Flying tricked AGAIN

[Myradin]

Why? Who ground runs an entire zone if they got the flight paths. Manual flying at least has people experience more of the zone then afking while on flight paths to the next world quest area.

I actually wish they'd get rid of flight paths and keep flying.

[DeltrusDisc]

The forsworn fly there. We're invading the place. Why shouldn't we fly there?

Because it's an endgame zone and is meant to be oppressive.

Live a little.

[Lei]

It's been 7 years. The -flying in a later patch- model was implemented when Tom Chilton was Game Director and Ion was a raid designer.

If you're implying that no-flying is designed to have people play the game more (the only way to increase MAUs), then immediate flying is by your own admission a model for not playing the game.

Don't forget:
Wintersgrasp & Isle of Quel'Danas. Blizzard is about to release a CLASSIC expansion with no-flying end game zones lol.

You can fly in wintergrasp. just not when the battle is on.

[Theosis]

how does flying make the world content more fun?.....

going from A to B without having to kill 900 pointless mobs for 1

the view for 2

I get to ride my favorite mounts for 3

[Lolites]

going from A to B without having to kill 900 pointless mobs for 1

the view for 2

I get to ride my favorite mounts for 3

none of that is about fun... (not to mention iw ouldnt consider moving between two points a world content but you do you)

1. use roads or FP, or mount equipment to not get dazed and you dont have to kill a single one, thats totaly convenience argument, nothing to do with fun...
and if flying is more fun than killing mobs perhaps try different kind of game (flight simulator or what)
2. looking at something is FUN? it might be pleasant but its hardly fun thing to do... and if you use FP you will have the scenery too, actualy more of it as you fly for longer and not on direct (most convenient) route...
3. again, more of visual thing (btw you can ride any mount without flying), not really fun whether you ride a horse or dragon... its like saying riding a bus to work is more fun than riding tram...

[OMGTwitchTV]

I'm not saying it isn't epic, I'm saying it takes the gameplay far from its roots. It's like the question of why the eagles didn't take Frodo to drop the Ring in Mount Doom. You can talk all you want about fearing men's bows, or Manwe withholding his aid until the chidren of Illuvatar have proven their own worth, but the truth behind the reason is because flying straight to the destination skips over the adventure.

That's a fair point, which is why flying should come after you have been forced to "adventure" for 10 levels, or at the very least, once the "Campaign" is complete whether that is the Covenant, or the particular zone. I feel if I complete the "story" in that zone, I have adventured enough to experience it in its richness and as a reward for learning the lore and completing my mission in that zone, flight should unlock. Everytime we completed a story in Shadowlands and were sent back to Oribos to unlock the next zone, the previous zone could have unlocked. As it stands, I am perfectly fine with flight coming in 9.1, particularly since "Pathfinder" is no longer a forced requirement to meet that necessity. My Covenant campaign has been done for weeks, and I have Renown capped with Loremaster and Explorer in all 4 zones. I am ready to fly.

[Witchblade77]

Well that defines video games in general...

only in a broadest sense of that world. see there is a difference between actively engaging in content, traveling to and from content where you are doing your best to AVOID engaging in anything extra because otherwise, you never make it to content you actualy want to do.. and passively staring at the screen while having no control over your character cause they are on a taxi. or having control over your character, but having to do nothing cause you are waiting for the elevator to land... and then to go up again...

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If flying around a zone and ignoring the ground is "having fun" for you, you're playing the wrong game.

really though? cause its one of the few games that offers this particular experience.

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This cannot be repeated often enough. When I do callings or quest on an alt, I don't pay attention to my surroundings anymore, I just focus on what has to be done, else I waste precious time. Why is it precious? Because some morons think that wasting time with pointless travel is somehow "fun". I could tank or heal dungeons for you, but no, I sill had not find the time to level my alts because I have to waste my time with travel. They have even disabled the whistle now, which was implemented as a relief mechanism.

Also, the only thing which decides about triviality of content is your gear. Not flying. You have bad gear, mobs will rape you, rip you apart and lay eggs in your corpse. You have good gear, then you can just ride around and ignore everything. And them there are classes wth stealth and/or vanish mechanisms, which also trivialise mobs. Flying was never the problem. The execs just don't want to spend so much budget on the open world.

ALl.

OF.

THIS.

