No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Elim Garak]

MoP and Cata didn't have flying? What? The fuck am I reading? Subs started dropping at the end of Wrath but not noticeably, and saw a spike for Cata, which then started dropping throughout Cata's life. Guess what Cata had from the beginning even for leveling?

MoP once again had flight, and the drop began long before Timeless Isle.

Seriously, I get that you want to paint flying as the only reason people quit, but it's failing pretty badly.

The last couple are MoP and WoD, Cata is not it. The drop in Cata was due to HARD dungeons issue, dragon soul drought and SWTOR release. Flying was never a reason for people leaving. NEVER. Hell I left Cata for SWTOR and then returned at the end of Cata. You have to look at the whole picture here. There are external reasons for sub drops too. MoP failed to keep those who left during Cata and returned for MoP. WoD lost even more and this time around there were no external reasons. Except for FF and GW introducing flight mechanics.

Flying is the core reason. Because no flying ruins the rest of the game. So even people who think they left because they had nothing to do - they left because of no flying. Because of how it affects the things you can do.

Who knows, maybe WoW is back up to 10m for legion, and by the end of Legion they will have "lost" (big emphasis on quotes there) 7m subs when it goes down to 3m.

I know that it isn't the case, otherwise Blizzard would resume releasing sub numbers.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Or - here's a novel thought, WoW is an old game, and if you go see my list above, there's a huge list of reasons. "There's no external reasons, except for..." GW2 introduced gliding, which even WoW has. FF's flight, while nice, is still extremely restricted and there's little reason to go out in the world like there is in WoW.

You said yourself that you had other reasons for quitting before. Not everyone shares your reasons, so not everyone quit because of flying either. There's a plethora of reasons people quit, and there was a lot more going on in the gaming world than GW2 and FF expansions.

I took a short vacation in Cata too, but I never touched SWTOR.

[Elim Garak]

Or - here's a novel thought, WoW is an old game

What's so novel about it? It's being spouted since Wrath. It's just a fanboi's defense. You a fanboi?

[Drekmar]

No flying was one of the two good features in WoD (Other one was great raids). WoDs problem was lack of content.

[Elim Garak]

No flying was one of the two good features in WoD (Other one was great raids). WoDs problem was lack of content.

Why were there a lack of content?

[Drekmar]

Why were there a lack of content?

Idk, ask devs why they didnt deliver more content.

[Elim Garak]

Idk, ask devs why they didnt deliver more content.

It's the same reason there were no flying.

[Drekmar]

It's the same reason there were no flying.

No flying was fine. Not having anything to do was not. Even if we had flying from day1, there was nowhere to fly.

[Elim Garak]

No flying was fine. Not having anything to do was not. Even if we had flying from day1, there was nowhere to fly.

Hence we didn't have it. You are just making a case for me. Regardless of your personal opinion on no flying. They didn't remove it because they thought it would be better that way...

[Drekmar]

Hence we didn't have it. You are just making a case for me. Regardless of your personal opinion on no flying. They didn't remove it because they thought it would be better that way...

Flying is just the means of transportation, not content. So the real issue wasnt flying, it was no content. The only thing I find problematic in flying is that it allows skiping a lot of stuff an davoid threats, which once again leads of lack of content. They had the chance to bring back legion cannons from TBC but didnt. :/

[Elim Garak]

Flying is just the means of transportation, not content. So the real issue wasnt flying, it was no content.

No the real reason was the reason why there's no flying and no content. Flying is access to content. With flying it is easier to access all the content. Therefore flying is indeed content by proxy. It needs content, but if you remove content you remove flying to try to hide the absence of content. You then sugar coat it to try to sell the mediocre experience as better experience "SAVAGE MURSION".

[Cthulhu 2020]

What's so novel about it? It's being spouted since Wrath. It's just a fanboi's defense. You a fanboi?

Calling someone a fan boy is a lazy way to dismiss something that's true. Are you lazy?

I suppose the reason I said last two expansions is I'm still in the mindset that WoD is the current expansion despite it being over.

