No flying in 7.0 confirmed

[Thimagryn]

Why unlock it now just to have to lock it again next patch so that content isn't trivialized?

Why take away flight every expansion only to have it unlockable? You seem to be unaware that this is the way it's always worked.

Do you really want to go to a model where you have to do every storyline quest, and every other achievement it's locked behind to get it just to have it taken away again when the next patch is released?

Molten Front, Tanaan and Timeless Isles did not take away flight. They limited access to new content areas. You will see that the pro-flight conversation has no ill-bearings towards these no-fly-zones. It worked, Blizzard used it multiple times to great effect, and people are happy with it. What Blizzard is doing now is fixing something that isn't broken, and the people affected by this global change have voiced out their concerns. Again, I do not agree with all the pro-flight concerns, but I value the message and intention.

Keep in mind that there are still many players who don't even have the rep requirement done yet almost 2 months in and were only 2-3 months from the next patch. Add on that Blizzard is trying for faster patch cycles to give longevity to content and that means that there will be people who never unlock flight using that model.

Well, many players have never attempted Mythic either. What do you think will happen if Blizzard removes this? Do you agree that the statistics showing that a low percentage of players have done Mythic is reason for its removal? I do not, therefore I do not substantiate stats towards or against flight as good reasoning for its removal.

As for Blizzard adding quicker patch cycles - I don't see how this matters to flight. In most cases of patch content, Blizzard usually introduces completely new subzones and areas for people to quest in. Molten Front, Thundering Isles, Tanaan, Timeless Isles. What did they have in common? Ah yes, they were no fly zones regardless.

As far as Wrath and other xpacs, the problem still persisted. The difference in those xpacs was that flight was still something new (relative term when you consider lifetimes of the game and MMO model), as well as the fact that flight was required for a few parts of those xpacs.

Because that was intended in the design from the start. Which is how I would hope Blizzard to improve upon. Instead, it's met with 'too much effort to design around, lets just ignore and gate it instead'. This benefits Blizzard the most, and I fully understand that stance. What I'm saying is I do not fully agree with said stance, and I think it's on them to compromise on having flight, not the players.

That doesn't mean that once you got flight for the 1% of the content it was needed for that it didn't trivialize the other 95% of the game. (Before you attempt the flaws in my math, only about 4% of content is instanced areas without flight).

We have to assess what content is being trivialized.

The majority of end-game content lies in Instanced content. Flight is completely absent from this, thus the '95%' of trivialized content is most relative to the grind - dailies, reputation, professions and the odd case of world PVP/bosses. In essence; content that is trivial to begin with.

The issue was still there, it just wasn't a sign noticed because people were still going thru the "new, shiny" aspect of flight. It still had the same issues of being a convenience only method of travel while completely trivializing the world and any dangers it has. Imagine an Icecrown zone with no flight if WoW had never had flight, it would be a much different zone and probably one of the most dangerous areas ever made, even with the "safe" roads to travel.

TBH, I didn't touch Icecrown at all after hitting max. I capped at Storm Peaks, and I didn't return to Icecrown until the Tourney was placed there. There was literally no reason to be in the zone on foot. Even with flying, there was little reason to be there unless you were a quest completionist. It wasn't until Tournament dailies when the zone became relevant - and that punctuates the point I am about to make - the Dailies were designed for the Zone with flight in mind. Kill quests are still kill quests regardless of how you travel; we all treat it as get in - kill - get out. As for the more interesting quests, they were all done without a flying mount. Ride a hippogryph and toss spears down at pirate Vyrkul; or ride a mount and joust. This is how (I think) Blizzard should be designing their content. There's no reason to limit flying in the world when the content itself can do that!

[SirCowdog]

Why unlock it now just to have to lock it again next patch so that content isn't trivialized? Do you really want to go to a model where you have to do every storyline quest, and every other achievement it's locked behind to get it just to have it taken away again when the next patch is released?

Oh, I don't know....they could actually design content with flight in mind, instead of just making sure that flight doesn't break their weaksauce ground terrain. We've been over this before. There's a significant difference between just ensuring that flight doesn't randomly cause disconnects or dismounts, and actually building content that takes flight into consideration.

Blizzard is creating this problem on their own by attempting to refuse to acknowledge that flying exists.

Imagine an Icecrown zone with no flight if WoW had never had flight, it would be a much different zone and probably one of the most dangerous areas ever made, even with the "safe" roads to travel.

