No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Elim Garak]

A LOT depends on their business model. They clearly made a killing off box sales, and if you throw in store mount sales, gold token sales on top of that...well....subs don't matter quite as much.

The only problem with that - it is a subscription only model, you cannot play without one either paid by yourself or some other player who has a subscription, so no subscriptions no buyers no sales no money.

[MoanaLisa]

But they cannot afford to drive subs down and continue to invest in it, not if they are responsible management.

Of course they can. Box sales alone probably pay for development of the next expansion and whatever share of network maintenance WoW takes up with the other games for a year or two.

I'm not saying they want to but if they are clever about selling expansions, subscriptions are pretty much pure profit over and above profit on box sales. They have every incentive to keep people subscribed but the game suddenly does not become unprofitable if people leave. This is where patches become important. A decent patch every three months will likely have many people coming back for at least a month.

But it all depends on what they believe their current business model is. All indications seem to point to selling lots of boxes and acknowledging that population shifts are cyclical. Personally I think the correct strategy is to have good patches, well spaced. The population will still shrink some of the length of the expansion but the downward curve might be flatter.

Flying is part of this. A lot of people will come back for the start of the expansion and stay for a bit, flying or not. Not everyone of course but many. When flying is available, more will come back for a while.

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The only problem with that - it is a subscription only model, you cannot play without one either paid by yourself or some other player who has a subscription, so no subscriptions no buyers no sales no money.

They are still several times larger than any other MMO of its type. There's no scarcity of players with respect to sustaining token systems and the like. EVE Online has a token system much like WoW's and that has been easily sustained for years with a player population of much less than 1,000,000.

[clevin]

Of course they can. Box sales alone probably pay for development of the next expansion and whatever share of network maintenance WoW takes up with the other games for a year or two. [/COLOR]

I didn't say they couldn't be profitable. I said it wouldn't be responsible. At some point they'll able to deploy those resources elsewhere, into several games that bring in collectively more revenue and profit and spread the risk around. Frankly, if what you say is correct or even close to it, they're fools for keep the sub fee. Go B2P, sell a box every 24 months. Remember, the sub fees aren't $15 times the number of subs.... that's only true in the EU, North America etc. In Asia, it's time based.

Or, assume I'm wrong. Assume they make $7.50/month on average from each sub and that there are 4m subs. That's $600m *in sub fees* every 20 months (20 is a nice round number...). Assume the average box price is $30 (I know it's higher here, but some people wait for sales and I'm not sure what the price is in Asia). That's $120m.

So, with a 20 month gross revenue of $720m...(*excluding shop sales, services like transfers, etc*) what's their fucking excuse for not delivering content every three to four months?? Oh yeah, they can't find artists. Bull. Shit. You cannot tell me that they can't afford to pay another 20 or 30 people $150k if that's what it takes to break that bottleneck. Retain a measly 50k subs because of that and you pay for 15 new people at 150k.

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And if your company is also raking in retarded levels of profit from other producs, such as hearthstone and overwatch....well then....you can take risks with WoW without worry...

Ah, but WHY WOULD YOU? Why not redeploy the people on WoW on other new products like HS and OW that are raking in stupid levels of profit? Doing that spreads revenue risk, keeps good people from burning out on an old product and evens out the revenue peaks and valleys since several products will be on different cycles.

Maybe at 4m the math is still in favor of WoW. But is it at 1m?

[SirCowdog]

The only problem with that - it is a subscription only model, you cannot play without one either paid by yourself or some other player who has a subscription, so no subscriptions no buyers no sales no money.

Oh I completely agree. I'm just saying that subscriptions don't matter as much as they used to, given the current business model of spiking box sales, then augmenting with cash-shop items and gold token sales.

Of course they can. Box sales alone probably pay for development of the next expansion and whatever share of network maintenance WoW takes up with the other games for a year or two.

I'm not saying they want to but if they are clever about selling expansions, subscriptions are pretty much pure profit over and above profit on box sales. They have every incentive to keep people subscribed but the game suddenly does not become unprofitable if people leave. This is where patches become important. A decent patch every three months will likely have many people coming back for at least a month.

