No flying on Argus - broken promise?

[Dhrizzle]

So the actual switch is that "Gold at level cap in the launch patch, with no flying islands later" is replaced with "Achievements at level cap in the final patch of the expansion, but all zones have flying". This is supported pretty heavily by all the instances of Blizzard repeating "Master the ground first, fly later".

I still don't see how this goes against my statement that Pathfinder replaces gold as the method for unlocking flight.

Also prior to WoD it wasn't guarenteed that a "no-flight" island would be released after you unlock flight - WotLK didn't. If you're looking to WoD as a template that Blizzard must adhere to then you should probably be complaining that Broken Shore wasn't the last piece of content added to the game.

A more accurate way to look at it would be both gold and Pathfinder unlock flight for all the areas currently in the game with "no-flight" islands possibly added later. That covers every expansion that has allowed you to activate flight.

[huth]

I still don't see how this goes against my statement that Pathfinder replaces gold as the method for unlocking flight.

To understand his PoV, you have to realise that he reads "you can fly in the world" as "you can fly everywhere in the world", rather than "there are places in the world where you can fly".

So in his mind, Pathfinder enabling flight in the world means it has to enable it in all parts of the world(of Legion, in this case), or Blizzard is breaking their "promise" that they never actually made. He convinced himself that Pathfinder isn't just about how you unlock flight, but also for what areas.

[sam86]

Well, I can tell that you are really passionate about flying. However, it wasn't for a "Tiny time of just patch 7.2". As far as I know, flying is still available in Broken Isles, just not in Argus. They never removed the ability to fly in those zones.

same talk again, and as far as everyone know, Broken Isles now are useless except for shitty pvp honor tower farm if u hate going bgs, nothing there worth doing at all with Argus made everything prior irrelevant, or u want to go try get 860+ while u get 910+ from argus or something?
Even herbs/mines they introduced new one in argus, in a move that didn't exist ever, so yes flying IS irrelevant now, making it was useful only during 7.2 era

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Welcome to the world of communication. This is how it works. It's how it always has been done, and always will be done. It's not about being dishonest or a way for the game devs to (and I quote Sam86) "F8CK U". It's to keep all the options available and not make any promise too early. Because if a promise was made, and I mean an actual written promise "All future zones will have flying", then they are bound to it. Otherwise the community would go crazy and, who knows, start up forum posts complaining about it.

Actually they did promise flying like WoD, and u can check WoD u'll find it available in everywhere, so that is a dishonest promise
When promised like WoD, it means flying in every f8cking zone like in WoD (except the pvp one, which is expected), does Argus look pvp bg ?

[Dhrizzle]

same talk again, and as far as everyone know, Broken Isles now are useless except for shitty pvp honor tower farm if u hate going bgs, nothing there worth doing at all with Argus made everything prior irrelevant, or u want to go try get 860+ while u get 910+ from argus or something?
Even herbs/mines they introduced new one in argus, in a move that didn't exist ever, so yes flying IS irrelevant now, making it was useful only during 7.2 era

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Actually they did promise flying like WoD, and u can check WoD u'll find it available in everywhere, so that is a dishonest promise
When promised like WoD, it means flying in every f8cking zone like in WoD (except the pvp one, which is expected), does Argus look pvp bg ?

WoD only allowed flight for zones that were in the game when Pathfinder was made completable, or for zones that were included in the base expansion (including one that was used for an introductory scenario and later revamped to a daily zone.) The major difference between the two expansions is WoD had no equivalent to Argus so anything they do will be breaking the mold set in WoD.

Arguably the closest thing to WoD would be either not introducing Argus at all, or delaying the completion of Pathfinder until people had mostly finished Argus.

[Crummy]

When promised like WoD, it means flying in every f8cking zone like in WoD

Is that your interpretation of what Blizz said, or is that what they actually said?
I have yet to see a quote specifying this. As of now, all we have are quotes regarding Pathfinder, and that you will obtain it in a similar fashion as you did in WoD (through an achivement).

