Flying Next Expack

[Dhrizzle]

Then what is right name for situation, when game developer artificially stretches content, so it lasts longer? I.e. quest itself takes 10 minutes to complete. But game developer artificially adds another 30 minutes via forcing you to get to quest zone via some artificially slow way of transportation?

First up I really have to point out that pretty much every single part of a video game is "artificial," I get that you're using the word to mean "in a way I don't particularly like" but it's really unnecessary.

Anyway, to answer your question, it's called creating an open-world/adventure game that seeks to create a sense of immersion in the world by making it feel like an actual place rather than just a virtual space designed to service a video-game. Or for a shorter version you could just call it "Vanilla WoW."

Why it's different from time-gating?

Because a "time-gate" is a barrier that can't be passed until an arbitrary (or "artificial" if you insist) period of time has passed. With a time-gate the player dedicating 6 hours a day will not get access to the content any faster than someone who stays logged out until the minute the time-gate is up. If content involves having your character do something for an extended period - even if it is something as simple as riding a horse across a continent - then the player who puts in more time will complete the content faster than someone who doesn't play.

Yeah, it's more "local", but still - your 10 minutes quest is time-gated behind 30 minutes of transportation. Why it's different from "your 10 minutes of quest is time gated behind one week of artificial CD"? Because transportation - is considered to be "playing the game"? It's subjective opinion. Yeah, back then just walking for one hour from point A to point B - was "playing the game". But not now.

If you're logged in and your character is doing as you have instructed, even if it's taking a taxi you don't have direct control over, then it's different to a piece of content being locked away until a certain time passes.

So for you there is no difference between "ground content" and "ground-friendly content"? You know, this word "friendly" should make some difference. No?

There are parts of the game that literally can not be played without a flying mount. Parts of TBC, Storm Peaks and Icecrown, bits of Cataclysm and some of the daily zones in MoP for example. Those are "ground unfriendly," anything that you can complete using only a ground mount is "ground friendly." What you're thinking of is how quick/easy the content can be completed, but just because you expect to be able to get through it as quickly and easily as possible does not mean it is "unfriendly."

And again. What you call "not ground friendly by my definition" - is actually just artificial content stretching, that can be fixed in a way, completely unrelated to ground friendliness of content. For example this problems were fixed back in Cata via adding more flight path spots, placing quest givers closer to questing zones, giving you quests on a fly, increasing drop rates of quest items, etc. How can all this things be related to whether content is ground-friendly or not? You're either refusing to understand the difference or just trolling me. Ground friendly - is about way, content is being played, not about time, it takes to complete it.

What you're talking about is Blizz changing the questing from the open RPG type experience to a linear, story-based way of railroading you around the zones with the least amount of fuss or inconvenience. Just because you prefer the easier, simpler experience doesn't make the way it was in Vanilla "unfriendly."

Completely reversing, what I've said - is also good way to discuss things.

How do you mean?

Have you ever played real RPGs? In real RPG if somebody tells me, that I have to clean fortress from enemies - I go and kill them all. If enemies respawn within just 5 seconds - then it's just very poor illusion, that I do it for real. Ok, it's MMO and it has many players online, so mobs HAVE TO RESPAWN. Yeah, but back in Vanilla/TBC/WotLK respawn timer was long enough to allow me to at least complete this quest and go away, so I was able to at least have an illusion, that I completed quest for real and that this game is real RPG.

Are you absolutely sure you've played Vanilla? Between the lack of tag-sharing, specific mobs to hit for quests (which often shared spawns with different mobs,) low drop rates, relatively long time-to-kill and need to sit and eat/drink there were many times in Vanilla when you would have to wait for the respawn or get hit by it accidently, or get sent back to the same place where all the mobs will have reappeared. Also don't forget that in TBC they messed up the boost to respawn rates so you could occasionally get mobs respawning before you'd even killed them.

What we have now - is freakin joke. It's not RPG. It's poor NES game. Do you know, why NES games suffered from so severe amnesia? Do you know, why mobs were respawning every time, when they were going off screen? Because NES had just 1Kb RAM. And my computer has 16Gb RAM. And I want to play real RPG - not freakin stupid Super Mario Bros-like NES arcade. But Blizzard simply don't care about RPG aspect anymore.