But it all depends on what they believe their current business model is. All indications seem to point to selling lots of boxes and acknowledging that population shifts are cyclical. Personally I think the correct strategy is to have good patches, well spaced. The population will still shrink some of the length of the expansion but the downward curve might be flatter.

Exactly.

Flying is part of this. A lot of people will come back for the start of the expansion and stay for a bit, flying or not. Not everyone of course but many. When flying is available, more will come back for a while.

I'm not so sure, this time around. Blizzard burned quite a few bridges with WoD flying, and many people view Legion flying is a repeat. There are MANY similarities. I think a lot of it heavily depends on just how tedious WQs are, and what form flying takes when it's finally reinstated. A lot also depends on how steadily the content is released over the course of the expansion as well, as you said.

Obviously I believe that Blizzard did more harm than good with WoD flight. I don't think it's unrecoverable, but they've got a LOT of work to do to make up for it. I'm really hoping that the unlock of flight midway through Legion is because they're taking that time to make something good out of it, and not just using it as a carrot to boost subs at a point where they're normally starting to wane in an expansion's lifespan.

Ah, but WHY WOULD YOU? Why not redeploy the people on WoW on other new products like HS and OW that are raking in stupid levels of profit? Doing that spreads revenue risk, keeps good people from burning out on an old product and evens out the revenue peaks and valleys since several products will be on different cycles.

Maybe at 4m the math is still in favor of WoW. But is it at 1m?

I think it's because Blizzard was looking for a way too boost the profits of the game, given the obvious trend of bleeding subs. It seems pretty clear that they accomplished that goal by over-hyping followed by halfassing development. They were only thinking about short-term profits, and maybe underestimating how harmful the backlash would be.

Or maybe Afriasabi and Hazzicostas actually convinced themselves and the WoW team that they could make a better game without flying? Echo chamber, and all that. We know for a fact that Blizzard is exceptionally bad at listening to feedback from the community, even when it's well-considered, well-written, and made by veterans of the game. I think that's definitely one of several possible explanations.

[Eapoe]

I didn't say they couldn't be profitable. I said it wouldn't be responsible. At some point they'll able to deploy those resources elsewhere, into several games that bring in collectively more revenue and profit and spread the risk around. Frankly, if what you say is correct or even close to it, they're fools for keep the sub fee. Go B2P, sell a box every 24 months. Remember, the sub fees aren't $15 times the number of subs.... that's only true in the EU, North America etc. In Asia, it's time based.

Or, assume I'm wrong. Assume they make $7.50/month on average from each sub and that there are 4m subs. That's $600m *in sub fees* every 20 months (20 is a nice round number...). Assume the average box price is $30 (I know it's higher here, but some people wait for sales and I'm not sure what the price is in Asia). That's $120m.

So, with a 20 month gross revenue of $720m...(*excluding shop sales, services like transfers, etc*) what's their fucking excuse for not delivering content every three to four months?? Oh yeah, they can't find artists. Bull. Shit. You cannot tell me that they can't afford to pay another 20 or 30 people $150k if that's what it takes to break that bottleneck. Retain a measly 50k subs because of that and you pay for 15 new people at 150k.

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Ah, but WHY WOULD YOU? Why not redeploy the people on WoW on other new products like HS and OW that are raking in stupid levels of profit? Doing that spreads revenue risk, keeps good people from burning out on an old product and evens out the revenue peaks and valleys since several products will be on different cycles.

Maybe at 4m the math is still in favor of WoW. But is it at 1m?

