless they really want this game to slowly die out they need to step it up. I say, throw in everything including the kitchen sink.

Here's the thing about flying; at present, it is not an intricate system into which many hours were sunk, outside of cosmetic features like mount models. From a technical standpoint, it's swimming in the air with a speed boost. If Blizzard has a suite of content that flying would significantly interfere with in some way, it is infinitely more efficient to simply step away from flying instead of going to extreme length - and possibly making extensive alterations to that content - just to retrofit flying and include it somehow. It's a convenience, but it's the furthest thing from an essential or detailed system that the game has.

Yes, we can think about intricate ways to make flying relevant, unobtrusive, and central to the overall experience. It's easy to create a request for "quality outdoor content". However, when you look at it from a development perspective, solving the problem at hand with extensive changes to flying isn't the standout solution. Not only does it entail some pretty serious special-cased worked, it still normally involves some kind of tradeoff that is likely to either be negligible enough to be ignored or sucked up (see: BC anti-flight mechanics) or, alternatively, is likely to frustrate a large part of the audience that wanted flying for the convenience that it offered.

The other thing is that I have absolutely no doubt that Blizzard has already wrestled with this extensively. I can bet you that they've spent many man-hours on discussion, internal testing and generally spitballing to try and take the concept of flying and morph it into something that interacts with the rest of the game in a positive way, whilst retaining the things that people currently want and use flying for. It's just not a conceptually simple thing to do. In the worst cases, it provides an extra layer of consideration for every single outdoor activity (assuming that they're special-casing it and not just allowing/preventing it as a blanket rule) which could only be considered a major hindrance if the core systems that came out of it were anything short of amazing.

For what it's worth; if we're looking at making flying cool, doing it for individual quests or events would be pretty straightforward, but trying to make those kinds of modifications to the core system is another question entirely. Consider red/bronze/green drakes in the Oculus dungeon; those were a cool implementation of flying (in my opinion) but applying it to the whole outdoor world would be rife with problems. A zone or subzone could be managed, but the scale of its implementation is always going to be a limiting factor on what works (and, importantly, what is fun and what players will actually want to do).

- - - Updated - - -

Then it is even more dumb to remove flying from the open world. We already have no-flying in all dungeons, raids and PvP instanced areas. Scenarios have all been without flying as far as I remember. Brawler's Guild and pet battles are without flying. There is exactly one part of content where you can fly, the open world AFTER reaching level cap, and it's even not fully utilised (no flying update for BC starting areas without flying at the revamp of the Classic areas in Cata, several isles without flying from various expansions, too).

Pro-flyers only have a part of the open world as content available to them, and now it's even get cut. This is not fair at all.

To be blunt, I don't think there's an issue of fairness or the pandering that it would imply. At the end of the day, Blizzard's consideration is what content they can make, what content they want to make, and how one piece of content interacts with another. If a conflict of interest exists between flying and another system, then they'll either look for a feasible compromise or just work in favor of the more "important" system (such as in raids, where the intended dungeon structure is considered to outweight flying by a large margin). Flying falls into an interesting category in that regard, as it normally manifests as an arbitrary prerequisite or a convenience.

[Eapoe]

Oh look someone else who has no imagination, and can't give me a response to anything I actually posted chiming in with their useless two cents. What's funny is how some of you people are shit posters and act ridiculously smug and hostile toward ideas you do not agree with when your posts are utterly banal, inane and full of passive aggressive nonsense.

Are you here to have an actual discussion about ideas and points of view here or just to cause disruption and arbitrarily claim someone's posts aren't good because they're new here and you're someone special?

Cuz like bruh. Bored already.

Not trying to be a dick but, you people obviously just don't fucking like ideas that aren't yours and eat up Blizzard PR like it's candy. I mean good lord.

All due respect buddy, you sound to me like just some gamer with an opinion that isn't even very well expressed and thought out and not someone whose very knowledgeable about game design or actually making games and figuring out how to make those systems work and how they add flavor and nuance and give people a fun and immersive experience and so on.

In other words, no actual knowledge of the topic? If I'm wrong I'd love to hear it but so far all I got was a half-assed overtly smug response from you and other dude in here who just happens to be on the offensive against any person in this thread who has posted about anything that involves ways they could better utilize flying amounts in this game which you know already exists. You're literally doing nothing but criticizing other people's ideas and offering none of your own.

I mean, it's not like we're asking for some kind of completely game breaking change here, or that there's any way to even do something in this game that's going to win any of you over because it's an old and tired game on it's last legs really.
.

