Possibly no flying throughout entire xpac.

[Mechanibull]

A question to follow up your post, Mechanibull:

Which one of the two scenarios would you prefer:

1. Flying allowed like it is in MoP, nothing changes.
2. No flying allowed, portal to each zone available in main cities of Draenor.

There IS a plan behind this from Blizzard's PoV. We just need to have faith in them. I think they will compromise for no flying allowed somehow. People don't seem to take that into account. (No personal attack, James Bond)

I find that things in life are rarely black and white. I'm not averse to compromise- something in the middle might be acceptable. The 2nd choice would help to allay my aversion, but would still leave a sour taste in my mouth. A Wintergrasp/ Timeless Isle type solution would be a better choice in my opinion.

Having said that, I have faith in Blizzard doing what they can to make their stockholders happy. Some of that translates to keeping the players happy, but not always.

Say, for instance, they had an issue with people finishing the content faster than they can release it, then unsubbing until there was new content to justify their $15 a month. What could they do to make the content last longer? Would they do that thing? If they did, how would they justify it to their fanbase? By explaining that they simply can't have everyone unsubbing all the time? Or by saying, "Hey guys, this will make the game better?" I'm not saying that's what's going on here, as I don't have access to the inner workings of Blizzard. I do, however, have a decent understanding of business, and it isn't an unlikely scenario, either.

Regardless, as I said, I have very limited gaming time, and I simply will not spend it doing things I don't want to do. If flying is never allowed in Warlords, I will not purchase it. This isn't a threat to Blizzard, or me being whiny, it's just an informed consumer stating a fact.

[Sjoa]

The world being ruined is your opinion. Many think it was a vast improvement. Talents were overhauled in every single expansion.

The burning crusade was almost as bad of a time sink as classic. I guess you forgot about attunements... In classic you can skip MC, BWL, and AQ if your guild was killing bosses in Naxx. In TBC you HAD to do heroic 5 mans for gear, you had to do kara to do grul and mag, you had to do ssc and the eye to do hyjal and bt. Blizzard later, way too late imo, realized that gearing and raiding your new tank was way too much of a hassle with that system.

There HAS to be a catch up method for guilds that are pushing content so they can keep their roster healthy.

I see a lot of guilds on Wowprogress today that are way into heroic Siege, but hasn't killed Lei'Shen on Heroic? They should not be allowed to simply skip one of the absolutely best fights ever made in WoW's history. I bet the encounter devs are extremely sad that not all did the Lei'Shen fight because it was really really good.

- - - Updated - - -

"Hello everyone, we bring to you, Warlords of Draenor!"

"What new features does it have?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing?"

"Nope! Actually, we're even removing some!"

+5 million sub increase.

Yeah....


By the way, since you scoffed at my claiming I was a pre-BC player, and I provided you the link to prove it to you, maybe you could grace me with your character link and its extensive pre-BC experience?

Dude, the stable decline in subs since their peak during Wotlk. What does that suggest to you? Sure they added a billion new cool features that simplifies the game, but the subscription money still sunk and sunk, and sunk. Cataclysm was a bad expansion moneywise for Blizzard. They are now in a process of re-establishing themselves, and even though they had a lot of new features in previous expansions, they still lost subs.

With Draenor they are testing a new module with less shining features, they realize they went completely overboard in the two previos expansions. And so, they will try somethng new for Draenor

Which frankly, is very appealing to some. Me, for instance, who is able to see that their business module for Cata/MoP was not a success.

[urasim]

Dude, the stable decline in subs since their peak during Wotlk. What does that suggest to you? Sure they added a billion new cool features that simplifies the game, but the subscription money still sunk and sunk, and sunk. Cataclysm was a bad expansion moneywise for Blizzard. They are now in a process of re-establishing themselves, and even though they had a lot of new features in previous expansions, they still lost subs.

With Draenor they are testing a new module with less shining features, they realize they went completely overboard in the two previos expansions. And so, they will try somethng new for Draenor

Which frankly, is very appealing to some. Me, for instance, who is able to see that their business module for Cata/MoP was not a success.

Testing an already proven models is a waste of time. There is no proof that people quit because they're "forced" to fly. But, there is proof that people quit because of no flight. I can show you my canceled sub and my canceled expansion pre-order.

[Sjoa]

I find that things in life are rarely black and white. I'm not averse to compromise- something in the middle might be acceptable. The 2nd choice would help to allay my aversion, but would still leave a sour taste in my mouth. A Wintergrasp/ Timeless Isle type solution would be a better choice in my opinion.

