Can we get one thing straight about the introduction of pathfinder?

[Zalamander]

Pretty much this. Almost all of the game is designed in ways to get you to play longer, so you pay longer.
They just got much more blatant and brazen about the last three or so expansions. They can sit there and do it right in front of your face, and why would they care? People are going to pay them anyways. They know it.

Oh the irony that it made me not even buy the expansion to begin with because there isn't any flying available at max level at launch.

[Tarba]

Also blizz made sure that you had to click on at least two buttons before killing a target. That's an obvious way to slow players and gate content.
Damn you Blizz!

[AlmightyGerkin]

Then why bother posting?
Its a constructive thread.

Constructive? This is just another flying thread that we already have countless of. Nothing constructive in this thread.

[Seranthor]

If you can recall, flying was disabled in WoD because it would break phasing as well as some quest and cinematic triggers. Remember the PTR servers where flight was enabled and how painfully obvious it was that WoD wasn't designed with flight in mind at all?

Player feedback - regarding how great MoP's Timeless Isle content was - simply gave Blizzard a convenient excuse to keep everyone grounded in order to cut corners and push the already-delayed expansion out sooner.

To add to this, Tanaan Jungle was so vastly incomplete at launch, that they placed an impenetrable dome over it and people still found ways of getting inside.

Given how time-poor the development team were at getting content out the door - as Legion's development was already underway - Blizzard had initially decided to disable flight for the entire expansion rather than test and fix everything that flying broke.

I'm tired of reading that pathfinder was introduced to reinvigorate world PvP and exploration, because it wasn't. That's the corporate spiel trying to cover up the fact that disabling flight substantially reduces the amount of testing that needs to be done prior to launch.

Any praise of the pathfinder achievement only emboldens Blizzard's decision to cut corners, which could partially explain why the game is where it's at today.

EDIT: This isn't a thread about pro / anti flight. Too many people repeat the rhetoric that Blizzard did this for the player's benefit, which isn't true, and I'm setting the record straight.

Pointing out a situation that we are all aware of and screeching that its a problem without offering a solution is what my parents would call 'whining'.

You probably should get one thing straight about your whining. It's Blizzard's IP, they can do with it as they see fit. If you, or anyone else, dont like it then you really should let them know in a way that gets your message across... I'd suggest denying them your currency.

[Super Kami Dende]

Wow, I've not seen one of these threads before. I really enjoy how the OP put forward a valid and reasoned argument and so thoroughly researched it that he can label it as Fact.

Truly a wonderous Thread. I'm sure many People will find solace in his findings.

[Sethus]

Flying is extremely detrimental to the game and crybabies just want to instantly move from point A to point B with no effort and time invested. If anything, flying should be completely removed from current content, and flight points should be reduced to 1-2 per zone in order to facilitate more player encounters and interaction.

[FelPlague]

I'm tired of reading that pathfinder was introduced to reinvigorate world PvP and exploration, because it wasn't. That's the corporate spiel trying to cover up the fact that disabling flight substantially reduces the amount of testing that needs to be done prior to launch.

Any praise of the pathfinder achievement only emboldens Blizzard's decision to cut corners, which could partially explain why the game is where it's at today.

what? how does it allow them to do less testing? you do know it is VERY easy to fly in bfa right? and there is no places in BFA you just CANNOT get to...
gliders everywhere
high cliffs to jump from


or just use falling meteor with a glider and your literally flying.


it in no way reduces the amount of testing they need to do my dude.

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No one complained about flight in TBC.
No one complained about flight in WotLK.
No one complained about flight in Cataclysm.
No one complained about flight in MoP.
In WoD, suddenly, flight was a problem..

Flight was never the problem: WoD was..

Actuallty tons of people did complain about flying
all the world pvpers

[TOM_RUS]

Blizzard devs are retarded. Nothing to see here.

[Nalorakk]

No one complained about flight in TBC.
No one complained about flight in WotLK.
No one complained about flight in Cataclysm.
No one complained about flight in MoP.
In WoD, suddenly, flight was a problem..

Flight was never the problem: WoD was..

I complained about flight from WotLK onwards, the zones weren't designed with it in mind and autowalk flying to anywhere i wanted to go was mind numbingly stupid.

But I guess keep living in your bubble.