There was a huge lack of things to do in WoD. People's biggest complaint in panda road was too much mandatory stuff, so they removed the mandatory mature of a lot of activities. Daily dungeons and daily quests were no longer linked to character power in any way, so nobody wanted to do them. There was so little to do each day or week that advanced your character and most people logged in to send off their followers for gold then logged back off. Playing basically involved creating a reason for yourself to play, and if you didn't care about pet battles, archaeology, old mounts or achirvements, there was nothing for you to do, which is how it is with a lot of players.

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No the real reason was the reason why there's no flying and no content. Flying is access to content. With flying it is easier to access all the content. Therefore flying is indeed content by proxy. It needs content, but if you remove content you remove flying to try to hide the absence of content. You then sugar coat it to try to sell the mediocre experience as better experience "SAVAGE MURSION".

People are already complaining that there is too much to do in legion... with no flight. Yeah, from their play in beta and the nature of the latest carrot and stick.

[ZulJa]

It's the same reason there were no flying.

This argument is bizarre to me because it seems obvious that WoD's zones were more meticulously crafted (and so more expensive and time-consuming) than a lot of zones like Deepholm that were made with flying in mind. There's just less to worry about if your level design isn't having much impact on how players experience content. All you really care about is how cool things are too look at.

The real difference between WoD and other expansions was that using level design to direct the experience was such a focus that Blizzard didn't like the idea of their hard work being ignored. No access to flying was the equivalent of an unskippable cutscene that, while fine at first, probably went on a bit too long.

[Elim Garak]

Calling someone a fan boy is a lazy way to dismiss something that's true. Are you lazy?

I didn't call you a fanboi.

I suppose the reason I said last two expansions is I'm still in the mindset that WoD is the current expansion despite it being over.

It was over since 6.2

There was a huge lack of things to do in WoD. People's biggest complaint in panda road was too much mandatory stuff, so they removed the mandatory mature of a lot of activities. Daily dungeons and daily quests were no longer linked to character power in any way, so nobody wanted to do them.

Wait a minute there's a huge difference between "nothing to do" and "nothing to want to do". So what it is?

There was so little to do each day or week that advanced your character and most people logged in to send off their followers for gold then logged back off. Playing basically involved creating a reason for yourself to play, and if you didn't care about pet battles, archaeology, old mounts or achirvements, there was nothing for you to do, which is how it is with a lot of players.

And since they enabled flight in 6.2 - there suddenly were things to do outside the Garrison and outside Tanaan.

Ease of access really negates "lousy rewards". Magic, innit? I remember some old-timer wise-ass calling it reward to effort ratio.

People are already complaining that there is too much to do in legion... with no flight. Yeah, from their play in beta and the nature of the latest carrot and stick.

So they are doing mop again. And if it's a lot to do with no flight, flight will really alleviate it, so it's something to want, innit? But they don't allow you to fly, because they want you to do it long time, 15 dolla. Because Broken Shores are smaller than Draenor.

[SirCowdog]

Ok getting back to whoever was wondering about the "100 different world quests" and how bad the RNG will be (or not), which is a few pages back and I'm too tired to look for it to quotw. I did the 30 so I could finish my order campaign, which was pretty cool by the way. None of the 30 were repeats. I still need about 10k rep with most of the non-Suramar factions to get revered, except for Highmountain, only need 6k, I think the zone storyline just gave more for that faction because I did less world quests there. This was as a human. I'm not going to bother doing anymore world quests, but a new set has spawned on my map and I only see a couple of repeats so while you can get repeats, it's not going to be that horrible or the most time consuming part. All factions to revered and Suramar loremaster will take the longest.

That was me. Thanks for looking into it, but I'm still kind of ambivalent about any kind of requirement that relies on RNG. You're 30 world quests in, so the pool is probably still fairly large. I wonder what it will look like when you're at 90? ALthough to be completely objective, I'm going to be suspicious and resentful of almost any repetition based on the whims of RNG. IMO, the list of requirements to complete pathfinder is already long enough without adding that sort of chance at repeating things.

