You can't fly in the Dragon Isles. You can only glide and fall down with style.

[UndedoKoleda]

i mean this is literally flying day 1 but ok.

According to an interview on a french website:

!Google Translated!

"In the current version, flying with your drake is limited. It is an element that you can improve by unlocking elements (speed). The ability to fly from any place to another in Dragonflight will require completing certain prerequisites. Blizzard continues to believe that the best way to experience expansion content is from the ground and not by allowing players to fly from point to point on day one."

Maybe there is some context lost in the translation, but it seems like we won't be able to fly while leveling.

[huth]

Similarly to why some games don’t need easy modes; it goes against the developers vision for the content. If proper flying is an option, many will ignore dragon riding completely and never experience it the way Blizzard literally designed the continent for.

Dragonriding is proper flying. The old TBC mode is not. Which kinda is the problem.

Though it appears Dragonriding will actually be faster when you can use it to full effect. Anti-Grav hover mode is just more accurate.

[FelPlague]

According to an interview on a french website:

!Google Translated!

"In the current version, flying with your drake is limited. It is an element that you can improve by unlocking elements (speed). The ability to fly from any place to another in Dragonflight will require completing certain prerequisites. Blizzard continues to believe that the best way to experience expansion content is from the ground and not by allowing players to fly from point to point on day one."

Maybe there is some context lost in the translation, but it seems like we won't be able to fly while leveling.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/wo.../1100-6502576/

"Flying in the Dragon Isles will not require a Pathfinder achievement."

https://www.ign.com/videos/world-of-...ight-expansion

"As you level up your Dragon-riding you will be able to reach certain locations and do things you couldn't do with normal flying.
They wanted to create a sense of aspiration for unlocking areas you can see but couldn't reach with simple flying."

[Lochton]

Blizzard has confirmed that you will only be able to "fly" in the Dragon Isles using the new Dragonriding system. Your broader mount collection will act only as ground mounts in the new zones.

In an interview with AusGamers, Jeremy Feasel spoke more about the new system, including details about how it will allow you to travel faster than existing mount speeds and an idea about how the system will work in practice.


https://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3639901

https://www.wowhead.com/news/flying-...-dragon-326774

There is luckily, still time to have that changed. All they have to do it permit both, but of course, keep benefits for Dragonriding.

[huth]

According to an interview on a french website:

!Google Translated!

"In the current version, flying with your drake is limited. It is an element that you can improve by unlocking elements (speed). The ability to fly from any place to another in Dragonflight will require completing certain prerequisites. Blizzard continues to believe that the best way to experience expansion content is from the ground and not by allowing players to fly from point to point on day one."

Maybe there is some context lost in the translation, but it seems like we won't be able to fly while leveling.

I understand it more as "you won't be able to fly from any place to any other place". So initially you might only be able to fly short distances to places at the same or lower elevation, while later you can rapidly swoop up a mountain and stuff and fly far enough that the distance limit is largely moot.

[Aucald]

Based on what I pieced together from the deep dive and later materials, Dragonflight doesn't have Pathfinder and normal flying is unlocked from day 1, with the important caveat being that normal flying won't give you access to some areas of the Isles, which is reliant on the new Dragonriding system and its various unlocks. So you can fly initially, but that still won't give you 100% access to all of the Dragon Isles, because it's somewhat dependent on mastering Dragonriding.

[m4Zzo928]

Based on what I pieced together from the deep dive and later materials, Dragonflight doesn't have Pathfinder and normal flying is unlocked from day 1, with the important caveat being that normal flying won't give you access to some areas of the Isles, which is reliant on the new Dragonriding system and its various unlocks. So you can fly initially, but that still won't give you 100% access to all of the Dragon Isles, because it's somewhat dependent on mastering Dragonriding.

This is how I understand it as well based off of Ion's comments.