Have you ever seen a NES, played Super Mario Bros or experienced an actual arcade because WoW is nothing at all like any of those things.

P.S. Yeah, I use buzzwords. Yeah, buzzwords can be exaggeration of real situation, but at the same time buzzwords - are good way to shrink several pages of explanation into just one word. Especially in case, when everybody, except several people, who pretend, that they're stupid and don't understand, what we are talking about, understands it. For example it would take several pages to explain, why brainlessly killing mobs just for sake of filling some 100% bar - is actually arcade, not RPG. And that game, that focuses more on aspect of online competition between players, than on immersion - is actually MOBA, not RPG. But if I would try to explain it to everybody - I would get sick of it pretty fast. So I just tell one single magic word. And everybody, who doesn't pretend to be stupid, understands, what I mean.

The buzz words you use are just terrible though, calling WoW a "NES game," "Super Mario Bros," "arcade" or a "MOBA" is just plain nonsense. All it does is give the vague impression that you're unhappy about something but failing to describe exactly why.

[-Joker-]

All of this is false except for Legion and WoD, the two attempts to force No-Flying. Up until that point the only REQUIREMENT was reaching the level restriction and paying the gold. How you reached those requirements was irrelevant, and it was completable at launch.

So when I said:

TBC - You had to consume (most or) all of the content before hitting max level and getting flight.
Wrath - You had to get from 70-77 before you could fly, or do like I did skipping Storm Peaks, hitting 80, and then flying.
MoP - You had to consume (most or) all of the content before hitting max level and getting flight.
WoD - You had to consume (most or) all of the content before hitting max level, complete Pathfinder and getting flight.
Legion - You had to consume (most or) all of the content before hitting max level, complete Pathfinder and getting flight.

Which translates to: "Hit max level and get flying", you essentially just glossed over what I said so you could fight with me.

This is why people hate responding to you.

- - - Updated - - -

Used to be gold + couple of days leveling.

Now it's an achievement + eight months of waiting for the achievement to be put into the game.

I'm not saying that "Used to be gold. Now it's an achievement" is not a fact. But I AM saying it deliberately omits another fact of such importance that I have to assume you're being deliberately deceptive.

I've omitted nothing. I've simplified it. I'm sorry that simplifying the terms makes most arguments irrelevant.

[SirCowdog]

So when I said:
Which translates to: "Hit max level and get flying", you essentially just glossed over what I said so you could fight with me.

This is why people hate responding to you.

I suspect that "people"(meaning you, specifically) hate responding to me because I call out the bullshit when I see it.

Because the way you worded your post implied that consuming most or all of the content was required for flying, which wasn't actually the case during those expansions. And what you actually posted made it sound like you were trying to present the facts in a way that would be most beneficial to your arguments. Maybe you didn't intend it that way, I don't know. But I can only go off what you actually posted.

Maybe you should try wording your post better next time so there's no confusion. But lets get back on topic.

There is a tremendous difference between making flight available in the launch patch with a simple requirement like "Level cap + gold", and making players wait 8 months before it's even possible to complete the laundry list of requirements.

With the former a player can choose to play the game in whatever manner they like: Grinding/farming, questing, dungeon runs, or even PVP. Hell, a determined player could even reach level cap by only gathering herbs and minerals(There was that panda player who reached 60 only by picking flowers on the starter panda island).

But with the latter we have a situation where a player who wants flying has no options until the time-lock gets released by Blizzard. Player progression on the unlock is a complete non-factor before that deadline. It also has the drawback of requiring a player who wants flying to quest and explore. They can not dungeon grind their way to flying, nor pvp, or anything else. They MUST play in one specific way before obtaining flight. This is an objective loss in player freedom and choice.

It seems clear to me that if the intent was to get players to "play the way the content was meant to be consumed", that the time-lockout would be unnecessary. Locking flight behind the quest and exploration achievements would be enough.

If their intent was for the quest content to last all the way up until players reached level cap, then they should adjust experience gains accordingly.

And even locking flight for 8 months into the expansion still doesn't explain what they're going to do with content releases now that flight is available to players. If they really believe all their crap about wanting players to experience the game from the ground, then they'll be forced to disable flying in any future content releases. They'll also be forced to go with a "Pathfinder Part 3" to allow players to fly in those new areas after they've been consumed from the ground first. Will they place ANOTHER arbitrary time-lockout on that too?

