Possibly no flying throughout entire xpac.

[Xavv]

Get over it.

So you'll have to run / ground mount through the content they are designing for you and appreciate it, instead of flying over it.

[Doomchicken]

The thing is that they did the same thing with pandaria. They dropped a hint of a mask of pandaren for one of the wow festivals, a shitstorm ensued which split the community in half, a year later 2-3 million people disappeared. Even today, pandaren are hardly a beloved race of Warcraft.

People disappeared well after the expansion came out. Not before. The biggest drop was early on in the expansion. Blizzard have stated by the numbers they have and can trace that the majority of those people left were in the east where they have a completely different payment model and much more free competition in the MMO market. For the west, they claimed people quit over the over-abundance of dailies that the people doing them felt were "mandatory". I'm sure SOME left over the no panda's thing. For sure. But the majority of that number was from the dailies.

[BlizzardApologist]

People disappeared well after the expansion came out. Not before. The biggest drop was early on in the expansion. Blizzard have stated by the numbers they have and can trace that the majority of those people left were in the east where they have a completely different payment model and much more free competition in the MMO market. For the west, they claimed people quit over the over-abundance of dailies that the people doing them felt were "mandatory". I'm sure SOME left over the no panda's thing. For sure. But the majority of that number was from the dailies.

Forgive me if after hearing them say that flying mounts would only be restricted until lvl. 100 and now hearing them suggest they might be restricted forever I don't trust any of the reasons or explanations they give us for anything. I never felt dailies any more mandatory in this expansion than in BC, WOTLK or Cata. Actually, they felt way more mandatory in BC, they were a major source of regular daily income.

[Doomchicken]

Forgive me if after hearing them say that flying mounts would only be restricted until lvl. 100 and now hearing them suggest they might be restricted forever I don't trust any of the reasons or explanations they give us for anything. I never felt dailies any more mandatory in this expansion than in BC, WOTLK or Cata. Actually, they felt way more mandatory in BC, they were a major source of regular daily income.

I agree with you completely. I didn't feel they were mandatory at all. But then again I did have access to normal content and then heroic content not too long after. So my opinion there is probably not all that valid. Perhaps people who wanted to raid legitimate, felt they needed the 489 exalted epic gear, but wasn't in a raiding guild trying to get into a raiding guild felt otherwise? Hard to say for certain to be honest.

[Demeia]

People disappeared well after the expansion came out. Not before. The biggest drop was early on in the expansion. Blizzard have stated by the numbers they have and can trace that the majority of those people left were in the east where they have a completely different payment model and much more free competition in the MMO market. For the west, they claimed people quit over the over-abundance of dailies that the people doing them felt were "mandatory". I'm sure SOME left over the no panda's thing. For sure. But the majority of that number was from the dailies.

It's likely people leave for combination of reasons and creating a race that was so unpopular was strike one for a lot of people, the dailies were probably strike 2 and 3. The raids were not extremely well balanced either (least not from my view on normal).

The dailies mean that while people want to do something, they don't want it to be a huge timesink. The pandas mean taking a decision that you know the community won't like is going to cost you even if everyone doesn't go out on quit. Both of those reasons, it seems to me, spell future disaster for WoD concerning flying.

I think the panda fiasco is more understandable. They got completely committed to that early and simply couldn't get out of it. I suspect they completely underestimated how much WoW players hate cute--or in the case of the girls in my guild, have very, VERY different ideas of cute. Removing flying, however--even for a patch!--they had to know that was going to be a huge crapstrom. And if they back out, they will alienate a whole other section of the population.

[rebecca191]

Welcome back to hell, fighting then 16th reincarnation of Kael'Thas.

With an unskippable long intro speech each pull?

[Doomchicken]

I think the panda fiasco is more understandable. They got completely committed to that early and simply couldn't get out of it. I suspect they completely underestimated how much WoW players hate cute--or in the case of the girls in my guild, have very, VERY different ideas of cute. Removing flying, however--even for a patch!--they had to know that was going to be a huge crapstrom. And if they back out, they will alienate a whole other section of the population.

Legit question: Does anyone have solid numbers on how many accounts that have Panda toons of any class? I'm very curious to see if they are as hated as some people claim they are.

