Bashiok Elaborates on No-Flying in WoD

[Granyala]

That's because the taxi is intended to have a penalty. Paying gold and not having direct control of the taxi is the penalty for using it. Flying mounts don't have that penalty.

Why does fast transportation have to have a penalty attached to it?
Why not zip from event to event and make the game a ton of more fun instead of missing half of it?

Because the player is supposed to need more time to see it all.
IT'S LAZY DESIGN. That's all there is to it.

Even Bashioks direct example could be neutered in a very simple way:
Insetad of just ordering to kill the Captain of the Fortress, order the player to kill the guards too.
Boom. Your flying mount just became far less useful, because THERE IS NO CONTENT TO SKIP.

[Callace]

How are flying and rewards related? Flying is not a reward in and of itself (it has just been given away for the last few expansions). It doesn't facilitate rewards. That fractional amount of time isn't going to make people say "Damn, if I just had flying I would have gotten that heroic raid boss down." That's hyperbole.

Quest rewards. Daily rewards. Open world stuff. I need to know if they're using it (flight-removal) as an extra time-sink before I buy. I.e. if dailies and all the other stuff that isn't instanced take two to three times longer. Bashiok's overwrought and LOLworthy PR stunt turned up my skepticism meter to '10'.

[Xada]

Several months from now, in the new flightless areas, people will complain, "OMG, X,Y,Z takes FOREVER and there are barely REWARDS" and then unsub. If that is the outcome, that type of person may not have the intelligence to connect the dots. It has nothing to do with flying and everything to do with what flying affects.

It highlights other parts of the game that need to be addressed, part of the reason questing isn't fun is the rewards aren't that great, each player is sitting on a mountain of gold and the last thing on their mind is getting gold. Quests need to give out rewards that feel like they are getting something important for their own personal progression, same with pvpers, but they just need something to give them some income and something to sink that gold into. It perpetuates the cycles, create a need, let the player fill that need however they want, it's their idea, they feel it's time well spent then.

[ringthree]

Quest rewards. Daily rewards. Open world stuff. I need to know if they're using it as an extra time-sink before I buy. I.e. if dailies and all the other stuff that isn't instanced take two to three times longer. Bashiok's overwrought and LOLworthy PR stunt turned up my skepticism meter to '10'.

Quest rewards? How so? Are you doing a lot of questing for the rewards at level cap where you get flying in all expansions? Dailies? You mean the ones that are grouped up into one convenient area so flying isn't required except getting to and from the dailies area? Open world stuff? Again, flight paths solve this issue.

Honestly, you are one of those people that has become so jaded that you have lost grip with reality. You don't have the definition of fun locked down. There is a reason that Blizzard are considering this issue. It's because a lot of people think it is more fun without it. You are in the minority and you are making up excuses (Blizzard trying to steal your money) because you are looking for problems with just about anything.

People that take things like flying so seriously have lost perspective on what they are doing playing WoW. It's probably time to do something else for a little while. Play something else, then come back later when you remember why you were playing instead of focusing on every little problem. I understand the problem, because I have been there before too. Just get some perspective back.

[Aktavite]

Not only will it wear thin very quickly, you have to ask realistically what % of quests are targetted hits? Thinking back on MoP questing, boss target quests MIGHT be 1 quest out of 5, and I actually think it is much much lower. Flying doesn't affect collects, drop collects, and kill X quests and a great many of kill "named mob" quests also include the requirement to kill X trash mob as well as "named mob".

Bashiok's post was written to ridicule one side by making your typical kill "named mob X" quest sound like a glorious adventure. I am sure he could have written just as compelling a story that was built on the premise of taking your dragon to the skies to scout out the patterns of the guards and study the keep so you could figure out where to parachute into and still be able to get out blah blah. He also basically assumed that you would, be out of aggro after killing Named Mob X.

Thinking back to say Hyjal in Cataclysm, I can think of very few to no quests in the entire line that allowed didn't require something a great deal more involved than flying over trash killing a single mob. In fact, I just went back and looked at the quest list on WoWWiki and there are in fact NO QUESTS of that type in the first 50 to 75. Looking over the list there are in fact zero quests that are mitigated by flight in any way other than speed of returning to the quest turn in and possibly respawns between you and the quest giver.