Pure speculation. There's no way to know the quality of such a zone. And besides which, how many times have I asked people to imagine zones with fully integrated flight using floating fortresses, airships, dragons, weather effects, ground fire, etc, etc, etc, and had it completely dismissed by unimaginative No-Flying proponents?

IMO there is room for both of those types of zones. But people never seem to be able to get outside of the box Blizzard put them in. And certainly Blizzard has no intent of actually working towards such improvements.

[Dhrizzle]

Which has always been the case for the period of time when the cake is enjoyed the most. As per flight being available at end-game, the dog only comes out after the guests have consumed most of their meal. There has only been one time when flight was available during leveling (Cata) and we can all agree that flight should be left for end-game, not leveling content. As for guests who would need to consume more; this is already a fallacy considering how gated everything is. Blizzard limits the amount of cakes per day any guest can consume. This has always been the case.

This isn't a case of flight needing to be available immediately and all the time. We already know flight is coming back. I simply believe it's arbitrary whether that happens now or later; it affects the players little. Keep in mind how the business model works too - Blizzard doesn't actually make money off the cakes, they make money off guests staying at the bakery longer to buy coffee and drinks. The cakes are simply the reason people come to the bakery.

What do you mean the dog only comes out once the customers have consumed most of their meal? People spend far more time eating end-game cakes than they do eating levelling cakes. It's just that in pre-WoD bakeries the dog would consume a lot of the open-world end-game cakes, whereas now the open-world end-game cakes can lrovide as much nutrition as the instances cakes.

As for the "fallacy" you're speaking of, diners who have the dog are getting the additional reward from whatever cakes of theirs the dog consumes, so people who prefer to enjoy their cakes without a messy dog getting fur everywhere have to consume more cakes to get whatever the hell counts as quest-rewards in this god-awful analogy of yours, let's say it's nutrition and the dog magically transfers the nutrients from the cakes it eats.

So in order to get a satisfying amount of nutrition an "anti-dog" diner will have to spend more time consuming cakes than the "pro-dog" diner, and because Blizzard understands that most diners will see the opportunity-cost of not having the dog make eating easier they'll have to produce cakes under the assumption that diners will take the path of least resistance, making non-dog dining an illusory choice.

- - - Updated - - -

Why do you guys insist on continuing to call it a compromise? It's not. Blizzard gets everything they want out of the "compromise" and gives up nothing. All Blizzard is doing is holding flight hostage until people give into their demands. That's not a compromise.

At least calling it a compromise is closer tha n the people who insist that Blizz reverting from "no flight ever" was a "pro-flight" victory.

- - - Updated - - -

Why handle it differently than any previous expansion?

With MoP they tried to make open-world content relevant to character progression and it failed miserably. Blizzard and other developers had already discussed how giving players the power of flight gets in the way of producing engaging world content, and whilst it's probably not the only factor it seems Blizzard decided to try producing end-game that wasn't just the "daily-chores" of previous expansions with flight. Let's not forget that no-flight dailies in Isle of Quel'danas, Molten Front, Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle had all been very well received.

[Thimagryn]

What do you mean the dog only comes out once the customers have consumed most of their meal? People spend far more time eating end-game cakes than they do eating levelling cakes. It's just that in pre-WoD bakeries the dog would consume a lot of the open-world end-game cakes, whereas now the open-world end-game cakes can lrovide as much nutrition as the instances cakes.

Truth is about perception. While what you say is true, I simply see the situation differently. Even if people spend more time eating end-game cakes, the dog was always there and few people were bothered by it. In fact, no guest even considered the dog a nuisance to how they were enjoying their cake. It wasn't until after the dog was gone that people began talking about it. To me, what you're saying is that some guests hated the dog but never bothered to speak out against it when it was around, but are quick to point out how much of a nuisance it was after it's gone.

As for the World vs Instanced issue, that's a content debate. I haven't played yet so I shouldn't say anything about it - but I would only chance a guess that Blizzard has simply improved their World quests overall; regardless of flight. Would you say World content back then was anywhere near as good as it is now? Is the absence of the dog the only reason their new cakes taste better than their old ones?