[Stellan]

Legit question: Does anyone have solid numbers on how many accounts that have Panda toons of any class? I'm very curious to see if they are as hated as some people claim they are.

http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html Over all about 6 % of the game population is Panda. They are the least popular race on both the Horde and the Alliance sides. However, they are also the newest so . . . . . .

[Mormolyce]

Back in the days.

Didn't matter how many alts I did, and how many times I ran this route. This route was interesting to run. Interesting? Well, yes. Sometimes you died, sometimes you managed to outrun the enemies, and you had to be on your guard. The danger was interesting, because if I was aware of the surroundings, I could avoid it.

Kind of sad the boat goes directly to Stormwind Harbor now.

Well it was... scenic? But hardly dangerous. Unless you mean stealthed max level rogues camping lowbies lol. But fuck me that run was long and tedious.

What do you mean boat? The Menethil boat still leaves from here IIRC. Unless you mean the boat paths were different way back in vanilla or something.

- - - Updated - - -

http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html Over all about 6 % of the game population is Panda. They are the least popular race on both the Horde and the Alliance sides. However, they are also the newest so . . . . . .

More like 7% of all level 90s though, which is kind of interesting. I guess that's race changes.

But yeah. Obviously being new is an issue.

Also if you combine both Alliance and Horde Pandaren, more people choose to play Pandaren than Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins or Trolls. At level 90 they also outnumber Worgen (I think a lot of people have lowbie Worgen alts).

[Dormie]

Well it was... scenic? But hardly dangerous. Unless you mean stealthed max level rogues camping lowbies lol. But fuck me that run was long and tedious.

Oh it was definitely dangerous. you obviously never met any of those spiders or crocodiles.

[Evilfish]

Get over it.

So you'll have to run / ground mount through the content they are designing for you and appreciate it, instead of flying over it.

Right cause if I ignore it from above or from the ground makes a grand difference.

[Deleted]

Get over it.

So you'll have to run / ground mount through the content they are designing for you and appreciate it, instead of flying over it.

If you've already beaten the levelling content to get to max level, why'd you need waste more time to to fight that stuff again?

[Sunseeker]

Because Blizzard might (and will) re-use the leveling zones for endgame purpose as well, and having (temporary) no-fly zones here and there wouldn't really work.

If it was endgame stuff, it would either be phased (in which case my flying or lack thereof) would be instanced and either way limited only to me or the others in my exact phase/instance. It would also have to pose a challenge, which again, means it's either phased or instanced (in order to not obliterate the lowbies) and if you're not in my phase you can't see/affect me.

[Deleted]

I'm open to this, I just think that the community will rage.

[Mosotti]

Phases are shit. I don't think there are phases based on level, they are based on triggers in completing content. Making phases trigger on level makes no sense at all. However, why exactly are phases shit? Well, you ca level to max and then go into a low level phased zone that people at max level can't enter anymore, and fuck all the lowbies in the ass. Good like finding a friend or an alt that is also capable to do some PvP and also is not phased and also has the time to fuck around for that.

[Raeln]

You get it for showing up, it's free, no skill required.

Well that's incredible exaggeration.

You're trying to make it sound like all someone had to do was drive by McDonalds and pick it up from the drive-through window. Even if someone, somehow got to AFK through every single raid boss to get every single quest drop and valor point - that's more than double, maybe triple the number of hours of "showing up" than the average single player game's campaign story mode lasts.

Stop getting hung up on the color of gear. Legendary orange or not, Blizzard balanced MoP around the likelihood of all players getting it. This was why it was a quest that started out in the open world and not from some low drop chance raid item.

[Stellan]

Well it was... scenic? But hardly dangerous. Unless you mean stealthed max level rogues camping lowbies lol. But fuck me that run was long and tedious.

What do you mean boat? The Menethil boat still leaves from here IIRC. Unless you mean the boat paths were different way back in vanilla or something.

- - - Updated - - -



More like 7% of all level 90s though, which is kind of interesting. I guess that's race changes.

But yeah. Obviously being new is an issue.

Also if you combine both Alliance and Horde Pandaren, more people choose to play Pandaren than Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins or Trolls. At level 90 they also outnumber Worgen (I think a lot of people have lowbie Worgen alts).

No. Pandaren are cross faction so you can't really look at it that way. If you want to see their true popularity you have to look at it by faction.

[Raeln]

http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html Over all about 6 % of the game population is Panda. They are the least popular race on both the Horde and the Alliance sides. However, they are also the newest so . . . . . .