To quote @huth, you have to realise that "you can fly in the world" does not necessarily mean "you can fly everywhere in the world". Clearly, since Argus does not have flying, what they meant was "there are places in the world where you can fly".
Let's try to seperate what has actually been said from what you thought/hoping they said.

[Cedon]

1- Wintergrasp u can fly in non bg time, the 3 hour break, and I support no flying in a pvp zone btw, I didn't say i'm against it, Argus is NOT pvp bg, and doesn't even have a single pvp quest in first place

That came later. Originally it was no-fly PERIOD.

2- Argus is 3 mini zones, but that doesn't make it smaller than 1 mini zone (like isle of quel'danas), the reason here is isle had only the orphan murlocs quest that need u to walk a little, all rest quests are so close that even if flying was add it would been useless

You're thinking of Argus as one zone, it's not. It's 3 distinctly separate zones. Mac'aree = Timeless Isle, Antoran Wastes = Isle of Thunder, etc.

Seriously they promoted flying as one of MAIN F*CKING features on Legion, there was ZERO mention there that flying will be only for EXTREMELY tiny time of just patch 7.2 and then f8ck u, they mention flying like WoD but in WoD fly was introduced in patch 6.2 (last patch ironic, that exp had the lowest content ever) the patch that stayed relevant until legion launch, while Argus is a big f8ck u

Well, first and foremost anyone with half a brain and who played MoP **KNEW** going in that Argus was going to be another no-fly ever zone. The fact they used 2D trickery proves that it was their intention from the outset. Second, flight was never a *main feature* of Legion. Flight hasn't been such since Cataclysm when they opened it up to Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms sans BElv/SpaceGoat starting areas. Legion only had the first true implementation of Path Finder since 6.2.2's in WoD was a quick hack job.

And as I asked before, ppl who hate flying, what stop u from not flying at all and stay on ur earth slow mount getting f8cked by mobs and forced to gear any alt to gather, while ppl who enjoy flying just finish stuff 310% faster ? nothing forcing u, no flying is done purely to save time in wow

Because this planet is essentially WoW's equivalent to the Christian mythological place known as Hell. And if you haven't geared up your alts without them having to set foot on Argus, then you're just lazy. My main has been able to send full sets of unsullied armor to all of my alts. Some hit 70 and were able to go right into LRF ToS.

[Deleted]

Because this planet is essentially WoW's equivalent to the Christian mythological place known as Hell. And if you haven't geared up your alts without them having to set foot on Argus, then you're just lazy. My main has been able to send full sets of unsullied armor to all of my alts. Some hit 70 and were able to go right into LRF ToS.

Argus being WoW's hell is what's stopping you from NOT flying? Super interesting, please continue. I guess the lava is hot you have to keep flying to keep your ass unfried. Just tell me how you DO fly in that wing clip shit hole.

[sam86]

WoD only allowed flight for zones that were in the game when Pathfinder was made completable, or for zones that were included in the base expansion (including one that was used for an introductory scenario and later revamped to a daily zone.) The major difference between the two expansions is WoD had no equivalent to Argus so anything they do will be breaking the mold set in WoD.

Nope, the introduction scenario is an instance not the Tannan we see later, so can't count it as 'exist already' since u couldn't literally go to hellfire citadel door or the draenei temple or any part of zone before 6.2

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So ur interpretation of blizz saying they will introduce flying, that the end zone, the patch that will stay for 1year+ (last patch always stay 1year+ since TBC), that has new herbs and mines making old ones useless, and is as big as 3 mini zones (because it is 3 mini zones), won't have flying, because it isn't a part of world, but instead an 'instance' ? isn't 'instance' is something like dungeon?
Let me counter argument very easily, where did they promise no flying in world again like in WoD zones?

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That came later. Originally it was no-fly PERIOD.

for how long ? like only 1 patch ? that still makes it more flying than legion, which had fly for patch 7.2 only (checking wowpedia i can't find anywhere flying in non-bg time was banned, and I don't remember that and Wrath was only expansion that i didn't cancel sub, was playing up to the end)

the longest most influential patch is last one, in fact if they introduced flying in 7.3 instead of 2 all that problem won't exist

You're thinking of Argus as one zone, it's not. It's 3 distinctly separate zones. Mac'aree = Timeless Isle, Antoran Wastes = Isle of Thunder, etc.