[-Joker-]

I suspect that "people"(meaning you, specifically) hate responding to me because I call out the bullshit when I see it.

Because the way you worded your post implied that consuming most or all of the content was required for flying, which wasn't actually the case during those expansions. And what you actually posted made it sound like you were trying to present the facts in a way that would be most beneficial to your arguments. Maybe you didn't intend it that way, I don't know. But I can only go off what you actually posted.

Maybe you should try wording your post better next time so there's no confusion. But lets get back on topic.

There is a tremendous difference between making flight available in the launch patch with a simple requirement like "Level cap + gold", and making players wait 8 months before it's even possible to complete the laundry list of requirements.

With the former a player can choose to play the game in whatever manner they like: Grinding/farming, questing, dungeon runs, or even PVP. Hell, a determined player could even reach level cap by only gathering herbs and minerals(There was that panda player who reached 60 only by picking flowers on the starter panda island).

But with the latter we have a situation where a player who wants flying has no options until the time-lock gets released by Blizzard. Player progression on the unlock is a complete non-factor before that deadline. It also has the drawback of requiring a player who wants flying to quest and explore. They can not dungeon grind their way to flying, nor pvp, or anything else. They MUST play in one specific way before obtaining flight. This is an objective loss in player freedom and choice.

It seems clear to me that if the intent was to get players to "play the way the content was meant to be consumed", that the time-lockout would be unnecessary. Locking flight behind the quest and exploration achievements would be enough.

If their intent was for the quest content to last all the way up until players reached level cap, then they should adjust experience gains accordingly.

And even locking flight for 8 months into the expansion still doesn't explain what they're going to do with content releases now that flight is available to players. If they really believe all their crap about wanting players to experience the game from the ground, then they'll be forced to disable flying in any future content releases. They'll also be forced to go with a "Pathfinder Part 3" to allow players to fly in those new areas after they've been consumed from the ground first. Will they place ANOTHER arbitrary time-lockout on that too?

Not sure how much simpler I could have made the post. Guess some folks are just not quick to grasp a concept when someone doesn't use 15 paragraphs to drive home a point. So I will try this one last time. Hopefully it sticks and makes sense.

It used to be you could hit max level and pay gold to fly. Now you have to hit max level and complete an achievement to fly.

Does it take LONGER with the new method? Yes. Tough. Do you and 12 other people wish it would go back to the old design? Yes. Tough. It really doesn't get any simpler than that. Then again, if you were subbed and making these suggestions on the BNet site, maybe someone would see your incessant claims and respond to you.

As for Part 3 to fly on Argus... I hope they DO add a timelock to it and open it up with 7.4. Unlike you and some of these other people, there are those like myself who don't mind some gating and enjoy not seeing players whizzing by overhead.

[MarkTheMadMad]

They should just make a flying expansion pack with all the zones designed around flying and also flying mounted combat.

[WowIsDead64]

First up I really have to point out that pretty much every single part of a video game is "artificial," I get that you're using the word to mean "in a way I don't particularly like" but it's really unnecessary.

Anyway, to answer your question, it's called creating an open-world/adventure game that seeks to create a sense of immersion in the world by making it feel like an actual place rather than just a virtual space designed to service a video-game. Or for a shorter version you could just call it "Vanilla WoW."

Because a "time-gate" is a barrier that can't be passed until an arbitrary (or "artificial" if you insist) period of time has passed. With a time-gate the player dedicating 6 hours a day will not get access to the content any faster than someone who stays logged out until the minute the time-gate is up. If content involves having your character do something for an extended period - even if it is something as simple as riding a horse across a continent - then the player who puts in more time will complete the content faster than someone who doesn't play.

If you're logged in and your character is doing as you have instructed, even if it's taking a taxi you don't have direct control over, then it's different to a piece of content being locked away until a certain time passes.

There are parts of the game that literally can not be played without a flying mount. Parts of TBC, Storm Peaks and Icecrown, bits of Cataclysm and some of the daily zones in MoP for example. Those are "ground unfriendly," anything that you can complete using only a ground mount is "ground friendly." What you're thinking of is how quick/easy the content can be completed, but just because you expect to be able to get through it as quickly and easily as possible does not mean it is "unfriendly."

