No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Dormie]

Oh no I can't fly around the world like I have wings coming out of my back! The horror! What kind of terrible gameplay is this that doesn't let me compartmentalize this open world into bits I do and don't want to play?

If only this game were more IMMERSIVE by letting me remove gravity entirely!

[Luciferstwin]

Let's make sure to get a thread going that's like 20000 pages long to talk about it for several months.

I hate you for jynxing it.

[SirCowdog]

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.

The highlighted parts brings up one of the flaws with placing the blame on flight itself, and one of the major risks of locking so much behind Pathfinder, and having so little to use flight on once it's done.

Having lots of content to do is good. Even without flight, I think it's pretty obvious that there's going to be LOTS to do in Legion. People WILL do stuff, even if they don't have flying. But what does that mean for flight if people are burned out and already done with the game by the time flight is available? It risks diminishing the value of flying both as a reward and as a tool.

While I think that people might be over-exaggerating the amount of burn-out that players will experience in the end-game grind, I do also think that it WILL happen eventually. And I also think that flying will help to mitigate that quite a bit. Flying gets you to the entrances of raids faster, to mythic dungeons. I can't even imagine gathering in WoW without flight...well...I mean I CAN, since I played in vanilla, but it was ass. Archaeology might as well not exist without flying. Add constant, repetitive world quests to the mix.

It seems that Blizzard is operating under the assumption that the value of travelling around the world without flight is going to be more important than the value of player convenience. And I'm not sure how long that will actually be true, and it is very VERY important that they have things for players to do AFTER they unlock flying.

[Dhrizzle]

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.

I've said several times that the content was there but Blizz failed to incentivise or make the most of it. If you take the dozen or so Apexis zones and various Garrison related activities there was probably as much or even more endgame content to do out in the world than even MoP had. It's just a shame that the devs overcompensated from MoP and restricted you to one Apexis zone per day for terrible rewards.

- - - Updated - - -

Except they spent all that time trying to include silly little jump puzzles and hidden objects. Couldn't they have spent that time improving and integrating flight instead? Granted, flight effects almost every outdoor encounter far more than simply dropping a stupid jump puzzle in the middle of nowhere. But they've clearly built Legion around the ability of Demon Hunters to double jump and glide. So I don't see that it would be THAT much more of a stretch to include a progressing version of flight as well(except it would infringe on demon hunters' appeal, and god forbid they detract from the poster child of the expansion).

They could have introduced a silly progression system with stupid gimmicks for flying but I doubt it would be the responsibility of the environment designers.

All in all, maybe it's just my optimistic mind, but all I see are chances where Blizzard could have improved the situation instead of simply removing it. I mean, think about all the little things they've put in the game instead of flying. The flight path whistle, goblin gliders, demon hunter jump+glide, the aviana's feather type toy, etc. What if they'd just incorporated all those little things into a single system of mounts and put it into a progressing tree of abilities similar to the artifact trees? Then given it context it with story and lore.[/QUOTE]

Would you really be happy if they made the toy effects work whilst you're sat on your mount with some contrived lore-based explanation as to why your dragon can jump 100ft in the air and glide, but it can't control its altitude beyond that?

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.

There was a new expansion launching. Even if they had no interest in sticking around for the gear treadmill a lot of players would want to come back and experience the new continent, new dungeons and level their favourite character(s) to the level cap. Maybe 10,000,000 is just the number of subscribers WoW can expect at the start of a new expansion.

During MoP subs plunged deeper than in previous expansion after the release of Timeless Isle. It has no flying.

Gonna have to stop you there, MoP lost most of its subs whilst flight was enabled for its current world content. Subs stayed steady whilst Timeless Isle (no flying) was out until it had been almost a year with no new content, at which point they dropped until the pre-WoD spike.

[SirCowdog]

Would you really be happy if they made the toy effects work whilst you're sat on your mount with some contrived lore-based explanation as to why your dragon can jump 100ft in the air and glide, but it can't control its altitude beyond that?

