No flying could mean a better experience

[Thage]

I see no flying for a whole expansion in WOD as a way for them to slack on the top of huge mountain textures and roofs like they did in vanilla. I remember one of the main reasons they held off on flying in azeroth in BC and WOTLK was because of this. If i remember right a dev said had flying in azeroth been allowed in BC and WOTLK you would see a lot of mountains and roofs with really bad models or untextured so they fixed the zones in cata and then released flying in azeroth.

Most of Stormwind's buildings that you didn't see from the air on the flight paths and couldn't reach on foot were essentially one-sided, two-dimensional set pieces with really good shading work. The same held true for every other city--Silvermoon has a few hanging out. There were also huge gaps of blocky, untextured terrain in the old Azeroth between mountain ranges separating zones and in other unaccessible areas were dev playgrounds where they would work on things they didn't want players seeing (such as the old Zul'Aman testing ground in Eversong, behind that big wall, the Old Outland playground in Deadmines, the interior of the pre-BC Karazhan, the Karazan Crypts, the terrain used for Northrend footage in Naxx40's reveal trailer, and a host of other dev playgrounds that were cleaned up and removed or permanently walled off in the Cata revamp).

But I don't think the Draenor changes are about skimping on filler terrain, especially not since, if they're playing the 'gauge player reaction' game and originally planned on flight being implemented in 6.1, they'd have to delay 6.1 or hurriedly release it before the content they want in it is ready to fill in the terrain gaps for flying if the player response is especially poor on release.

[Seditian]

I see no flying for a whole expansion in WOD as a way for them to slack on the top of huge mountain textures and roofs like they did in vanilla. I remember one of the main reasons they held off on flying in azeroth in BC and WOTLK was because of this. If i remember right a dev said had flying in azeroth been allowed in BC and WOTLK you would see a lot of mountains and roofs with really bad models or untextured so they fixed the zones in cata and then released flying in azeroth.

Exactly. They still have to fix all the rooftops/mountains for WoD though, but if the feedback from the community is good, they can skip on that with the next expansion, saving MASSIVE amounts of development time. So basically what people who "need" their flying, are saying they're rather have expansions every 24 months and have flying, than having no flying and an expansion every 20 months. Numbers are random, but you get the point.

[MerinPally]

It could mean a better experience yeah. It could also mean a worse one. Flying didn't stop you chasing someone, it's still very easy to do as long as you don't have the hand-eye coordination of a corpse. The only thing that stopped you chasing someone was phasing, because then someone was no longer accessible. If you're determined enough you can still follow someone. Finding remote areas is even easier with flying than without. 2 people chasing each other on foot only allowed people to catch each other if the prey was stupid, same applies for flying.

[Aks]

No flying at launch. When 6.1 drops and there is a new area, like a new Island or separate area, make that no-flying and add flying to the 6.0 content. When 6.2 drops and the new area is released, make that no-flying and enable flying in the 6.1 content.

Personally I would like no flying at all in the expansion, but I think this model satisfies most players.

[Seditian]

Let's go down a list of what are widely regarded as some of the best examples of the genre shall we:

Chrono Trigger: No overworld enemys and well placed portals.
FFVI: Flying Mount a.k.a Airship
Skyrim: Portal a.k.a. Fast Travel

Actually I got lazy any RPG worth it's salt has a well established fast travel system that let's you avoid encounters when you want to and grind when you want to. Whether it be through boat, airship or portal it's an extremely well established aspect of the genre, to say otherwise is asinine and idiotic.

What if they added those? You have fast travel in Fallout as well, but you still have to walk for 10-15 minutes to get to some places. Plus flying ignores it all, because you go faster everywhere, even if you haven't explored it yet. If they add a portal to Draenor's capitol (and they will) and make the flight paths more efficient travel time wise, what exactly do you lose by not having your flying mounts anymore?

- - - Updated - - -

It could mean a better experience yeah. It could also mean a worse one. Flying didn't stop you chasing someone, it's still very easy to do as long as you don't have the hand-eye coordination of a corpse. The only thing that stopped you chasing someone was phasing, because then someone was no longer accessible. If you're determined enough you can still follow someone. Finding remote areas is even easier with flying than without. 2 people chasing each other on foot only allowed people to catch each other if the prey was stupid, same applies for flying.

1.5 second cast on mounts broke the chasing down aspect of the game. Well that and phasing. It was by far not impossible to catch someone on foot/ground mount. CRZ made it even worse and honestly they should throw it in the garbage, since most servers are merged anyway. The ones that aren't will be merged by WoD launch.

