Possibly no flying throughout entire xpac.

[Granyala]

I'm sitting on 200 iron scraps, capped, can't get anymore.

We should be able to throw this junk at our enemies :<

[MoanaLisa]

It's targeted at the exact same audience as before. They have just made all aspects more accessible to all players.

I really disagree with this. The audience for WoW in 2004 is nothing like the audience for it ten years later. We've seen just this year an MMO attempt to target the same audience as 'before' and that has not gone well. The game changes; the audience changes. There are vast numbers of people playing games that might be attracted into the game if they can find the right set of elements. I think it unlikely but sitting on their hands and targeting the same audience as a decade ago is to stagnate and die.

Removing flying is one of those elements to enable a different sort of play style within a leveling zone; one more enabled for exploration, puzzles, and side trips having nothing to do with primary quest lines. You can like it or not but it's a push to move the game to a different place and that place is not 2004.

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And this is what we get when a game is designed and consistently altered towards an entitled playerbase; Pressing buttons represents effort, and rewards should far exceed said effort.

Incoming heresy: The best reward for playing the game is playing the game. I can't see how not having flying is keeping anyone from playing for the sheer pleasure of playing. I miss flying too sometimes but the ground game has its own pleasures. Something lost sure, but something gained as well. Which may have something to do with why people aren't nearly as fussed about it as expected.

[Lane]

Treasures where specifically designed to do only once, just like the new rares.

This is exactly why I take issue with treasures and rares being used as an excuse to maintain no flying.

I'm sorry I do not conform to your views on travel times, I've never held a stopwatch to them. Traveling to me does not feel worse in WoD compared to MoP, ergo I do not experience it as a problem.

I notice it because I've played other MMOs with better systems of travel. I suppose if I had only ever played WoW I either wouldn't notice a difference or perhaps even an improvement. However, having been "spoiled" by instantaneous teleportation to anywhere I want to go in a world it's been incredibly difficult to readjust to a system that's remained relatively unchanged since 2004. Back then it was an improvement over other MMOs, but MMOs since have improved upon it further while WoW stubbornly not only sticks to what it's always done but then removes the one aspect of travel that served as a buffer.

[melodramocracy]

I can't see how not having flying is keeping anyone from playing for the sheer pleasure of playing. I miss flying too sometimes but the ground game has its own pleasures. Something lost sure, but something gained as well. Which may have something to do with why people aren't nearly as fussed about it as expected.

I'm in agreement. The game does feel different, and you need to learn the best way to get around a zone, which I actually enjoy. (trying to heroic leap my way up here was a great time waster):



If flying is available, I use it.

If it's not available, I don't see it as any sort of deterrent. *shrug*

[quras]

Kinda like flight to some players....

I wonder how long it will take him to understand?

[markdall]

I'm in agreement. The game does feel different, and you need to learn the best way to get around a zone, which I actually enjoy. (trying to heroic leap my way up here was a great time waster):

--8<--
If flying is available, I use it.

If it's not available, I don't see it as any sort of deterrent. *shrug*

It's still pretty and still fun, that's why I haven't quit. But flying still feels about a million times more heroic. I feel that lack every single time I mount. Every. Single. Time. The other day I thought I'd go hit up the Darkmoon faire, so I went to my Ashran portal in my L3 Garrison, found the Thunderbluff portal, hopped on a mount, and - whoa - I could fly again.

This immediately enraged me - OH LOOK AT ME FLYING. I SURE AM RUINING EVERYBODY ELSE'S GAME PLAY RIGHT NOW, RIGHT? RIIIIIGHT, MFERS? HERE I AM RUINING THE GAME FOR EVERYBODY INCLUDING MYSELF. OH WAIT NO, NOT EVEN A LITTLE.

Damn that pissed me off.

[Barkloud]

And this is what we get when a game is designed and consistently altered towards an entitled playerbase; Pressing buttons represents effort, and rewards should far exceed said effort.

Here is the problem with your statement.

Vanilla - tons of content

BC - tons of content

Wrath - tons of content including rehashed content

Cata - limited content including rehashed content. Players endured long dry spell of no content

MOP - minimal content including rehashed content. Expansion philosophy change at blizzard to release non instanced content instead of instanced content. Strict gates were established which the player base rebelled against ending up with an expansion that stopped producing new content less than 50% through.

WOD - minimal content including rehashed content. Expansion philosoph about focusing on non instanced content instead of instanced content. Gates are more subtle in WOD. Travel nerfs instead of time release play.

Players if anything are less entitled than they used to be. Blizzard does not provide content like they used to. That is the problem.

Every expansion is smaller than the previous expansion. Picking up random boxes is not fun for me. Doing epic quest line after epic quest line is fun for me. Repeating the same quest over and over 50 times to see a cut scene is not fun for me.

I think when people said they were nostalgic for vanilla they were just wanting new content.

Cata, mop and WoD combined are not that much larger than BC. That is shitty.

[melodramocracy]

Here is the problem with your statement.