That really depends on what context it's in. As part of a larger tree of abilities that a mount gains over the course of an expansion, yes. As a standalone ability that never gets better? No. Either way it would still be better than what we're actually getting in Legion. At least as an ability you could use without dismounting it would have just a smidge more ease of use.

All things in the universe are relative, I guess.

There was a new expansion launching. Even if they had no interest in sticking around for the gear treadmill a lot of players would want to come back and experience the new continent, new dungeons and level their favourite character(s) to the level cap. Maybe 10,000,000 is just the number of subscribers WoW can expect at the start of a new expansion.

Of course every new expansion is going to show a jump in subs, but the levels that WoD spiked back up to was completely out of line with other expansions. That doesn't just happen by coincidence. So what caused it?

Anyway, it's pretty irrelevant. I was just trying to be fair about the argument at hand, which was already off topic. Lack of flight wasn't the only reason WoD performed like it did.

Gonna have to stop you there, MoP lost most of its subs whilst flight was enabled for its current world content. Subs stayed steady whilst Timeless Isle (no flying) was out until it had been almost a year with no new content, at which point they dropped until the pre-WoD spike.

You mean the current content of proliferate no-fly islands? Isle of Thunder: No flying. Timeless Ise: No flying. Isle of Giants: No flying.

Granted, there were plenty of dailies in areas with flying enabled as well. My point being that people are maybe trying to hard to justify or blame flight for things it's not responsible for. Having areas that are enhanced by flight are just as important as having areas that are enhanced by NOT having it. Having both is best, and having both be of enough quality and quantity is just as important.

I guess that really sums up my final statement on the subject before Legion goes live. Trying too hard to force only one type of gameplay is a mistake.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Your ignorance is astounding.

You're pretty unpopular in this thread, and I'm seeing why.

Flying is already in WoW. In any new content, all they have to do is add invisible walls to the sky box. Flying wouldn't be anything new in what you call "maintenance mode" content.

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't call you a fanboi.

You did say fanboys use the "it's old" argument, and that is very much a big reason why people are leaving. Not because it's old, but because of the effects of it being old. The graphics are dated, the engine is limited and clunky. As I'm told by people who have worked with it, it's difficult to generate content for because not only are there piles upon piles of code, and as anyone knows, old programs with tons of code have this tendency to break for unknown reason when you add new stuff, so bug squashing becomes harder and longer. Plus it just takes forever to generate content because it's unnecessarily clunky to create stuff by today's standards.

The thing with calling someone a fanboy, it's just like calling someone a troll or an SJW or any other number of things. It's signaling that you have no interest in further discussion and just want to shut the conversation down by calling the other person unreasonable or bias because you believe they hold some trait or bias. It's idiotic, lazy, and signals you as a simpleton with no argument if you use it. So don't use it, and everything will be peachy.

- - - Updated - - -

The highlighted parts brings up one of the flaws with placing the blame on flight itself, and one of the major risks of locking so much behind Pathfinder, and having so little to use flight on once it's done.

Having lots of content to do is good. Even without flight, I think it's pretty obvious that there's going to be LOTS to do in Legion. People WILL do stuff, even if they don't have flying. But what does that mean for flight if people are burned out and already done with the game by the time flight is available? It risks diminishing the value of flying both as a reward and as a tool.

While I think that people might be over-exaggerating the amount of burn-out that players will experience in the end-game grind, I do also think that it WILL happen eventually. And I also think that flying will help to mitigate that quite a bit. Flying gets you to the entrances of raids faster, to mythic dungeons. I can't even imagine gathering in WoW without flight...well...I mean I CAN, since I played in vanilla, but it was ass. Archaeology might as well not exist without flying. Add constant, repetitive world quests to the mix.

It seems that Blizzard is operating under the assumption that the value of travelling around the world without flight is going to be more important than the value of player convenience. And I'm not sure how long that will actually be true, and it is very VERY important that they have things for players to do AFTER they unlock flying.

