Argus: Turning a no-fly advocate

[rda]

Yes, and flight is a reward - you get it as a reward for completing the achievement. SirCowdog is claiming Blizz called it a meaningful reward (he used the term a few times including a direct quote with no source,) apparently meaning it would have a significant impact on open world progression. I agree that flight isn't a "meaningful reward" in that way but I would like to see what context that quote came from (or if it even exists.)

Got it, you want to nitpick. (Because seriously, this is nothing but nitpicking. "OMG, I did not see the specific word I wanted in a short tweet so while this word is written all over the tweet, I am going to pretend that the meaning was different.") OK.

I am not sure SirCowdog would want to be arguing the supposedly big difference between "reward" and "meaningful reward". It would perhaps make sense to let him know that you want to be arguing that.

[Aggrophobic]

Yes, and flight is a reward - you get it as a reward for completing the achievement. SirCowdog is claiming Blizz called it a meaningful reward (he used the term a few times including a direct quote with no source,) apparently meaning it would have a significant impact on open world progression. I agree that flight isn't a "meaningful reward" in that way but I would like to see what context that quote came from (or if it even exists.)

It shouldn't be a reward though.
It used to be a core feature of the game and it should not be hidden behind a time gate.

The best thing they could do is just let people buy it at max level like we used to.
We have seen the zones while leveling. There is no fun in having to crawl along the ground for months.

If you do like that ground mount, nothing will change for you so why is it a problem? You could always use your mounts. Nothing chnaged for you and nothing will change if they bring flying back. It does not affect you in any way.

[Dhrizzle]

Got it, you want to nitpick. (Because seriously, this is nothing but nitpicking. "OMG, I did not see the specific word I wanted in a short tweet so while this word is written all over the tweet, I am going to pretend that the meaning was different.") OK.

I am not sure SirCowdog would want to be arguing the supposedly big difference between "reward" and "meaningful reward". It would perhaps make sense to let him know that you want to be arguing that.

No it's not nitpicking. No-one has been denying that flight is given out as a reward for Pathfinder and it's pretty silly of you to think otherwise. The basis of SirCowdog's complaint was Blizzard saying it would be a meaningful reward and him not finding it meaningful to fly for several months before Argus is released. All that tweet says is flight will be earned by doing some activities rather than spending some gold which everyone knows anyway.

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It shouldn't be a reward though.
It used to be a core feature of the game and it should not be hidden behind a time gate.

The best thing they could do is just let people buy it at max level like we used to.
We have seen the zones while leveling. There is no fun in having to crawl along the ground for months.

If you do like that ground mount, nothing will change for you so why is it a problem? You could always use your mounts. Nothing chnaged for you and nothing will change if they bring flying back. It does not affect you in any way.

When Blizz design content they have to consider the tools they have made available to the players, if they have given out a tool as powerful as flight they have to assume that players will use it and design around it accordingly. In terms of world design they probably won't bother with the effort of making interesting terrain that requires players to look around and explore to figure out the paths because they've given out a tool that allows them to float over everything. In terms of rewards and pacing they'll assume that players will helicopter between mobs to complete quests as quickly as possible and adjust accordingly. If they don't account for flight and design the game as if it didn't exist people would wrap up the daily content too quickly and we'd have similar complaints to WoD about there being nothing to do.

[Aggrophobic]

No it's not nitpicking. No-one has been denying that flight is given out as a reward for Pathfinder and it's pretty silly of you to think otherwise. The basis of SirCowdog's complaint was Blizzard saying it would be a meaningful reward and him not finding it meaningful to fly for several months before Argus is released. All that tweet says is flight will be earned by doing some activities rather than spending some gold which everyone knows anyway.

- - - Updated - - -



When Blizz design content they have to consider the tools they have made available to the players, if they have given out a tool as powerful as flight they have to assume that players will use it and design around it accordingly. In terms of world design they probably won't bother with the effort of making interesting terrain that requires players to look around and explore to figure out the paths because they've given out a tool that allows them to float over everything. In terms of rewards and pacing they'll assume that players will helicopter between mobs to complete quests as quickly as possible and adjust accordingly. If they don't account for flight and design the game as if it didn't exist people would wrap up the daily content too quickly and we'd have similar complaints to WoD about there being nothing to do.

