I want to know who thought it's fun to be on foot for 6 months until you can mount.

[Ivarr]

This just does not play out for stuff you have to do daily. And frankly being mythic raider and all, I certainly don't want to have to go through slog like Maw every day just to be optimal.

IMO, if they would go for some super uber hostile toxic place, it also should be completely and totally optional one for vanity/convenience only. Transmogs, toys, mounts, expansion benefits (like secret travel points unlocks), heck maybe even early flying unlock as ultimate reward or such.

Definitely making a hostile place part of the daily grind is bad design as well. It should be a wild card. High risk high reward. The potential of wasting your entire day with nothing or a chance at truly unique rewards.

[Echo of Soul]

wouldn't want to ruin your headcanon of ion=bad, but WoD started the no-flying model, during which (and during its entire development beforehand) Tom Chilton and Alex Afrasiabi were the game directors.

Who said anything about Ion? Developing a video game is a team effort, not done solely by the game director.

[Zka]

Many other expansions grounded us for longer, however the only acceptable ground time at max level is about 0 days. I'm finally and permanently fed up of everything being timegated, portioned and artificially slowed down.

[Qnubi]

Who said anything about Ion? Developing a video game is a team effort, not done solely by the game director.

So you are saying Ion at least took part in the decision in WoD. xD

[scubi666stacy]

The Maw wasn't meant to be an ordinary zone. It was meant for the thrill seekers. Constant danger, a highly hostile place. Something for the masochists to sink their teeth into. Didn't pan out as intended, but the lack of mounting isn't the reason why. Mounting offers a form of safety and it made sense to take it away.

Biggest mistake was to make players enter the zone from the same spot. Combine that with not being able to mount and it meant players were always forced to traverse the same two routes into the rest of The Maw.

I'd love to see Blizzard keep attempting to get a truly hostile zone into the game. One condition would be to plunge players into random locations when they enter so it truly has a survival feeling.

Pretty much this. I did not spent much time in the Maw pre-Korthia - but it had not much to do with not being able to mount up. There was this eye of the jailor thingy which prevented you from doing too many things in one day. This whole discussion in pointless.

Now, not being able to fly in the other zones for so long, that was depressing.

[Jester Joe]

The Maw really wasn't that bad. There was more than enough unlocks from Ve'nari to make traveling faster, along with the invisibility potion she sold.

[Zantera]

I would consider myself fairly neutral on The Maw overall - don't really have a strong dislike for it, don't really rate it super high either. It's one of those zones with an interesting concept that doesn't necessarily translate to the actual game.

The idea of a zone that's hostile on purpose with an eye tracking your actions and making the place more hostile (I know it's gone now but it was there through 9.0) is an interesting concept, the idea of "you can't spend too much time there or you gonna have a bad time" should work with a zone like the Maw where you wouldn't want to spend too much time anyway because enemies everywhere, not many friendly allies either. The problem is this mostly translates in game to not wanting to spend time there at all and just rushing to get through it. Losing Stygia when you die and you have to loot it again is also interesting on paper because it makes you more careful about not dying but as a result it makes things very frustrating when some places are packed with elites.

[Skirdus]

Wasn't an issue for me because I barely had any reason to set foot in the Maw in the first place

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'm constantly amazed at the people that hate this game so much, go out of their way to bitch about things that no longer matter, but just won't quit the damn game.

Ex-partner syndrome.

They can't stand that others might like their "ex", and thus feel a constant need to belittle and berate the ex AND anyone liking her/him/it.

[Resheph]

I don’t know why Blizzard ever deviated away from that. I think their reasoning was something like immersion with the world, and it makes zones artificially feel bigger.

<sigh>
Whether you agree with it or not, you do know why they made this choice.

The players wanted a more immersive questing experience, and were complaining that most quests were trivial. The designers realized they had not that many option if flying made most of the terrain obstacles and mobs trivial and skippable. So they decided to force ground mounted for the leveling experience, which gave them the freedom to create much more challenging leveling experiences. And a large amount of people are just fine with this. Another large, and very vocal part, think it's their god-given right to fly and feel personally slighted to endure the humiliation of leveling on foot. These same people would be the first to complain once you could fly when leveling again and they'd be out of pve content in a day...

[froschhure]

Big True. Burning Crusade and Wrath allowed you to fly right when you hit 70 and 77 (Storm Peaks). I don’t know why Blizzard ever deviated away from that. I think their reasoning was something like immersion with the world, and it makes zones artificially feel bigger.

Well, there is no transition where you would be able to fly to xD

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Imagine not being able to mount in the Maw when Twisting Corridors came out months ago.

[Kathranis]

Pretty sure one of the main reasons is that the server infrastructure is at it's limit with all the zones in the game. Making them separated like instances reduces the stress on the server cluster(s).

The Shadowlands zones are all on a single map and world server. That's why there's no load screen when flying between them.

The limitation preventing flying between the Shadowlands zones is a simple one, there's just a bunch of empty space between them. They could put quick travel gates between them, on the edges of the maps, that you could fly through. But they'd need to add some new tech to put you through a cool portal animation like they do with the FPs. And they could use them for the FPs, too.

Pretty easy solution, apart from needing to make the tech to use them while mounted, unless they wanted to just make them work like the Revendreth mirrors, with a load screen. Just put gates to Oribos and the two nearest zones. Would cut down travel time significantly, even if just using FPs, while allowing you to travel from zone to zone manually if you want to, for whatever reason.

And lore wise, just explain that it's a show of unity thanks to the unprecedented cooperation between the Covenants that the Maw Walker fostered.

Oribos probably isn't ever going to have flying enabled because of the way it's broken into layers, it's just not really necessary. I think if you started flying around in there you'd find it pretty cramped and hard to navigate at 300% movement speed on a flying mount. But they could probably just give players a passive movement speed buff while they're in the city.

[Baroclinic]

The maw mount was the only thing that kept me from letting my subscription go, and even that wasn't enough eventually.

[Echo of Soul]

So you are saying Ion at least took part in the decision in WoD. xD

I mean he started when, Wrath? He was probably involved in a lot of shit after that.

[Lochton]

Eh. I didn't mind not being able to mount (well, my main could, Worgen ftw) since, well, the Maw was not really our zone. We weren't meant to have everything there. That is at least how the story, which might not be the best to people, it still conveyed that the Maw was not just another zone.

As for flight. Well, I'm a fan of the Pathfinder system - as long as they keep it to only 1 part, and not multiple parts.

[Echo of Soul]

The Shadowlands zones are all on a single map and world server. That's why there's no load screen when flying between them.

Isn't there like a wormhole type active loading screen, kinda like elevators in mass effect? I quit before I hit max lvl so I can't remember.

[LordVargK]

Wasn't an issue for me because I barely had any reason to set foot in the Maw in the first place

This. I just ignored it. I am still not exalted with Ven'ari (I did maw and now Korthia only to get the crafter's mark recipies). I don't care about the sockets or conduit upgrades. They are highly optional at most.

Also I had the TC mount the day TC released, so there's that.

[Azerate]

There were 3 ways to get a mount usable in the old maw: luck based, skill based, and effort based. People who couldn't mount in the maw only had themselves to blame.

[Lolites]

There were 3 ways to get a mount usable in the old maw: luck based, skill based, and effort based. People who couldn't mount in the maw only had themselves to blame.

i only know of hunt and tc, what was third?