Petition: Remove Flying Mounts - Let Azeroth Re-grow!

[yuca247]

Absolutely not. If you don't want to fly, don't mount! Simple as that. That anyone might even think this might appeal to the majority of the player base baffles me.

[Stasso]

Flying around is not exploration, it is sight-seeing. Exploration involves actively traversing a landscape, not gliding over it. And sight-seeing is pretty much what "can't be bothered explorers" do instead of exploring.

Which is the main problem with the game's community in this and similar matters. Most players prefer to be "can't be bothered players", happily going about in their daily and weekly routines... in a game that they are supposed to play to get excited. But excitement it seems is not desired anymore. Playing World of Facebook is good enough for them.

As for the matter itself, especially with the developers doing an almost 180-turn on the matter, it is quite clear what is best for the game in my opinion. Flying almost anywhere is bad for the game. It makes the concept of a coherent world obsolete. Flying around is like looking at the ground from the window of an airplane. The interaction is next to non-existent. What is more, it diminishes the value of almost anything in the world the developers create. Enemy towns get tranformed to drop-points, villains to dots on the map, and so on. Which is why in Mists flying was taken away initially. It just ruins most of everything. And if the developers had more guts, they would have removed it completely in Pandaria. But even the partial removal is a nice first step, and an admittance that widespread flying is a mistake.

I am not all for the removal of flying. I think it can be an awesome feature in the game, if handled properly. For instance being able to fly in certain (few) zones, specifically designed with flying in mind. But other than that, yes, it should be removed, so that players can stop being lazy, and the design of the game to gain a more exploratory, actual world feel. And no Relic Hunter is not exploration, I have the title and almost all items, it is just dumb luck.

Sorry but this is semantics, sightseeing is a type of exploration, when i went to sight see in akihabara i decided not to use the subway and instead try to make it from daimon to akihabara, i ended up by the imperial palace before i broke down and took the sub way since i was sore from walking all morning.

When i found those serect areas i went out and sought out more, i found the rare chimera in feralas and i remember how awesome it was to take my time to fly and explore.

The treasure hunting you seem to have in kind is archeology, which we have and i am one of the few who enjoys it. Flying enchance your playing, if you dont feel it add more options for fun enchancement then seek other ways to have fun without taking the option away from others. Now i feel more of the outland anti air things should be added back along with more rares like the dragon in vale, the sky is the limit and there is a lot of room for things to fly.

[Difuid]

A petition by a class capable of stealth... no thanks, had enough of that back in the day when 60 was the max.

[Deleted]

You know I still don't understand why people can't you know JUST NOT FLY.

"Must get to Domination Point... right now. Must do my dailies... so mandatory... I don't want to... but I must..."
*flies on <Ashes/insert another super rare e-peen mount>*
"I hate myself..."

[MaximusRex]

This thread is terrible, full of argumentum ad populam and stawmanning of those who don't consent as people who hate the playing in a vibrant game world.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This thread is terrible, full of argumentum ad populam and stawmanning of those who don't consent as people who hate the playing in a vibrant game world.

That wasn't a very good rebuttal. I'm no pro but talking about logical fallacies doesn't just help.

[Alienshroom]

The game is better without them, but they could not remove them now.

[Imnick]

This thread is terrible, full of argumentum ad populam and stawmanning of those who don't consent as people who hate the playing in a vibrant game world.

Looks like you're out of luck though doesn't it buddy! Blizzard are in fact developing for their audience and aren't going to remove a feature 75% of their audience love no matter how much you swear at them.

Though with persuasive skills like that, who could think why?

[lsi1ver]

While removing flying would be the best thing for the game overall, I recognise that there's almost no way to remove them without damaging the game and community. The convenience is too great, and the emotional attachment too high at this point.

The truth is that flying mounts are a parasite on the game, burrowed too deep to simply be removed without killing the host. So Blizzard do what they can to contain it: they remove flying mounts from us for as long as they are able. With every new expansion we lose the ability to fly for as long as possible, and even in the single expansion which did have flying for the levelling content, we still lost them in the two areas Blizzard expected us to spend the majority of our level capped time in (Tol Barad and the Molten Front).