WoD didn't have flying for most of the expansion. Flying was no the reason people though they had too little content.
Wrath had flying from the start and never restricted flying in any way other than a small gold fee yet players loved that expansion.

You're looking for problems that aren't there.

A more likely reason for them to remove flying is that they either don't want to put in the extra effort anymore as making zones for flying takes more time or they don't know how to creat content as engaging and fun as the devs back in Wrath or TBC and just look at time played as some form of metric for fun.

In any case, your logic is still flawed. Like every other whiteknight in here you're simply defending whatever Blizzard does without questioning any of it. It's ridiculous.

[Dhrizzle]

WoD didn't have flying for most of the expansion. Flying was no the reason people though they had too little content.

I didn't say it was, I said that if Blizz designed for players on the ground then gave everyone flight people would blast through the content quicker and run out of things to do. That would lead to similar complaints, it doesn't mean it would be the exact same situation.

Wrath had flying from the start and never restricted flying in any way other than a small gold fee yet players loved that expansion.

Wrath had some side activities in the open world but no major form of progression like the AP and gear we get from Legion, in WotLK it was mostly about chain-running heroics to get the badges for tier gear etc.

A more likely reason for them to remove flying is that they either don't want to put in the extra effort anymore as making zones for flying takes more time or they don't know how to creat content as engaging and fun as the devs back in Wrath or TBC and just look at time played as some form of metric for fun.

The difference between TBC/Wrath and Legion is we now have the open world offering a decent means of progression rather than being a side activity with minimal rewards.

Also, what makes you think flying zones take more time and money to design? If players can just float over everything Blizz don't have to worry about the layout of zones or putting in paths to get around in a timely manner.

In any case, your logic is still flawed. Like every other whiteknight in here you're simply defending whatever Blizzard does without questioning any of it. It's ridiculous.

No, I'm defending Blizz's decisions because I find they make the game better, you're trying to hand-wave it as whiteknighting because for some reason you don't want to accept that people have different opinions

[Deleted]

I didn't say it was, I said that if Blizz designed for players on the ground then gave everyone flight people would blast through the content quicker and run out of things to do. That would lead to similar complaints, it doesn't mean it would be the exact same situation.

Wrath had some side activities in the open world but no major form of progression like the AP and gear we get from Legion, in WotLK it was mostly about chain-running heroics to get the badges for tier gear etc.

The difference between TBC/Wrath and Legion is we now have the open world offering a decent means of progression rather than being a side activity with minimal rewards.

Also, what makes you think flying zones take more time and money to design? If players can just float over everything Blizz don't have to worry about the layout of zones or putting in paths to get around in a timely manner.

No, I'm defending Blizz's decisions because I find they make the game better, you're trying to hand-wave it as whiteknighting because for some reason you don't want to accept that people have different opinions

Well, first - TBC had meaningful progression from the open world. You farmed your shoulder enchants from Aldor and Scryers there. You farmed materials for crafted items / crafted sets which have been very good for a long time during the lifetime of the expansion. You had daily hubs there for epic flying mounts with lore on Arrakoa and Netherwing dragons, and Ogri'la. The only area where there was no flying was the Isle of Quel'danas, and this was due to the fact that it was not in Outland and we did not had flying in Azeroth back then.

And while crafting was a bit less important in Wrath, at least when you did not have the patterns from raids, there was also plenty of world content.

You know what happened? Cataclysm. Where people started to bitch and moan about how flying ruins their game, but it was actually the abysmal phasing failure which prevented people from the same group to be in the same phase if they have been on different stages in a questline and thus in different phasing areas. This was the biggest mistake of Cata, but all people did was bitching about flying while leveling.

And then somewhere in the progression from MoP to WoD, devs seem to have decided that they don't want to create large areas anymore, and that they want to cramp as many mobs and quest hubs into a tiny area, and that they can achieve this by creating zones with multiple altitude levels and for such a concept, flying is of course not good - because people can take vertical shortcuts. But please ask yourself - are these shortcuts really important for the gameplay, or do they only show how flawed the zone design is? Yes, in a mountain zone, such an approach does make sense - but most of the time, we have plain areas out there in the world. We only have multiple height levels in artificially created zones - like a mall. This is the reason why the world does not feel like a world anymore, but like a giant maze.