[Spoonman]

I Think it would be cool to see how it turns out. But if we want to promote World PvP the problem is acctualy that most realms are not 50/50 AH Ratio. My realm is basicily 99% Horde

[mordale]

no, no flying just means a marked increase in tedium.

if a mob isn't a threat then its just a roadbump that does nothing but annoy and delay.

once the open world's mobs are like that you should be flying above them.

[PickleballAce]

Warlords of Daze-nor. Yuck.

[Randec]

Blizzard's problem is if they put in flying, they have to design more content. But if we have to run everywhere, it artificially makes the expansion feel longer and they don't have to design as much content.

Walk everywhere in the new expansion, don't even run, just walk. Looks like it's going to be years between content releases now.

Walk to get those recolors and re-skins.

[xhisors]

I don't understand the no flying myself... all though I like the idea..

Blizzard has designed zones around flying before.. Storm peaks is a perfect example, or hyjal. these zones make you feel small and insigificant to your surroundings even if you are flying. Why they can't do that in WoD is beyond me.. I guess that kind of mentaility and design has gone out the window. I loved when zones had diversity and not this flat boring landscape of MoP. Hopefully WoD will have some immersion of unique zones with better landscape design... though from the screenshots it doesn't seem like it..

[Icoblablubb]

flying could mean a better experience. this could be a nice title for the next thread!

[Mosotti]

I think that too. No flying will allow me to better experience other games, after I quit WoW.

[Culex]

I have played this game since vanilla, I like and prefer flying, one of the reasons i don't play other mmos, I'm also sick of them giving us stuff only to take it away later.

[Azutael]

I've experienced the game without flying already, it wasn't any more fun than it is with flying.
You can already choose if you want to fly or not (in most zones). People's own fault for not traveling their preferred way.

Some of us feel the world is more immersive with flying as well you know. Should we force everyone to just be able to use flying, and no ground travel ?
Just as ridiculous. Having a choice is always better.

[echoSAW]

I'm not really sure what all this talk about "experiencing the game on a deeper level" means. Does it mean slower? Because you are located on the ground in this virtual world there is more stuff surrounding you? What exactly does "deeper" mean in this case?

[Deleted]

Blizzard's problem is if they put in flying, they have to design more content. But if we have to run everywhere, it artificially makes the expansion feel longer and they don't have to design as much content.

Majority of zones are dead anyway, so whats the difference? Why would you want gigantic ghost town zone with flying enabled over a medium sized ground only zone?

[uleren]

i made a MMo account just to post this.I have been wow'ing since feb 07.i have 204 mounts on my dk.i'm fine with the "no flying till first major patch", but no flying at all? are you f&*(ing kidding me? all my effort and blizz wants to piss it all away for the sakes of some pvp players that are complaining about world pvp being dead ?For real?, sooooo unimpressed with this choice.what about the store mounts? or the armoured red dragon hawk ?(/blue)how does this make ANY sense?

[Evil Inside]

Why isn't it going to be fun though? Other than using flying for gathering (which will be the toughest thing to do), you can easily hop on over to a flight path to get where you need to go. It isn't going to change much.

Because I like my mounts. I've spent countless hours/days/months farming/camping for some of them, time-lost proto for example. It took me 6 months to finally catch it, Aeonaxx also took me a couple of months to get, which will now collect dust because they think that it'll be "fun" for us.

[Enosh]

flying in the game:
+people who want to explore go and explore
+people who want to go from point A to B fast fly
+people who want to use their ground mounts use their ground mount
+people who want to use their flying mount use their flying mount

-people who like to gank are shit out of luck

no flying in the game
+people who want to explore go and explore
+people who want to use their ground mounts use their ground mount
+people who like to gank are in luck

-people who want to go from point A to B fast have to either use blizzard flight paths and tab/afk or they use their ground mount while cursing how long it takes
-people who want to use their flying mount can't use it
-people still don't go out and explore if they are not interested in exploring

I'm not really sure what all this talk about "experiencing the game on a deeper level" means. Does it mean slower? Because you are located on the ground in this virtual world there is more stuff surrounding you? What exactly does "deeper" mean in this case?

it's meaningless bullshit that assumes everyone cares about some shitty tree texture some artist spend 20 mins making back in 2004

[Asmekiel]

Not with that attitude. Start the game with neutral thinking it could be good.

I did that in MoP. Problem is that the zones felt disconnected and after a while I had no clue where I was anymore, just following quest objectives. Before I got to fly again, I thought that Dread Wastes was somewhere north of Jade Forest, only after I finally got to see how every zone is connected. It wasn't until then that I actually started to like the continent. Flying allows for more exploration than ground mounts ever will.
Not sure why we have this thread when there's another thread with 62 pages.