Flying mounts are terrible. Awful. One of the worst design decisions Blizzard could ever have made. And yet, they cannot be removed. A real shame, because we are missing out on so much due to their existence. So sorry, this petition won't work, nor would I want it to. If this petition somehow forced Blizzard to remove flying mounts, then they'd do it before they were ready to make the change. It would severely harm the game.

Maybe Blizzard have a solution waiting in the wings. I hope that maybe one day we can lose our flying mounts entirely. The game can only be improved if it happened in the right way.

If flying mounts were that bad people would not use them and the truth is they are very nice to have(FP's that wander all over the country is what should be removed or at least be made point to point). If you want to see your surroundings use a ground mount or walk. I bet your using a flying mount at this moment even.

[Shammysheep]

Would I want to run around over the whole of Azeroth? No...
Would I not want to help my guildie that need help with a rare in the middle of no where? Well of course I want to help, without a flying mount tho, it would take a freaking long time to do so.
Would I really want to see WoW go back to Vanilla? No thanks, I was there, I saw when they added flight points into small towns in the Barrens and other places, it was amazing to see that it wouldn't take me 10 mins to walk to my quest anymore, then 10 mins to walk back again lol! Getting rid of flying mounts would be the same, imagine having to try and do the Pandarian Dailies on a ground mount, people complain already on how time consuming they are lol!

[Granyala]

Waypoints devalue exploration far more than flying mounts do, and are less viscerally interesting.

Agreed. WPs suck. Constant loading screens Break any immersion whatsoever. One of the big things that put me off GW2.

[dokilar]

Do you remember exploring the ancient ruins of the Eastern Kingdoms, or the vast plains of Kalimdor?

yep sure do, and nothing about the way i explore the world has changed with flying mounts, other than the fact that i can actually explore more of the world

Can you recall the feeling of crossing one of the little rivers of Elwynn on your way to Westfall?

no i never leveled an alliance toon from 1-60 but unless things have changed you dont get a flying mount until level 60? so low level players are still experiencing whatever rivers you seem to think are important

Remember when trees and mountains looked impressive where they towered far above?

i dont think the trees in WoW are really that great looking, mountains look alright but considering i have to fly over them i still get to see them. nothing has changed

Remember not having everything beautiful on Azeroth look like low-res miniatures in the distance, while you hover idly far above?

when im hovering over an area im generally not looking at anything in game as im alt tabbed, if i want to fly and hover idly and look at something in game ill fly and hover close enough so that the graphics aren't fuzzy looking.

Do you think flying mounts should stay or go?

i think that you have the choice to use your ground mount at any time you want. no one is saying you have to fly everywhere on your flying mount. i however can (well used to) experience all the cool looking shit in the game just as easily from my flying mount as i can from my ground mount, so no i dont think flying mounts should be removed. for me personally there was no damage done to my gameplay experience, back when i played, with the implementation of flying mounts. but to each their own

[ninjakat]

Ever since they stopped ele shamans from thunderstorming people off thier mount, the joys of flying escape me. Long live the thunderf*ck!

[Rickarus]

Thought: So a lot of people prefer playing in a spreadsheet, as opposed to an online world, then?

Above statement is a bit cheeky, but you catch my drift. The most frequent complaint I see on these forums is that flying ruined everything. Of course everything is more convenient when you can fly everywhere, but everything is also more convenient if Blizzard were to hand out a billion gold to every player. It would, however, ruin the game - much like flying did to some extent.

1) I frequent this site a lot, it is the first tab opened when I open my browser. And I fail to see how "the most frequent complaint" is that flying ruined everything, unless you specifically were going looking for that.

2) Even if that were the case, you seem to forget the cardinal rule of Forums. People, far more often than not, only go to forums and make posts about things they dislike. The vocal minority may seem to be saying flying is bad, but the large masses of people who enjoy flying are too busy enjoying the game to spend their time making posts about how much they enjoy flying.

3) Having flying in the game does not take away from anyone at all, you are not forced to fly, it does not hurt you personally that other people can fly. So unless you are too weak willed to use ground mounts to get around simply because flying mounts are available, there is no reason for you to demand that they be removed. I fail to see how something that is a welcomed convenience for many is "ruining" the game simply because a vocal minority whose hatred for flying does not give them enough conviction to simply not use it.