As for the "fallacy" you're speaking of, diners who have the dog are getting the additional reward from whatever cakes of theirs the dog consumes, so people who prefer to enjoy their cakes without a messy dog getting fur everywhere have to consume more cakes to get whatever the hell counts as quest-rewards in this god-awful analogy of yours, let's say it's nutrition and the dog magically transfers the nutrients from the cakes it eats.

We've always had no-dog zones. Nothing has changed in this respect. Molten Front, Thundering Isles, Timeless Isles, Tanaan Jungle. The presence of these no-dog zones allowed the dog to be enjoyed in the main section of the bakery. If Blizzard really wants the dog to not eat their cake, they go back to baking cakes the dog won't eat. Banning the dog from the main section of the bakery is completely unnecessary, especially when they have voiced future plans to let the dog back in at a future date.

So in order to get a satisfying amount of nutrition an "anti-dog" diner will have to spend more time consuming cakes than the "pro-dog" diner, and because Blizzard understands that most diners will see the opportunity-cost of not having the dog make eating easier they'll have to produce cakes under the assumption that diners will take the path of least resistance, making non-dog dining an illusory choice.

Again, the experience and atmosphere is what is missing. Some people aren't interested in eating cake every day, and simply want to be at the bakery with their cup of coffee and be around the dog. The time it takes to consume the cake is irrelevant because each customer has a different value in how to enjoy their cake. Who are we to control how quickly one person consumes their cake than someone else? And who is Blizzard to control that by banning the dog from the bakery? If they want people who eat fast to stay in the bakery as people who take their time, then design a cake that requires patience and dedication rather than blaming the dog.

-edit- Just wanted to add, this conversation 100x more amusing with dogs and cakes. It's silly but still gets the message across.

- - - Updated - - -

With MoP they tried to make open-world content relevant to character progression and it failed miserably. Blizzard and other developers had already discussed how giving players the power of flight gets in the way of producing engaging world content, and whilst it's probably not the only factor it seems Blizzard decided to try producing end-game that wasn't just the "daily-chores" of previous expansions with flight. Let's not forget that no-flight dailies in Isle of Quel'danas, Molten Front, Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle had all been very well received.

World content becomes irrelevant after a certain point, at which it doesn't matter how badly flight interferes. The content most affected by flight? Happened to be daily chores. I can't speak on the World quests they have now and how much worse they'd be with flight and if that could be designed around (phased World quests)

As for no flight daily zones, no pro-flight argument has ever made an issue that this was a problem. The problem is ALL flight has been removed. The justification is World content contained within the first patch. Almost every other meaningful patch content has had no interference from flight, and no complaints by the pro-flight crowd.

[-Joker-]

Patch 6.2.2 PTR notes
Updated: August 25, 2015

Flying on Draenor

Flying has been enabled on Draenor for characters that have attained the account-wide achievement, Draenor Pathfinder. To help facilitate testing of this feature, accounts that have not yet obtained the achievement will be able to purchase a Manual of Rapid Pathfinding from Flaskataur in their Garrisons on the PTR.
Please note there may still be areas or pockets on Draenor where flying has not yet been fully implemented. These areas will be tracked and listed in a forum thread titled "Flight in Draenor – Reported Bugs Thread" on the PTR Discussion forum.

If fyling was a switch, then Blizz wouldn't need the playerbase to extensively and specifically test it. And 6.2.2 which was SOLELY a flying patch, took them 5, FIVE months to push out.

I love how only a few people bring quotes (blue posts, ptr notes, tweets) directly from the devs, and some other people are just talking out of their ass, yet these people call out the quoters for talking nonsense.

Careful, asking people to quote Blue sources from Battle Net directly will get you ridiculed by fanatics, as it did me. Just some friendly advice.

[Dhrizzle]

Truth is about perception. While what you say is true, I simply the situation differently. Even if people spend more time eating end-game cakes, the dog was always there and few people were bothered by it. In fact, no guest even considered the dog a nuisance to how they were enjoying their cake. It wasn't until after the dog was gone that people began talking about it. To me, what you're saying is that some guests hated the dog but never bothered to speak out against it when it was around, but are quick to point out how much of a nuisance it was after it's gone.

Well I for one was disappointed to have the dog eating my cakes in WotLK after thoroughly enjoying eating in the no-dog Isle of Quel'danas, but it wasn't such an issue because I was no-dog raiding during that expansion so open-world cakes were more of a snack than a main meal.

It wasn't until MoP that I came to rely on open-world cakes as a major source of sustenance and having a dog eat most of it was very unsatisfying.