The so-called "problems" that flight introduce are cherry-picked examples that are in no way representative of what a quest line looks like even in an expac that had flying right from the start. Looking at the Hyjal questline, you are basically reduced to objecting to the speed with which you can move from quest giver to quest objective and objecting to flying over trash that you can generally also either go around on the ground or plow through and leash the mobs.

All of you people citing Bashiok's wonderful propaganda need to go back and LOOK at the lists of quests from zones to see just how seldom flying even has the possiblity of trivializing anything even in the Cataclysm zones and it certainly didn't "trivialize" a damned thing in Mists zones while you were levelling.

There is no way in hell it took 7 years for Blizzard to "discover" these so-called problems with the quest experience. They "discovered" something and it has to do with reducing resource input from now to the end of WoW if they can get it away with shoving everyone on to the ground. The fact that they are not certain enough of themselves to announce what the hell they are up says to me that they are not truly commited to remove flying for the sake of the game but for the sake of dollars. You don't hedge when you know you're right and you don't wait 7 years to "fix" something as borked as they make out flying to be.

Thank you, a thousand times thank you.

I would like to see how flying mounts trivialise this quest: http://www.wowhead.com/quest=25462

[Callace]

Fair enough, but the word "when" makes you seem like you claim to foresee without a doubt .

Oh no. I'm not claiming to know what it's going to be like at all. They could knock it out of the park for all I know. I just meant that if it turns out that they aren't removing flying for the reasons they say, then I'll probably hold off indefinitely.

Also, blizz stated that they are trying to move away from the daily quest model as far as content goes for WoD.

Very true. But they are capable of making almost any content grindier if they want. I'm on the fence about the TI model. I got bored with 5.3 pretty quickly too.

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Quest rewards? How so? Are you doing a lot of questing for the rewards at level cap where you get flying in all expansions? Dailies? You mean the ones that are grouped up into one convenient area so flying isn't required except getting to and from the dailies area? Open world stuff? Again, flight paths solve this issue.

Honestly, you are one of those people that has become so jaded that you have lost grip with reality. You don't have the definition of fun locked down. There is a reason that Blizzard are considering this issue. It's because a lot of people think it is more fun without it. You are in the minority and you are making up excuses (Blizzard trying to steal your money) because you are looking for problems with just about anything.

People that take things like flying so seriously have lost perspective on what they are doing playing WoW. It's probably time to do something else for a little while. Play something else, then come back later when you remember why you were playing instead of focusing on every little problem. I understand the problem, because I have been there before too. Just get some perspective back.

If I have to wade through a third of a zone covered in Timeless Isle tiger style mobs for every single aspect, I am probably going to burn out on it faster. We don't know what the zones will be like yet. I reserve the right to be skeptical until Beta (or even Launch) gives a better idea.

[ringthree]

Oh no. I'm not claiming to know what it's going to be like at all. They could knock it out of the park for all I know. I just meant that if it turns out that they aren't removing flying for the reasons they say, then I'll probably hold off indefinitely.


Very true. But they are capable of making almost any content grindier if they want. I'm on the fence about the TI model. I got bored with 5.3 pretty quickly too.

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If I have to wade through a third of a zone covered in Timeless Isle tiger style mobs for every single aspect, I am probably going to burn out on it faster. We don't know what the zones will be like yet. I reserve the right to be skeptical until Beta (or even Launch) gives a better idea.

Be skeptical all you want. Skepticism is good. Being jaded and paranoid is just weird though.

[Callace]

Be skeptical all you want. Skepticism is good. Being jaded and paranoid is just weird though.

Bashiok's PR stint seemed kind of jaded and weird to me. :P To each his own.

[Grimskull22]

Woah! everyone! Let us not be split, but join forces and agree on one, and one thing only!

What. About. Alts. People have multiple alts. you cannot tell me that invading that same fortress. without ANYTHING changing. for the 20th time won't be annoying in -some- way.

[Callace]

you cannot tell me that invading that same fortress. without ANYTHING changing. for the 20th time won't be annoying in -some- way.

Nah, Grim, didn't you get the memo? WoW is immersive like Skyrim with its thousands of details per square meter.

[Grimskull22]

Nah, Grim, didn't you get the memo? WoW is immersive like Skyrim with its thousands of details per square meter.

I refuse to read those damned dirty memos!

(On a serious note, I've yet to see a compelling argument against the whole alt fiasco that will be caused. It'll be worse than MoP was with dailies!