The thing with legion is that artifact power will remain relevant for a long time. Blizzard has already said that they can keep removing the cap, raising it higher, as every patch rolls around. Of course that's going to happen as ilvl increases. Boosting your artifact's power every patch will be just something you do that involves world content, and it will be no different in 7.2.

Whether or not they will add anything else relevant to world content has yet to be seen.

[SirCowdog]

The thing with legion is that artifact power will remain relevant for a long time. Blizzard has already said that they can keep removing the cap, raising it higher, as every patch rolls around. Of course that's going to happen as ilvl increases. Boosting your artifact's power every patch will be just something you do that involves world content, and it will be no different in 7.2.

Whether or not they will add anything else relevant to world content has yet to be seen.

Well, there are two types of content: One that you do because you enjoy playing it, and one that you do because you HAVE to in order to get what you want. This is the danger of the Pathfinder system. People obviously want flight, for whatever reasons they personally care about. But how much of being forced to do stuff in order to get it will be too much? Getting artifact power is great, but if that's the only thing to use flying for then it doesn't really seem worth it. I'm grinding so I can unlock a tool that helps me to grind more.

It would be far better if we had more stuff that actually used flight instead of just having it be a thing that helps you do the things you already did(and have been doing for the past 6 months) faster. Now that I read that, I'm not really expressing it very well. Does any of that make sense?

[clevin]

I have serious doubts about any particular inclusion or removal of a feature or features being what cost WoW millions of subs. WoW has very predictably followed the product life cycle of all games. And as much as people roll their eyes, you look at past curves of MMOs, current MMOs, and online games and their active player base follows a curve of an almost identical nature, just of different amounts/time periods.

Some people quit and they say it is because of a particular feature, but I'm more inclined to believe that they're just bored with a game they've been playing for a very long time. If they were having fun with the rest of the game, the number of people who would have left simply over flying would be very small. If they're not having fun with other features and are bored, have no friends, then flying might have just been that straw that broke the camel's back.

Sigh... they lost 5 milllion people from WoD's high which was NOT the normal loss, nor was it a gradual decline like it usually has been. As for "Some people quit and they say it is because of a particular feature, but I'm more inclined to believe that..." That's just arrogant. You're telling people what they really thinking? REALLY? Bit full of yourself there?

PS: Did no flying contribute to the decline? Almost certainly yes, both directly and indirectly ("I'm sick and tired of the time it takes to get to... " etc). Was it the major cause? Probably not. That almost certainly was a failure to deliver anything interesting to do at level cap if you didn't want to raid and were done with heroics. The 6.1 patch was a total fail and people simply didn't want to hang around for months more to see if 6.2 was worth it.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Well, there are two types of content: One that you do because you enjoy playing it, and one that you do because you HAVE to in order to get what you want. This is the danger of the Pathfinder system. People obviously want flight, for whatever reasons they personally care about. But how much of being forced to do stuff in order to get it will be too much? Getting artifact power is great, but if that's the only thing to use flying for then it doesn't really seem worth it. I'm grinding so I can unlock a tool that helps me to grind more.

It would be far better if we had more stuff that actually used flight instead of just having it be a thing that helps you do the things you already did(and have been doing for the past 6 months) faster. Now that I read that, I'm not really expressing it very well. Does any of that make sense?

It makes plenty of sense, and I agree, a lot of people do stuff because they feel they have to, a means to an end.

For a long time, I really enjoyed doing the early levels of leveling, and a lot didn't. I don't enjoy them as much and tend to skip them when able, but I do not absolutely hate them, just something I'd rather not do. But will do as a means to an end. With invasions though I have capped a lot of toons that sat at 80-90 for years, because they were neglected.

With flying, yeah, I enjoy the pathfinder system because I'd rather earn flight than walk up to a vendor and buy it. In Final Fantasy, you earn your flight in a similar fashion, in that you must find air currents that attune yourself to the winds of the expansion zones. You get them from finding them in the open world and questing. You basically "finish" a zone to get them all and unlock flying.