As for the World vs Instanced issue, that's a content debate. I haven't played yet so I shouldn't say anything about it - but I would only chance a guess that Blizzard has simply improved their World quests overall; regardless of flight. Would you say World content back then was anywhere near as good as it is now? Is the absence of the dog the only reason their new cakes taste better than their old ones?

Maybe the bakers felt there'd be little point making tastier cakes if they were just going to be wolfed down by a dog.

We've always had no-dog zones. Nothing has changed in this respect. Molten Front, Thundering Isles, Timeless Isles, Tanaan Jungle. The presence of these no-dog zones allowed the dog to be enjoyed in the main section of the bakery. If Blizzard really wants the dog to not eat their cake, they go back to baking cakes the dog won't eat. Banning the dog from the main section of the bakery is completely unnecessary, especially when they have voiced future plans to let the dog back in at a future date.

As the no-dog areas were so well received it seems the bakers have decided to make their whole premise follow that model at the start of each... season?.. rather than making customers wait until they build a no-dog extension.

Again, the experience and atmosphere is what is missing. Some people aren't interested in eating cake every day, and simply want to be at the bakery with their cup of coffee and be around the dog. The time it takes to consume the cake is irrelevant because each customer has a different value in how to enjoy their cake. Who are we to control how quickly one person consumes their cake than someone else? And who is Blizzard to control that by banning the dog from the bakery? If they want people who eat fast to stay in the bakery as people who take their time, then design a cake that requires patience and dedication rather than blaming the dog.

As I've mentioned, the bakers don't see the point in making the tastier cakes if they're just going to get swallowed by a dog that couldn't care less about the flavour, and as bakers they would rather cater to people who enjoy their cakes than people who just want to drinkncoffee and play with dogs.

[-Joker-]

I was once of that mindset, until I saw how the entire pro-flight situation caused Blizzard to withdraw their decision to remove flight entirely from WoD. There are official blue posts on the matter, and it's proof that they are listening. It's just a matter of finding the most effective way to communicate wants and needs outside of scathing criticism.

There are many things we can do to inform and provide feedback to Blizzard, especially on issues someone doesn't agree with. Unsubbing with intent is definitely one of them.

I don't think that was it at all. I think they knew they lost a metric ton of players in just 90 days of launch, and 90 days past that, another metric ton. If you think about 6.2.X and all the stuff they threw at us to keep us in the game:

- Medallions for instant rep
- barrels for oil
- cache for garrison resources
- increased drop rate on Auctioneer parts (for lvl 3 trading post)
- removed need for apexis crystals and replaced most with gold
- extreme increase in gold and treasure missions for followers
- flight gets unlocked
- dungeons and raids are tuned ever so slightly to make them easier

and the list goes on. They were in a free fall because WoD sucked, not because flight was missing on Draenor. Adding flight was just another stop-gap bandaid to slow the hemorraging of subs. Nothing more, nothing less. Had WoD been more successful, 6.1 actually had content, and 6.2 delivered something more interesting, odds are flight (and a handful of other welfare items) probably would not have appeared. They took a risk, and failed, and had to give away the farm to stop the steady exodus. They even dropped the GAME TOKEN near about the same time to entice players to stay and play for free by using their in game gold, which, simultaneously created a legal system to purchase gold. You spend $20 for a $15 item, and you make 35k-70k in game gold depending on supply and demand.

Let's not pretend that flight was the centerpiece for ANY of that, merely a passenger.

[Ordinator]

i see you lack common sense AND reading skills... and i am tired of repeating myself, so i suggest you go back many many many pages and read all the posts where i stated that no-flight hasn't been the only reason for people to quit.

Then stop acting like it.

[Eapoe]

Oh, I don't know....they could actually design content with flight in mind, instead of just making sure that flight doesn't break their weaksauce ground terrain. We've been over this before. There's a significant difference between just ensuring that flight doesn't randomly cause disconnects or dismounts, and actually building content that takes flight into consideration.

Blizzard is creating this problem on their own by attempting to refuse to acknowledge that flying exists.



Pure speculation. There's no way to know the quality of such a zone. And besides which, how many times have I asked people to imagine zones with fully integrated flight using floating fortresses, airships, dragons, weather effects, ground fire, etc, etc, etc, and had it completely dismissed by unimaginative No-Flying proponents?

