No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Dhrizzle]

We agree that it skips dull, boring, uninteresting, needless speedbump and timeskink filler content. Withholding flight until an unspecified time and then pointing to that same worthless 'content' as a good reason for what it's supposedly meant to preserve is fucking terrible. You persistently choose to ignore the fact that we've repeated over and over that if they content is good, people WILL play it, regardless of if they're flying or not. That's on YOU, not us.

I think this has categorically been proven not true. Diablo 3 was a pretty sweet game but the easiest way of finishing the content was using the auction houses, which people did and then complained about so they were removed.

In raiding currently there are people who go the easy route of gearing through lower difficulties before tackling harder modes, and they complain that it lessens the experience.

My idea for making Mythic raids soloable would give players an option to play how they like, but it wouldn't be good for the game.

It doesn't matter how fun the content is, gamers will take any easier route if it's available then probably bitch about things being too easy. Designers have to take that into consideration, which is why you don't get to fly until the end of expansion and I don't get to grind a set of mythic gear until a couple of expansions down the line.

If you want to 'enjoy' that kind of horrible, time-wasting filler bullshit, then that's your choice. But don't try to defend it as something that's good for the game, or pretend that it's good enough content to justify the removal of a feature that a large number of people WANT to enjoy, but can't because Blizzard is being stupid.

What you describe as "horrible time-wasting filler bullshit" is about 95% of WoW. If you hate ground based content so much how did you get to the level cap?

[Eapoe]

We agree that it skips dull, boring, uninteresting, needless speedbump and timeskink filler content. Withholding flight until an unspecified time and then pointing to that same worthless 'content' as a good reason for what it's supposedly meant to preserve is fucking terrible. You persistently choose to ignore the fact that we've repeated over and over that if they content is good, people WILL play it, regardless of if they're flying or not. That's on YOU, not us.

If you want to 'enjoy' that kind of horrible, time-wasting filler bullshit, then that's your choice. But don't try to defend it as something that's good for the game, or pretend that it's good enough content to justify the removal of a feature that a large number of people WANT to enjoy, but can't because Blizzard is being stupid. Delaying flight and filling the world with mazelike zones that players are forced to trudge through is nothing more than a time-gate on the real content. You can pretend and dissemble and avoid this fact all you want, but that doesn't change what it is.

The world is part of the content. To say you want flight to avoid it means that you are skipping content and trivializing it. Here, since people love bringing other games into play: let's take Link to the Past for instance. We'll keep dungeons in this analogy as the raids, dungeons, and objective areas. Now, let's say that Blizzard put a tunnel in at Link's house that lets you go straight from the house to each dungeon, never once having to interact with anything on the way. In doing so, you bypass every obstacle and enemy in the world content. Now Link is given a shovel to dig himself out whenever he wants (just to interact in town and NPC's). Does that trivialize the game? Does that make the world feel less? Does that mean that all this work developers put in designing the game goes unappreciated? Some people will say yes. Some will say no. The point still remains, you trivialized the world and skipped the content put in the game.
As for your first point, there have been plenty of people, in this thread alone, that says no flight no buy. That has nothing to do wth content being enjoyable or not, as those players that still enjoy the game are still playing, and have stayed playing even when the no flight thing hit. They may have been upset by it, but they still enjoyed the game enough to keep playing.

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Not flying til MAX level negates skipping content... as you level you are stuck on the ground and "enjoying the gameplay" as designed. If endgame world quests still rely on picking up objects then that is lazy, uninspired development. Or like in previous exp packs... make a zone with no flying... but DON'T ground me all over the new areas after I already fucking experienced it. Let me work, grind, farm, LET ME FLY. But not in the last content patch where it's not worth doing anymore and no flying prevents me from even wanting to play anymore.


Facts are... of the "half" that stayed... it was BECAUSE flying was enabled even if they had to work for it. Had it not been enabled... the game would have lost WAY more than half the subs in 6 months. And you quote "last released subs"... there's only ONE reason to not release subs.. they dropped a LOT more since the last report. More flyers quitting after they achieved flight.