They are the newest and for players with completionist tendencies (like me) - WoW is not an alt friendly game with so many achievements/reputations remaining character bound.

The only way I'm going to own a panda (past just dabbling to see their starting area) is if I race change to one and they just aren't my cup of tea. I'm not put off by them, I regard them the same way as when EQ1 put Frogloks in as a playable race. "Meh, I guess if that's your thing."

If anything, the heavy eastern style is more of a negative to me than Pandas but even at that I wouldn't even call it a full negative point - maybe like -0.2 point.

Perhaps people are leaving because of a mixture of dungeons being completely ignored and everyone funneled into raids for endgame?

- - - Updated - - -

Well it was... scenic? But hardly dangerous. Unless you mean stealthed max level rogues camping lowbies lol. But fuck me that run was long and tedious.

What do you mean boat? The Menethil boat still leaves from here IIRC. Unless you mean the boat paths were different way back in vanilla or something.

"Requiring an amount of time" to accomplish something plays into this and creates value to the individual player. This is obviously going to vary from player to player.

As an example - my brother will only play Minecraft on creative. He just wants to build some incredible building and the individual blocks to him are just for a color palette.

I'm the complete opposite, I only play survival because to me - if I place an iron block, that represents the ore that I dug out of the ground or rather, the time investment for me to get it. A diamond block to me would be extremely valuable because they are very rare, at least to me on survival. I've seen my brother build entire towers out of diamond blocks on creative and I'm just like.. meh, a blue tower - yay.

More like 7% of all level 90s though, which is kind of interesting. I guess that's race changes.

But yeah. Obviously being new is an issue.

Also if you combine both Alliance and Horde Pandaren, more people choose to play Pandaren than Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins or Trolls. At level 90 they also outnumber Worgen (I think a lot of people have lowbie Worgen alts).

You can't examine pandaria race populations like that though since there are no other races that can be both factions. You can only compare the Alliance pandaren to Alliance populations and Horde to Horde.

There is also an unknown variable since Pandas are new and Monks are new and monks have to start at level 1, then it stands to reason that people rolling Monks might have chosen Panda and just knocked both "new" things out at the same time in a much larger presence than if only one or the other were implemented in MoP alone.

- - - Updated - - -

If it was endgame stuff, it would either be phased (in which case my flying or lack thereof) would be instanced and either way limited only to me or the others in my exact phase/instance. It would also have to pose a challenge, which again, means it's either phased or instanced (in order to not obliterate the lowbies) and if you're not in my phase you can't see/affect me.

You mean how what happened to the Vale after Garrosh lollerstomped through it?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that no one ever gets to see the "pretty" Vale again, even when they are level 89.

[Deleted]

I see people mention that having no flying adds nothing to the game, but I believe the opposite to be true. I loved the feeling I used to have in Vanilla WoW, where traveling used to be dangerous. In TBC/WotlK, the world felt disconnected, I did not participate in it. Being restricted to the ground gives the feeling of a larger, more interesting world, both from a PvP aspect and aesthetically. I loved it when in the distance I saw someone of the alliance, making me have to hide myself to try and gank or get out of his way. Or getting caught in a small skirmish, helping fellow hordies out. Hopefully it will bring back some of the realm banter on the forums, and the world back to life.

The zones can be properly mapped in such a way that the questing and gathering experience does not change that much relative to not having a flying mount. There is just more risk involved, traveling the world on a PvP server should be dangerous. I for one might actually resub/buy WoW just because of this change, because I have a feeling it will have a very good impact on my personal experience of the game.

[-Superman-]

People are canceling their subscription over it. There is post after post from multiple forums of people sharing that Blizzard Customer Service is slammed dealing with the pre-order refunds. No company would bring this up just to test the waters.

I feel for you Superman, because I think you are going to go Lex Luther when they officially post the bad news.

Anyone who cancels before it is official, is not very wise. Taking forum posts at face value and using it to make a decision is also not wise. Aside from people tweeting their own personal opinions, there is nothing more to see than what is tattooed on the official BattleNet site. Until Blizz makes it official, and puts it in stone at the release of 6.1, I will not fall victim like the other Chicken Littles and run on about the sky falling. If it is not in the Patch notes, it's not officially finished.


(couldn't resist)