I'm sorry that when someone points out the flaws in your topic you take that as them being hostile. You post how you would "add content" which was, in fact, not adding content. It was a redesign of the game to make flight paths obsolete and replace them with just allowing flight. That's not content addition, that's trying to make flight mandatory for long travel. I pointed that out to you, during a conversation, to which you then rant about how I don't want to have a conversation about it and I'm being hostile. I also pointed out that your idea of "cannons and mobs that knock you off your mount" do not add any danger if you simply parachute to the ground and then mount back up and fly off again; also, I pointed out that you are taking the very things you are arguing against (i.e. the tediousness of mobs and terrain on the ground) and putting them in the sky.
Your first point does not add content, and your second one does not fix the issue you want to try and fix. Instead of trying to carry on the conversation and come up with new ideas, you in fact attack me by stating I am hostile.
I've stated before that I do indeed enjoy flight, but as the game stands it's not necessary for content. There's also the fact that the way the game is designed that Blizzard is entirely accurate in their post about it. Even after all their posts about it and discussions about it, the bottom line is, they want you to play the game their way. If that's not acceptable to you and others, you have the right to not play it.
As far as the topic you and I have gone back and forth on, you stated you want content made for flight, to which I asked how. You then go on to post how you would do it, and I pointed out the errors of that post. Again, I am sorry if that offended you, but I am not being smug, I was not hostile, and I am still waiting for a fix to see the players that demand flight and a game that Blizzard wants people to play get presented. So far, that has not happened. Instead, it's people who label themselves "pro fliers" stating opinions and how easy/simple of a fix it is for Blizzard, and other people who pro fliers label as "anti fliers" posting how it won't work the way they are trying to make it work.
Part of the problem is, you have people labeling other people and trying to make them sound like they are completely against you. Not the case. Most of the people you label as "anti fliers" are in fact for flight, they are just posting how your comments are wrong, biased, and some are completely ignorant. Yes, I understand it's come from many different people; but, the fact hasn't changed, flight is not in the game because it's not necessary, it trivializes content, and it bypasses the world that Blizzard created. The compromise they gave to (which they didn't have to, but even they admitted might have been to harsh for removing flight completely the way they did it) was to require players to play the game and explore the world that Blizzard wants first, and unlock this awesome perk later for having done that.

[SirCowdog]

To be blunt, I don't think there's an issue of fairness or the pandering that it would imply. At the end of the day, Blizzard's consideration is what content they can make, what content they want to make, and how one piece of content interacts with another. And how that content will be received by the community.

I think this is an important part of the reason why flying has been treated in the way that it has. Blizzard has been pretty dismissive of feedback in regards to this issue, with pretty obvious results. You can't just change something that's been a defining aspect of your game when you KNOW a large portion of your playerbase doesn't want it, at least not without being willing to pay the price.

Maybe that's what Blizzard has planned. Who knows. Maybe they're willing to lose a lot of subs in order to fundamentally change what WoW is perceived as.

[Dhrizzle]

Oh please, this is a stupid argument and you know it. Warcraft had flying units since Warcraft II.

*shrugs* Middle-earth has had Eagles since the First Age.

[Shakou]

I'm sorry that when someone points out the flaws in your topic you take that as them being hostile. You post how you would "add content" which was, in fact, not adding content.

Look buddy I'm not reading that wall of text and bothering to consider any point you have to made for extremely good reasons, read that last sencense I quoted. Are you just not self aware enough to understand that you just do not present your argument in this manner if you want to be taken seriously?

If you want a reasonable and intelligent response to your posts you need to make reasonable and intelligent arguments.

You are literally trying to tell me that things are not what they are for what ultimately boils down to you not liking the sound of my arguments and rah rah rah but this is what Blizzard wants!

I am a well educated 31 year old man. How old are you? And is English just not your first language? Because maybe it's a language barrier problem, but look at that second sentence of yours I quoted again and try to give me any reason I should even be responding to such well, shit posting. Man.

This isn't about taking sides and whose for or against something dude, it's about how you present your arguments and you sir do not present yours very well at all and whether you intend to or not you come across as a very rude and ignorant person and say utterly ridiculous things.

Since when is content not content? When you decide that you do not like the sound of that wishful thinking content a player came up with?

Because the word content simply means something which is contained, i.e. the contents of a package or a box or the systems and features in a video game. You have not pointed out any errors of mine at all you're just completely ignoring and literally saying that any arguments anyone has made against you regardless of their merits, are just wrong.

GTFO with that it sounds like I'm talking to a dude who learned English from reading the back of a cereal box. Yous trolling.

Infracted: Being civil to those with a different opinion is a better option. {MoanaLisa}