Why is this bad news? Because in Legion they are going to think (like that VAST majority of us do) that they are leaving game after experiencing it for a month or two or not buying at all). Why? Because in WoD even those that stayed realized that waiting til the last content patch HURT the game and their enjoyment of it. And that there is no reason to work toward flying if the game is already "over".

The ONLY reason there is even this many people anymore is the masswive gold leak Garrison's are putting out... that's why they are waiting until 7.0 to nerf it.. they KNOW if they nerf it sooner.. it's game fucking over.

To think the other 1/2 stayed because flying was reintroduced is just as blind as saying 1/2 the players left because of it. Jump in any other thread about WoD, everyone claims their cause is why people left. The last thing I saw about it showed that of the people who remained (5 mil), less than 1/2 of THOSE players even got Pathfinder, and that was a few months ago. This shows that people still playing don't even care as much as you think they do, or just find it too much of a hassle to bother. Point is, they're still around without flight.

[Mafic]

Not flying til MAX level negates skipping content... as you level you are stuck on the ground and "enjoying the gameplay" as designed. If endgame world quests still rely on picking up objects then that is lazy, uninspired development. Or like in previous exp packs... make a zone with no flying... but DON'T ground me all over the new areas after I already fucking experienced it. Let me work, grind, farm, LET ME FLY. But not in the last content patch where it's not worth doing anymore and no flying prevents me from even wanting to play anymore.


Facts are... of the "half" that stayed... it was BECAUSE flying was enabled even if they had to work for it. Had it not been enabled... the game would have lost WAY more than half the subs in 6 months. And you quote "last released subs"... there's only ONE reason to not release subs.. they dropped a LOT more since the last report. More flyers quitting after they achieved flight.

Why is this bad news? Because in Legion they are going to think (like that VAST majority of us do) that they are leaving game after experiencing it for a month or two or not buying at all). Why? Because in WoD even those that stayed realized that waiting til the last content patch HURT the game and their enjoyment of it. And that there is no reason to work toward flying if the game is already "over".

The ONLY reason there is even this many people anymore is the masswive gold leak Garrison's are putting out... that's why they are waiting until 7.0 to nerf it.. they KNOW if they nerf it sooner.. it's game fucking over.

The world quests are really short in the Legion beta. As preach has said if they are going to design them to be this short then you might as well allow flight. Had the world quests been part of multi chain where you spend more time doing quests than traveling then maybe...but Blizz has not designed their quest system like this any fashion.

The closest to that quest design is epic quest chains for legendaries, or epic weapons in WotLK.

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To think the other 1/2 stayed because flying was reintroduced is just as blind as saying 1/2 the players left because of it. Jump in any other thread about WoD, everyone claims their cause is why people left. The last thing I saw about it showed that of the people who remained (5 mil), less than 1/2 of THOSE players even got Pathfinder, and that was a few months ago. This shows that people still playing don't even care as much as you think they do, or just find it too much of a hassle to bother. Point is, they're still around without flight.

In your haste you fail to realize that a lot of players did not care for flying in WoD because they had access to garrisons, garrison hearthstone, shipyard hearthstone. Furthermore, Tanaan was designed without flying being necessary. That was the point Preach made in his Legion endgame videos.

That is why Preach argued he did not mind no flying in WoD, but is for flying to be available immediately with they way they have designed Legion world quests.

A lot of players will fall into that camp that did not do pathfinder in WoD will find that it will be a huge QoL increasefor Legion given how spread out the world quests are.

In the end, what I have argued all this time is that more and more players will become pro flight as Blizz designs the world to be more and more trivial. Legion world quests are trivial to complete, but very cumbersome traveling inbetween each quest area.

That isn't good design IMVHO.

[Maudib]

The world is part of the content. To say you want flight to avoid it means that you are skipping content and trivializing it.

The game was FINE for several years with all it's "trivializing flight" available at max level. You cannot deny it. You also cannot say that removing it until last content has helped the game, nor helped to retain customers/players.. (Not without validating what we already believe about your argument and your common sense).

To think the other 1/2 stayed because flying was reintroduced is just as blind as saying 1/2 the players left because of it. Jump in any other thread about WoD, everyone claims their cause is why people left. The last thing I saw about it showed that of the people who remained (5 mil), less than 1/2 of THOSE players even got Pathfinder, and that was a few months ago. This shows that people still playing don't even care as much as you think they do, or just find it too much of a hassle to bother. Point is, they're still around without flight.