And I left game during Timeless Isle for that reason, hated the idea of 'enjoy exploring bugs', in fact just yesterday while running jumped at Krokunn from a hill only to fall inside some rock column thing and get stuck in bugged place that obviously u shouldn't enter in first place, with both hs on cd had to f8cking wait until cd over, since it was just 5 min anyway didn't use the suicide option for bill reasons (not everyone is swimming in gold)

Well, first and foremost anyone with half a brain and who played MoP **KNEW** going in that Argus was going to be another no-fly ever zone. The fact they used 2D trickery proves that it was their intention from the outset. Second, flight was never a *main feature* of Legion. Flight hasn't been such since Cataclysm when they opened it up to Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms sans BElv/SpaceGoat starting areas. Legion only had the first true implementation of Path Finder since 6.2.2's in WoD was a quick hack job.

Anyone with no brain can see that flying wasn't an introduced feature in MoP, u can check it in , MoP features
while on other hand u can find flying a promoted feature in legion, as u can see in Legion features
so check it first

Because this planet is essentially WoW's equivalent to the Christian mythological place known as Hell. And if you haven't geared up your alts without them having to set foot on Argus, then you're just lazy. My main has been able to send full sets of unsullied armor to all of my alts. Some hit 70 and were able to go right into LRF ToS.

[TheLimonTree]

Why should I stop? I guess, customers are entitled to complain, if quality of product doesn't suit them. Why should they just shut up and deal with tyranny of developers?

BRB, going to spam the internet with demands that Coke toss their current recipe and make a new one because it doesn't meet my quality. I'm tired of the tyranny of them!

[Cedon]

And I left game during Timeless Isle for that reason, hated the idea of 'enjoy exploring bugs', in fact just yesterday while running jumped at Krokunn from a hill only to fall inside some rock column thing and get stuck in bugged place that obviously u shouldn't enter in first place, with both hs on cd had to f8cking wait until cd over, since it was just 5 min anyway didn't use the suicide option for bill reasons (not everyone is swimming in gold)

First and foremost, no flight actually was one way to keep scrubs like you from accessing Ordos. He was the world boss exclusive to people who obtained the legendary cloak on at least one character. But mostly they wanted us to do the challenges such as riding the gulls up to the blood elemental and such. Not to mention they didn't want us zipping around from rare to rare.

And it's not their fault you don't stick to the paths.

Anyone with no brain can see that flying wasn't an introduced feature in MoP, u can check it in , MoP features
while on other hand u can find flying a promoted feature in legion, as u can see in Legion features
so check it first

No, it's not on that list you linked to for legion. No instances of the word "flight" on that page and a search for "flying" reveals only "Flying will not be available at launch, but will come later much like in Warlords of Draenor." Try again.

Argus being WoW's hell is what's stopping you from NOT flying? Super interesting, please continue. I guess the lava is hot you have to keep flying to keep your ass unfried. Just tell me how you DO fly in that wing clip shit hole.

Devestators, the mini ships, etc. can all shoot you down. Plus it's a little less hellish if you can just flit around willy nilly.

[SirCowdog]

Alright, time to tackle this threadnaught. I worked an 11 hour shift last night and didn't have the willpower to deal with it until now. I apologize in advance for the wall of text.

You still seem too hung up on the idea game design works purely on logical blocks where reasons for one thing have to be applied universally.

No, that's not what I think. Don't make assumptions. I don't believe this is how ALL design works, but in this case I'm arguing that from 6.2.2 until 7.3 Blizzard has repeatedly stated that their design philosophy was "Master the Ground first, Fly over it after". And that by making statements like "We like how Pathfinder works" and "This will be our design philosophy going forward" and "we want to give players as much advance notice as possible" it STRONGLY implied that it would be the philosophy for all zones.

Changing to a no-flying design without warning does not fit into anything they've said over the last two years.