Hyperbole is never a good way to get people to agree with your point. Saying something like flying (which allows you to get to the part of the world you actually want to go to without being forced to run through a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter, or being forced to pay for flight paths) is in any way similar to something like handing out a billion gold (which would not really allow people to do anything other than buy all the gold sink vendor items like mounts, crafting mats for profession mounts, vanity items, etc., and then cause the economy to collapse and rebuild around it making everything on the AH more expensive.) is nothing less than ridiculous.

[toddless]

Said nobody ever

[Drithien]

Sorry but this is semantics, sightseeing is a type of exploration, when i went to sight see in akihabara i decided not to use the subway and instead try to make it from daimon to akihabara, i ended up by the imperial palace before i broke down and took the sub way since i was sore from walking all morning.

When i found those serect areas i went out and sought out more, i found the rare chimera in feralas and i remember how awesome it was to take my time to fly and explore.

I disagree. My intention is not to argue about semantics, so I did not write what I wrote with that in mind. There is a very specific reason how removing flying prompts the designers to focus more on creating an actual world, introducing concepts such as a climbing skill, enviromental dangers, local-tribe relations, swimming skill, avoiding/getting close to dangerous wildlife, thinking of ways to traverse the landscape, searching for paths, making your own paths, and so on.

The original poster has already mentioned this, but most people seem too intent on flaming him rather than reading what he wrote, because it seems being an internet wiseguy is more important than conversing politely to them. It's not a matter of fly or don't fly, it's a matter of what happening on the ground getting trivialised. It's not by accident that most great adventurous journeys in literature are about the characters walking and horse-riding across landscapes instead of flying over them. It works better for the feel of the adventure and makes the world more prevalent.

And, even by admitance of the designers of the game themselves, spreading flying all-over was like opening a can of worms. It was a very bad decision, one in a line of bad decisions. Decisions that prompted players to care less about the world of the game and more about points and instanced content. The result? WoW's image of activity is a character on a huge flying mount hovering barely above the ground in front of the auction house in a major city, even worse covering a questgiver because the player is too lazy to even think to dismount while acquiring a quest, since apparently it's a lot of trouble and not worth respecting your fellow players And now they are trying to reverse it, slowly.

As for the treasure hunting that I have in mind, I don't. My comment was that what passes for exploration in WoW right now is pathetic. Flying around or relic huntering, it's just bad. Which is unacceptable from such a high-profile game. Only the best of content should be in such a game, and WoW's explorations is a shame of a feature.

Those secret areas that you are talking about are nice. But still it was not exploration. It was taking the mount for a spin. If there were some actual obstacles to the ride around then it would be exploration. Which is why I think that some zones designed for flying should exist in the game. But just some zones.

[Azutael]

Are you mad ? yes once upon a time exploring zones was a delight, the first time. After that it's the same old.
Take for example a natural wonder in the real world, the tourists flock there and are in awe. The locals do not care much, but are grateful it is there. So that they can benefit from the tourism.

Even with flying mounts available, you CAN go by foot/ ground mount. So why don't you ? oh that's right, because it is inconvenient, slow and inefficient.

[Blarglord69]

I like flying, near the end of dreadwastes hoofing it every where was starting to wear on me, then i got flying and it was awesome again i do think flying makes the world seem smaller, its also convenient and im still finding cool hidden stuff, like walrus and carpenter npcs.
The time has come to talk of many things...

[anisadora]

If you yourself are against flying mounts, dont fucking use them. What the fuck is the problem with people who want to restrict/legalize/etc everyone else? fuuccccccccck,

---------- Post added 2013-01-05 at 05:26 PM ----------

I still go somewhere and marvel at nothing in particular. Hell, I go marvel ON MY FLYING MOUNT.

You not looking at this game in awe is YOUR problem, not the game's.

[Aaldrus]

To the people who want flying mounts gone, please, just shut the hell up and use ground mounts instead of complaining and insisting that flying mounts "ruin the experience".