[FelPlague]

They intended to scrap flying entirely with WoD moving forward by completely breaking their own words that it would be added later.
However a huge backlash occurring when this was obvious made them do a 180 and introduce it along with pathfinder after all.

Yes flying should be added back the same way it always was in all expansions until WoD for gold at max level for the expansion.
Sure one thing doesn't have to exclude the other, pathfinder can remain as well for those that don't have gold and/or actually like the lore.
But forcing a crappy linear story onto those who don't care at all about the lore but loves flying is just utterly crap game design.

Blizzard did not say it would be added later, they said they had NO PLAN to add flying in wod, but then the player base freaked out, and so they added pathfinder

this bullshit lie people keep spewing that they said there would be flying, then suddenly said there WAS NOT going to be flying was made up by a few people angry that they didnt listen when blizz said there was no plan to add flying.

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designing a world to use flying is so much nicer.

instead, corporatist cost cutting has been enabled by these pathetic idiots talking about world pvp.

but, might as well just fucking move on op. nothing's going to change. or maybe it will, when all of these goddamned mongrels fuck off to classic and quit shitting up live.

ANd question, what kind of world is a world "designed around flying"

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You'll note that WoD was also the first time they changed up the way flight worked, however.

Incorrect.

Tbc obtained flying at max level, with 2 versions, one costing far more then the other, it then in wotlk got changed

wotlk it was obtainable at near end of leveling, but there was also a book to then send to alts to get flying right away there was also mounts with special speed

cataclysm then had flying right away, and unlocked flying even in zones not for that expansion

mop then was the first expansion to not allow flying till max level.

then wod had pathfinder which unlocked in final patch

legion in the second major patch


bfa and legion are actuallty the first expansions to have flying the same way.

[MoanaLisa]

A point I have repeatedly made over the years, about flying, about CRZ and other things, is that Blizzard has reasons for things that they explain to their players and they have reasons for things they do not explain to their players. It was very clear for years that many of the top developers/managers for WoW were unhappy that flying had ever been introduced. It was also very clear that the decision on Warlords was made somewhere in the middle of the development process. They made the zones the usual way as 3D spaces and when they decided to not include flying on launch they stopped working on them. When Pathfinder came along, they needed to finish them.

If they had truly committed to no flying and never going back they would have done the zones as 2D spaces (like Silvermoon City). So I think it's unfair to say that they never intended to have flying in Warlords. It's perfectly fair that they wanted to start without it and hoped that not too much of a fuss would be raised. It's also fair to say that designing quests in a 2D environment is a simpler thing than allowing people to fly into objectives and finish the quest without actually doing much of it.

It's not a binary world. Things can be A and B at times. Pathfinder was their compromise with players. I will remain convinced for a very long while yet that they were inviting trouble by having flying mounts in the store, selling a crapload of them and then deciding to remove flying. That's asking for problems and I'm reasonably certain that someone informed the developers that it wasn't, as it were, going to fly.

Nonetheless, it's perfectly OK to wonder what corporate reasons might exist for changes. CRZ was sold as populating zones. It was also something that allowed them to eventually reconfigure how they manage network capacity. Both things are true.

[derpkitteh]

ANd question, what kind of world is a world "designed around flying"

outland, northrend, and cata zones(to an extent)

outland, for the most part, is still one of the best areas in the entire game. if only it could be updated to not have that shitty 2004 quest design.

[FelPlague]

This isn't a thread about pro / anti flight. My post was to point out the reason why we lost flight in the first place.

Too many people repeat the rhetoric that Blizzard did this for the player's benefit, which isn't true.

I'm setting the record straight.

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Thanks for not reading my post!

and your reason, not the reason, is wrong, that is not the reason why, feel free for it to be your opinion, but its not the truth.

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outland, northrend, and cata zones(to an extent)

outland, for the most part, is still one of the best areas in the entire game. if only it could be updated to not have that shitty 2004 quest design.

explain, dont just say "these places" explain how you make a world that is designed around flying.

[Frostyfire14]

A solution I'd like to see to Pathfinder. Let players unlock flying when they do. Stop time gating it behind X amount of patches.

If I played the game more than Joe Smith, and worked towards the flight requirements more than him, I should be able to fly before him.

Simple.