This is not to say that ALL content everywhere will forever be this way. After all, there are dungeons, raids, instanced scenarios, etc. But in the case of the general open world, this is the united message that Blizzard was selling to players. Deviating from that with Argus breaks from everything they had said up until that point, and did so without warning, hint, or suggestion that it was possible.

The only argument you seem to have at your disposal is that they did something different before Pathfinder, and that it somehow justifies switching gears with Argus without warning because we were somehow supposed to expect it, DESPITE everything that had been said in regards to the design philosophy being used. All because they never said they wouldn't do so.

How exactly does the latter invalidate the former? One speaks of wanting flight to be more of a reward, the latter details what sort of activities need to be done to earn the reward.

I don't know how many different way I can try to explain this to you: Pathfinder is ALWAYS spoken of in terms of THE ENTIRE OPEN WORLD. Not part of it. Not just cherry-picked zones. EVERYTHING. Nowhere, EVER, is it hinted, suggested, implied, or directly stated that it would only work in some zones but not other.

The whole idea of limiting flight is because of how powerful a tool it is, they don't want it being used for new content. It remains powerful because it allows you to blast through the content it is unlocked for with your alts or any parts your main might be lagging on.

No, they don't want it being used INITIALLY for new content. That's a very important distinction that you seem to not recognize. The ENTIRE POINT of Pathfinder is that it's ok to "cheat"(as Hazzicostas put it) once you've already played through it first. This is the whole purpose of creating the "compromise" of pathfinder in the first place.

I can tell you know your arguments are weak when you give up on attempts to "logic" and go back to attacking the devs by calling them underhand and dishonest. I find it sad that there are so many players with that attitude that Blizz (and other devs) are reluctant to openly discuss their design process.

The entire reason for this thread is to discuss whether or not Blizzard wasn't honest with players. I am showing that the way in which Argus was hidden from players until after Pathfinder had been competed is exactly that. You don't get to use the topic of the entire fucking thread as evidence against the points I'm making.

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That's fine, we disagree on this one. I generally tend to not read into things when communicating with game devs, or expect more than what has actually been promised. So in this case, I do think that Pathfinder is simply a way of unlocking flight for the outdoor world, which it has. Just not for every inch of every new patch.

I hope that I don't come off as a troll in this thread. Atleast not towards you.

Trust me, compared to some of the people I encounter over this topic, you're a breath of fresh air.

And it's not so much that I expect more than what has actually been said. It's mainly just that I'm sticking to what I believed the devs were selling to players. I personally quit Legion back before 7.1 when Blizzard was hiding the full achievement to unlock flight from players. I thought that wasn't cool then, and indicated that they were still trying to hide and muddy the waters. The fact that they followed that up with surprising players with a No-Fly Argus means I was right not to trust them to treat flying equitably, despite their words.

I just feel sorry for the people who like flying and stuck around for Pathfinder, only to have their efforts be treated like this.

Well, I can tell that you are really passionate about flying. However, it wasn't for a "Tiny time of just patch 7.2". As far as I know, flying is still available in Broken Isles, just not in Argus. They never removed the ability to fly in those zones.

I think you know what he means. Restricting flight in the cutting edge content where a player spends most of their time is effectively taking it away. Especially with special gathering nodes for resources that can only be found on Argus, and progression tools being unlocked there(Crucible), that largely mitigate whateve value flight might have had before that.

This is the same as arguing that players can still fly in old content. While technically true, it avoids the heart of where the argument stems from, and what players who care about flying actually want.

So to bring you back on-topic: what we argue here is that a promise was never made to the community. They promised us that we would be able to fly in Legion, which we can (or I'm guessing this thread would be a whole lot bigger and you would be using way more capslock), not that flying would include all future zones.

That's definitely the point of contention. As I've repeated to Dhrizzle many times now, the way in which Blizzard consistently referred to Pathfinder was in terms of it being used across the entire expansion and not only in certain zones.

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To quote @huth, you have to realise that "you can fly in the world" does not necessarily mean "you can fly everywhere in the world". Clearly, since Argus does not have flying, what they meant was "there are places in the world where you can fly".
Let's try to seperate what has actually been said from what you thought/hoping they said.