IMO there is room for both of those types of zones. But people never seem to be able to get outside of the box Blizzard put them in. And certainly Blizzard has no intent of actually working towards such improvements.

They have designed content for flight, we've seen it with Stormpeaks and Icecrown. Admittedly, Icecrown was omen of my favorite zones and Storm Peaks was god awful; however, anecdotal arguements aside, we've discussed this route before and it's been stated numerous times that (1) wow isn't not a flight sim (2) no one (even the people in this thread shy away from this idea) wants the ground to be put in the air with flying dangerous mobs and tunnel like safe zones because then you are taking everyone's complaint s and not relocating them where you want to be (3) any ideas you've come up with for quests involving fortresses that have things like flight involved would be zones onto themselves due to the size they would require, and can also easily be done without even including flight and just make a vehicular quest for that area.
As much as you've tried, while noble, none of your ideas have any real impact on the discussion without actually hindering the people who want flight just for flight.

[SirCowdog]

Careful, asking people to quote Blue sources from Battle Net directly will get you ridiculed by fanatics, as it did me. Just some friendly advice.

No, you got ridiculed because you refused to acknowledge official info that wasn't in blue. Please don't attempt to twist people's perception simply because you were wrong.

[-Joker-]

No, you got ridiculed because you refused to acknowledge official info that wasn't in blue. Please don't attempt to twist people's perception simply because you were wrong.

She was quoting an official blue post. I got jumped for that in addition to the other item you mentioned. I'll offer advice to whomever I choose.

[Ordinator]

Why handle it differently than any previous expansion?

Again, there was no pro-no flight movement asking for the removal of flight. The decision to change design is an internal development one; one that does not affect the player's experience of the game. Every expansion (sans Cata) had flight available after max level and no time before that. We all had the experience of leveling up through the world, on the ground. It worked for everyone.

Do you think every expansion after Vanilla was completely unplayable because of flight?

The problem is simply pro flying melodrama. I did not find expansions with flying at max level unplayable. That's not to say I had no issue with it. Seeing as I don't define WoW by the ability to fly, I didn't spam forums for months complaining on the issue. I still played and enjoyed the game. Fast forward to today, where Blizzard has also picked up on the same issues I've always had with flying and has done something about it. The point here is that just because people against flying wasn't as melodramatic as pro flyers are today doesn't mean there weren't any red flags with the way flying was before.

[Lei]

No, draenor was surely designed with flight in mind from the start but that decision was halted to make deadlines for other content, most likely the 10y anniversary celebration stuff. Remember they did say flying was coming later in WoD, "6.1 or something", why would they say that if they didn't make the world for flight?
Half way through 6.2 was released and all content was more or less done so they thought they had gotten away with no flight after all and "someone" slipped it out during an interview and all hell broke lose, and here we are today.

Brief history of flying in WoD (since many of the original blue posts were deleted, sources contain wowhead and official dev reddit links too, at least they still have the blue posts archived):

- When they announced WoD (2013. November 8), which was a whole year before the release (2014. November 13), they said there won't be flying at start, but it will come with the first big content patch. (You can read about it here: http://www.wowhead.com/news=223780/n...enor-until-6-1) In the meantime, Ghostcrawler, who was still in the team said the same, since the content will be irrelevant by that point. (source: https://twitter.com/occupygstreet/st...11014708408321)
- 2014. march 9. Afrasiabi moves the goalpost from 6.1 to uncertain, "we will see how no flying turns out" (source: https://twitter.com/Abrosiabi/status...rc=twsrc%5Etfw)
- quick jump to 6.1, "no flying still" confirmed. (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...er_ama/cmlhent)
- 2015. May. 22: 6.2 Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan is in the works, Ion drops the bomb at Polygon about neverever flying (source: http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/22/864...mo-pc-blizzard). Naturally all hell breaks loose, which makes them "reconsider" this decision, date: 2015. June 05. (source: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/3...ng-in-draenor/)
- When people ask what takes so long in switching flying on (which they said how it would be), they say some areas were designed(!!!!) with flying in mind, some weren't, so they need to fix it. (source: http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/t...000271#post-18)

From this what I see is that it started with a good, innocent intention (extend content, but give us flying in 6.1), but ended really badly. The team basically abandoned WoD halfway, so putting extra resources into fixing areas for flying wasn't really worth for them in a doomed expansion. That's how I think. So I think it's a little bit both: they genuinly wanted to enable flying when they announced WoD, but then the resource cutting and the failure of WoD made them go "fuck putting more effort into this, we have Legion to work on".

