Possibly no flying throughout entire xpac.

[Deleted]

At the moment, there are not enough people playing to even really judge how fast or slow it is. Regardless, you have been able to hit max level within a day or two since Wrath if you tried (so little seems to have changed there for the lucky few that are playing).


That said, it is really more about money than anything else. If they can manage to make it through WoD without flight, then they can cut it entirely from there on... and that will help the profit margins a lot.


And those are the same profit margins that will decide if it stays. If enough people seem to be leaving over it, then the losses will outweigh the gains (and it will miraculously make a comeback... and probably never leave).


Money... it's what business is all about.

If they add 1 less peanut to a snickers they will save millions. I will never buy one again!

[Wingspan]

Shhhh don't you know.... Pet battles, mining and archeology are all TEDIOUS tasks. CHORES..... however if they add flight these tasks are miraculously made FUN.

I don't know. I did quite a bit of all of those and flight was what actually REDUCED it to tedious chore status, so I really feel for those who are going to try it without flight (particularly Archaeology).


I suspect that there will be a lot less optional filler activity going on without flight and a lot more queueing. It remains to be seen I guess.

- - - Updated - - -

If they add 1 less peanut to a snickers they will save millions. I will never buy one again!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...tays-same.html



I doubt they reduced the weight without reducing the peanut volume.

Ironically, they seemed to claim that it was for our benefit too (sound familiar?).



Money... it's what business is all about.

[Deleted]

I don't know. I did quite a bit of all of those and flight was what actually REDUCED it to tedious chore status, so I really feel for those who are going to try it without flight (particularly Archaeology).


I suspect that there will be a lot less optional filler activity going on without flight and a lot more queueing. It remains to be seen I guess.

Those without flight just want it over quicker. I'm refering particularly to a poster who keeps refering to the process of doing these tasks as boring without flight, not you particularly so apologies if I make it seem so. But this is his reasoning:

These tasks are BORING. With flight they become TOLERABLE.

What does flight do? reduce the time between the nodes, it makes no difference to the actual task.

It is sort of like saying that being shot in the head makes death fun when compared to being strangled.

I doubt they reduced the weight without reducing the peanut volume.



Money... it's what business is all about.

I didn't say anything about them doing it, I stated about buying them. Have you thrown them down in protest and stopped eating chocolate because thats what all conglomerates do?

[Drytoast]

Absolute mirror of a PvE player I just had a conversation with, my housemate. Who when I informed him of no flight shrugged his shoulders dismissively with the response of 'so fuck?'. This is quite a distance from the haddaway and shite I would have expected from reading what you have to say. So if he keeps playing, and the 'addicts' which you talked about keep playing there is hardly going to be the massive flying exodus you have prophesied. An exodus because of the problems of launch maybe... but because of flying? I do not think is so likely. Could be wrong of course.... but I do not see it happening.

I did of course explain, as per your request that it was an obvious gate by the mean corporation to slow down consumption so as to get a huge swathe of extra subscribers. How it effected his instances and raids... which most people do after max lvl... I was not able to answer.

I don't think it's so much of a gate but rather lazy game design and a path to make future content easier/ quicker...and well just a disconnect in general between the fairy tale blizzard think it's players play this game versus the reality to how they've played since launch.

Think about this: by their own admission, blizzard knows that when we are inconvenienced with a meaningless shit encounter, we roll our eyes and huff and puff...so lol their answer to this is to increase those nothing shit encounters Ina hopes that we will suddenly enjoy them?

Lol.

They will say in the same quote..."we took out flight because we have to be honest with our selves over what's fun". And then follow that quote by saying "we taken great lengths to try and remove the 'pain' spots of ground travel...

Lol.

So they have acknowledged that ground travel can suck, and shit encounters are annoying at best...so their answer is to increase ground travel, and shit encounters...

They are going to find out the hard way that by the end of vanilla, when wow was full of all these annoyances, people were very grateful that they put in flying mounts....

Cause ya know...nothing has greatly changed between vanilla and now to ale me think that history of player opinion won't repeat itself.

But you keep thinking that somehow this time will be different...


Now will people quit? I'd say it drops to 5 mil. But I can tell you this, after that new smell has worn off...even your idiotic roommate is gonna huff and puff when he's dazed off his mount traversing that same slightly sloping path in an attempt to complete whatever mundane task blizzard has added to the game in an attempt to keep people from sitting in their garrisons.

And maybe then, he might think to himself, "ya know what? This really does kinda suck". Or maybe he's too stupid to realize that nothing was added but more annoyances.

Lol

[Ordinator]

That said, it is really more about money than anything else. If they can manage to make it through WoD without flight, then they can cut it entirely from there on... and that will help the profit margins a lot.