The problem is it's not just that Blizzard has said "You can fly in the world". Because when you combine the context of how they've said that, with them also saying their overall philosophy is "Master the ground first, fly over it later" and other comments such as Ion saying it's actually think its ok for players to fly once they've done the ground first - then it sends a completely different message.

At every step of the way Blizzard has made it seem as though Pathfinder would be the way zones worked going forward. Every time the subject comes up they repeat that message. At no point since they started using pathfinder did they ever include an allowance for NOT using it later. It just isn't there.

The entire point of this is that they spent the better part of two years consistently saying the same thing. Then, without any warning, started doing something contrary to what they'd been saying in that time. While this isn't an outright lie that breaks a promise, it's VERY questionable behavior which causes many players to FEEL like they were betrayed or lied to.

And honestly? After how WoD went down, I think it's right to be overly critical of this kind of behavior.

[Coffeexbean]

this game has major issues and the only thing people can cry about are flying mounts and their entitlements to RNG drops.. sad

[Dhrizzle]

No, that's not what I think. Don't make assumptions. I don't believe this is how ALL design works, but in this case I'm arguing that from 6.2.2 until 7.3 Blizzard has repeatedly stated that their design philosophy was "Master the Ground first, Fly over it after". And that by making statements like "We like how Pathfinder works" and "This will be our design philosophy going forward" and "we want to give players as much advance notice as possible" it STRONGLY implied that it would be the philosophy for all zones.

Changing to a no-flying design without warning does not fit into anything they've said over the last two years.

This is not to say that ALL content everywhere will forever be this way. After all, there are dungeons, raids, instanced scenarios, etc. But in the case of the general open world, this is the united message that Blizzard was selling to players. Deviating from that with Argus breaks from everything they had said up until that point, and did so without warning, hint, or suggestion that it was possible.

The only argument you seem to have at your disposal is that they did something different before Pathfinder, and that it somehow justifies switching gears with Argus without warning because we were somehow supposed to expect it, DESPITE everything that had been said in regards to the design philosophy being used. All because they never said they wouldn't do so.

I've read the same blue posts as you and at no point did they lead me to believe that content added after we completed Pathfinder would involve flying. I thought it was possible we'd either get a Pathfinder part 3, or the zone would have flight unlocked regardless of achievements and be designed around it, but the most likely possibility always seemed to be a zone where we wouldn't fly; like Isle of QD, Firelands and the MoP islands. So the question is - were Blizz being intentionally deceptive or have some people chosen to believe their interpretation was a "promise?"

I don't know how many different way I can try to explain this to you: Pathfinder is ALWAYS spoken of in terms of THE ENTIRE OPEN WORLD. Not part of it. Not just cherry-picked zones. EVERYTHING. Nowhere, EVER, is it hinted, suggested, implied, or directly stated that it would only work in some zones but not other.

And as I replied to you earlier in regard to one of Bahlok's statements,

[QUOTE=Dhrizzle;47616618]Do you notice how he also talks about flight in "the world" or "the expansion" even though he's using past tense and including TBC, Cata and MoP, expansions which "cherry-picked" zones that you could fly in?

So again we have a question of interpretation - when Blizz refer to the world do they mean everything that will be in the world, or the parts of the world we can access at the time we can complete the achievement?

No, they don't want it being used INITIALLY for new content. That's a very important distinction that you seem to not recognize. The ENTIRE POINT of Pathfinder is that it's ok to "cheat"(as Hazzicostas put it) once you've already played through it first. This is the whole purpose of creating the "compromise" of pathfinder in the first place.

So given they don't want it being used INITIALLY it's quite obvious that Pathfinder wouldn't be applied to new content as it's released. As at no point did Blizz hint, suggest imply or directly state that we could expect a Pathfinder part 3 in new content it doesn't make sense to firmly believe flying in new zones would be a definite. Now I'm not saying there isn't a possibility, but it doesn't warrant theories of deliberate deception or manipulation.