Flying is not the problem. Devs are. And their zone design does not contribute much to the gameplay, but only to the time we spend travelling, artificially enlarging tiny areas.

[rda]

No it's not nitpicking. No-one has been denying that flight is given out as a reward for Pathfinder and it's pretty silly of you to think otherwise. The basis of SirCowdog's complaint was Blizzard saying it would be a meaningful reward and him not finding it meaningful to fly for several months before Argus is released. All that tweet says is flight will be earned by doing some activities rather than spending some gold which everyone knows anyway.

No, that's you trying hard to find reasons to say that you are right, that's all.

1. Lore is saying that they want flight to be a reward. A reward is something you want to have. Fine, OK, no issues so far, we want to have flying, it could be a reward.

2. Then they go into the game and allow getting flying after you jump through hoops but only on the condition that you also wait for 6+ months. Gee, what an also. I don't think I want to get flying under those conditions. It's not a reward to be able to use it after 6+ months after you already did everything you'd want to use it for. Calling it a reward under these circumstances is just silly, it's more like an unreachable carrot which you only get to taste when the sun makes it dry and gray.

That's what SirCowdog is saying to you. But you just ignore it and turn around to point to a technical moment that since access to flying is gained by completing an achievement that it technically remains a "reward". In reality it has some properties of a reward, but not others and the properties it has are superficial, it's the important ones that it doesn't have.

[Deleted]

But you just ignore it and turn around to point to a technical moment that since access to flying is gained by completing an achievement that it technically remains a "reward". In reality it has some properties of a reward, but not others and the properties it has are superficial, it's the important ones that it doesn't have.

Inevitable. After all, to be against WoW flight, you are required to either:
1. have no clue what the fuck you're on about or
2. to be a psychopath and optionally a low level hypocrite.
To be against flying at all, you have to feel butthurt when other people enjoy something you don't want them to have. That's the psycho part, the compulsory one. However, most psychos prefer not to be treated as such, so they try to use some retarded idiocy as a cover motive. "It breaks immersion", "it cheapens X and Y", you name it. That's the hypocrisy part (then again, cynical hypocrisy is one of psychopathy's defining traits, so no surprise here). Low level hypocrite because the pretence is so thin no one with IQ>30 would ever buy it.
Ironically enough, blizdevs have a fairly humane, if deplorable, motivation: greed. Them lying through their teeth can be quite easily understood and taken with just a bit of loathing: they are required by the business to extract the highest possible amount of sub money from the customers while investing as little as possible in keeping them hooked, so wing clip looks like money just waiting to be picked. They are just a bit stinky, that's all. For the players - nothing of the kind, it's just the pure butthurt of having to suffer other people enjoying something. And I tell ya, this kind of allegedly human beings is always a wonder to behold.

[Aggrophobic]

I didn't say it was, I said that if Blizz designed for players on the ground then gave everyone flight people would blast through the content quicker and run out of things to do. That would lead to similar complaints, it doesn't mean it would be the exact same situation.



Wrath had some side activities in the open world but no major form of progression like the AP and gear we get from Legion, in WotLK it was mostly about chain-running heroics to get the badges for tier gear etc.



The difference between TBC/Wrath and Legion is we now have the open world offering a decent means of progression rather than being a side activity with minimal rewards.

Also, what makes you think flying zones take more time and money to design? If players can just float over everything Blizz don't have to worry about the layout of zones or putting in paths to get around in a timely manner.



No, I'm defending Blizz's decisions because I find they make the game better, you're trying to hand-wave it as whiteknighting because for some reason you don't want to accept that people have different opinions

I accept that players have different opinions, thats why flying is great.
You ride on the ground while players that like to fly, fly.

Won't affect you at all.

And yes, zones such as Argus lack textures and are almost half a zones when it cones to resources. Of course it's cheaper.
Heck, Blizzard spent months fixing the zones in WoD only to make flying possible and even then they looked broken and unfinished when flying about zone areas.

I hope you at least get payed.

[Dhrizzle]

Well, first - TBC had meaningful progression from the open world. You farmed your shoulder enchants from Aldor and Scryers there. You farmed materials for crafted items / crafted sets which have been very good for a long time during the lifetime of the expansion. You had daily hubs there for epic flying mounts with lore on Arrakoa and Netherwing dragons, and Ogri'la. The only area where there was no flying was the Isle of Quel'danas, and this was due to the fact that it was not in Outland and we did not had flying in Azeroth back then.