People keep saying that cutting flying cut costs of production. Yet the zones are probably some of the best and most beautiful they've had so far. So tell me again how Blizzard cut flying to save money and not because it was harmful to gameplay?

[Wingspan]

Those without flight just want it over quicker. I'm refering particularly to a poster who keeps refering to the process of doing these tasks as boring without flight, not you particularly so apologies if I make it seem so. But this is his reasoning:

These tasks are BORING. With flight they become TOLERABLE.

What does flight do? reduce the time between the nodes, it makes no difference to the actual task.

It is sort of like saying that being shot in the head makes death fun when compared to being strangled.

If it truly made no difference to the actual task, then there would be no real reason (at least any that Bliz has given) to remove it. They perpetually claim that it alters the tasks that it sets before to the point of triviality. It is almost the only reason they have ever given for the change.

[Aktavite]

If 90->100 took 10 minutes and something changed that made it take 11 minutes they'd whine about it being "slowed down" in a devious plot I suppose.

Too dumb to take pacing into account.

It must be hard being that smart?

Like how you skip over the obvious point that the majority of complaints, if not all, are centered around Blizzard removing flight at max level.

But throwing insults around and calling people 'dumb' must make you feel good.

[Drytoast]

People keep saying that cutting flying cut costs of production. Yet the zones are probably some of the best and most beautiful they've had so far. So tell me again how Blizzard cut flying to save money and not because it was harmful to gameplay?

They look no better or worse than any of the past expansions. You just have this tendency to look at anything blizzard does with big heart shape eyes...

[Wingspan]

People keep saying that cutting flying cut costs of production. Yet the zones are probably some of the best and most beautiful they've had so far. So tell me again how Blizzard cut flying to save money and not because it was harmful to gameplay?

This is almost TOO easy to answer.


First, there will not be a lot of savings for this particular expansion, because they needed to flesh-out things pretty well in case it all goes to hell (and be flight-ready).


Long term plan... if they can cut flight from the next expansion, the 1st HUGE benefit is that they don't spend money to finish any terrain that you can't access (which is a lot). Any building, mountain, statue, or anything that you can't see from the ground (or a flight path) can be completely unfinished in the Z-axis. So you will have structures without a roof and mountains with gaping volcano-like holes in them. This is not a tin-foil hat scenario... this is actually how Azeroth was constructed before Cata.


Second, since we have grown used large zones with flight, it is only a matter of time before they realize that they can shrink the overall maps a bit and shave a lot of dollars out of the budget (Timeless Isle did it... it was one of the smallest mini-zones ever released).


With travel speed cut more than 50%, it would not be hard to shave (let's say) 20% off of the x and y dimensions and still have the world "feel" like it is just as large as zones that you are used to. It might even feel larger while actually being smaller if you put some windy paths and difficult terrain in it. Even just a 20% cut in each dimension results in almost 33% less terrain to digitally sculpt.


That is a lot of profit margin to retain and money to be made. It is literally what the Snickers people did that I referenced above... charge the same for the product while giving them less product. It's a long-term profit plan, not really a mystery.

[Ordinator]

They look no better or worse than any of the past expansions. You just have this tendency to look at anything blizzard does with big heart shape eyes...

Yep. You got me all figured out. Just like I fully support their cash shop in a subscription based game. and their oversimplification of just about everything. Your stupid generalizations of people who support no flying discredits you even further than you've already been discredited. No wonder nobody takes you seriously.

[Dragoncurry]

Yeah... Cause people take you seriously... What with your ability to not actually back up anything you say...lol

What's wrong? You and Maneo spent 1000 pages crying that removing flying was a mechanism to gate content, yet leveling sped up. So much for not backing up anything you say.

You said it was LOGISTICALLY impossible for shit like mining, gathering, etc to remain the same. Yet if the SPED up levelling, let's just see how fast it is to gather materials at level 100. I'm sorry if it looks like I'm gloating, because I am.

[Dragoncurry]

I don't usually say anything that I have to back up. You on the other hand...

All good, proof is in the pudding kids. Game speaks for itself.

[Drytoast]

What's wrong? You and Maneo spent 1000 pages crying that removing flying was a mechanism to gate content, yet leveling sped up. So much for not backing up anything you say.

I was more about that they did this to create future content easier and quicker. Maybe in an effort to not have a year plus drought anymore?

[Dragoncurry]

I was more about that they did this to create future content easier and quicker. Maybe in an effort to not have a year plus drought anymore?

But gating and making more money and Blizzard is stealing your money making you play more though why would they make future content easier and quicker? All of this doesn't ring a bell?

[Deleted]

I don't think it's so much of a gate but rather lazy game design and a path to make future content easier/ quicker...and well just a disconnect in general between the fairy tale blizzard think it's players play this game versus the reality to how they've played since launch.

