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

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Yeah but I mean a transition animation is literally a loading screen (same as elevators in Mass Effect) it's just disguised to make you not realize that it's a loading screen.

However in this case, it isn't a loading screen. It is literally just part of the environment of Oribos. If it were a loading screen I wouldn't have in-zone assets loading in while I flew into a zone, they would've been preloaded by said screen.

Some games hide loading screens like that, but this FP is a consistent length regardless of how quickly/slowly your computer loads the area. Hence my point about it not being a loading screen, if it were a loading screen there would be some variance in the time (I've got a PC with an HDD and a laptop with a SSD, there was zero difference in time for flightpaths between Oribos and a zone when comparing the PC against the laptop).

[Dhrizzle]

I mean that’s just on Blizzard to be more creative then. You can make an immersive questing experience with flying. They can make flying mobs with bigger aggro ranges that can dismount you for example as well as build up, and make questing areas you can only reach with flying such as in Storm Peaks. Bastion would have been a good opportunity to do this as would have been Ardenweald with all the trees or Maldraxxus with the giant mushrooms, and floating necropolis.

Experiments during TBC, WotLK and Cata showed that the WoW engine sucks for 3D content and the hotkey-MMO-UI makes it a bad experience for playing. Ultimately they had the choice of risking resources on a massive overhaul of the entire game or restricting flight at the level cap to make max-level endgame more like the leveling experience.

[sam86]

I always felt Icecrown showcased the worst of flying. Here you are at the centre of the Lich King's power where the Scourge should be at their most threatening and you can just mount up, fly over the suckers and snipe or collect whatever the quest needs you to do. The zone even had Alliance and Horde airships cruising around sightseeing.

and get dazed and die from a random flying frost wrynn... yeah edges were safe (post-eye quest too), but if u fly mid-zone there is a good chance u get dazed and die
u only safe flying very high, where u can't see anything