And while crafting was a bit less important in Wrath, at least when you did not have the patterns from raids, there was also plenty of world content.

"Progression" in the open world in those expansions (and Cata but we'll.get to those later) was grinding tokens/dailies for rep to get an enchant and maybe an item or mount, and grinding primals and mats for crafting a few items. It doesn't really compare to the gear and AP grinding of Legion which is closer to the gear progression you get through instancing, or even the rep grinding in MoP which was then first steps on to the gear treadmill.

You know what happened? Cataclysm. Where people started to bitch and moan about how flying ruins their game, but it was actually the abysmal phasing failure which prevented people from the same group to be in the same phase if they have been on different stages in a questline and thus in different phasing areas. This was the biggest mistake of Cata, but all people did was bitching about flying while leveling.

Cata had multiple problems and having leveling zones you could fly over was definitely one of them, though it also suffered from some of them zones being lacklustre, an overall sense of detachment between the zones, difficult dungeons that shocked players used to WotLK's easy mode, the most linear questing structure WoW has ever seen, overuse of phasing and a general sense that they were just copying themes from Vanilla whilst polishing systems from WotLK. I understand why it turned out the way it did with the old world revamp taking so much resources but it still harmed the 80+ experience (in my opinion.)

And then somewhere in the progression from MoP to WoD, devs seem to have decided that they don't want to create large areas anymore, and that they want to cramp as many mobs and quest hubs into a tiny area, and that they can achieve this by creating zones with multiple altitude levels and for such a concept, flying is of course not good - because people can take vertical shortcuts. But please ask yourself - are these shortcuts really important for the gameplay, or do they only show how flawed the zone design is? Yes, in a mountain zone, such an approach does make sense - but most of the time, we have plain areas out there in the world. We only have multiple height levels in artificially created zones - like a mall. This is the reason why the world does not feel like a world anymore, but like a giant maze.

I agree that MoP's small zones coupled with flight made the daily questing feel pretty dull which probably contributed to me quitting that expansion so early (along with the terrible heroic dungeons,) but that's why I was happy with no-flight (although Draenor is much less cramped than MoP, about the same size as Outland, Broken Isles is roughly the same size as Pandaria,) it made doing the end-game content in the open world feel more like the leveling experience rather than a mindless grind on the side that you do between dungeons and raids.

Flying is not the problem. Devs are. And their zone design does not contribute much to the gameplay, but only to the time we spend travelling, artificially enlarging tiny areas.

From what you described as meaningful progression in the first paragraph it seems what you want is mindless grind you can do between raids or PvP or however you mostly play the game. As someone who prefers a sense of adventure in an open world the current system is much better than the previous expansions (though personally I would have preferred WoD's content if they had given more things to do each day with better rewards.)

No, that's you trying hard to find reasons to say that you are right, that's all.

Honestly didn't have to try very hard to find reasons why I'm right.

1. Lore is saying that they want flight to be a reward. A reward is something you want to have. Fine, OK, no issues so far, we want to have flying, it could be a reward.

That's not what a reward is, a reward is something you receive for doing something. There's lots of titles, pets and mounts I've received as rewards even though I don't particularly want them.

2. Then they go into the game and allow getting flying after you jump through hoops but only on the condition that you also wait for 6+ months. Gee, what an also. I don't think I want to get flying under those conditions. It's not a reward to be able to use it after 6+ months after you already did everything you'd want to use it for. Calling it a reward under these circumstances is just silly, it's more like an unreachable carrot which you only get to taste when the sun makes it dry and gray.

It's still a reward though, now under those circumstances you may feel the rewards isn't worth the effort which is a perfectly valid opinion, but that doesn't change the meaning of the word.

That's what SirCowdog is saying to you. But you just ignore it and turn around to point to a technical moment that since access to flying is gained by completing an achievement that it technically remains a "reward". In reality it has some properties of a reward, but not others and the properties it has are superficial, it's the important ones that it doesn't have.