Careful, asking people to quote Blue sources from Battle Net directly will get you ridiculed by fanatics, as it did me. Just some friendly advice.

Not sure what you mean, you said you only accept original sources, only from the wow site. I brought you them, and they give you exactly what you wanted: blue posts clarifying the people's concerns about no flying, and telling them to go and read the polygon post to see what Ion had said. Your problem?

[Thimagryn]

Well I for one was disappointed to have the dog eating my cakes in WotLK after thoroughly enjoying eating in the no-dog Isle of Quel'danas, but it wasn't such an issue because I was no-dog raiding during that expansion so open-world cakes were more of a snack than a main meal.

It wasn't until MoP that I came to rely on open-world cakes as a major source of sustenance and having a dog eat most of it was very unsatisfying.

I don't have much say in MoP myself. I jumped into it a month prior to WoD, and ate two years full of cake in one month. The dog wasn't even able to keep up with my pace, and I only saw its company after I had my fill.

Maybe the bakers felt there'd be little point making tastier cakes if they were just going to be wolfed down by a dog. - As I've mentioned, the bakers don't see the point in making the tastier cakes if they're just going to get swallowed by a dog that couldn't care less about the flavour, and as bakers they would rather cater to people who enjoy their cakes than people who just want to drinkncoffee and play with dogs.

And here where the discussion should have begun and stayed. There's some of us who think it shouldn't be up to the Bakers on when and how much time we see the dog. This is, of course, factoring in business hours and such; No one is saying we have to see the dog anytime all-the-time.

As the no-dog areas were so well received it seems the bakers have decided to make their whole premise follow that model at the start of each... season?.. rather than making customers wait until they build a no-dog extension.

Well in the past, the dog has always been absent the first week of every season; enough time for patrons to enjoy the first batches of the season. After that, cake consumption overall begins to slow down, predictably. It's the bakers own devising that they can prevent the slow-down by keeping the dog out of the picture longer, when in reality the slow down has always been attributed to how they've made their cakes.

[-Joker-]

Not sure what you mean, you said you only accept original sources, only from the wow site. I brought you them, and they give you exactly what you wanted: blue posts clarifying the people's concerns about no flying, and telling them to go and read the polygon post to see what Ion had said. Your problem?

No problem. I just saw you quoting from an official Blizzard source and wanted to warn you that some folks discredit those posts in favor of 3rd party fan sites.

[Thimagryn]

The problem is simply pro flying melodrama. I did not find expansions with flying at max level unplayable. That's not to say I had no issue with it.

I have problems with the melodrama too, but I don't think undermining the rest of the conversation is a suitable solution to that.

Seeing as I don't define WoW by the ability to fly, I didn't spam forums for months complaining on the issue.

Yet you spend months complaining about the complainters. But fair enough, that's why we're all here, isn't it?

I still played and enjoyed the game. Fast forward to today, where Blizzard has also picked up on the same issues I've always had with flying and has done something about it. The point here is that just because people against flying wasn't as melodramatic as pro flyers are today doesn't mean there weren't any red flags with the way flying was before.

There are always people on both sides of any conversation. For anyone who is pro-jump feature, there are those against it. If Blizzard one day decides to remove jumping, is it justifiable that we say it's because for the benefit of anti-jumpers? To have a conversation about it, we need to dissect what the reasons are for its removal, whether we think the removal is justified, and what we think Blizzard should do (or shouldn't do) to make things better.

Dismissing the issue as 'there were problems with jumping, and everyone's having more fun this way' is kind of misleading. It's never been an integral part of doing content, so it's hard to justify the fun and experience everyone is having.

I mean I just recently listened to a podcast where one of the hosts was saying they're ready to have flight back in the game. The other host made an argument that the content was much better now without flight than before, but the first host still maintained that it's all fun and great, but for them, they're done with the content they wanted to do, and they're ready for flight to return. In general, being pro-flight isn't a strong opinion that needs to be stated. It's more a general, shared sentiment; and that's what places it as a low-priority issue (by Blizzard).