Well, as stated in a few threads, it's not just Blizzard anymore, it's Activision Blizzard. I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of their business model, but it's not unlikely that Activision gets those profits and gives Blizzard, a property owned by Activision, a budget. This budget is for things like marketing, development, bonuses, employee wages, utilities, etc. It's highly likely that they do not have the budget to hire more people specifically to work on WoW when they have other IP's to work on. Someone also posted (believe the Nost thread) that an average employee would earn roughly 50k a year (not counting geography for wages and bonuses), and with you saying hire 20-30 more people that adds 1-1.5 million more to the budget, a budget that Activision might not be giving Blizzard.
As to your 2nd point, something to be considered is that employees and lead designers have moved from project to project; however, there's other things to consider. Most companies need a mutual agreement to allow such a move without losing one employee or opening themselves for a lawsuit on unfair treatment. There are also things to consider such as seniority, and if covered under a contract might allow a more senior person to move onto another project while "bumping" a less senior employee. Complications arise from this because someone might get bumped in the middle of a project which makes it not ready for release, or have issues from someone taking it over and changing it. Just because 1 person requests a move to another project to avoid burnout, it can lead to a direct problem with someone who is happy where they are at now becoming upset they are having to work on a project they are not passionate about.
There are many things to consider when talking about easy fixes, namely that they are usually never as easy as they first appear.

[Connll]

Ah, but WHY WOULD YOU? Why not redeploy the people on WoW on other new products like HS and OW that are raking in stupid levels of profit? Doing that spreads revenue risk, keeps good people from burning out on an old product and evens out the revenue peaks and valleys since several products will be on different cycles.

Maybe at 4m the math is still in favor of WoW. But is it at 1m?

Simple. You wouldn´t.

At least not if you are thinking rationally. Profits are profits. There isn´t really motive to profit less when you can profit more, specially if taking a responsible, long-term, consumer-friendly route is the most profitable one.

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Or maybe Afriasabi and Hazzicostas actually convinced themselves and the WoW team that they could make a better game without flying? Echo chamber, and all that. We know for a fact that Blizzard is exceptionally bad at listening to feedback from the community, even when it's well-considered, well-written, and made by veterans of the game. I think that's definitely one of several possible explanations.

I do believe that this is a strong possibility.

[Deleted]

Why is this thread still a thing? Like really, those complaining will still end up playing legion - if you don't then good riddance.

[Maudib]

Why is this thread still a thing? Like really, those complaining will still end up playing legion - if you don't then good riddance.

Why does it bother you so? It's obviously important to some people.

[SirCowdog]

Why is this thread still a thing? Like really, those complaining will still end up playing legion - if you don't then good riddance.

Welcome to 2016, where it's ok to be critical of changes to a game you love, and still love it.

[WowIsDead64]

Of course they can. Box sales alone probably pay for development of the next expansion and whatever share of network maintenance WoW takes up with the other games for a year or two.

I'm not saying they want to but if they are clever about selling expansions, subscriptions are pretty much pure profit over and above profit on box sales. They have every incentive to keep people subscribed but the game suddenly does not become unprofitable if people leave. This is where patches become important. A decent patch every three months will likely have many people coming back for at least a month.

But it all depends on what they believe their current business model is. All indications seem to point to selling lots of boxes and acknowledging that population shifts are cyclical. Personally I think the correct strategy is to have good patches, well spaced. The population will still shrink some of the length of the expansion but the downward curve might be flatter.

Flying is part of this. A lot of people will come back for the start of the expansion and stay for a bit, flying or not. Not everyone of course but many. When flying is available, more will come back for a while.

10M boxes is what? 10M x $50 = $500M? Once in 2 years? It's $20M per month. It isn't even nearly comparable with revenues from 10-12M subscribers - $50-60M per month. Do you think, that Activision-Blizzard were putting extra $600M of pure profits into their wallets? Do you understand, that it's bad way to do business, as money should work? Do you understand, that saying this = admitting, that Blizzard were milking sub fees from us for all this years for nothing, i.e. they weren't investing this money into improving quality and quantity of content. And they had always been justifying sub fee exactly via this reason - stable quality of game and quantify of content. We should admit, that loss of subs just can't happen without impacting quality of game.