This is why the "nitpicking" becomes important. The ability to fly is a reward you get for completing Pathfinder regardless of whether you want flight or think it's worth the effort. SirCowdog quoted Blizzard saying it would be a "meaningful reward" and implying it would have a significant impact on gameplay, but so far the source of that quote hasn't surfaced and we just have confirmation that Blizz consider flight a reward which we all know as it's written on the achievement in-game.

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I accept that players have different opinions, thats why flying is great.
You ride on the ground while players that like to fly, fly.

Won't affect you at all.

Not true, see above for his game designers have to consider the tools they give players when they design content.

And yes, zones such as Argus lack textures and are almost half a zones when it cones to resources. Of course it's cheaper.
Heck, Blizzard spent months fixing the zones in WoD only to make flying possible and even then they looked broken and unfinished when flying about zone areas.

Gonna need better sources than just the fact you want it to be true.

[rda]

That's not what a reward is, a reward is something you receive for doing something. There's lots of titles, pets and mounts I've received as rewards even though I don't particularly want them.

Please tell SirCowdog that all you are saying is that we currently get flying after completing the achievement and nothing more. He will be happy to say "sure, we do" and stop talking to you. Because, yes, we do get it after completing the achievement. Great point, buddy. Where would we be without you.

[Dhrizzle]

Please tell SirCowdog that all you are saying is that we currently get flying after completing the achievement and nothing more. He will be happy to say "sure, we do" and stop talking to you. Because, yes, we do get it after completing the achievement.

That is what I said, which is when it was claimed Blizz said it would be a "meaningful reward."

Great point, buddy. Where would we be without you.

Presumably still confused as to what the word "reward" means.

[rda]

That is what I said, which is when it was claimed Blizz said it would be a "meaningful reward."

Oh, god.

Here is another quote for you:

"The second thing is we really like when flying feels like a reward and something you've earned for each new expansion or area. It's such a powerful ability and we look back at BC (at least for epic riding) or Wrath and those were really big keystone achievements for us as players (mainly because they had some pretty huge gold costs on them...). Regardless of the unlock method though it was one of the bigger moments when you unlocked flying, took to the skies, and were able to see the world from an entirely different vantage because for most of us it wasn't easily attainable. Our plan has been to recapture some of that but make it a bit cooler, and while we don't have specifics just yet, it'll be something more involved than just paying gold; something that further emphasizes how powerful flight is. Unlocking it won't just be level 100 on the day 6.1 comes out with some gold, but something you'll be working toward over the course of the initial expansion release, and 6.1 will introduce the final steps to complete it. It's such a enormous power to be able to fly we really want it to be more of a key moment when you unlock it, and something that feels like an accomplishment more than just shelling out some gold like we've had in the past."

https://www.engadget.com/2013/11/14/...ds-of-draenor/

Still don't get the connotations of "meaningful"? Still insist that since they didn't spell "meaningful" in the text that they might have meant that flying could not be a "meaningful" reward = something that is of big value to people that people recognize and work for?

[rasako]

I actually jumped back into the game after a 9 month hiatus and I am loving argus. I just found out that I can't be dazed when I spec prot on my warrior though so I think that has skewed my perception of the flying/no-flying debacle. My biggest gripe so far has been getting fucking one shot by people when I'm over 900 Ilevel as a prot warrior popping all my CDs to try and stave them off. PVP balance seems beyond fucked.

[Deleted]

"Progression" in the open world in those expansions (and Cata but we'll.get to those later) was grinding tokens/dailies for rep to get an enchant and maybe an item or mount, and grinding primals and mats for crafting a few items. It doesn't really compare to the gear and AP grinding of Legion which is closer to the gear progression you get through instancing, or even the rep grinding in MoP which was then first steps on to the gear treadmill.

Exactly, this is why no flying is even worse in Legion. You know, when you have been farming something in TBC, for example, you went to your farming place, and stayed there for a looooong time. So, the ratio of travel to actually doing something was OK. And in doing your daily quests, flying was taken into account, so there also was no problems with that. We even had anti air units in some quest areas. We also had something similar in Classic, BTW. You went to some high end area with or without elites, or area for specific material drops, and stayed there farming mobs for as long as you had time or as long as you got the amount you needed. Or you did some questing when they implemented gold rewards instead of ExP (I started playing before that, and it was surely a nice boost for my savings for my first epic mount).