The entire reason for this thread is to discuss whether or not Blizzard wasn't honest with players. I am showing that the way in which Argus was hidden from players until after Pathfinder had been competed is exactly that. You don't get to use the topic of the entire fucking thread as evidence against the points I'm making.

The point of the thread is to discuss whether or not Blizzard broke their promise, and whilst others are pointing out that it wasn't a promise and there was no reason for your firm belief that the game will definitely be a certain way, you're doubling down and claiming not only was it a promise, but the devs were deliberately dishonest about it.

[SirCowdog]

Do you notice how he also talks about flight in "the world" or "the expansion" even though he's using past tense and including TBC, Cata and MoP, expansions which "cherry-picked" zones that you could fly in?

So again we have a question of interpretation - when Blizz refer to the world do they mean everything that will be in the world, or the parts of the world we can access at the time we can complete the achievement?

I want to avoid as much confusion here as possible. So I want to clarify: Are you trying to imply that when one of the devs talks about "The World" that they only mean certain zones and not others? If he was talking about specific zones, don't you think he'd have used the names of those zones and not said "The World"? I had always assumed that when they say "The World" they are referring to the open world, as opposed to dungeons or raids or other instanced content.

But even if they DID draw a distinction like that, there are many cases when Ion or other devs have referred to Pathfinder in terms of both LEGION pathfinder and Broken Isles Pathfinder. In his clarification post for Part 1 of Pathfinder, he uses the terms interchangeably, and uses language to suggest that the Broken Isles IS the open world of Legion. There is no mention of Argus, or any suggestion of other patch content outside of the Broken isles, or of areas which will not have flying, because presumably at that point in time he's sticking to his words of wanting to "Give players as much advance notice as possible, and allow anyone who cares about unlocking flight to understand the requirements".

So given they don't want it being used INITIALLY it's quite obvious that Pathfinder wouldn't be applied to new content as it's released. As at no point did Blizz hint, suggest imply or directly state that we could expect a Pathfinder part 3 in new content it doesn't make sense to firmly believe flying in new zones would be a definite. Now I'm not saying there isn't a possibility, but it doesn't warrant theories of deliberate deception or manipulation.

When they say they don't want players to fly in content initially, it's because they want players to experience the content from the ground first. Hence the "Master the ground first" part of Pathfinder. This is a key point of their entire rationalization for Pathfinder. They want players to play from the ground first, but then don't care if they get to fly over it later when it doesn't have any real impact. And getting to fly in zones later is one of the main reasons why players accept having to deal with Pathfinder at all. If you take away getting to fly later, then there's no point in accepting or dealing with mastering the ground first.

If they had told players in advance that there would be no-flying islands after flight was unlocked, people's tolerance for having to deal with an 8 month delay and a laundry list of tasks would have been a LOT lower.

[Crummy]

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And it's not so much that I expect more than what has actually been said. It's mainly just that I'm sticking to what I believed the devs were selling to players. I personally quit Legion back before 7.1 when Blizzard was hiding the full achievement to unlock flight from players. I thought that wasn't cool then, and indicated that they were still trying to hide and muddy the waters. The fact that they followed that up with surprising players with a No-Fly Argus means I was right not to trust them to treat flying equitably, despite their words.

I just feel sorry for the people who like flying and stuck around for Pathfinder, only to have their efforts be treated like this.

That's fair. I can understand that.

I think you know what he means. Restricting flight in the cutting edge content where a player spends most of their time is effectively taking it away. Especially with special gathering nodes for resources that can only be found on Argus, and progression tools being unlocked there(Crucible), that largely mitigate whateve value flight might have had before that.

This is the same as arguing that players can still fly in old content. While technically true, it avoids the heart of where the argument stems from, and what players who care about flying actually want.

Also fair. Some of the posts on here make it sound like we were never given it to begin with, which is not true. Whether or not one expected flight to also apply for Argus, or not, is where the community is split. What I took from Blizz was just that flight would be possible at some point, thanks to the achivement. I never put any thought into whether or not it would cover all zones.