No one said the "other half stayed" because Blizzard caved to the mass exodus of players when they said "No flight in Draenor, ever". But I was suggesting maybe HALF of those that STAYED left afterward.. once they attained flying and realized there was no reason left after last content patch to have it.

Careful Blizz... all the Demonhunters in the world {of warcraft} nor all the creative renaming of Garrison 2.0 features is going to let you get away with that bullshit flying plan.

[Mafic]

Yeah flight may have stopped the bleeding but the damage was already done. Many players quit and many players gave up on doing pathfinder achievement. Legion pachfinder is more punishing to casual players with the way it is structured and designed.

Not surprisingly they locked the flying thread on the official forums because some one on the dev team had their ego bruised once more.

[Mosotti]

Saying that removing flying in WoD didn't hurt the game is so fucking retarded that it makes me dizzy. And probably the most damaging thing about it was the Blizzard's stupid way of handling it. "We will add flying some day". Then "we kinda liked no flying, so we now say fuck flying forever". Then came the huge shit storm that made them revert that dumb announcement so fast that you can't even say "unsub". They they've added that achievement crap that really was a just a fucking pain in the ass.

I had all the world discovered, I had all the quest achievements. But no, I still had to do some retarded RANDOM daily quests, that did not pop up in the months I've played, so I had to buy some fucking crap to enable them. Then I had to spend several hours just collecting "treasures", which really aren't treasures at all, since most of them gave me like 25 useless garrison resources. In fact, from those 200 treasures I didn't get any real treasure at all, only some fucking resources and some fucking useless greens / blues. The those fucking boring reputation grinds. That was their way of saying "we can't go with our full insanity, so eat this shit if you want to have some fun".

Then you see people saying "so many people don't have the pathfinder achiev, they must really hate flying". No, they hate that fucking chore, everyone would get flying if it were for sale. I don't even mind they actually want people to experience the ACTUAL content, like quests and the zones, but artificially gating flying behind retarded useless horrible grinds is shit design.

The main reason I have absolutely no hope for Legion is because it's being designed by the exact same people that made the worst expansion in the history of gaming. Show me a game that lost like 7 million paying subscribers in the course of an expansion, and I'll suck a donkey dick. How the fuck did those guys managed to keep their jobs is the most fascinating mystery I know of.

No flying in WoD made me:
- playing far less than any other expansion, I think I was only subscribed for 4 or 5 months
- play on private servers, even though I'm not at all a fan of those
- going out in the world far far far less than when I had flying, when I was actually out in the world non-stop

What no flying didn't "bring back", which some retards claimed would happen:
- real sense of danger (I don't think I ever died leveling to 100)
- fabulous world PvP (I don't remember ever being attacked while leveling, the first "world PvP" I've seen was in the middle of the legendary quests when some retards were camping the quest NPC)
- slow down content consumption (after 1 month of casual playing I had nothing to do, but garrison crap, or maybe pet battles lol)

[SirCowdog]

I think this has categorically been proven not true. Diablo 3 was a pretty sweet game but the easiest way of finishing the content was using the auction houses, which people did and then complained about so they were removed.

In raiding currently there are people who go the easy route of gearing through lower difficulties before tackling harder modes, and they complain that it lessens the experience.

My idea for making Mythic raids soloable would give players an option to play how they like, but it wouldn't be good for the game.

It doesn't matter how fun the content is, gamers will take any easier route if it's available then probably bitch about things being too easy. Designers have to take that into consideration, which is why you don't get to fly until the end of expansion and I don't get to grind a set of mythic gear until a couple of expansions down the line.

Your skill for misinterpretation and misrepresentation do not do your arguments any favors.


D3 in its early days was not a "sweet" game at all. It was full of exploitation and poor design. The reason people resorted to using the AH was out of necessity because the system of drops was so bad that it ceased to be fun for anyone. Additionally, everything about vanilla D3 was engineered to funnel people towards the RMAH in an experiment to see if it was profitable.

To put it another way, similar to how WoD mishandled flying, D3 was designed around a flawed concept. It wasn't until RoS that the game re-centered around what players were asking for(better drops, a more smooth progression curve, drops appropriate to the class being played) that it became more successful.