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The real difference between WoD and other expansions was that using level design to direct the experience was such a focus that Blizzard didn't like the idea of their hard work being ignored. No access to flying was the equivalent of an unskippable cutscene that, while fine at first, probably went on a bit too long.

Mah visions!

Unskippable cutscenes are the worst thing to ever exist in interactive media like videogames. Right up there with escort quests and doors that can't be opened until and NPC gets around to doing it for you.

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Ease of access really negates "lousy rewards". Magic, innit? I remember some old-timer wise-ass calling it reward to effort ratio.

So they are doing mop again. And if it's a lot to do with no flight, flight will really alleviate it, so it's something to want, innit? But they don't allow you to fly, because they want you to do it long time, 15 dolla. Because Broken Shores are smaller than Draenor.

I think it would be more accurate to say the ease of access mitigates otherwise tedious tasks. Being able to get to them and get them done quickly.

The problem with assessing Flight in WoD is that by the time it was available, many players had already completed most of the Pathfinder objectives, and didn't associate it with the unlock. Additionally, by the time you could obtain flight, almost everything you would have used it on was already completed and played out. Moreover, flight was dropped in so late that I don't doubt many people had already been mentally and emotionally finished with the expansion.

I think it will be very interesting to see how people react to Pathfinder in Legion, with the full awareness of it this time around.

[Elim Garak]

This argument is bizarre to me because it seems obvious that WoD's zones were more meticulously crafted (and so more expensive and time-consuming) than a lot of zones like Deepholm that were made with flying in mind. There's just less to worry about if your level design isn't having much impact on how players experience content. All you really care about is how cool things are too look at.

That's like the last thing to worry about in game design.

The real difference between WoD and other expansions was that using level design to direct the experience was such a focus that Blizzard didn't like the idea of their hard work being ignored. No access to flying was the equivalent of an unskippable cutscene that, while fine at first, probably went on a bit too long.

Oh don't worry players have enjoyed the way roads look in WoD. You know because when you on the ground you follow the road, they put so much effort in areas off the road and no one saw them, such a shame. Let's get rid of roads, I say. Make players look for a path so they can enjoy the views.

[Connll]

I must strongly disagree with you on this. How would you explain the dramatic increase in subs for the time period surrounding the launch of WoD? And let me clarify here: This is a side topic that I don't believe has much to do with the flying discussion. I'm not using this as evidence for or against flight.

Wacraft RTS nostalgia: The premise of interacting with figures of WoW, plus Garrisons were advertised as "building an army to Fight the Iron horde". I had been away from WoW since the first patch of Cata, and this premise made me buy Pandaria at 5.3, full price, just to "prepare for WoD.

I assume other Warcraft nerds like me came back for similar reasons.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I didn't call you a fanboi.

It was over since 6.2

Wait a minute there's a huge difference between "nothing to do" and "nothing to want to do". So what it is?

And since they enabled flight in 6.2 - there suddenly were things to do outside the Garrison and outside Tanaan.

Ease of access really negates "lousy rewards". Magic, innit? I remember some old-timer wise-ass calling it reward to effort ratio.



So they are doing mop again. And if it's a lot to do with no flight, flight will really alleviate it, so it's something to want, innit? But they don't allow you to fly, because they want you to do it long time, 15 dolla. Because Broken Shores are smaller than Draenor.

You seem to post a lot with your own personal view in mind.

And yeah, I found a lot that I wanted to do even when it wouldn't directly advance my character, even without flight. You sure seem to like to "blame the victim". Someone in here complained about that, blaming the player. A lot of people didn't find anything they wanted to do, and adding flying didn't suddenly make it magically better.

If anything, I saw more people quit once flying was released, because everyone had already completed the achievement, and they didn't add anything meaningful with or after flight. Those with the no fly no buy who came back found a lot to do... because they hadn't been playing since 6.0

Those who had been playing had already done everything in tiny increments as it was implemented, then went back to faking in their garrison.

The effort to reward ratio is zero when the reward is apexis, garrison resources and oil, and you have everything g bought that uses those currencies.