The entire point of this is that they spent the better part of two years consistently saying the same thing. Then, without any warning, started doing something contrary to what they'd been saying in that time. While this isn't an outright lie that breaks a promise, it's VERY questionable behavior which causes many players to FEEL like they were betrayed or lied to.

And honestly? After how WoD went down, I think it's right to be overly critical of this kind of behavior.

I fully agree. And you have every right to be overly critical and I understand your PoV much better now. Either way, promise or not - they can't afford having players feeling like they didn't deliver on a common expectation, or that their behavior is shady in any way.

[SirCowdog]

I fully agree. And you have every right to be overly critical and I understand your PoV much better now. Either way, promise or not - they can't afford having players feeling like they didn't deliver on a common expectation, or that their behavior is shady in any way.

Sadly, I strongly suspect that they CAN afford to not deliver on the expectation of flight, which is exactly why they did Argus the way that they did. There are enough people who are too heavily invested to unsub out of protest, even if they disagree with Argus being no-flying. I've heard people say that exact thing, "I don't like it, but I've got too much sunk into WoW to quit now." Then there's people who are just superfans, and will gloss over anything Blizzard does regardless of what it is. And there are a LOT of those.

Blizzard is not stupid. When they're dealing with profits that are measure in the millions PER MONTH, they'll cut things as close as they can get away with. I don't know why people think it's otherwise.

[Dhrizzle]

I want to avoid as much confusion here as possible. So I want to clarify: Are you trying to imply that when one of the devs talks about "The World" that they only mean certain zones and not others? If he was talking about specific zones, don't you think he'd have used the names of those zones and not said "The World"? I had always assumed that when they say "The World" they are referring to the open world, as opposed to dungeons or raids or other instanced content.

It seems most likely that when Blizz say "The World" they are referring to those parts of the world that have been implemented in the game. As I pointed out (in a bit you actually quoted) Bashlok refers to "flying over the world" when referencing TBC which had a no-flying island added near the end of the expansion. In fact it seems to be a universal thing in the expansions that whatever method you use to unlock flight, it only works in the zones already accessible and not to parts that are added later.

But even if they DID draw a distinction like that, there are many cases when Ion or other devs have referred to Pathfinder in terms of both LEGION pathfinder and Broken Isles Pathfinder. In his clarification post for Part 1 of Pathfinder, he uses the terms interchangeably, and uses language to suggest that the Broken Isles IS the open world of Legion. There is no mention of Argus, or any suggestion of other patch content outside of the Broken isles, or of areas which will not have flying, because presumably at that point in time he's sticking to his words of wanting to "Give players as much advance notice as possible, and allow anyone who cares about unlocking flight to understand the requirements".

So what exactly is your issue here? Legion Pathfinder and Broken Isles Pathfinder are pretty much interchangable as BI Pathfinder is how we unlocked flight in Legion. The fact that he didn't mention any zones outside of the Broken Isles in relation to flying should be a pretty big tip-off to the fact that there wouldn't be flying in any zones outside of the Broken Isles.

Mostly what you seem to be illustrating is that game devs (not just Blizz) are probably right to keep quiet about their work as there will always be someone ready to pounce on a stray word in an attempt to justify their assertion that the developers are lying and deliberately misleading players.

When they say they don't want players to fly in content initially, it's because they want players to experience the content from the ground first. Hence the "Master the ground first" part of Pathfinder. This is a key point of their entire rationalization for Pathfinder. They want players to play from the ground first, but then don't care if they get to fly over it later when it doesn't have any real impact. And getting to fly in zones later is one of the main reasons why players accept having to deal with Pathfinder at all. If you take away getting to fly later, then there's no point in accepting or dealing with mastering the ground first.

So you understand the idea of "mastering" the content from the ground first. I assume you also understand that Argus is new content introduced after we had a chance to complete the Pathfinder achievements, so why would you expect the achievement to allow you to fly in Argus, a zone we had not even seen let alone "mastered?" And you knew Argus would be devoid of flight before the patch went live, so if you don't have to "accept" or "deal" with mastering the ground there, if you only do ground content to unlock flying then you can avoid the zones altogether.