[Dhrizzle]

They have designed content for flight, we've seen it with Stormpeaks and Icecrown. Admittedly, Icecrown was omen of my favorite zones and Storm Peaks was god awful;

I feel the opposite, loved Stormpeaks but Icecrown was a huge anticlimax.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't have much say in MoP myself. I jumped into it a month prior to WoD, and ate two years full of cake in one month. The dog wasn't even able to keep up with my pace, and I only saw its company after I had my fill.

So if you were fine experiencing everything MoP had to offer without flight (did you max all the reps using just a ground mount?) why does it bother you doing the same with WoD and/or region?

And here where the discussion should have begun and stayed. There's some of us who think it shouldn't be up to the Bakers on when and how much time we see the dog. This is, of course, factoring in business hours and such; No one is saying we have to see the dog anytime all-the-time.

And some of us think it absolutely should be up to the bakers on whether they let the dog into their shop.

Well in the past, the dog has always been absent the first week of every season; enough time for patrons to enjoy the first batches of the season. After that, cake consumption overall begins to slow down, predictably.

Not true, the bakers have produced two kinds of cakes, some to be eaten with rooms without the dog and some to be eaten in rooms with the dog. From WoD onwards they decided to bake all their cakes to be eaten in rooms without dogs, but will be allowing the dog in once the cakes have been eaten.

It's the bakers own devising that they can prevent the slow-down by keeping the dog out of the picture longer, when in reality the slow down has always been attributed to how they've made their cakes.

Not so, in MoP they produced too many cakes for people to eat despite the dog helping eat them, in WoD they rationed cakes too tightly even though there was no dog . Blizzard are quite capable of producing too many or not enough cakes regardless of dogs eating them.

[Eats Compost]

I"ve spent quite a bit of time gliding around the Broken Isles using goblin gliders and the Emerald Winds toy, as well as the Brulfist Totem before they nerfed it into uselessness. There were a few areas that randomly dismounted me, usually when I was trying to cross large bodies of water, like trying to glide from Dalaran to anywhere, or trying to reach the northern-most island up in the NE corner. I never once was dismounted over land in any of the four major zones.

I'm pretty sure at this point Legion is flight-ready. There might still be some very limited dismounts at random, but I SERIOUSLY doubt there's any major testing or work left to be done. I'd give it a week to prep at most, which is a normal time frame for a new patch to be on the PTR. I suspect that what will take longer is Blizzard trying to decide just how much more stuff they can pile onto the list of requirements.

Most of your random toy glider dismounts would be happening because of the "in the Broken Isles" requirement. The sea isn't considered to be the Broken Isles, so gliding over it with the toy does that. Because Dalaran is out in the middle of the ocean but Dalaran itself is considered a part of the Broken Isles, it ends up behaving that way and dismounting you mid-glide.

If it's not the glider toy or if it's happening under different circumstances, then obviously that won't apply, but that's certainly the big one that tripped me up.

- - - Updated - - -

Well I didn't bother me that much, of course there was more than just flying on that PTR and we have no ides of knowing how many developers were put on correcting this environment while the others were busy working on legion already. It was an unplanned extra priority job that just came out of nowhere after all.

Based on what we know about Blizzard's modern design process, their testing cycles and the nature of the tech with the potential to interfere with flying, I think it's exceedingly unlikely that WoD's flying release date was reflective of how long it took to test and implement. I'd be generous if I called it a stretch.

[Thimagryn]

So if you were fine experiencing everything MoP had to offer without flight (did you max all the reps using just a ground mount?) why does it bother you doing the same with WoD and/or region?

I have no qualms with experiencing standard progression content without flight. I get to take my time and take in the environment, at a pace which Blizzard has masterfully set. I doubt many pro-flight issues are complaints against progression content and lack-of-flight during leveling.

Flight assists in the grind; the max-level repeated dailies, or profession farming, or world boss/events. I used flight to farm the Zandalari Warbringers, because they drop rep tokens that allowed me to completely bypass a rep grind. I don't consider Zandalari Warbringer farming something that would give me a better experience had I done it on the ground; in fact it would be frustrating to the point where I wouldn't even bother and just do rep grinds the normal way.