So sooner or later Blizzard will have to go P2W. And don't tell me, that P2W - is when you sell power items only. Power - is important to "Killers" only. For "Achievers" accomplishing goals - is most important thing. So selling things, like level boosts, XP boosts, mounts, pets, transmogs and other things, that "allow you to bypass grind" for $$$ - is P2W from "Achievers" point of view. So, Blizzard are already going P2W. 2M spider mount for gold, that can be bought for $$$ - is the next step. And P2W - is exact thing, "Achievers" hate the most, cuz it devalues their accomplishments. Very soon Blizzard won't be able to justify sub fee and will go F2P. And, as I already said, F2P/P2W is better for "Killers", as they hate grind, but completely unbearable for "Achievers", who are ready to pay sub fee, but only if game is fair, i.e. accomplishment = effort, not $$$, and developers don't take your accomplishments away from you (and it happens really often in F2P games, where nerfing things to force you to buy new ones - is common practice).

Also. Don't you think, that the major reason, why all players become "cyclical", is exactly what I say - losing stable players due to making changes, that upset them? I.e. it's dead loop. Blizzard make changes, that upset us -> they lose us -> they make even more changes, that upset us, instead of reverting them -> they lose even more of us. For example. I'm stable player. I'm "Achiever' and Bartle is right in this case - I continue playing the same game for ages, just because I don't want to lose all my accomplishments, I invested too much time, effort and money into. I play MWO due to the same reason - 70 'Mechs, 3000 matches and $500-700 of invested money won't let me go away so easily. But Blizzard make changes, that are simply unbearable for me. I survived Cataclysm. I survived MOP. But no flying - is last straw, sorry. When you make so many negative changes and refuse to listen to players' feedback - then why do you wonder, that you lose stable players and that your playerbase becomes purely "cyclical"?

[Deleted]

10M boxes is what? 10M x $50 = $500M?.....*snip*

That's the point. All that "WoW is making enough money" is nothing more than damage controlling. It is a business, making "enough money" isn't a real option. Only if you fight to survive or go broke. It is a FACT that WoW would make more money each month from dropping the sub-model and go to the B2P-model. But some Clows in the team of Blizzard seem to think it is funny to take big hits in the guts, that is why we have all those awful changes that are just there to waste peoples time with things that are no fun. Flying (better the "taking it away") was one of the more obvious changes that favored only blizzard, such as profession daily gating and time gated missions, and not the player in any shape or form.

I just wonder: are there really people over at blizzard that say "naaaaa, we don't need to make more money. Let's just make less money instead"? Otherwise there is no logic explanation for Blizzard deciding for the wrong things in the last couple of years all the time.

[nekobaka]

With the mentioning of miking of subscription fees it reminds me of those who comment that the sub fee is an even better value now than before and we the customers should be paying more(forgetting that EU does pay more now). One of the factors behind the $15 sub fee aside from popularity at the time was that WoW would be profitable at 1 million subs with it. Obviously a portion of the extra income from the additional millions of subscriptions did go into upgrading infrastructure along with the support. There was however a significantly great return on development costs. Blizzard did reinvest a chunk of that money along with using it to get out from Vivendi. Imagine what Blizzard would of been like if WoW only did as well as they expected.

Moving on to store items. By the low point of MoPs subscription numbers that the quarterly investment report recognized "value services" in offsetting sub losses and this was repeated again in WoD. There was some discussion in this forum that in of the the mid quarters of WoD that Blizzard actually made more money with less subs due to value services. I do wonder how much tokens are contributing now.

[Eapoe]

10M boxes is what? 10M x $50 = $500M? Once in 2 years? It's $20M per month. It isn't even nearly comparable with revenues from 10-12M subscribers - $50-60M per month. Do you think, that Activision-Blizzard were putting extra $600M of pure profits into their wallets? Do you understand, that it's bad way to do business, as money should work? Do you understand, that saying this = admitting, that Blizzard were milking sub fees from us for all this years for nothing, i.e. they weren't investing this money into improving quality and quantity of content. And they had always been justifying sub fee exactly via this reason - stable quality of game and quantify of content. We should admit, that loss of subs just can't happen without impacting quality of game.