Vanilla - tons of content

BC - tons of content

Wrath - tons of content including rehashed content

Cata - limited content including rehashed content. Players endured long dry spell of no content

MOP - minimal content including rehashed content. Expansion philosophy change at blizzard to release non instanced content instead of instanced content. Strict gates were established which the player base rebelled against ending up with an expansion that stopped producing new content less than 50% through.

WOD - minimal content including rehashed content. Expansion philosoph about focusing on non instanced content instead of instanced content. Gates are more subtle in WOD. Travel nerfs instead of time release play.

Players if anything are less entitled than they used to be. Blizzard does not provide content like they used to. That is the problem.

Every expansion is smaller than the previous expansion. Picking up random boxes is not fun for me. Doing epic quest line after epic quest line is fun for me. Repeating the same quest over and over 50 times to see a cut scene is not fun for me.

I think when people said they were nostalgic for vanilla they were just wanting new content.

Cata, mop and WoD combined are not that much larger than BC. That is shitty.

I see your point, and do agree that expansions have been shrinking in several ways (which IMO is entirely a purposeful business decision, but that's another topic)... but it's a bit unfair to equate any expansion to vanilla, which was many many years in development.

The point I was making isn't about each expansion, it's about current player expectations. In vanilla, for example, was there anything remotely resembling a series of open world treasure boxes that you could stumble upon, open, and possibly get a decent quality blue item out of? Were you mailed dungeon quality or better gear because some set of random followers completed a mission with no input from you? Were rares high-respawn pushovers that almost always dropped a piece of gear?

The answer is no, and many of the features that the game has now would have been absolute laughing stock a decade ago. Sure, one can argue that 'the game has changed', but human nature changes far slower. Players are, over time, become rather desensitized in the sense that the more that is handed out, the less content seems worth doing to them.

It's a natural reaction, but one that shouldn't be catered to by the devs, because there ultimately is no satisfying it. Giving out free candy simply yields requests for more flavors of said candy, and removal of .... well, just about anything becomes an incredible ordeal. (which is why this thread exists, lol)

[liquidus44]

I'd be OK with flying being added back if they add a 15-20 second 'Jet Lag' debuff where you can't interact/attack anything after dismounting from flying

[Barkloud]

I'd be OK with flying being added back if they add a 15-20 second 'Jet Lag' debuff where you can't interact/attack anything after dismounting from flying

Why? Why not just add back travel like it has been for the entire game?

[Zervek]

Why? Why not just add back travel like it has been for the entire game?

"Muh Immersionz!"

[Mafic]

This is exactly why I take issue with treasures and rares being used as an excuse to maintain no flying.



I notice it because I've played other MMOs with better systems of travel. I suppose if I had only ever played WoW I either wouldn't notice a difference or perhaps even an improvement. However, having been "spoiled" by instantaneous teleportation to anywhere I want to go in a world it's been incredibly difficult to readjust to a system that's remained relatively unchanged since 2004. Back then it was an improvement over other MMOs, but MMOs since have improved upon it further while WoW stubbornly not only sticks to what it's always done but then removes the one aspect of travel that served as a buffer.

Yeah the industry changed because of flying mounts introduced in BC (WoW). City of Heroes led the way as well but it led to games like Eve Online, Aion, Rift, etc. The current industry standard is to have decent transportation for the player to reach events, group up, or to travel your world in an MMO.

[zerocarbs]

If they put flying back in the game it would make things like the gliders obsolete. But how much would that really matter? The Nagrand gliders are just a means to an end. The end being garrison resources. If I could fly and get resources faster then it would allow me to do the things that I actually want to do in the game more efficiently. This could for example lead to less burnout from people who like playing alts.

[Maneo]

If they put flying back in the game it would make things like the gliders obsolete. But how much would that really matter? The Nagrand gliders are just a means to an end. The end being garrison resources. If I could fly and get resources faster then it would allow me to do the things that I actually want to do in the game more efficiently. This could for example lead to less burnout from people who like playing alts.

Pretty much.

That and give you a reason to go out in the world beyond the apex daily.

Pet battles, just to much of a pain in the ass w/out flight, unless you just do the dailies. Archeology is horrible w/out flight .. can't really say much more then this.

With flight I would be more likely to do things like farm mats (even though I don't need them), or go after rares that I missed while leveling. As it stands with the rares/treasures the reward isn't high enough to get me to want to deal with the frustration of getting them at max level.

[Dhrizzle]

Having played for a while now I think that doing stuff out in the world would be much less fun if flying was enabled. Rather than flying high, setting direction and dropping on whatever blob is on the mini-map I'm finding myself actually examining the terrain looking for a safe route. When attacking mobs I'm always mindful of an exit plan and can't just ignore the tougher mobs to concentrate on easier rewards. WoW's engine isn't ideal for jumping puzzles but they're still fun and interesting (especially if you cheat with warlock and engineering tricks).

I certainly wouldn't mind ground mounts being made quicker to help get around, but I don't think the world content should be trivialised by flying until we get closer to the end of the expansion.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Orc lock, they look horrible on me. I'm sitting on 200 iron scraps, capped, can't get anymore. Just keeping the Warmill for the follower upgrades.

Also think the 50% off most flying mounts is interesting, if it wasn't so close to Xmas, I'd nearly say with that and the reaver they were testing the flying mount shop future in a WoW without flight.