In the same way, Blizzard is making a mistake by denying people flight. It cost them in WoD with dropped subs as they attempted to center the game around a flawed concept(no flying, garrison, lack of end game content outside raiding).

They've made good steps away from only raiding at end game. But the open world is still weak, and garrison 2.0 isn't well received either. Flying will help the game overall.

What you describe as "horrible time-wasting filler bullshit" is about 95% of WoW. If you hate ground based content so much how did you get to the level cap?

Because 95% of wow is travel time? It is for the world quests in Legion, but that's not what I was referring to. I was talking about all the unnecessary time wasting with travel through a mazelike zone.

The world is part of the content. To say you want flight to avoid it means that you are skipping content and trivializing it.

No, you're still laboring under the impression that travelling through needlessly tedious areas is content. It's not. That's basically a loading screen.

What is content are the objectives IN the world that you're travelling through. And when that content is good enough to merit stopping for, it won't matter how you're travelling.

I won't skip content because I'm flying. I'll skip content because it's garbage. If the only way you can get me to do garbage is by giving me no other choice, then your design is bad. If the content is good and interesting, I'll do it because of its own merit, not because I'm forced to.

Flying won't trivialize the content unless the content is already trivial and bad in the first place, and just because flight is removed doesn't automatically make it good or worth doing. That's the entire flaw of your argument. You just don't want to admit it.

[WowIsDead64]

From other thread, but I want to replicate it here:

Also, for whom the hell Blizzard develop their game in Legion? Raids - now for organized groups only, as LFR is "tourist" mode to go there only once to see the story. 5ppls - same. Only challenge and epochal modes will be relevant, that are group content too, cuz heroics will be same scenario-like joke, as they are now, and I won't do them. I don't do Pokemon or Farmwille, not because this mini-games are bad, but because they aren't worth $50 box price and $15 sub fee - I can play same games for free and paying to having "orcs and humans style" - is nonsense.

Since Cata outdoor content was last "island" of content, that suited my. Ok. In WOD Blizzard tried to take it away from casuals and give it to "hardcore outdoorers" only, who like hardcore Vanilla-style things, like stupid mob grind and gank (that is called "WPVP" in Wow). Blizzard tried to give Garrisons as alternative to casual players, so they won't need to go outdoor, if they don't enjoy it. Ok. Nice. But in Legion Blizzard will take Garrisons away too, so Garrisons are considered a fail, as I understand. Without giving any alternative, as Class Halls will require you to do same crappy no flying ground content. Back in MOP I completed IOT and TI on ZERO characters - I've spent ZERO seconds on IOT and not more, than HOUR on TI per character. In WOD I've done Tanaan on almost 6 character already. Why? Because of freakin flying! Why Blizzard can't understand it? And what will happen in Legion? ZERO content for me AGAIN. Again I'll have to skip entire xpack. Sad thing.

[SirCowdog]

So let's look at the opposite end of the spectrum. What if you could fly in raid instances? What would actually get lost by this? You would still have to land to fight the boss, and once combat starts you couldn't use any mount at all. The actual boss fight and its content are not effected at all.

So at worst the only thing being bypassed are some trash mobs between the entrance and the boss. Think about that for a second. TRASH mobs. Even their name indicates their value in the grand scheme of things. But if Blizzard really wanted them to be part of the overall experience, they could tie them to the boss, either by having them aggro if you don't kill them, or by requiring enough trash killed to open a gate or something.

The design CAN be made to allow for flying, and made in such a way that content is not skippable, but also enjoyable. The moment you stop being stuck on the idea that content can ONLY be good from the ground, the possibilities open up.

[Fabulicious]

For all people who really want flying why not unsub and come back when flying is released get the achievement.
If that is too much work why not play another game?

[Deleted]

flying doesnt add anything to the lvling experience.

its a convenience thing that you will get as soon as youve done all the content

[Incredibale]

Who cares about flying when there's a bunch of child molesters playing this game and trying to get the A/S/L and addresses of underage children?

[Mafic]

For all people who really want flying why not unsub and come back when flying is released get the achievement.
If that is too much work why not play another game?