[Rendark]

Based on what I pieced together from the deep dive and later materials, Dragonflight doesn't have Pathfinder and normal flying is unlocked from day 1, with the important caveat being that normal flying won't give you access to some areas of the Isles, which is reliant on the new Dragonriding system and its various unlocks. So you can fly initially, but that still won't give you 100% access to all of the Dragon Isles, because it's somewhat dependent on mastering Dragonriding.

If this is how it is then that would be great.

[melodramocracy]

As I've said in the past, flying should have always been a bit more.. interesting than it is now. Having to deal with gusts, rain, limited visibility, other flying mobs that might knock you off, etc, should have been a thing, but I do understand that the tech probably wasn't there in the past.

Having said that, the forums will be complaining up a storm about how tedious this all is about 2 months after release.

[ChairmanKaga]

Flying in WoW is just swimming through the air, other games have done it much better. The dragonriding system looks like what flying always should have been.

Hopefully it is fun and they expand it to the rest of the game.

[DarkAmbient]

Blizzard has confirmed that you will only be able to "fly" in the Dragon Isles using the new Dragonriding system. Your broader mount collection will act only as ground mounts in the new zones.

In an interview with AusGamers, Jeremy Feasel spoke more about the new system, including details about how it will allow you to travel faster than existing mount speeds and an idea about how the system will work in practice.


https://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3639901

Nowhere in this article does it say flying mounts will be restricted to ground use only in the new zones. Where is the quote?

[Kalarm]

What scares me a bit is how will it all work. If it's like a glider, will it be hard to go higher than the altitude you started at? Will there be "updraft spots" you need to catch? I still remember some of those puzzles in legion and BFA where you had to catch some... erm... spots to fly up or down and reach destination and some of them were... not hard but sometimes you were too perfect and that made it so you landed too far in front of the next one. Like I had so many situations where it was a cool idea but the collision detection and "error compensation" were not too good so it ended up being a pain more than anything. So I'm very curious how and what they will do. It has potential and TBH, there's fun in starting the expansion and then reaching max level and seeing how much you improved since the start. Or even skillwise, first character you levelled you had all those shortcomings and then second character you know how to maximize your flight and it goes way easier even though you're still quite limited.

It's kinda sad TBH, more and more I feel that whatever great idea blizzard could have will always be hindered by the engine they are using. They improved it through the years but it's still at the core the same engine from 20 years ago so of course they got tons of limitations. Maybe dragonflight will be really well made, we'll see... But I do get a chuckle out of them hyping it with things like "Yeah when you reach certain threshold, you'll have effects on the screen!!!!" like yeah ok, I always thought those kinda suck and yeah I know, the engine can't do motion blur but still, it's kinda like buying a car and they tell you they put some fans to make you feel like you're in a convertible.

[Prenderghast]

I'm optimistic about the dragonriding feature, although it obviously all depends on whether the mechanics are actually fun or not.

I enjoy the convenience of the current flying mount system, but I do think it's mind-numbingly boring and kind of kills the RPG elements of in-game travel. As opposed to quality-of-life and convenience additions for *systems* (i.e. covenants, renown, etc.) which I fully support, I think that shooting for peak convenience with traveling is counterproductive to what an RPG should be. There's a flight master system in place for long-distance traveling, and any remaining distance can be closed via ground mount or a dragonriding-esque system without issue.

[lordjust]

From the interviews so far it works like this. You hit spacebar and your dragon flaps its wings to gain altitude and then glides and gains velocity and speed and you can use your momentum to gain greateer height to gain more speed and so on. So you need to to hit spacebar every now and then to flap your wings and use your mouse to fly parables to gain momentum and you can upgrade your dragon so it gains more height with every flap or more velocity when diving or higher top speed and you need those upgrades to reach some places.

We'll have to see how good it works with an un-upgraded dragon and how long it takes to upgrade it. If I need to spam spacebar all the time to stay in the air it would be awful.

[Hctaz]

thing to point out it speaks about the upgrade tree for it allowing you to reach even greater heights. maybe at the start you will be very limited, but its obvious from some of the footage they showed, that you will be able to go VERY high no problem after you spend some time exploring.