Having said that, I have faith in Blizzard doing what they can to make their stockholders happy. Some of that translates to keeping the players happy, but not always.

Say, for instance, they had an issue with people finishing the content faster than they can release it, then unsubbing until there was new content to justify their $15 a month. What could they do to make the content last longer? Would they do that thing? If they did, how would they justify it to their fanbase? By explaining that they simply can't have everyone unsubbing all the time? Or by saying, "Hey guys, this will make the game better?" I'm not saying that's what's going on here, as I don't have access to the inner workings of Blizzard. I do, however, have a decent understanding of business, and it isn't an unlikely scenario, either.

Regardless, as I said, I have very limited gaming time, and I simply will not spend it doing things I don't want to do. If flying is never allowed in Warlords, I will not purchase it. This isn't a threat to Blizzard, or me being whiny, it's just an informed consumer stating a fact.

That's a fair, constructive argument. I appreciate that. I would like to make another followup question however:

Which of the two scenarios:

1. You get flying, nothing changes, and you finish everything you need for this tier in one month. Then we wait for new content for as long as it takes Blizzard to make it.
2. No flying, farming materials, doing dailies, exploring and what not will take longer, sure. But is this necessarily a bad thing? To be honest, I returned to this game about 5 months ago. I am now capped at the item level i can be before doing heroic raiding again, i have every mount i want, and there is basically nothing interesting to do. I have done the endless thing in proving grounds, and I finished the Brawler's thingie in about 2 days of progressing.

Is this healthy? Should it be this simple to "cap" at a comfortable level? With nothing to strive for after playing for 1 month?

- - - Updated - - -

Testing an already proven models is a waste of time. There is no proof that people quit because they're "forced" to fly. But, there is proof that people quit because of no flight. I can show you my canceled sub and my canceled expansion pre-order.

Here is the fact that Blizzard care about, however:

#1 They had healthy increase in game subscriptions throughout Classic
#2 They had healthy increase in game subscriptions throughout TBC
#3 They had healthy increase in game subscriptions throughout WotLK
#4 Since the peak at the end of WotLK, they arrows pointed straight down ever since.

Which module should they follow do you think? Should they

1. Stick to the current philosophy (the one they've had since they made Cata)
2. Try a different path. Make some of the more appealing changes that we had during the healthy increase of players (tbc/wotlk mainly). Doing this they're combining some of the good stuff they learnt from Cata/MoP. And of course, some new ideas.

It is obvious they are doing #2 here. Why? Well, because all in all, the philosophy they've followed which in the end is what makes the game, has costed them ~5 Million subscribers since the end of WotLK, which is where they started their new path of adding a million different shiny effects, spells and "content.

[Deleted]

No flying would be the best thing to happen to this game.

The game feels to small with flying.
World PvP has become inexistent because of it
Zones don't immerse that much because ur hovering above the canopy
Traveling is not exploring zones, rather than just hit Numblock, Open Map, and steer the direction u want to go.

I'd totally support this. Let WoW feel grand and immersive again.

the game feels that way through your own fault.

[mekatron]

Blizzard didn't "find" any such thing because Blizzard has never asked the question. They claim that feedback is running 50/50 and the only feedback they have on this subject is based on the players that bother to post on the forums.

The percentage of the playerbase who dislikes flying is nowhere near 50 per cent and you don't need access to any data to know this is true. If there are indeed any players for whom flying being in the game is unacceptable, I would assume they are gone after 7 years of flying. Flying wasn't an issue at all until Blizzard made it one by starting this nonsense and then the nostalgia nerds and Blizzard can do no wrong types jumped on the bandwagon. The last hoohah over flying on the forums prior to this was players raising complaining about flying being removed while levelling in Pandaria and there being no tome for alts which is hardly a mass rising asking for flight to be removed.

I agree, this wasn't a real issue until blizzard decided to make it a big deal. I've been playing since TBC (and I don't say that to validate my opinion, since I think it's bull to support your opinion simply based on the time you've been playing, wait for it): and in all this time I realized the behavior/attitude in-game are very alike in the real life.

Wow is not reeeaaaallly "just a game" anymore, Tetris is just a game, Pokemon is just a game, Super Mario Bros is just a game. In wow, what your character say and do are things that, in fact, become a true extension of what u are in person. And today there's a lot of ppl who live being antagonists, rebels for no cause, with anger issues and no politeness, ppl who have depression, who don't enjoy seeing others satisfied with anything and who have pleasure being always against others, just because.