So sooner or later Blizzard will have to go P2W. And don't tell me, that P2W - is when you sell power items only. Power - is important to "Killers" only. For "Achievers" accomplishing goals - is most important thing. So selling things, like level boosts, XP boosts, mounts, pets, transmogs and other things, that "allow you to bypass grind" for $$$ - is P2W from "Achievers" point of view. So, Blizzard are already going P2W. 2M spider mount for gold, that can be bought for $$$ - is the next step. And P2W - is exact thing, "Achievers" hate the most, cuz it devalues their accomplishments. Very soon Blizzard won't be able to justify sub fee and will go F2P. And, as I already said, F2P/P2W is better for "Killers", as they hate grind, but completely unbearable for "Achievers", who are ready to pay sub fee, but only if game is fair, i.e. accomplishment = effort, not $$$, and developers don't take your accomplishments away from you (and it happens really often in F2P games, where nerfing things to force you to buy new ones - is common practice).

Also. Don't you think, that the major reason, why all players become "cyclical", is exactly what I say - losing stable players due to making changes, that upset them? I.e. it's dead loop. Blizzard make changes, that upset us -> they lose us -> they make even more changes, that upset us, instead of reverting them -> they lose even more of us. For example. I'm stable player. I'm "Achiever' and Bartle is right in this case - I continue playing the same game for ages, just because I don't want to lose all my accomplishments, I invested too much time, effort and money into. I play MWO due to the same reason - 70 'Mechs, 3000 matches and $500-700 of invested money won't let me go away so easily. But Blizzard make changes, that are simply unbearable for me. I survived Cataclysm. I survived MOP. But no flying - is last straw, sorry. When you make so many negative changes and refuse to listen to players' feedback - then why do you wonder, that you lose stable players and that your playerbase becomes purely "cyclical"?

Dont you think the spider mount analogy is a little boisterous? You say it can be bought for real money, which, technically it can, let's analyze. At most a token goes for 30k for the high end average cost. Real money a token is what, roughly $20? So, let's even lessen that to standard sub fee of $15 per. You would have to sell roughly 67 tokens to afford the total cost. That is $1,050 US currency, and I highly doubt people will pay that for it. Yes, maybe they will, there are people with more money than they know what to do with as well as the infamous spectral tiger on EBay; but to assume that would be the norm is quite a stretch.
People become cyclical for many reason. Not just the one you bring up. Yes, that has a factor; however, people also leave because they just don't find the genre fun anymore, some people start a family, some "outgrow" video games, have a job/schooling that takes too much time doing and devoting time to the game itself, etc. Also, stating very soon is pretty bold on your part. You have no idea when it will go F2P, nor do I; but, considering the last few numbers posted were at 5 million, even if the next 2 xpacs drop the number of active subs to 1 million total, that is still enough people for Blizzard to continue charging. When it falls below that, then they will probably have to start looking into F2P or ending the game as a whole.

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That's the point. All that "WoW is making enough money" is nothing more than damage controlling. It is a business, making "enough money" isn't a real option. Only if you fight to survive or go broke. It is a FACT that WoW would make more money each month from dropping the sub-model and go to the B2P-model. But some Clows in the team of Blizzard seem to think it is funny to take big hits in the guts, that is why we have all those awful changes that are just there to waste peoples time with things that are no fun. Flying (better the "taking it away") was one of the more obvious changes that favored only blizzard, such as profession daily gating and time gated missions, and not the player in any shape or form.

I just wonder: are there really people over at blizzard that say "naaaaa, we don't need to make more money. Let's just make less money instead"? Otherwise there is no logic explanation for Blizzard deciding for the wrong things in the last couple of years all the time.