[Traveler Voltin]

This cannot be repeated often enough. When I do callings or quest on an alt, I don't pay attention to my surroundings anymore, I just focus on what has to be done, else I waste precious time. Why is it precious? Because some morons think that wasting time with pointless travel is somehow "fun". I could tank or heal dungeons for you, but no, I sill had not find the time to level my alts because I have to waste my time with travel. They have even disabled the whistle now, which was implemented as a relief mechanism.

Also, the only thing which decides about triviality of content is your gear. Not flying. You have bad gear, mobs will rape you, rip you apart and lay eggs in your corpse. You have good gear, then you can just ride around and ignore everything. And them there are classes wth stealth and/or vanish mechanisms, which also trivialise mobs. Flying was never the problem. The execs just don't want to spend so much budget on the open world.

well that was graphic.

[SirCowdog]

The execs just don't want to spend so much budget on the open world.

Which is funny, because guys like Dhrizzle would have us believe that flight moves away fron the roots of the game, while simultaneously ignoring how the boiled down and shallow formula of the current open world does that on its own. :/

[Dhrizzle]

This cannot be repeated often enough. When I do callings or quest on an alt, I don't pay attention to my surroundings anymore, I just focus on what has to be done, else I waste precious time. Why is it precious? Because some morons think that wasting time with pointless travel is somehow "fun". I could tank or heal dungeons for you, but no, I sill had not find the time to level my alts because I have to waste my time with travel. They have even disabled the whistle now, which was implemented as a relief mechanism.

Also, the only thing which decides about triviality of content is your gear. Not flying. You have bad gear, mobs will rape you, rip you apart and lay eggs in your corpse. You have good gear, then you can just ride around and ignore everything. And them there are classes wth stealth and/or vanish mechanisms, which also trivialise mobs. Flying was never the problem. The execs just don't want to spend so much budget on the open world.

You seem to be labouring under the impression that Blizz don't have other ways to tweak how long it takes you to complete content. If you were flying they could easily tweak the game so you have to complete 5 world quests per calling, or increase the amount you have to do for each quest, or increase the HP of mobs.

What you describe is a form of gameplay. If you've got good gear you get to appreciate the increase in power by charging through places without a worry, and that works well for raiders and m+ players who are precious about their time. If you don't have the gear you may have to choose to fight your way through a certain area, or take a long way 'round, or use class abilities. All choices, all offering more gameplay than mounting, ascending then flying in a straight line to drop on a target.

BTW what makes you think expansions like WoD, Legion, BfA and SL spent less on the world than TBC, WotLK and MoP? They're all higher in production value than TBC and WotLK and arguably more complex than MoP. Where exactly do you think the savings are being made?

[munkeyinorbit]

Clearly Blizzard should just add instant teleporting to anywhere you click on the map and the game would be infinitely better, yes?

That would be stupid. But why shouldn't you be able to just teleport between FP? I've seen it in a lot of other games.

[huth]

This cannot be repeated often enough. When I do callings or quest on an alt, I don't pay attention to my surroundings anymore, I just focus on what has to be done, else I waste precious time.

The least efficient use of free time is obsessing over how to use it efficiently.

[BraveNewWorld]

I disagree with having flying enable soon as you hit max level (like we did at level 70 in TBC)

However I think it should be unlocked once you have finished the storyline of the first patch.

BFA: A Nation United / Zandalar Forever + Loremaster

Shadowlands: Covenant Campaign + Loremaster

These zones will become useless in 9.1, anyone who wanted to get their Tour of Duty achievements have gotten them by then. We should be flying right now IMO.

[pinkz]

Once again flying will only be unlocked for already outdated content while being unavailable in the Maw and Korthia. This is Argus all over again. Next expansion MUST have flying in from the START and it must be usable EVERYWHERE.

actually blizzard is repeating what they did in WOD were DEV Bashiok said flying would become available first major patch...and when the first patch rolled which btw was huge, another DEV said it did not count as a patch. yet later when asked and challenged about lack of content and patches, some DEVs counted the first patch, and some still didn't

blizzard in BFA, the pitch on the flying being available everywhere including nazjatar. it is a separate phased zone from rest of world. like argus was, and now in SL MAW and Korthia

in blizzard's defense, nazjatar is inside a globe, has borders, you can't fly out of the zone. argus, maw, and pretty sure korthia do not which would require alot of work. this i believe the reason for allowing any mount for ground MAW use in the future, in TBC blizzard did have areas like twisting nether you could fly across, but there were still perimeters around outside of outland,

[Volardelis]

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I don't think it's really fair to count the BC starting zones, seeing as you're gone from them by level 20, and they're effectively just more of EK and Kalimdor which also weren't flyable in BC.