What you're talking about is Blizz changing the questing from the open RPG type experience to a linear, story-based way of railroading you around the zones with the least amount of fuss or inconvenience. Just because you prefer the easier, simpler experience doesn't make the way it was in Vanilla "unfriendly."

How do you mean?

Are you absolutely sure you've played Vanilla? Between the lack of tag-sharing, specific mobs to hit for quests (which often shared spawns with different mobs,) low drop rates, relatively long time-to-kill and need to sit and eat/drink there were many times in Vanilla when you would have to wait for the respawn or get hit by it accidently, or get sent back to the same place where all the mobs will have reappeared. Also don't forget that in TBC they messed up the boost to respawn rates so you could occasionally get mobs respawning before you'd even killed them.

Have you ever seen a NES, played Super Mario Bros or experienced an actual arcade because WoW is nothing at all like any of those things.

The buzz words you use are just terrible though, calling WoW a "NES game," "Super Mario Bros," "arcade" or a "MOBA" is just plain nonsense. All it does is give the vague impression that you're unhappy about something but failing to describe exactly why.

Yeah, sending you to kill 20 Harpies to the other side of map on your feet only to tell you, that you should go back there and also collect 20 bracelets from exactly the same mobs and then all of a sudden to remember, that you also need to kill their boss - is "open-world/adventure game that seeks to create a sense of immersion in the world by making it feel like an actual place"? Or may be "Vanilla" - is game, where only 10% of boars had livers? Or may be it's game, where NPCs don't know, how to point their finger to some spot on a map and have tell you "to the <direction> from <nearest spot name on a map>" instead, so you have to search this specific spot for hours? Or may be this things were just "artificial content stretching"? M?

Any content, possible without flying mount - is "ground-friendly"? Lol. Even 3D maze of mountain paths? Even path, artificially overcrowded by mobs, so you can't pass it without being dazed 100500 times? Don't make me laugh.

I don't have any problems with describing, what design of outdoor content I want. It's simple. When game developer makes 2x2 tiny location, puts 10 mobs, respawning every 5 second there and tells you to kill 100 of them - then he definitely doesn't care about immersion or RP elements. He just wants you to brainlessly smash them. And it's not RPG. It's arcade. You can do the same in some generic arcade shooter, like Serious Sam. And even in Serious Sam despite of fact, that all mobs are essentially the same - you still don't have to kill same mob twice. Last time, when I needed to kill the same mobs again, again and again - was some NES games, like freakin Felix The Cat. And when the main purpose of such design - extreme competition between players, so PVP is being literally forced on them, cuz they just can't do quests normally, when players from other faction also do them - then it's not just arcade - it's feakin MOBA. Cuz how can our goal be "beating dangerous mighty Legion", if we have to play "who tags and smashes poor mob first" game instead.

What do I want? True RPG. In true RPG if quest tells me to "clear fortress from enemies" - I should be able to clear fortress from enemies, not just pretend, that I've done it via killing exactly the same mob 10 times in a row. I don't know, why you had different experience. May be you've never actually played any xpacks before Cata, simply because it was Cata, when dynamic respawn rates were implemented for the first time. But my experience was different - release of WotLK was just perfect. Immersive content - no problems even on overcrowded PVP servers. I just want this perfect experience back.

[Dhrizzle]

Yeah, sending you to kill 20 Harpies to the other side of map on your feet only to tell you, that you should go back there and also collect 20 bracelets from exactly the same mobs and then all of a sudden to remember, that you also need to kill their boss - is "open-world/adventure game that seeks to create a sense of immersion in the world by making it feel like an actual place"? Or may be "Vanilla" - is game, where only 10% of boars had livers? Or may be it's game, where NPCs don't know, how to point their finger to some spot on a map and have tell you "to the <direction> from <nearest spot name on a map>" instead, so you have to search this specific spot for hours? Or may be this things were just "artificial content stretching"? M?

Any content, possible without flying mount - is "ground-friendly"? Lol. Even 3D maze of mountain paths? Even path, artificially overcrowded by mobs, so you can't pass it without being dazed 100500 times? Don't make me laugh.