I think the majority of ppl wanting to get rid of flying are like that. (And yeah, that's just an opinion based on my perception, I'm allowed to have one and I believe others could perceive the same.) I haven't seen a single argument validating the no-flying-at-max-level design yet that is really solid, all I see is nostalgia and the pleasure of being "against the mainstream to look cool and badass". Nothing else.

[urasim]

Here is the fact that Blizzard care about, however:

#1 They had healthy increase in game subscriptions throughout Classic
#2 They had healthy increase in game subscriptions throughout TBC
#3 They had healthy increase in game subscriptions throughout WotLK
#4 Since the peak at the end of WotLK, they arrows pointed straight down ever since.

Which module should they follow do you think? Should they

1. Stick to the current philosophy (the one they've had since they made Cata)
2. Try a different path. Make some of the more appealing changes that we had during the healthy increase of players (tbc/wotlk mainly). Doing this they're combining some of the good stuff they learnt from Cata/MoP. And of course, some new ideas.

It is obvious they are doing #2 here. Why? Well, because all in all, the philosophy they've followed which in the end is what makes the game, has costed them ~5 Million subscribers since the end of WotLK, which is where they started their new path of adding a million different shiny effects, spells and "content.

You can't say for sure why their numbers are down. Each game changed things. TBC made things really hard. Wrath made everything really, really easy. Cata increased the difficulty very slightly from wrath. Flying has been in the game before the decline. Saying flying is the reason for the decline is the silliest thing anyone can say as there is no correlation between the two. The difficulty or old age of the game is a better suspect than flight.

[Sjoa]

You can't say for sure why their numbers are down. Each game changed things. TBC made things really hard. Wrath made everything really, really easy. Cata increased the difficulty very slightly from wrath. Flying has been in the game before the decline. Saying flying is the reason for the decline is the silliest thing anyone can say as there is no correlation between the two. The difficulty or old age of the game is a better suspect than flight.

I think i got a pretty good picture on why WoW has lost 5 Million subscribers during Cataclysm & MoP. The reason I think is their philosophy and how they think the game should be that's lost them subscribers. I.E how they programmed and designed Cataclysm to be, and how they made MoP. At the time. This was what they thought was the best for the game, but numbers prove that that was NOT the way they should have taken.

As a reaction to this, they are doing things differently in Draenor. Flying only being a super minor thing in the plans they got.

I am 100% sure that when we're one month into the new expansion. This will not be something even discussed. This is just people being stubborn/reluctant to changes. Nothing more than a fling that will go over with time.

[Lumineus]

Dude, the stable decline in subs since their peak during Wotlk. What does that suggest to you? Sure they added a billion new cool features that simplifies the game, but the subscription money still sunk and sunk, and sunk.

Not because of features! The meteoric (lolsteady) decline in subscriptions is because they gutted small group content. First with the obnoxious heroics in Cata, and then by making them irrelevant in Mists, along with massively gating solo progression and digging their heels in on the tabard issue.

Then to top it off they destroyed PUG raiding with essentially forced guild membership and the way they tuned 10 man, so there was nowhere for people to go.

[Count Zero]

Cliffs:

WoW's population is dropping.
Cata started it.
MoP made it worse.
Adding features/removing difficulty killed the game.


Facts

Don't even bother arguing. The numbers can't lie.

Fact: ice cream sales increase in the summer. Fact: murder rates increase in the summer.

ICE CREAM CAUSES MURDER.

/facepalm

Yes, numbers can lie based on how they're presented.

Subs were affected by adding in all this bullshit. Subs will get better if they bring the fundamentals of WoW back:


See that constant downward trend after WotLK?

Yeah.

Your graph doesn't tell the whole story:

Subscription rates of games with over 1 million subs

Subscription rates of games between 150k and 1 million

Total MMO subscription rates

The entire subscription MMO industry is shrinking. WoW actually suffered relatively fewer losses than many of its direct competitors in the timeframe from late Wrath until now.

If WoW's sub decline is because of what you state, what caused the sub decline of all these other games ? Why is the entire market shrinking ?

The only fact here is that less people are paying MMO subscriptions, across the board. You have no argument here, because your "proof" only exists inside your head and not in the real world. You have no data to back up your claims, because that data does not exist. You're so entombed inside of your own head that you don't even have the cognitive capacity to conceive of the possibility that things are not the way you see them.

Wake up, man. There is a world outside of your own opinions.

[Sjoa]

Like I said, naming specific changes/implementations that caused them to lose subscribers is not possible. You can't point your finger one one specific issue and say "this broke the game" It's 90% of everything they've done. 10% has been good implementations. These 10% they will merge into their new plans on how to make the game I.E Draenor.