As for QD, it was a very late and hasty addition.

Which was why I mentioned that they didn't updated for flying in Cata.

Also for QD, I believe blizzard was going in that direction towards the late stages of developing 2.1 (black temple) as they added in the Quest Item off Kael'thas that basically hinted towards Sunwell Plataeu. So while yes it was a "late addition" as it was made during the expansion and not something that was pre-planed. But so was Argus in Legion. Also most of the art assets for Quel'danas was done with the Blood Elf starting zones. So it wasn't like they had to create massive amounts of new art assets.

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These zones will become useless in 9.1, anyone who wanted to get their Tour of Duty achievements have gotten them by then. We should be flying right now IMO.

What I find funny about Tour of Duty in Shadowlands is that the honor you get from doing the PvP WQ's count towards the achievement. Since they give 50 for completion, you get Tour of Duty for doing the pvp WQ in that zone 20 times, which you have to do for another achievement anyway. And you can complete all of them just from doing PvE activities, although some take far longer than others. Like Ardenweald you are in and out in no time because the animacones give 20% each while killing a player is 5%. For Maldraxxus, the enemies only give 5% with the Slime Queen giving 25% but they take forever to respawn. Killing players gives you 25%.

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actually blizzard is repeating what they did in WOD were DEV Bashiok said flying would become available first major patch...and when the first patch rolled which btw was huge, another DEV said it did not count as a patch. yet later when asked and challenged about lack of content and patches, some DEVs counted the first patch, and some still didn't

Flying for WoD came out in patch 6.2, not 6.1. Since you had to complete stuff in Taraan Jungle to get Pathfinder, which was in patch 6.2.

Patch 6.1 is more like what 9.0.5 is. So really, WoD only had 1 major patch and that was 6.2. The patch that Devs refer to as "not a major patch" in WoD is patch 6.1

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in blizzard's defense, nazjatar is inside a globe, has borders, you can't fly out of the zone. argus, maw, and pretty sure korthia do not which would require alot of work. this i believe the reason for allowing any mount for ground MAW use in the future, in TBC blizzard did have areas like twisting nether you could fly across, but there were still perimeters around outside of outland,

You do know that they are preventing you from flying to Maldraxxus from Bastion right when flying comes out in 9.1? So the only way you will be able to change zones is via Oribos on a flight path (excluding getting summoned via a summon stone / lock stone). So the argument you are making doesn't really fly, considering they could do the same thing to Argus, the maw and Korthia.

[Culex]

The least efficient use of free time is obsessing over how to use it efficiently.

Do you actually think this makes any sense at all? I really hope not, or you are trolling cause if not....

[Deadite]

Reading on wowhead they are adding another 40 renown levels. So it could be another 20 weeks after the months it takes to get 9.1 to come out if you need max renown. Yikes!

[Razion]

I mean, they kind of have to lock off flying temporarily to the new patch content flying is introduced in, or the new area would be "trivialized".

I'm not saying I know how or why trivializing a freaking questing zone ever hurt anyone's enjoyment of the game for story when it seems to work just fine when going back and experiencing old quest story, but I guess a little hypocrisy never hurt anyone except everyone else who likes flying because it's fun.

[WowIsDead64]

I haven't heard it by myself, but according to other fan site this podcast suggests, that another 40 renown levels will be added in 9.1. And of course at least 32 of them will have covenant chapters time-gated behind them. So what? 9.1 will be released after about 2 months since 9.0.5 and flying will also be time-gated by at least another 3 months, while there also won't be any new content with flying? Is it worth waiting and playing? I guess, no.

[Dhrizzle]

I mean, they kind of have to lock off flying temporarily to the new patch content flying is introduced in, or the new area would be "trivialized".

I'm not saying I know how or why trivializing a freaking questing zone ever hurt anyone's enjoyment of the game for story when it seems to work just fine when going back and experiencing old quest story, but I guess a little hypocrisy never hurt anyone except everyone else who likes flying because it's fun.

If you go back a couple of expansions they amplify your damage so you can solo old raids, I wonder would they don't let you do that from when they launch. Is it hypocrisy?