I just wonder if it ever occurs to people who argue the gating in the game are really naive. Before I start, I'm not saying it's the best model to go with, I really don't know. Players want content, and as I've said, for a company to churn out content as fast the players consume it means they would have to run the company 24/7, and even then not have enough time to keep putting new things out. Players want content and reasons to keep logging into the game they pay for. If a person pays $15 a month, they want things to keep them logging in for that month. The gating provides that, it gives players a reason to log in often, on different days.
People have argued they do it to keep you playing by making it sound like a chore and not something to enjoy...and those opinions are justified, they are opinions. The flip side is that it keeps you from consuming and finishing everything possible within the first week of release and attempting to keep you from asking yourself why you are still logging in with nothing to do.
As I first stated, I'm not endorsing the way it's being done as I really don't know if there is a better way; however, it's not as horrible of an implementation that people make it out to be. They'd rather just have content pumped out 24/7 so they always can play something new, which does not seem to be happening anywhere in the near future.

[Deleted]

I just wonder if it ever occurs to people who argue the gating in the game are really naive. Before I start, I'm not saying it's the best model to go with, I really don't know. Players want content, and as I've said, for a company to churn out content as fast the players consume it means they would have to run the company 24/7, and even then not have enough time to keep putting new things out. Players want content and reasons to keep logging into the game they pay for. If a person pays $15 a month, they want things to keep them logging in for that month. The gating provides that, it gives players a reason to log in often, on different days.
People have argued they do it to keep you playing by making it sound like a chore and not something to enjoy...and those opinions are justified, they are opinions. The flip side is that it keeps you from consuming and finishing everything possible within the first week of release and attempting to keep you from asking yourself why you are still logging in with nothing to do.
As I first stated, I'm not endorsing the way it's being done as I really don't know if there is a better way; however, it's not as horrible of an implementation that people make it out to be. They'd rather just have content pumped out 24/7 so they always can play something new, which does not seem to be happening anywhere in the near future.

You call people naive that use common sense and proof toe be very naive yourself? Way to go.
I am talking about the new ways of gating. Not all gating is stupid. Such things as Raid lock-outs, or very rare daily time gates for some transmutes are totally acceptable. But in WoD there was a daily time lock on almost everything. And to get back to flying (i know you'll close your eyes about that again) there is absolutely no value in locking it for a certain period of time and it has been proven that doing so doesn't make the game better in any shape, way or form if they don't deliver content or a world that makes up for this loss.

The gating provides that, it gives players a reason to log in often, on different days.

Believing this is beyond being naive. That worked back in the days where there hasn't been any alternatives, or any better systems. But in this day and age people leave and play other things. And if you are not that naive to believe "most people play WOW" or the other lie "people will always come back" than you know that MOST people, talking about the vast majority of people ever played WoW for a certain amount of time, don't play any more. Only 3 maybe 4 Million people play WOW at this time, the rest of the approximately 120 million that had an active sub once (80 million is more realistic i guess) is playing something else.

So no, that sentence is completely false. Just because a hand full of people is so naive to let a game dictate when and how often to log in to game doesn't make it a "good tool". Especially if that system drives away more people that it animates to log in every day.

By the way.... you are talikng about pumping out new content every day. Why? It doesn't have to be new content every day. But they should start to make content with a little replayability. Something that lasts. Making over 90% (and it grows bigger every xpac) of your content worthless each time you throw out another patch. That is the problem with vertical progressions: higher faster stronger only works for a certain period of times until it collapses. Better progression needs to be made and adaptive or dynamical changing systems and rewards from the old world is needed. that way you make use of 100% of your game.... not only add 3% on top and make the rest worthless. The most important thing is: don't make it mandatory.

People thinking just because they let a game run their daily schedule everybody is like them, are pretty naive. dynamic is a keyword these days. WoW-core systems are pretty much static. They break it up a little with scaling regions, and mythic dungeons and keystones. but that is what they should have been doing for years now. One could say: to little to late.

trying to think you could force people to play certain parts of the game a certain way and pay for it is borderline naive.... no actually now in the year 2016 it is borderline stupid.