[CheeseSandwich]

Woah! everyone! Let us not be split, but join forces and agree on one, and one thing only!

What. About. Alts. People have multiple alts. you cannot tell me that invading that same fortress. without ANYTHING changing. for the 20th time won't be annoying in -some- way.

The cynic in me says "Don't worry about leveling alts, level 100's will be purchasable soon enough".

Strangely, and sadly, the realist in me agrees.

[Tragedia]

I refuse to read those damned dirty memos!

(On a serious note, I've yet to see a compelling argument against the whole alt fiasco that will be caused. It'll be worse than MoP was with dailies!

Are you being forced to do outdoor events on your alts?

[CheeseSandwich]

I absolutely love the TI model, as I think it fleshes out the world that much more, and for it to be used on a grander scale is just awesome to me. That being said, there will be players that abuse it and make some hate the model, but these same people would ruin heaven if given the oppertunity so..

So as I asked before, do you kill every mob on the way to Ordos every week, with every alt toon? Or do you just ride past and leash them all?

[Callace]

Are you being forced to do outdoor events on your alts?

It's the most efficient way to play them. It isn't fair for Blizzard to make him do outdoor events, instances should be on the same playing field!

[Vandexander]

Woah! everyone! Let us not be split, but join forces and agree on one, and one thing only!

What. About. Alts. People have multiple alts. you cannot tell me that invading that same fortress. without ANYTHING changing. for the 20th time won't be annoying in -some- way.

I honestly think Blizz is trying to push people away from alts, or at least from feeling the need to have alts. The farms in MoP, and now Garrisons in WoD, greatly reduced the need to farm materials, so the gathering professions aren't really needed. Plus, Blizz is going to remove the profession buffs, so professions won't feel so mandatory. I like both ideas, but a side-effect is that an altoholic wouldn't "need" all of their alts for professions in WoD.

[Callace]

I absolutely love the TI model, as I think it fleshes out the world that much more, and for it to be used on a grander scale is just awesome to me. That being said, there will be players that abuse it and make some hate the model, but these same people would ruin heaven if given the oppertunity so..

I liked elements of it. I didn't like the gratuitous aggro or the need to kill so many trash mobs, but everything else was pretty cool.

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I honestly think Blizz is trying to push people away from alts, or at least from feeling the need to have alts. The farms in MoP, and now Garrisons in WoD, greatly reduced the need to farm materials, so the gathering professions aren't really needed. Plus, Blizz is going to remove the profession buffs, so professions won't feel so mandatory. I like both ideas, but a side-effect is that an altoholic wouldn't "need" all of their alts for professions in WoD.

I agree with you, but I think your point is symptomatic. To me it seems like they want people to play the same content longer, end of story. But we won't know for sure for a while yet.

[ramjb]

So how are we going to get anywhere when flight paths in WoD may cost 100g+ per hop?

Look what happened to Guild Wars 2 where there are no flying mounts. To get anywhere you have to use portals that cost insane amounts. Rather than grinding gold, most people in Guild Wars 2 "pay for convenience" and convert real money to ingame gold. This enables them to move freely around so they can play with their friends. I know some of my friends who in addition to buying the game spent $200 so they could afford a full set of crafted gear on the AH and have a comfortable buffer to pay for travel.

No-flying just seems like a scumbag way to make us pay box + sub + microtransactions.

[Callace]

So how are we going to get anywhere when flight paths in WoD may cost 100g+ per hop?

Look what happened to Guild Wars 2 where there are no flying mounts. To get anywhere you have to use portals that cost insane amounts. Rather than grinding gold, most people in Guild Wars 2 "pay for convenience" and convert real money to ingame gold. This enables them to move freely around so they can play with their friends. I know some of my friends who in addition to buying the game spent $200 so they could afford a full set of crafted gear on the AH and have a comfortable buffer to pay for travel.

No-flying just seems like a scumbag way to make us pay box + sub + microtransactions.

They tried double-dipping in D3 and players rejected it. My fear is that the same is coming for WoW, especially after the 90 boosts. Why use the sub model or the P2W model when you can make money from both?

[Xada]

The alt debate is wishy washy business, while I do think something should be done to make the alt leveling quicker, but I don't think you should be able to have access to a shortcut, maybe an expensive exp multiplier for those who are at 100 already, I dunno, that's just off the top of my head. If the alt wants to level through quests, I just don't want the player to cheese it.