I don't have any problems with describing, what design of outdoor content I want. It's simple. When game developer makes 2x2 tiny location, puts 10 mobs, respawning every 5 second there and tells you to kill 100 of them - then he definitely doesn't care about immersion or RP elements. He just wants you to brainlessly smash them. And it's not RPG. It's arcade. You can do the same in some generic arcade shooter, like Serious Sam. And even in Serious Sam despite of fact, that all mobs are essentially the same - you still don't have to kill same mob twice. Last time, when I needed to kill the same mobs again, again and again - was some NES games, like freakin Felix The Cat. And when the main purpose of such design - extreme competition between players, so PVP is being literally forced on them, cuz they just can't do quests normally, when players from other faction also do them - then it's not just arcade - it's feakin MOBA. Cuz how can our goal be "beating dangerous mighty Legion", if we have to play "who tags and smashes poor mob first" game instead.

Complete nonsense. Serious Sam was never an arcade game, Felix the Cat on the NES doesn't require you to go back and re-kill previous enemies, open world games are not MOBAs and PvP is not forced on you if you don't roll on a PvP server or enter specific PvP zones.

What do I want? True RPG. In true RPG if quest tells me to "clear fortress from enemies" - I should be able to clear fortress from enemies, not just pretend, that I've done it via killing exactly the same mob 10 times in a row.

Then you don't want an MMO, WoW is not and never has been the game for you.

I don't know, why you had different experience. May be you've never actually played any xpacks before Cata, simply because it was Cata, when dynamic respawn rates were implemented for the first time.

Dynamic respawn rates were put in the game during TBC as I've mentioned a few times now.

But my experience was different - release of WotLK was just perfect. Immersive content - no problems even on overcrowded PVP servers. I just want this perfect experience back.

How crowded can the server be if you weren't playing in the same area as anyone else? I play on a rather modestly sized RP server and there was people all over the place during the WotLK launch. Why do you play on a PvP server if you want to avoid PvP? And finally, those mobs you killed during WotLK will all have respawned a few minutes after you left, I'm afraid you didn't "clear fortress from enemies," you just pretended via killing exactly the same mob 10 times in a row.

You seem to be getting very confused somewhere, are you sure with all the snow, dragons and vikings you're no mistaking WotLK with Skyrim?

[Vorecien]

Until Blizzard buckles down and actually deals with how flying works, they're going to keep having the same problems.

I believe Pathfinder works pretty well. The whole, "Experience the content from the ground, and then you can experience the convenience that flight brings... later" idea is solid to me. It's an MMO, you earn things. I don't know. They will still doing a Pathfinder next expansion, but who knows, perhaps it will be different then.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't object at all to holding players back from flying so that they can have a few weeks/months of grounded gameplay, but they should be able to actively work towards unlocking flight right from the start without having to wait around until the devs say it's ok.

I see. You, among others in this thread, want to complete Part I, and then have the option to work on Part II? How do you progress on content that isn't available yet. When the expansion launched, Broken Shore wasn't ready yet. It's doubtful that 7.2 was fully flushed out and ready to launch at the beginning of the expansion and the designers and developers were like, "Eh, we'll let them wait a bit." You know? It's not the developers telling us "no," it's simple game design.

[SirCowdog]

I believe Pathfinder works pretty well. The whole, "Experience the content from the ground, and then you can experience the convenience that flight brings... later" idea is solid to me. It's an MMO, you earn things. I don't know. They will still doing a Pathfinder next expansion, but who knows, perhaps it will be different then.

I don't think anyone has a problem with earning flight. That's actually one of the things people have been excited about since it was first suggested that there would be an epic quest line to unlock it back in WoD. The problem is taking flight completely out of the game until it's effectively worthless. Slapping an 8 month delay on getting it, making your progress invalid until then, doesn't help either.

The main point of contention that I, and many other people, have is that we want flight to be PART of the game, not an afterthought of "convenience" only obtained when that convenience doesn't actually matter.

And again I point out: Now that flying is back in the game again, available to players, how is blizzard going to deal with the problems it creates in any future content releases for the open world in Legion?

I see. You, among others in this thread, want to complete Part I, and then have the option to work on Part II? How do you progress on content that isn't available yet. When the expansion launched, Broken Shore wasn't ready yet. It's doubtful that 7.2 was fully flushed out and ready to launch at the beginning of the expansion and the designers and developers were like, "Eh, we'll let them wait a bit." You know? It's not the developers telling us "no," it's simple game design.