Now, the amount of time we spend with progression activities is laughable compared to the amount of time we spend with travel. One reason is the increadible item level bloat. The other reason are the many things which devs use to prevent us from travelling swiftly and efficiently from quest location to quest location. This is an artificial bloat of time wasting activities. Please understand this.

[Dhrizzle]

Oh, god.

Here is another quote for you:

"The second thing is we really like when flying feels like a reward and something you've earned for each new expansion or area. It's such a powerful ability and we look back at BC (at least for epic riding) or Wrath and those were really big keystone achievements for us as players (mainly because they had some pretty huge gold costs on them...). Regardless of the unlock method though it was one of the bigger moments when you unlocked flying, took to the skies, and were able to see the world from an entirely different vantage because for most of us it wasn't easily attainable. Our plan has been to recapture some of that but make it a bit cooler, and while we don't have specifics just yet, it'll be something more involved than just paying gold; something that further emphasizes how powerful flight is. Unlocking it won't just be level 100 on the day 6.1 comes out with some gold, but something you'll be working toward over the course of the initial expansion release, and 6.1 will introduce the final steps to complete it. It's such a enormous power to be able to fly we really want it to be more of a key moment when you unlock it, and something that feels like an accomplishment more than just shelling out some gold like we've had in the past."

https://www.engadget.com/2013/11/14/...ds-of-draenor/

Still don't get the connotations of "meaningful"? Still insist that since they didn't spell "meaningful" in the text that they might have meant that flying could not be a "meaningful" reward = something that is of big value to people that people recognize and work for?

Still not getting the part where they say they want flight to be useful for content which is what SirCowdog seemed to think he should get. Also not seeing where SirCowdog got his actual quote "meaningful reward" from which he got the impression. I don't see why it's so hard for you guys to understand - SirCowdog claimed that unlocking flying in Legion was described by Blizz as a "meaningful reward" with the implication that it would be useful for completing content for the rest of the expansion, all I want is the post where he got that phrase from and you guys are throwing 4 year old articles at me that say different things.

I do however agree with Bashlok that it is cooler getting flying as a reward for finishing with areas, in that sense it is more of a meaningful reward but I don't think that is the way that SirCowdog means it.

[rda]

Still not getting the part where they say they want flight to be useful for content which is what SirCowdog seemed to think he should get. Also not seeing where SirCowdog got his actual quote "meaningful reward" from which he got the impression. I don't see why it's so hard for you guys to understand - SirCowdog claimed that unlocking flying in Legion was described by Blizz as a "meaningful reward" with the implication that it would be useful for completing content for the rest of the expansion, all I want is the post where he got that phrase from and you guys are throwing 4 year old articles at me that say different things.

I do however agree with Bashlok that it is cooler getting flying as a reward for finishing with areas, in that sense it is more of a meaningful reward but I don't think that is the way that SirCowdog means it.

Unlocking it won't just be level 100 on the day 6.1 comes out with some gold, but something you'll be working toward over the course of the initial expansion release, and 6.1 will introduce the final steps to complete it.

Note the timings.

They didn't say "you will be unlocking it through the entire expansion and get it after we move on to new lands". They said "you will be working towards it and we will make a big journey for you that you will complete in x.1" which EVERYBODY UNDERSTOOD AS "and then you will be able to fly and since we are going to have 6.2 and 6.3, you will be able to fly in actual content for the vast majority of the expansion, the delay is just a month or maybe two". People were ONLY fine with what they said because of that number - 6.1. If they said 6.2, people would NOT have been fine.

Then they changed the significant part which was the reason people were fine with the plan, and now we are having these stupid 8 months. This is the KEY part of the plan. It was sold as x.1 = 1 or 2 months. It is 8 months. Them changing this was not and is not OK.

You are being intentionally thick for the entire page. Stop it already.

[Dhrizzle]

Exactly, this is why no flying is even worse in Legion. You know, when you have been farming something in TBC, for example, you went to your farming place, and stayed there for a looooong time. So, the ratio of travel to actually doing something was OK. And in doing your daily quests, flying was taken into account, so there also was no problems with that. We even had anti air units in some quest areas. We also had something similar in Classic, BTW. You went to some high end area with or without elites, or area for specific material drops, and stayed there farming mobs for as long as you had time or as long as you got the amount you needed. Or you did some questing when they implemented gold rewards instead of ExP (I started playing before that, and it was surely a nice boost for my savings for my first epic mount).