Well so far their lazy gameplay has crashed servers, many are unable to log in. I think this could be for many reasons, producing shit content does not seem like one of them. Unless you can present some reason why people are queueing in their thousands for access to shit content?

Think about this: by their own admission, blizzard knows that when we are inconvenienced with a meaningless shit encounter, we roll our eyes and huff and puff...so lol their answer to this is to increase those nothing shit encounters Ina hopes that we will suddenly enjoy them?

There are a ton of meaningless content. All raids to me are meaningless content, why would I enjoy it now? I'd still have to do it. They have always increased the meaningless shit content every time they brought out a new raid patch.

Lol.

Hilarious... do you actually laugh at these?

[quote]They will say in the same quote..."we took out flight because we have to be honest with our selves over what's fun". And then follow that quote by saying "we taken great lengths to try and remove the 'pain' spots of ground travel...[quote]

Lol.

Tee hee hee hee

So they have acknowledged that ground travel can suck, and shit encounters are annoying at best...so their answer is to increase ground travel, and shit encounters...

Define shit encounters. To me, personally shit encounters = any raid boss. Ergo any raid boss is a shit encounter therefore remove all raid bosses.

They are going to find out the hard way that by the end of vanilla, when wow was full of all these annoyances, people were very grateful that they put in flying mounts....

People were excited for them, but before the news of them I had not heard 1 person crying for their inclusion.

Cause ya know...nothing has greatly changed between vanilla and now to ale me think that history of player opinion won't repeat itself.

You seem to think flying between vanilla and now has created a massive shift in opinion.

But you keep thinking that somehow this time will be different...

No... just coming from someone who owns every store mount on 2 accounts.... most people do not care. Personal I'm sure, but relative.

Now will people quit? I'd say it drops to 5 mil. But I can tell you this, after that new smell has worn off...even your idiotic roommate is gonna huff and puff when he's dazed off his mount traversing that same slightly sloping path in an attempt to complete whatever mundane task blizzard has added to the game in an attempt to keep people from sitting in their garrisons.

Oh my room-mate is an idiot? Despite the fact I called him a house mate and not a room mate because we share a house and not a room. I let him know and in response he called you a person of substandard intelligence whose parents were probably brother and sister.

And maybe then, he might think to himself, "ya know what? This really does kinda suck". Or maybe he's too stupid to realize that nothing was added but more annoyances.

Or perhaps he puts more emphasis on other things. Like you should do, since you know longer play this abomination of a game. For all the hours you've spent arguing against it..... tally it up..... now how much is that as a percentage of time you would have saved if they enabled flight from max level instead of when they said they would?

Lol

Hehehehehe hilarious!

If it truly made no difference to the actual task, then there would be no real reason (at least any that Bliz has given) to remove it. They perpetually claim that it alters the tasks that it sets before to the point of triviality. It is almost the only reason they have ever given for the change.

They are not removing it because of the tasks... they just want to ensure people's percieved objectives are not unduly hindered because of it.

[Aktavite]

What's wrong? You and Maneo spent 1000 pages crying that removing flying was a mechanism to gate content, yet leveling sped up. So much for not backing up anything you say.

You said it was LOGISTICALLY impossible for shit like mining, gathering, etc to remain the same. Yet if the SPED up levelling, let's just see how fast it is to gather materials at level 100. I'm sorry if it looks like I'm gloating, because I am.

Pssst.

A leveling speed increase could be because XP per level was reduced and there are more ways for a player to gain XP.

You know, stuff that is irrelevant to flying at max level.

[MoanaLisa]

Moderation note: Knock it off with the personal attacks. Talk about flying and no-flying and spend less time insulting one another.

[Wingspan]

They are not removing it because of the tasks... they just want to ensure people's percieved objectives are not unduly hindered because of it.

A task is an action with an objective... sometimes called a quest even.


If you are skipping mobs and hitting a quest target it is much the same as skipping mobs and doing an Archaology plot.


So if all that flight does is "reduce the time between the nodes, it makes no difference to the actual task" (your words), then it would not matter if that "node" were a mine, an archaeology plot, or a quest target.

[Wingspan]

I didn't say anything about them doing it, I stated about buying them. Have you thrown them down in protest and stopped eating chocolate because thats what all conglomerates do?

I missed this response.

Not chocolate specifically, but yeah, there have been more than a few times in my life where a product was reduced in some capacity and I decided to stop buying the product. I know full well it's what conglomerates do and I get to decide if I support it or not... sometimes yes, sometimes no (it's everyday life).

[Deleted]

A task is an action with an objective... sometimes called a quest even.


If you are skipping mobs and hitting a quest target it is much the same as skipping mobs and doing an Archaology plot.


So if all that flight does is "reduce the time between the nodes, it makes no difference to the actual task" (your words), then it would not matter if that "node" were a mine, an archaeology plot, or a quest target.

Hence they have equalised it.