Their goal is to try to push the envelope and hope there isn't much resistance like last time. They want to push flying off till content is irrelevant and players give up. When a player chooses to give up instead of playing the game that is when you know the design is a failure.

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flying doesnt add anything to the lvling experience.

its a convenience thing that you will get as soon as youve done all the content

No one is talking about leveling.

[Eleccybubb]

Who cares about flying when there's a bunch of child molesters playing this game and trying to get the A/S/L and addresses of underage children?

Uhm this thread does as the whole topic of it is flying?

[Dhrizzle]

Your skill for misinterpretation and misrepresentation do not do your arguments any favors.


D3 in its early days was not a "sweet" game at all. It was full of exploitation and poor design. The reason people resorted to using the AH was out of necessity because the system of drops was so bad that it ceased to be fun for anyone. Additionally, everything about vanilla D3 was engineered to funnel people towards the RMAH in an experiment to see if it was profitable.

To put it another way, similar to how WoD mishandled flying, D3 was designed around a flawed concept. It wasn't until RoS that the game re-centered around what players were asking for(better drops, a more smooth progression curve, drops appropriate to the class being played) that it became more successful.

The AHs weren't necessary at all. People used them because it was the easiest way to get gear but it was much more enjoyable playing through with self-found gear.

In the same way, Blizzard is making a mistake by denying people flight. It cost them in WoD with dropped subs as they attempted to center the game around a flawed concept(no flying, garrison, lack of end game content outside raiding).

They've made good steps away from only raiding at end game. But the open world is still weak, and garrison 2.0 isn't well received either. Flying will help the game overall.

I think you're confused, flight is the easy-path like the AHs. Maybe for some people it really is more satisfying, but for the bulk of players it will be a path of least resistance that ultimately gives a lesser experience. Also, as you continuously bring up sub-numbers, how many players should WoD have retained as you seem to think it should have bucked the trend of sub losses over the past 8 years?

Because 95% of wow is travel time? It is for the world quests in Legion, but that's not what I was referring to. I was talking about all the unnecessary time wasting with travel through a mazelike zone.

The entire leveling experience except Cata and nearly every instance is traveling through what you call "mazelike" zones.

No, you're still laboring under the impression that travelling through needlessly tedious areas is content. It's not. That's basically a loading screen.

What is content are the objectives IN the world that you're travelling through. And when that content is good enough to merit stopping for, it won't matter how you're travelling.

I won't skip content because I'm flying. I'll skip content because it's garbage. If the only way you can get me to do garbage is by giving me no other choice, then your design is bad. If the content is good and interesting, I'll do it because of its own merit, not because I'm forced to.

Flying won't trivialize the content unless the content is already trivial and bad in the first place, and just because flight is removed doesn't automatically make it good or worth doing. That's the entire flaw of your argument. You just don't want to admit it.

"Content" is anything you do from starting the quest to completion. It doesn't matter if the mobs in your way don't tick a box on your things-to-do checklist, or the trash mobs don't drop loot that you want, or the area only has a couple of square metres with resources you desire. The "content" is the whole package, flying over it to reach the reward is skipping or trivialising that content.

WoW incorporates a lot of ARPG elements but at heart it is still an open world game.

[Incredibale]

Uhm this thread does as the whole topic of it is flying?

But there are bigger things to worry about. I bet you don't have any kids.

[Eleccybubb]

But there are bigger things to worry about. I bet you don't have any kids.

Unable to. This thread is about flying so don't derail it please.

[Incredibale]

Unable to. This thread is about flying so don't derail it please.

But every day kids are kidnapped and I bet WoW has a part to play in that. Don't you care?

And why can't you have kids?

[Eleccybubb]

But every day kids are kidnapped and I bet WoW has a part to play in that. Don't you care?

And why can't you have kids?

Unable to I'm sure you can work it out from that. Of course I do but this is not the thread for it so enough derailing. You have made a thread in General discussion so use that one.

[Incredibale]

Unable to I'm sure you can work it out from that. Of course I do but this is not the thread for it so enough derailing. You have made a thread in General discussion so use that one.

I don't know what you're talking about. What thread. And I don't believe that you can't have kids. Are you gay? You need to explain further. No one is derailing anything.