And again, with artifact power, I like feeling I am incrementally powering up my gear, especially something special like a relic weapon which has lore and meaning behind it. Final Fantasy once again has a similar system - in fact I'm pretty sure WoW pulled from it, but WoW's system is much more incremental than FF's. While FF gave you a quest chain to do every patch to power your weapon up a whole tier at once, artifact power will very gradually upgrade your weapon over time.

In WoD, even early on, people say apexis dailies might have been better if you could do more than one per day at the start... which might have been true, but at the same time apexis gear was VERY lacking. There was very little reason to do the dailies at all. They went the complete opposite direction of Pandaria, and the daily stuff to do was pretty shitty reward wise. Even if we had had flying, there was no reason to do any of it. Apexis dailies might have felt much more worthwhile if the gear was appealing, but it just wasn't, it was the same power as heroic gear, and heroics were stupidly easy, and it took many days to get even one piece, where heroic gear you could get tons of.

[4dahorde]

Browsing over this forum...a little at a time, over many, many days, I notice one thing that stands out more than anything. Anyone else notice it is pretty much the same 20-30 people arguing back and forth with the few random people popping in to give their opinion on the matter.

Flying is SUCH a big deal to a few people, they spend all day on this thread arguing with people who disagree with them. Watch, this post will get quoted and I will be told how wrong I am in my opinions.

Seriously this ENTIRE flying arguement is LONG since played out, you get flying, just because you don't like HOW you get flying or WHEN you get flying is pointless at this time. They made this decision and I seriously doubt they are going to revert it or change it significantly any time soon.

Are you people REALLY going to sit here, on MMO-C, in a forum arguing over who is right and who is wrong over flying WHEN IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN AN OPINION on what you enjoy in a game, instead of playing the game, and working towards your so beloved flying, or are you seriously going to puff up and pout by not playing it because you don't get flying when you want it?

Seriously..flying in this game is a personal opinion on what is fun, not a concrete 'this is the way it is/should be'. You will NEVER convince people who don't give a fuck either way that your opinion is right...and the people who really don't give a fuck will NEVER convince you the game is fine without it. So seriously, what is the fucking point of 400+ pages of the back and forth arguement over whos opinion is correct?

[Cthulhu 2020]

Sigh... they lost 5 milllion people from WoD's high which was NOT the normal loss, nor was it a gradual decline like it usually has been. As for "Some people quit and they say it is because of a particular feature, but I'm more inclined to believe that..." That's just arrogant. You're telling people what they really thinking? REALLY? Bit full of yourself there?

PS: Did no flying contribute to the decline? Almost certainly yes, both directly and indirectly ("I'm sick and tired of the time it takes to get to... " etc). Was it the major cause? Probably not. That almost certainly was a failure to deliver anything interesting to do at level cap if you didn't want to raid and were done with heroics. The 6.1 patch was a total fail and people simply didn't want to hang around for months more to see if 6.2 was worth it.

Rofl, I've never said flying didn't contribute at all, nor did I say no one has quit because of no flying. If you're referring to my first sentence, it's addressing all of the people trying to claim any one feature is what caused sub losses. So to answer your questions, "You're telling people what they really thinking?" No, I'm not, and most certainly am not full of myself.

It is pretty arrogant of people to claim that they quit because of no flying, and thus it was the cause of WoD's failure.

But once again, if you look at the decline and lop off the spike, it's a pretty smooth line from the end of Pandaria to the end of the early WoD spike. It really just means they failed to retain anyone who came back because yeah, there was jack shit to do.

[simpleton]

Im excited that there is no flying. Blizz maked the correct choice. They should get rid of it all together.

[4dahorde]

Im excited that there is no flying. Blizz maked the correct choice. They should get rid of it all together.

Be prepared for your opinion to be constantly and repeatedly destroyed with someone elses opinion that you are wrong and they are right.

For the record, I agree with you. Flying is fine in content when it is not current, current content, it needs to go.....just waiting now for all the quotes telling me I am aslo wrong and their way/opinion is right....