Then there's the non-content related benefits of flying. I got to take in a completely new perspective of the landscape, from a different angle, at my whim. It is the absolute feeling of freedom you get when you can take to the skies. I play a druid, so I get added benefit of being able to do this instantly and in any state - I can even fly out of water if I time the jump right. Even if Timeless Isles has no flight available, I am unrestricted to flying in the main part of Pandaria; and that is EXACTLY what pro-flight is asking for. The freedom to fly around unrestricted in the world. If World content is being interfered by flight, then why not use phasing and instanced technology to bypass it? Might I suggest two (phased) versions of the open world; one with flight available and one without for when you get into 'World Quest' mode. Flight would be made available with controleld content available - profession gathering, rare spawns, bonus objectives and world bosses. No-flight mode is activated through accepting a World Quest or activating the World Quest mode. You don't see anyone flying overhead or competing for your ground-only gathering spots in the world.

As for WoD, I never subbed for WoD officially. I've used 7-day trials, and I've reached max level through them. I did it through doing bonus objectives, and turning them all in with XP potions active. Had I had flight available, I would have been able to level up in half the time - but that of course was gated through numerous objectives which I couldn't complete within 7 days. Do I care that I don't have flight? Not really, because I never enjoyed world content much to begin with. My goals were to level up as quickly as possible so I could attend the raids and end-game content; most of which was not situated in the world at all.

My reasons to go out into the world? Few and far between. Let's just say that I would have more incentive if I had flight, because I enjoy having flight around. I'm not going to spend hours gathering for professions on a ground mount and I'd rather play the auction hall instead, it's a far more efficient use of my time. Time is a resource to me, and that's why flight is important. It's not about how much content, or the pace at which it's enjoyed. It's about how much 'filler' I can mitigate through efficient use of flight. Achievement farming, to me, is more fun when I have flight than when I don't. I don't care much about experiencing which rare mobs I encountered in the world at random if I'm actively trying to complete a checklist as quickly as possible.

And some of us think it absolutely should be up to the bakers on whether they let the dog into their shop.

Yes it is. But realize that 8 years ago, the bakers used the Dog to promote the bakery and get themselves to stand out amongst the other bakeries and other cakes. The Dog was beloved by all, and it stuck around being the bakery's iconic mascot. Few other bakeries followed suit. Now, the bakery takes away the dog for reasons that have been this far arbitrary to the guests; for reasons that the bakery thinks would improve the dining experience even though nothing has really changed (considering the presence of the no-dog zones). They can do what they want, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily the best way to handle things. Again, the dog provided no nuisance to the guests, and even the ones who didn't like the dog were generally unbothered by its presence.

Not true, the bakers have produced two kinds of cakes, some to be eaten with rooms without the dog and some to be eaten in rooms with the dog. From WoD onwards they decided to bake all their cakes to be eaten in rooms without dogs, but will be allowing the dog in once the cakes have been eaten.

The no-dog zones have always existed. Nothing has changed except a prolonging of when the dog is allowed back in the main room. That's literally it.

Not so, in MoP they produced too many cakes for people to eat despite the dog helping eat them, in WoD they rationed cakes too tightly even though there was no dog . Blizzard are quite capable of producing too many or not enough cakes regardless of dogs eating them.

And I believe it's not about how many or how few cakes they should produce, but the quality of the cakes and how it can coexist with having the dog around without it eating them. Wrath is a prime example of having cakes that the dog wouldn't eat. Jousting, on-rails events, dragon-mounting quests, indoor quests, etc. More of that, please!

[Mafic]

No, draenor was surely designed with flight in mind from the start but that decision was halted to make deadlines for other content, most likely the 10y anniversary celebration stuff. Remember they did say flying was coming later in WoD, "6.1 or something", why would they say that if they didn't make the world for flight?
Half way through 6.2 was released and all content was more or less done so they thought they had gotten away with no flight after all and "someone" slipped it out during an interview and all hell broke lose, and here we are today.

I believe that Blizz knew that they couldn't deliver flying for 6.1 (this is why it was not available to test in WoD beta) well before 6.1 was on the ptr, but they broke the news of no flying for 6.1 leading into a weekend on wow reddit ama.

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/15539103796

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...developer_ama/

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...er_ama/cmlhent

What clued us in that they were not behind flying in WoD beta was turning the tailoring professions mount for the first time ground mount only (The new creeeping carpet name gives it away as well). In previous iteration of the flying carpet it was usable as a ground and flying mount, but the new profession mount for WoD expansoin was gimped to be ground only. Thus, rendering the creeping carpet useless in previous content where flying was available. That was the canary in the coal mine of what was to come as it foreshadowed Blizzard's position.