[WowIsDead64]

Dont you think the spider mount analogy is a little boisterous? You say it can be bought for real money, which, technically it can, let's analyze. At most a token goes for 30k for the high end average cost. Real money a token is what, roughly $20? So, let's even lessen that to standard sub fee of $15 per. You would have to sell roughly 67 tokens to afford the total cost. That is $1,050 US currency, and I highly doubt people will pay that for it. Yes, maybe they will, there are people with more money than they know what to do with as well as the infamous spectral tiger on EBay; but to assume that would be the norm is quite a stretch.

I'm from EU - my tokens cost 70K. And you don't know the power of F2P and donate - there are players, who are ready to pay such prices for exclusive content. That's why WOT is so successive. That's why MWO is so successive.

People become cyclical for many reason. Not just the one you bring up. Yes, that has a factor; however, people also leave because they just don't find the genre fun anymore, some people start a family, some "outgrow" video games, have a job/schooling that takes too much time doing and devoting time to the game itself, etc. Also, stating very soon is pretty bold on your part. You have no idea when it will go F2P, nor do I; but, considering the last few numbers posted were at 5 million, even if the next 2 xpacs drop the number of active subs to 1 million total, that is still enough people for Blizzard to continue charging. When it falls below that, then they will probably have to start looking into F2P or ending the game as a whole.

You talk about Wow, like it has only static playerbase, that has been playing this game since Vanilla. How about new players? As I understand, biggest Blizzards' issue - is keeping new players interested for long enough period of time. And this is exactly, what I'm talking about: Blizzard make changes, that upset long term players, and then wonder, why they go away. Yeah, MOBA market, that is intended for "Killers", seem to be more profitable, cuz PVP games don't usually need much content and profit/effort ratio is much higher (you can make new "skins" every day and sell them for $20 per one, while MMO can have millions of models). But Blizzard already have Hearthstone, HotS and Overwatch. Why do they try to turn Wow, that is intended to be MMORPG, into MOBA too, i.e. to game, that caters to short term players - I don't understand. It's mystery, I've been trying to solve since Cata. Currently it's simply "just because Blizzard want" - no real explanations were provided, except some buzzwords, like fantasy and immersion, that looked more like demagogy and populism - not real reasons.

Conclusion: I will give up, only when Blizzard will officially state, that Wow isn't for me any more, and that I should GTFO. While they haven't done it - I reserve the right to complain and provide feedback, as any other legitimate customer.

[Eats Compost]

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.

Is flying really a defining aspect of the game, though? I mean, it's been there for quite a long time, and it's used by almost every player (for obvious reasons), but defining the game? I'm not convinced of that. Heck, there's a whole bunch of things I consider to be more "defining" that went the way of the dodo, and for good reasons. Old talent trees are one example of that. Pretty much every class's identity has been through a few wash cycles, too.

Anecdotally, when I think about the reasons that people I know play WoW, not one of them plays it for flying. Each one puts a different level of importance on the convenience that it offers, but it definitely isn't a standout reason for any of them to play the game, and it's certainly not what defines their experience.

As for being dismissive of feedback, I don't really think that they're being unduly dismissive. If we're looking at correlating features with sub numbers or something like that, I think that it's clear from a mile off that a general lack of content and the unsavory aspects of garrisons were a way bigger issue for WoD than flying could have ever been. If I could look into alternate histories where WoD did this or didn't do that, I'd be extremely shocked if a version of WoD with flying enabled did any better.

[WowIsDead64]

Is flying really a defining aspect of the game, though? I mean, it's been there for quite a long time, and it's used by almost every player (for obvious reasons), but defining the game? I'm not convinced of that. Heck, there's a whole bunch of things I consider to be more "defining" that went the way of the dodo, and for good reasons. Old talent trees are one example of that. Pretty much every class's identity has been through a few wash cycles, too.

Anecdotally, when I think about the reasons that people I know play WoW, not one of them plays it for flying. Each one puts a different level of importance on the convenience that it offers, but it definitely isn't a standout reason for any of them to play the game, and it's certainly not what defines their experience.