No, it's like I said just now: If both the core mechanics of flight and the design of the game world were built to handle it, flying could be unlocked at ANY point in time without breaking further content releases. The problem being described here(flight can't be available in 7.1 because 7.2 wasn't finished) STILL APPLIES right now. Flying can't be unlocked in 7.2 because content from 7.3 isn't finished. Do you see the issue here?

The issue you're describing is being caused by NOT engineering flight and the game world to handle it. It's a problem BLIZZARD is creating by ignoring the issue instead of dealing with. This is why I say that pathfinder doesn't' actually fix anything.

[Vorecien]

Slapping an 8 month delay on getting it, making your progress invalid until then, doesn't help either.

Epic quest lines should be an achievement, and it should be a short experience. That's the point of an epic quest line. It's not a delay, if you remained current with the content, then you're there - at the frontlines, and probably accompanied by flight. The time frame should make your efforts feel more rewarding. If I earned flight in 1 month, then I would likely feel more burned out than if I had an 8 or 9 month time frame to work on it. Not to mention that it's account-wide too?

The main point of contention that I, and many other people, have is that we want flight to be PART of the game, not an afterthought of "convenience" only obtained when that convenience doesn't actually matter.

If you earned flight in Patch 7.1, opposed to 7.2, would the convenience matter then? I'm failing to understand how 7.2 suddenly degrades the ability to fly, as if we hadn't known that 7.2 would bring us flight. This implementation was exceptionally smoother than the implementation in Warlords of Draenor.

And again I point out: Now that flying is back in the game again, available to players, how is blizzard going to deal with the problems it creates in any future content releases for the open world in Legion?

Well, perhaps we can't fly in Argus? I can't definitively answer the question. A nice, "food for thought" question, though.

[SirCowdog]

Epic quest lines should be an achievement, and it should be a short experience. That's the point of an epic quest line. It's not a delay, if you remained current with the content, then you're there - at the frontlines, and probably accompanied by flight. The time frame should make your efforts feel more rewarding. If I earned flight in 1 month, then I would likely feel more burned out than if I had an 8 or 9 month time frame to work on it. Not to mention that it's account-wide too?

I reference the epic ring and cloak quests: Both gave not only context to your efforts, but also an item which you carried with you and used across the entire expansion. Would you be just as fine with those epic quest lines if they gave you NOTHING for 8 months?

Presentation and implementation are important here.

If you earned flight in Patch 7.1, opposed to 7.2, would the convenience matter then? I'm failing to understand how 7.2 suddenly degrades the ability to fly, as if we hadn't known that 7.2 would bring us flight. This implementation was exceptionally smoother than the implementation in Warlords of Draenor.

Because it's not about CONVENIENCE. /sigh

It's about character progression and making flight another layer of the gameplay, with all the challenges, story, and involvement any other part of the game has. Do people play pet battles for convenience? Do people fight in area and BGs for convenience? Do people raid because it's convenient? What other aspect of WoW's gameplay is locked behind an 8 month timer and a wall of achievements like Pathfinder?

And don't bring up WoD. It was a shit expansion with the bar set so low as to only useful as an example of what NOT to do.

Well, perhaps we can't fly in Argus? I can't definitively answer the question. A nice, "food for thought" question, though.

And that's just one more aspect of the discussion. If Blizzard isn't ever going to actually fix the problems of flight, then they should have the courage to remove it instead of using it as a fake "reward". They'd be better off replacing flight paths and flying with a system of instant teleports behind pathfinder. It would make more sense.

I strongly suggest you go watch SoulBreezy's video posted a couple pages ago. It explains things pretty well.

[Dhrizzle]

If Blizzard isn't ever going to actually fix the problems of flight, then they should have the courage to remove it instead of using it as a fake "reward".

Maybe you haven't followed the issue that closely but prior to 6.2 Blizz decided the response to no-flying had been positive enough for them to do as you suggested. However the people who had been happy or at least content with waiting for flight did not like the idea of not flying at all in the expansion so Blizz reverted that plan and implemented Pathfinder, which was pretty close to what we expected from the start.

They'd be better off replacing flight paths and flying with a system of instant teleports behind pathfinder. It would make more sense.

Nope, that would be terrible. I wish more games would ditch that outdated system in favour of something that actually moves you through the world instead of hitting you with a loading screen.

[Toisha]

I hope the entire next expansion is indoors, but flight is enabled day 1. That way, we can fly, but everything we have to do is indoors and mounts can't be used.