[urasim]

I think i got a pretty good picture on why WoW has lost 5 Million subscribers during Cataclysm & MoP. The reason I think is their philosophy and how they think the game should be that's lost them subscribers. I.E how they programmed and designed Cataclysm to be, and how they made MoP. At the time. This was what they thought was the best for the game, but numbers prove that that was NOT the way they should have taken.

As a reaction to this, they are doing things differently in Draenor. Flying only being a super minor thing in the plans they got.

I am 100% sure that when we're one month into the new expansion. This will not be something even discussed. This is just people being stubborn/reluctant to changes. Nothing more than a fling that will go over with time.

WoW lost a lot more than five million subscribers through the course of its life. Try thirty one million.

You can't be a hundred percent sure of that. Just like you can't be sure you won't die in ten minutes because of a brain aneurism...

[Deleted]

I think i got a pretty good picture on why WoW has lost 5 Million subscribers during Cataclysm & MoP. The reason I think is their philosophy and how they think the game should be that's lost them subscribers. I.E how they programmed and designed Cataclysm to be, and how they made MoP. At the time. This was what they thought was the best for the game, but numbers prove that that was NOT the way they should have taken.

As a reaction to this, they are doing things differently in Draenor. Flying only being a super minor thing in the plans they got.

I am 100% sure that when we're one month into the new expansion. This will not be something even discussed. This is just people being stubborn/reluctant to changes. Nothing more than a fling that will go over with time.

you seem to be a psychic, where did you obtain your mystical powers?

[Sjoa]

WoW lost a lot more than five million subscribers through the course of its life. Try thirty one million.

You can't be a hundred percent sure of that. Just like you can't be sure you won't die in ten minutes because of a brain aneurism...

What do you mean I can't be sure? All I have to do is read and keep up to date on their quarterly numbers. They post the state of subscribers in each and every quarter.

- - - Updated - - -

you seem to be a psychic, where did you obtain your mystical powers?

Time will tell.

[Deleted]

What do you mean I can't be sure? All I have to do is read and keep up to date on their quarterly numbers. They post the state of subscribers in each and every quarter.

- - - Updated - - -



Time will tell.

prepare for disappointment

[Sjoa]

prepare for disappointment

Should i be dissapointed because you're quitting the game, or because they will pull back on the flying thingie? It's a minor thing of the expansion mate, I won't leave the game over something so trivial like flying/no flying, thats just... Silly.

[Deleted]

Should i be dissapointed because you're quitting the game, or because they will pull back on the flying thingie? It's a minor thing of the expansion mate, I won't leave the game over something so trivial like flying/no flying, thats just... Silly.

what? when did i say anything about leaving the game? strange.

[mekatron]

Should i be dissapointed because you're quitting the game, or because they will pull back on the flying thingie? It's a minor thing of the expansion mate, I won't leave the game over something so trivial like flying/no flying, thats just... Silly.

I don't think it's silly. Flying makes the game faster, and sometimes u just can't afford to spend so much time doing something. Think about it: if I have only 30 minutes to do something in the game because of (whatever reason: rl appointments, raiding, or I'm just tired and need to go to bed) , I want those 30 minutes do be productive. WHY make the game slower? Why make 2 things in 30 minutes if I really needed to do 4? I think this destroys motivation, since doing the 2 things is not gonna fulfill my expectations about the game. Of COURSE I'm talking about the chores, not the raiding stuff. I don't wanna be able to clear a raid in 2h in the beginning of the game (and that's why I only did LFR to complete the epic cape quest).

It's not a silly reason to feel the game is not rewarding anymore, that you're being put aside and falling behind other ppl that have 1 hour to play and will be able to do those 4 things u needed to do.

Flying is a convenience. It's silly not to see that. Means of transportation matter in real life AND in games and that's not a minor issue. Do u take the subway/bus/car to go to work? That's silly, use your bike, or go by foot. U're gonna get there anyway, won't u?

[Sjoa]

what? when did i say anything about leaving the game? strange.

So, please point out as to why I should prepare for dissapointment. I would assume by your post that you are one of the people that are wanting flying to stay in the game. Merely speculation, though

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Something that is also silly is to preemptively assume something that "This is how it will be, and its so horrible I'm gonna quit" after seeing the first few days of fucking Alpha. Do you REALLY think they won't compromise for not having flying?? Have some faith in Blizzards plans!

[urasim]

So, please point out as to why I should prepare for dissapointment. I would assume by your post that you are one of the people that are wanting flying to stay in the game. Merely speculation, though

Almost everything you have said has been speculation from a faulty perspective...