[Mafic]

There's cheap asian MMOs with flight everywhere and little content ever designed around that feature. With content updates maybe once a year.

An MMO having or not having flight as a mechanic to tailor the world to is in the grand scheme of things, an incredibly minor thing to "build the game around" when you start talking about a game going into "maintenance mode" which mostly involves very infrequent updates, or even none at all. Three expansions which took less time to make than WoD or Legion had flight baked into the world's scheme, with areas only accessible by flight, and questing areas that were really only possible with flight (Storm Peaks, Icecrown).

So yeah, unless you have a better explanation for what you said, flight somehow making the world more difficult and longer to make, and thus being left out for long term maintenance reasons, is a conspiracy theory.

The team has changed so much it really just seems like a design choice direction by the somewhat new team. While the old one enjoyed making content tailored to flying, (BC through Cata, with MoP flying was more or less a bonus with no content directly tied to it) this new one wants the world to be viewed from the ground up, at least for the first few months.

Your ignorance is astounding.

Flying is difficult for a game as old as WoW. If it were so simple they would have had testing for it in beta and have it released a later date just like they do with a lot of other things if it was a design decision to gate (eg holding off mythics for later release but still testing all of it during beta). This is two betas in a row where they did not test flying at all openly to the public.

Do you know how hard it was to start to put flying in Everquest II, Aion or even City of Heroes when it was in alpha? Yeah..technology has progressed a lot since then so comparing newer games to a dinosaur like WoW shows your ignorance.

In the past they started testing flying in previous alphas, because of how hard it is for WoW.

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It's the same reason there were no flying.

Exactly.

They tried to cut corners.

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This argument is bizarre to me because it seems obvious that WoD's zones were more meticulously crafted (and so more expensive and time-consuming) than a lot of zones like Deepholm that were made with flying in mind. There's just less to worry about if your level design isn't having much impact on how players experience content. All you really care about is how cool things are too look at.

The real difference between WoD and other expansions was that using level design to direct the experience was such a focus that Blizzard didn't like the idea of their hard work being ignored. No access to flying was the equivalent of an unskippable cutscene that, while fine at first, probably went on a bit too long.

This will lead to greater player burnout because of how Legion is designed. It took the worst parts of MoP and WoD and Legion had a baby. RIP.

No flying along with massive amounts of grinding (eg dailies, reps, aritfiact power, order hall resources, etc) is a recipe for disaster.

WoD has the one BIG advantage of hiding it all with garrisons and little to do with boring Apexis world quests.

There is no hiding the monstrosity that is Legion's ground and pound gameplay. Pure cancer.

[Elim Garak]

You seem to post a lot with your own personal view in mind.

Do you post with someone else's personal view in mind?

And yeah, I found a lot that I wanted to do even when it wouldn't directly advance my character, even without flight. You sure seem to like to "blame the victim". Someone in here complained about that, blaming the player.

What are you even on about? I didn't blame anyone at all. I was just confused how people say there's nothing to do and then they say there's something to do but they didn't want to. So I asked to clarify which is it. No content, or no want-able content. Because there's YUGE difference.

A lot of people didn't find anything they wanted to do, and adding flying didn't suddenly make it magically better.

It did for another lot of people. You do know there is a lot of lots of people playing the game, right?

If anything, I saw more people quit once flying was released, because everyone had already completed the achievement, and they didn't add anything meaningful with or after flight. Those with the no fly no buy who came back found a lot to do... because they hadn't been playing since 6.0

Those who had been playing had already done everything in tiny increments as it was implemented, then went back to faking in their garrison.

You've just explained why patchfinder achievement is BAD. It ruins the only thing it offers as reward. Thank you.

The effort to reward ratio is zero when the reward is apexis, garrison resources and oil, and you have everything g bought that uses those currencies.

How about fun as a reward? Do you play this game for apexis, resources and oil or whatever in-game currency is current only? Kinda weird reason to play the game. And when we talk about fun - effort to reward ratio is greater than 1 in wod. Hence sub losses. And flying could've at least lowered it to 1.