As for being dismissive of feedback, I don't really think that they're being unduly dismissive. If we're looking at correlating features with sub numbers or something like that, I think that it's clear from a mile off that a general lack of content and the unsavory aspects of garrisons were a way bigger issue for WoD than flying could have ever been. If I could look into alternate histories where WoD did this or didn't do that, I'd be extremely shocked if a version of WoD with flying enabled did any better.

This is the biggest mistake, all anti-flyers make: they focus on flying itself, instead of focusing on context, in which flying is being used. Flying itself - isn't game defining, yeah. It's just immersive QOL thing, that grants freedom of choice, like having your own car, so you're not limited by bus/train stations. But flying impacts the way, outdoor content is being felt and played - and this thing IS game defining. Outdoor content has terrible obsolete design. Flying helps to fix this terrible design. Outdoor content is enjoyable enough with flying and completely unbearable without it.

[Eats Compost]

This is the biggest mistake, all anti-flyers make: they focus on flying itself, instead of focusing on context, in which flying is being used. Flying itself - isn't game defining, yeah. It's just immersive QOL thing, that grants freedom of choice, like having your own car, so you're not limited by bus/train stations. But flying impacts the way, outdoor content is being felt and played - and this thing IS game defining. Outdoor content has terrible obsolete design. Flying helps to fix this terrible design. Outdoor content is enjoyable enough with flying and completely unbearable without it.

I'm not a fan of the argument that flying is fixing bad outdoor design. If outdoor content is garbage without flying, then the game's problems extend far beyond flying/no flying itself. On top of that, simply allowing for something to be skipped (or encouraging it to be skipped) could never be considered a good answer to those problems.

[WowIsDead64]

I'm not a fan of the argument that flying is fixing bad outdoor design. If outdoor content is garbage without flying, then the game's problems extend far beyond flying/no flying itself. On top of that, simply allowing for something to be skipped (or encouraging it to be skipped) could never be considered a good answer to those problems.

And that's, what I'm talking about. Short answer: don't remove flying, if you can't deliver higher quality of ground content. Blizzard use old obsolete design of ground content, that they were using in these old days, when they lacked better tech and experience. It's simply "take single player game and put crowd of players into it". Group content evolved since these old days, but not outdoor. May be Blizzard still don't understand simple rule: more players =/= more epic - more players = more mess? That's why we have 10ppl raids - not 40ppl. That's why we have 5ppl dungeons. Because small group content - is more enjoyable for majority of players. Only few players enjoy "big epic battles" in MMOs. And outdoor content is designed to be done solo or in small group. And the fact, that outdoor content doesn't have any explicit limiting features - completely destroys this design. Flying allows you to escape overcrowding/bottlenecking situations pretty fast - that's why it helps to solve problems with current outdoor content design.

Many players say "you can't flying inside dungeons/raids/BGs for reason". Yeah, but imagine, that Blizzard would implement "Mass Raids" - raids, where not only 1 raid group would be allowed to do the same things at the same time, but several raids, that would have to compete with each other. Imagine, that raid A would be doing boss X in this raid and raid B wouldn't be able to do the same boss at the same time due to, let's say, boss being tagged by raid A. Imagine, that trash would respawn fast enough, cuz "all raids have to experience it properly". So what? Raid B would have to kill all trash from boss X to boss Y and then kill the same trash on their way back to boss X and then kill it again on their way to boss Z through boss Y? Yeah? And raid A would have to kill this trash only once or even simply bypass it, if they would be lucky enough to come to it at the time, when other raid would clear it. So what? Of course raid B would feel, like they wasted 3x more time only due to existence of raid A. And they would feel, that this would be unfair. And of course they would want to ask Blizzard to implement flying in raids, so they would be able to simply bypass trash between boss X and boss Y. And Blizzard would refuse to do it, just because raid B would be able so skip this trash completely then.

See? Bad game design - is the reason, why flying is needed. And everybody focuses on flying being a problem - not on this faulty game design.

[Dormie]

And that's, what I'm talking about. Short answer: don't remove flying, if you can't deliver higher quality of ground content.

Flyer tactic: Declare ground content as being low quality, use this opinion as a way to justify asking for cheatcodes.