If they had told players in advance that there would be no-flying islands after flight was unlocked, people's tolerance for having to deal with an 8 month delay and a laundry list of tasks would have been a LOT lower.

Maybe, but from these forums it looks like the players complaining already had an extremely low tolerence for Pathfinder and "no-flight."

[Jaylock]

@SirCowdog doesn't the achievement you get when you unlock pathfinder part 2 say explicitly: Unlocks Flying in BROKEN ISLES ZONES? Nowhere in the achievement does it say: Unlocks Flying in Broken Isles Zones & Any patch zones we add to the game.

Also, Argus is on another planet entirely. Its not part of the Broken Isles Zones. Its just on the Broken Isles Map so people can easily click to it and know its part of the Legion expansion content. lol

[Fabinas]

this game has major issues and the only thing people can cry about are flying mounts and their entitlements to RNG drops.. sad

There are other threads to discuss those "major issues". It's not like the whole community is standing in line to participate here.

[SirCowdog]

@SirCowdog doesn't the achievement you get when you unlock pathfinder part 2 say explicitly: Unlocks Flying in BROKEN ISLES ZONES? Nowhere in the achievement does it say: Unlocks Flying in Broken Isles Zones & Any patch zones we add to the game.

Also, Argus is on another planet entirely. Its not part of the Broken Isles Zones. Its just on the Broken Isles Map so people can easily click to it and know its part of the Legion expansion content. lol

/facepalm

Try catching up on the argument before posting, Jaylock. Your point would only make sense if players had know about the existence of non-broken isles content when they started working on Pathfinder.

- - - Updated - - -

It seems most likely that when Blizz say "The World" they are referring to those parts of the world that have been implemented in the game. As I pointed out (in a bit you actually quoted) Bashlok refers to "flying over the world" when referencing TBC which had a no-flying island added near the end of the expansion. In fact it seems to be a universal thing in the expansions that whatever method you use to unlock flight, it only works in the zones already accessible and not to parts that are added later.

I don't believe this is the case at all. TBC also released content in "the world" that was specifically designed for flying. Ogri'La and Skettis, as well as the Throne of Kil'Jaden(which could only be reached via flight or the portal scroll). It also seems unnecessarily oblique to refer the "the world" as only the non-patch areas of the open world, and calling no-fly islands something else.

Regardless, arguing about the intended meaning of Blizzard's bizarre rationalizations before 6.2.2 is pointless. No fly islands were an attempt to extend the amount of time players had to spend on the ground into max-level content. Pathfinder solves that issue in a more elegant way because it can apply to all zones, and isn't as much of a blunt instrument.

Again, I'm going to restate the point I made to @Crummy: For two years straight Blizzard made a concerted, consistent effort to communicate to players that Pathfinder was the way flight was going to be handled. The wording they used in forum posts, twitter, and live interviews always made it out that flying would be usable once the ground content had been played. This was because the problems that flying presented no longer applied.

Switching to a completely different design method and treatment of flight after two years of reassuring players how things would work, without warning, is not an act of honesty. Rationalizing it with lawyeristic excuses such as: "This is Argus!" only makes it worse. That kind of rationalization is just as bad as telling players they can still fly in older areas. While technically true, it completely avoids the heart of the issue.

Mostly what you seem to be illustrating is that game devs (not just Blizz) are probably right to keep quiet about their work as there will always be someone ready to pounce on a stray word in an attempt to justify their assertion that the developers are lying and deliberately misleading players.

This is not fixating on a single stray word. This is being lead to believe that flight would be treated fairly with TWO YEARS of consistent reassuring by the devs. I'm sorry you can't see that. Dropping a no-fly area into the mix without warning doesn't fit anywhere in anything they've said since they started preaching Pathfinder.

No amount of saying that we should have expected otherwise because of actions before Pathfinder changes that. The entire point of reassuring players and having a consistent and unified message was to avoid the mistakes of how previous expansions were handled. Using those previous mistakes as a defense for a No-Fly Argus is just ridiculous.