[Deleted]

Next expansion should have goblin-crafted elevated six-lane highways across the skies. That'll make everyone happy.

[Granyala]

We both need jobs at Blizzard. We would be the polar opposites in the conference room, but we would probably be great friends outside of work. :b

*chuckles* that would be entertaining.

[Wondercrab]

I see. You, among others in this thread, want to complete Part I, and then have the option to work on Part II? How do you progress on content that isn't available yet. When the expansion launched, Broken Shore wasn't ready yet. It's doubtful that 7.2 was fully flushed out and ready to launch at the beginning of the expansion and the designers and developers were like, "Eh, we'll let them wait a bit." You know? It's not the developers telling us "no," it's simple game design.

And there are simple solutions to this that don't involve waiting for future content to be completed, one of which being separate Pathfinder achievements for each new piece of content. This way the devs could ensure that players always experience new content on the ground for a few weeks without having a hard delineation between the flying and the non-flying halves of the expansion. Ideally Pathfinder I should apply to the Broken Isle, Pathfinder II to the broken shore, and so on.

In general I think the handling of flying has been very sloppy since the launch of WoD, especially considering that their earlier models allowed them to get the best of both worlds, with flying being broadly available in the areas where fast travel was an issue, but restricted in small, intricately designed zones that contained a number of ground-based gameplay elements. This new model ensures that one style of gameplay is always left out in the cold for an extended period of time, with certain design elements becoming trivialised and others becoming cumbersome depending on the availability of flight. Previously they designed content that was clearly tailored to one mode of transport or the other, whereas now they're trying to make one size fit all.

Overall I think Pathfinder has the potential to be a pretty decent system if the time gating problem is addressed, but I still think it's inferior to the way expansions like MoP were designed.

[SirCowdog]

Nothing about pathfinder was epic. Its just another complete failure in this expansion.

Except it's not a failure. It's a complete success from their point of view. Even Hazzikostas in his recent interview said that the team was overall happy with it. And why wouldn't they be? They've convinced a majority of current players that getting flight is a "reward" when you have to clear every single piece of content and wait 8 months. Seriously...wtf?! And what's it actually good for? Alts? Grinding out the same daily crap you already did for the previous 8 months?

At this point I'm not sure who I'm more disappointed in: Blizzard, or all the people buying into that nonsense. It's one thing for people to like WoW with or without flying. It's another thing entirely to point at Pathfinder and say "this is good".

[lucred]

The IDEA of pathfinder is good... but it should be available from the start. Once you have completed loremaster, explorer, and adventurer what is left to "discover"? You have covered the entire expansion, you have ferreted out it's secrets, and you have done the vast majority of the quests. So if the lack of flight is supposed to allow you to experience the content as it was designed to be experienced, why continue to ground you? Staying on the ground/going afk for 3-5 minutes while a flight path carries you between zones is not letting you experience anything new, and being AFK because you can't interact with anything is hardly immersive.

[Vorecien]

Nothing about pathfinder was epic. Its just another complete failure in this expansion.

Oh well. They can't satisfy 100% of their player population. They liked it, and will continue to use it in the future.

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And there are simple solutions to this that don't involve waiting for future content to be completed, one of which being separate Pathfinder achievements for each new piece of content. This way the devs could ensure that players always experience new content on the ground for a few weeks without having a hard delineation between the flying and the non-flying halves of the expansion. Ideally Pathfinder I should apply to the Broken Isle, Pathfinder II to the broken shore, and so on.

WoD's implementation was sloppy. The implementation of flying in Legion was smoother. As players, we have lots of ideas that sound cool and, for some, would be exceptionally awesome to have available. The problem, however, is that we don't know their systems. They can't JUST implement something. We see how some patches break things that, to us, seem entirely unrelated.

I'm not trying to argue with any of you. I'm merely attempting to bridge the gap between the mindset of players and Blizzard's team. Albeit, I don't work for them, nor am I affiliated with them in any way (other than the fact that I play their games.)

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*chuckles* that would be entertaining.

I believe so, too. ^.^

[Deleted]

The way this poll is worded it is utterly worthless. It has two nearly identical options and a third one that at best can be interpreted as "I don't care" and at worst can be interpreted as "I am fckn stupid cause I don't agree with the other option".