Now, the amount of time we spend with progression activities is laughable compared to the amount of time we spend with travel. One reason is the increadible item level bloat. The other reason are the many things which devs use to prevent us from travelling swiftly and efficiently from quest location to quest location. This is an artificial bloat of time wasting activities. Please understand this.

I understand but my patience for endlessly grinding mobs in a small area went out a long time ago. In Vanilla I may have been happy to spend 24+ hours grinding felcloth to make Robe of the Void but elemental plateau and Wintergrasp grinding failed to grab me as compelling content. The soared-and-bored style dailies of WotLK and Cata only held my attention as something to do whilst waiting for raids and dungeons which is probably why I quit MoP (which has the worst dungeons of any expansion) rather than grind up the rep.

And stop using terms like "artificial bloat" as if it couldn't be applied to all forms of repeated content including the grinds of Vanilla/TBC and the dailies of WotLK/Cata/MoP. A game without "artificial bloat" would have us do each piece of content once the unsub until the next patch.

I prefer the content we have now because there is more variety and sense of adventure riding around a zone completing quests than there was flying safely in straight lines and dropping on targets.

[rda]

And stop using terms like "artificial bloat" as if it couldn't be applied to all forms of repeated content including the grinds of Vanilla/TBC and the dailies of WotLK/Cata/MoP. A game without "artificial bloat" would have us do each piece of content once the unsub until the next patch.

I will help you understand the difference.

Non-artificial bloat is this: a dev puts some elite mobs to guard a chest and it turns out that the chest is the best source for some mats that are key for, I don't know, making a resistance elixir for raiding, but the mobs are elite and take half an hour to get through. This was unintentional, the dev did not foresee that the chest would be so important. People suffer by fighting the same boring mobs for a long time every day, they complain, they don't want to be fighting these stupid elites, they want to be fighting raid bosses. The dev fixes the mistake by putting the mats somewhere else in addition to the chest, everyone is happy.

Now artificial bloat: a dev does quests but he only manages to do 3 in 6 months. To make the 3 quests appear like a lot of content, he (a) time-gates them, (b) makes them exclusive to each other on each day (can do only one), (c) puts random rewards, and (d) requires player to kill not 10 mobs, but 500 mobs for each quest so that this feels "significant" and "important". We aren't done yet. People complain. And the dev is hearing them alright, but he sure as heck doesn't do anything. Because this bloat is there for a reason, he cannot just remove it, players will have nothing to do.

No flying and mob padding is artificial bloat.

[Dhrizzle]

Unlocking it won't just be level 100 on the day 6.1 comes out with some gold, but something you'll be working toward over the course of the initial expansion release, and 6.1 will introduce the final steps to complete it.

Note the timings.

They didn't say "you will be unlocking it through the entire expansion and get it after we move on to new lands". They said "you will be working towards it and we will make a big journey for you that you will complete in x.1" which EVERYBODY UNDERSTOOD AS "and then you will be able to fly and since we are going to have 6.2 and 6.3, you will be able to fly in actual content for the vast majority of the expansion, the delay is just a month or maybe two". People were ONLY fine with what they said because of that number - 6.1. If they said 6.2, people would NOT have been fine.

Then they changed the significant part which was the reason people were fine with the plan, and now we are having these stupid 8 months. This is the KEY part of the plan. It was sold as x.1 = 1 or 2 months. It is 8 months. Them changing this was not and is not OK.

What people understood (hey look I can generalise too!) is that Pathfinder would be completable when they've added the last chunk of content to the main continent. It didn't show up in 6.1 because it was barely worth calling a content patch (should have been 6.0.X) which is why people weren't that surprised or upset. Also I'm not sure how many people were expecting more content patches after Tanaan, I'm pretty sure we knew 6.2 would end the expansion a while before it released.

Even if we were expecting more patches, given Blizz's stated goals for restricting flight it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone if the new content was in no-flight zones.

You are being intentionally thick for the entire page. Stop it already.

So far you've failed to understand what the word "reward" means and now you're digging up 4 year old articles to defend another poster's expectations of a recent patch, yet you think I'm being intentionally thick?