[clevin]

Rofl, I've never said flying didn't contribute at all, nor did I say no one has quit because of no flying. If you're referring to my first sentence....

I *quoted* what I was referring to. Learn to read.

And your first sentence claimed that WoD was just following the normal curve. It did NOT.

[Mafic]

You're pretty unpopular in this thread, and I'm seeing why.

Flying is already in WoW. In any new content, all they have to do is add invisible walls to the sky box. Flying wouldn't be anything new in what you call "maintenance mode" content.
.

I do not care about my popularity. As you gain wisdom, and as you become older you will realize "popularity" is meaningless and futile as it often impedes you from looking for truth. Instead of accepting spoon fed responses from Blizzard open your mind to think outside of the script handed to you by others and re-formulate a script based on your own ideas.

Flying is already in WoW's previous expansions. WoW does not have flying in Legion currently, and it will take a lot of time to put in placet just like what happened with WoD. Furthermore, if all they have to do is add invisible walls then they would have done that already, but they haven't. Why? Think about it and then come back to me with a serious answer.

Flying is a major convenience tool and also a source of fun for many. In terms of costs, I would argue over the long run it is minimal to maintain, but it is the upfront opportunity cost (eg testing through alpha/beta) that Blizzard is clearly, clearly shying away from all of sudden.

[clevin]

Be prepared for your opinion to be constantly and repeatedly destroyed with someone elses opinion that you are wrong and they are right.

For the record, I agree with you. Flying is fine in content when it is not current, current content, it needs to go.....just waiting now for all the quotes telling me I am aslo wrong and their way/opinion is right....

Because it utterly ignores that the game was fine (and had its highest number of subscriptions) when flight was active so flying rather obviously did NOT destroy the game or anything like that.

Now, is it a valid OPINION to dislike flight? Sure. But don't state it as a fact or as the only valid opinion. And be prepared to back up your opinion with some logic or facts if you are arguing that removing flight is good for the game (vs simply something you like). Most of which have been roundly demolished, so you're left with 'I don't like it' to which I and many others will note that you're completely free not to fly yourself. It's the imposition of that restriction on OTHERS that we don't like or agree with.

[Mafic]

Im excited that there is no flying. Blizz maked the correct choice. They should get rid of it all together.

Excited for what? You don't even do world PVP.

[Baine]

I am fine with no flying for a little bit but can't wait for flying in Broken Isles too.

[4dahorde]

Because it utterly ignores that the game was fine (and had its highest number of subscriptions) when flight was active so flying rather obviously did NOT destroy the game or anything like that.

Now, is it a valid OPINION to dislike flight? Sure. But don't state it as a fact or as the only valid opinion. And be prepared to back up your opinion with some logic or facts. Most of which have been roundly demolished, so you're left with 'I don't like it' to which I and many others will note that you're completely free not to fly yourself. It's the imposition of that restriction on OTHERS that we don't like or agree with.

I stated NOTHING as fact, I stated MY OPINION...which I do NOT NEED logic or facts to support and opinion. I based my opinion on how I feel about the game. See, when someone here posts their opinion, which I did. We are told we are wrong and need proof as to why we feel a certain way.

Utterly ignores the game was fine...opinion, not fact...some people still find the game perfectly fine..people left for many reasons, flying might be one of them, but not the only reason, I have a feeleing more have left because of the poor quality of expansions as of late, but that is also an opinion and not a fact.

As I said would happen, I was told I was wrong..and was then told why your opinion on the matter means more.

It is a game, there are MANY more restrictrions in this game to everyone that plays it. It is not just flying that is restricted, but it seems HOW you get around is the biggest one to some people...fine, your opinion. I disagree, and you all can sit here and argue over whos opinion is correct while the rest of us are enjoying the overall game for what it is and not placing judgement because of transportation.

[Connll]

Im excited that there is no flying. Blizz maked the correct choice. They should get rid of it all together.

Its telling that you declare being excited... towards *not* doing something.

I´ll let you think about the implications for a while.