Right, which is fine. But my point is that, from the way the worded it, you will have to put in more effort into going higher. You might need to climb up a bit before you can use your skills to gain enough speed to get higher up.
So people who are wanting it to just be flying are upset about it because you can hit a brick wall.
I don't think you'd fall out of the sky entirely though like people are suggesting, but we don't have enough info to know about that yet.

[Sorrowseer]

If I can get from A - B without having to traverse obstacles and mobs I don't care.

Fucking legend speaks the truth.

[Relapses]

Based on what I pieced together from the deep dive and later materials, Dragonflight doesn't have Pathfinder and normal flying is unlocked from day 1, with the important caveat being that normal flying won't give you access to some areas of the Isles, which is reliant on the new Dragonriding system and its various unlocks. So you can fly initially, but that still won't give you 100% access to all of the Dragon Isles, because it's somewhat dependent on mastering Dragonriding.

This should be edited into the OP since a lot of people (including the OP) are misinterpreting how flying is going to work in this expansion.

[Hctaz]

There is luckily, still time to have that changed. All they have to do it permit both, but of course, keep benefits for Dragonriding.

See!? I knew it wouldn't be more than a day before I went back to not liking your opinion LOL

But I still respect it.

I, personally, think that flying should be restricted in general, and it doesn't sound like dragonriding is going to be pure flying.

From the way it sounds, you will probably only have a maximum height based on speed and potentially even lose height if you don't maintain speed.
I'd rather have restricted flight with interactivity rather than even allowing flight to exist as it currently does. But that's my personal opinion. I think the typical flight style takes too much away from the world.
It will be nice (in my opinion) if this works like an enhanced version of the way gliding worked in Legion. I loved needing to find somewhere high up to get a big glide from, but this sounds like you will have a lot more agency over how fast you can go and how long you can maintain that height instead of merely experiencing slow fall with the ability to steer like gliding has been previously. There's also some height you can gain base line so you don't need to worry about going around small hills. It looks like you can still reach those areas by just holding the space bar, but they haven't shown off enough of the mechanic to know if we can just hold space bar to go up infinitely or if there's a limit.

I need more information.

[Amnaught]

I'd say this much was obvious with the developers in the announcement being very careful not to refer to the feature as traditional flying. I'm mostly flying agnostic but I still see this an improvement over the simple ground mounts we've been restricted to at the beginning of every expansion since WoD.

They werent careful at all, they literally said yesterday that "youll be able to fly from day one", implying traditional flying

[Lochton]

See!? I knew it wouldn't be more than a day before I went back to not liking your opinion LOL

But I still respect it.

I, personally, think that flying should be restricted in general, and it doesn't sound like dragonriding is going to be pure flying.

From the way it sounds, you will probably only have a maximum height based on speed and potentially even lose height if you don't maintain speed.
I'd rather have restricted flight with interactivity rather than even allowing flight to exist as it currently does. But that's my personal opinion. I think the typical flight style takes too much away from the world.
It will be nice (in my opinion) if this works like an enhanced version of the way gliding worked in Legion. I loved needing to find somewhere high up to get a big glide from, but this sounds like you will have a lot more agency over how fast you can go and how long you can maintain that height instead of merely experiencing slow fall with the ability to steer like gliding has been previously. There's also some height you can gain base line so you don't need to worry about going around small hills. It looks like you can still reach those areas by just holding the space bar, but they haven't shown off enough of the mechanic to know if we can just hold space bar to go up infinitely or if there's a limit.

I need more information.

Hey. I am an opportunist. I like the idea of Dragonriding, but I want it wider than the isles, just like I want flight to be everywhere. I don't mind if the bloody dragons have benefits on the isle, as long as I can take 'em off and fly somewhere else, just like I don't mind the damn lizards having benefits on the isle if I can just select a different mount now and then.