The armor pieces are account bound so you can buy them for another character and mail them. That's what I did. The plate set looks badass, so really I'm just going to be using it to get plate for my followers.

Kinda trying to figure out what I want in place of the bunker once all of my followers are 645.

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Here is the problem with your statement.

Vanilla - tons of content

BC - tons of content

Wrath - tons of content including rehashed content

Cata - limited content including rehashed content. Players endured long dry spell of no content

MOP - minimal content including rehashed content. Expansion philosophy change at blizzard to release non instanced content instead of instanced content. Strict gates were established which the player base rebelled against ending up with an expansion that stopped producing new content less than 50% through.

WOD - minimal content including rehashed content. Expansion philosoph about focusing on non instanced content instead of instanced content. Gates are more subtle in WOD. Travel nerfs instead of time release play.

Players if anything are less entitled than they used to be. Blizzard does not provide content like they used to. That is the problem.

Every expansion is smaller than the previous expansion. Picking up random boxes is not fun for me. Doing epic quest line after epic quest line is fun for me. Repeating the same quest over and over 50 times to see a cut scene is not fun for me.

I think when people said they were nostalgic for vanilla they were just wanting new content.

Cata, mop and WoD combined are not that much larger than BC. That is shitty.

I don't feel there's less content. Consumption speed has gone up drastically. "Content" in vanilla was farming your dungeon blue set by doing strat and UBRS 50 times. They TRIED that again in Cata with ridiculous farming requirements. Players HATED it. The only thing about vanilla and BC having tons of content was trying to beat the RNG boss and having that one item drop for you.

Players have been much happier now that it's much easier to get gear, although there's still elements of limitation and RNG.

RNG gating has been replaced by time gating. Most players would much rather grind and know they're making progress than do something a zillion times and get screwed over, knowing that they've made zero progress towards their goal.

Outside of raiding there's far more to do. Reps, pet battles, treasure hunting, proving grounds limitless 30, challenge modes, old content for achievements and mounts. If the only thing you see as content is the gear treadmill then see above. They replaced RNG gating with time gating.

[Barkloud]

The armor pieces are account bound so you can buy them for another character and mail them. That's what I did. The plate set looks badass, so really I'm just going to be using it to get plate for my followers.

Kinda trying to figure out what I want in place of the bunker once all of my followers are 645.

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I don't feel there's less content. Consumption speed has gone up drastically. "Content" in vanilla was farming your dungeon blue set by doing strat and UBRS 50 times. They TRIED that again in Cata with ridiculous farming requirements. Players HATED it. The only thing about vanilla and BC having tons of content was trying to beat the RNG boss and having that one item drop for you.

Players have been much happier now that it's much easier to get gear, although there's still elements of limitation and RNG.

RNG gating has been replaced by time gating. Most players would much rather grind and know they're making progress than do something a zillion times and get screwed over, knowing that they've made zero progress towards their goal.

Outside of raiding there's far more to do. Reps, pet battles, treasure hunting, proving grounds limitless 30, challenge modes, old content for achievements and mounts. If the only thing you see as content is the gear treadmill then see above. They replaced RNG gating with time gating.

Got towowhead and look up instances. Look how many dungeons and raids full expansions had.

[Sarevokcz]

yeah, exploring is so fun! just yesterday I accidentally explored the mountains between gorgrond and talador after I used the feater, so I was like "Ill just cross the mountains and glide to the shatt for the daily" whoops, sorry, invisible walls, cant do that! ...

[Mafic]

Having played for a while now I think that doing stuff out in the world would be much less fun if flying was enabled. Rather than flying high, setting direction and dropping on whatever blob is on the mini-map I'm finding myself actually examining the terrain looking for a safe route. When attacking mobs I'm always mindful of an exit plan and can't just ignore the tougher mobs to concentrate on easier rewards. WoW's engine isn't ideal for jumping puzzles but they're still fun and interesting (especially if you cheat with warlock and engineering tricks).

I certainly wouldn't mind ground mounts being made quicker to help get around, but I don't think the world content should be trivialised by flying until we get closer to the end of the expansion.

I don't care about safe route, because most classes have escape mechanisms that totally nullify such danger or decisions (eg vanish), If the mobs are lower levels, the danger is lessened significantly.

The game world becomes repetitive and boring once you attempt to play alts and the replay value nose dives as a result. It is not a well designed MMO format unfortunately. Platformer design has been tried before in MMO's with mixed results like we are seeing currently but misses the mark.

As for content consumption rate...it is not possible for it to be consumed fast by the player base as Blizz has put gates on almost everything and there is no flying. So, the lack of content is very real and legit critique of this expansion.

[Granyala]

As for content consumption rate...it is not possible for it to be consumed fast by the player base as Blizz has put gates on almost everything and there is no flying. So, the lack of content is very real and legit critique of this expansion.

Yep.
I think the post mortem verdict of WoD will be that they sacrificed far too much to make these Garrisons work.
Similar post mortem analysis to the redoing of Azeroth in Cata with the difference that that revamp was actually a necessity.