The only thing I'd do is absolutely lock it for the launch patch. But first major content patch should include flying being unlockable.

tl;dr 1st major patch have it unlockable

[Kataroku]

it in no way reduces the amount of testing they need to do my dude.

Except that it did - at least during WoD. Hence why it broke multiple systems on the PTR.

We'd been raiding Siege of Orgrimmar for at least 12 months before WoD was released. Clearly behind schedule.

For sure, afterwards it became a simple on / off switch for Legion and BFA, but I'm focusing on the why flying was disabled during WoD (not what happened in the expansions which followed). It was clearly to get the expansion shipped sooner, but its resurgence in Legion and BFA was more a deliberate design decision (which I don't care about in this discussion).

[derpkitteh]

explain, dont just say "these places" explain how you make a world that is designed around flying.

you have multilayered zones, obviously.

not just some shitty corridor run up a mountain, through some endless waves of mobs meant to just slow you down, either.

you can make zones like nagrand, with floating islands and such(this was not appropriately utilized in bc), where you have to fly up to them and maybe avoid anti-air fire, or flying creatures.

3d movement just gives more options for prettier, and funner, landscapes.

[FelPlague]

Except that it did - at least during WoD. Hence why it broke multiple systems on the PTR.

We'd been raiding Siege of Orgrimmar for at least 12 months before WoD was released. Clearly behind schedule.

For sure, afterwards it became a simple on / off switch for Legion and BFA, but I'm focusing on the why flying was disabled during WoD (not what happened in the expansions which followed).

1. what systems did it break on the PTR?
2. wod was designed with no flying in mind, meaning that its skybox was a horrible mess, and alot of the zones you could not even get up to the top of mountains, no zone since has had this, and they all have sky boxes able to be flown in
3. w....what? Every single fucking exapnsion has a near year long drought, even tbc had a 10 month drought
4. flying was disabled during wod because THEY DID NOT WANT IT and had no plan to add it till the playerbase got mad.

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you have multilayered zones, obviously.

not just some shitty corridor run up a mountain, through some endless waves of mobs meant to just slow you down, either.

you can make zones like nagrand, with floating islands and such(this was not appropriately utilized in bc), where you have to fly up to them and maybe avoid anti-air fire, or flying creatures.

3d movement just gives more options for prettier, and funner, landscapes.

so would some random platforms in the sky not need LESS work then a giant open map?

nagrand.. the place that had floating islands, but hade ALITERALLY NOTHING ON THEM.

lol... avoid anti air fire... you mean that thing literally everyone hated and always pissed people off when you were flying then dropped from the sky?


hmmm 3d movement... i wonder why people hate underwater areas...


please give me an actual good reason what a "zone built around flying" is that somehow is more work, then a normal zone

cause adding a bunch of floating rocks and calling it a day is much easier then havign to make sure players can traverse a zone from the ground.

[Grimbold21]

No one complained about flight in Cataclysm.

Which was great at launch. Farming and selling ore on the night of release was always good money.

[Irian]

OP, there's a common trend - especially on these forums - of Blizzard spewing out completely pants-on-head stupid, thinly veiled bullshit and people using it as an arguing point for years on end.

Want a perfect example? The appear offline or option to turn battle.net off without completely deleting your friends list. This was an arguing point for literal years because of some idiotic shit spewed from a developer once about how they feared it would create some kind of awkward social situation where everyone would appear offline and you'd never know who was around and who wasn't, or some such nonsense.
Spoiler: It didn't do that.
But you'd be shocked how many idiots parroted this argument on these forums for as long as the conversation about it continued.

There will be people who will gobble up their bullshit for years upon end all the way until it changes. Always has, and always will be. You could argue from any angle at how poorly thought out and half-assed the idea of Pathfinder is, or how it actually drives many people away from rejoining the game, knowing they have weeks if not months of grinding to do before they're allowed to actually move about like other players. There will still be people who agree with it because it's what Blizzard wants to do.

[derpkitteh]

please give me an actual good reason what a "zone built around flying" is that somehow is more work, then a normal zone

cause adding a bunch of floating rocks and calling it a day is much easier then havign to make sure players can traverse a zone from the ground.

i don't care how easy it is to make? that's the other person you're talking to.

i'm talking about what's funner. zones catering to it are more fun.