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

[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

[Gehco]

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.

[Hctaz]

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.

My biggest complaint with the expansion reveal has been the lack of definitive information.

There are a lot of hints, but they shied away from giving us actual definitive mechanics. I know a lot of this is in Pre-Alpha, but even just having some examples of the way dragon riding is "different" than flying would be great. They said it would be different, but nothing shown makes it truly different than flying other than you can do some cool things to go faster. Is that all that we're getting, or is height actually limited in some way? They never showed the player actually being forced to lose height or hitting a brick wall where they could no longer go higher due to losing too much speed, so how is this truly different?

If it's not an entirely new thing, why not just explain that they are allowing normal flying mechanics to exist alongside the interactive elements? Like explaining something along the lines of "You can still fly like you currently do but you will be slower than if you chose to interact with the dragon riding elements," if that's how the mechanic will work? Or why not explain that your height is dependent entirely on speed, so you can't fly the same way you did before?

We're in this limbo of Schrodinger's dragon riding at this point.

I have similar complaints with the lack of discussion on what end game activities will look like and the lack of specific info regarding the talent trees. I'd like more info on things so we can give concrete feedback based on what their current design intent is for these things. Even weak statements like, "We're looking at doing this with this class and spec in this way," would be better than nothing. I can sorta decipher their intent based on the images, but we don't have a lot to work with for concrete information on a lot of these things so far. It's a little frustrating.

[Video Games]

And they will still make flying store mounts

[Hctaz]

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.

Some people have talked about this possibly being the testing grounds to shift flight entirely to this new system for the future.

I think I'd enjoy it if this system was expanded to all flying mounts in the future, but that would also probably mean that normal flight would never carry forward.

I guess all I can say is that we'll have to see what exactly the mechanic looks like. Right now you have people who think it will be limited to gliding with your input determining how long you can stay in flight and others who think it will be exactly like regular flying with bonus elements if you interact. Blizzard hasn't really said anything concrete on which way they're taking it, so we really just don't know what it's going to be like.

[Jekyll]

Ya on one mount all the time. That's boring as fuck. Adding game play and making flying more fun is cool but do it to all mounts so i'm not suck on some lame dragon all the time.

cool, just do that while allowing normal flying as an option.

[Schizoide]

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

I do expect us to have the drake mounts while leveling, but flight will be pretty strictly limited. Maybe you can only gain altitude in an updraft, for example, and they're specially placed to continue the story "to cross this chasm, mount up and use the updraft", that sort of thing.

Then at max-level, you progress much further through the skill and eventually unlock enough perks and abilities to stay in the air nearly indefinitely-- so long as you keep moving and paying attention. That's my guess, anyway.

And if that final state with the skill maxed out is fun, then we're in a good spot. Otherwise, it will be a huge disaster. Hope to see testing in beta.

[Jekyll]

its not just gliding, the initial 'take off' takes you substantially high into the air, and its a bit of a minigame to navigate.

I don't need to have a helicopter everywhere I go, this is cooler and a great solution so zones being annoying to navigate on foot.

cool. Allow others to fly normally and you can just slow glide around idc

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I do expect us to have the drake mounts while leveling, but flight will be pretty strictly limited. Maybe you can only gain altitude in an updraft, for example, and they're specially placed to continue the story "to cross this chasm, mount up and use the updraft", that sort of thing.

Then at max-level, you progress much further through the skill and eventually unlock enough perks and abilities to stay in the air nearly indefinitely-- so long as you keep moving and paying attention. That's my guess, anyway.

And if that final state with the skill maxed out is fun, then we're in a good spot. Otherwise, it will be a huge disaster. Hope to see testing in beta.

I could get on this as long as both dragonriding upgrades and normal flying are account wide.

[PixelFox]

Heh, this is basically a combination of the two flying mounts in GuildWars2.

Which honestly is a good thing and should be a lot more fun than simply slogging around on your old-style flying mounts.

[Jekyll]

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.

good news, if they make normal flying available, you don't have too! You can just immerse yourself with ground mounts, or falling slowly i really dc.

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Heh, this is basically a combination of the two flying mounts in GuildWars2.

Which honestly is a good thing and should be a lot more fun than simply slogging around on your old-style flying mounts.

fun is subjective and I have more fun not having to do any mechanics while flying. Falling down slowly with mechanics is not fun for me and I'm here for both option to be available.

[Schizoide]

Heh, this is basically a combination of the two flying mounts in GuildWars2.

Which honestly is a good thing and should be a lot more fun than simply slogging around on your old-style flying mounts.

Well we don't really know that yet but I agree, if it is like GW2, then WoW is copying the right idea.

[Count Zero]

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

This sounds incredibly boring. Why not just ask for there to be no travel time, every quest objective is right in front of you all the time.

[Akta]

We are getting a much more fun way to Explore than just press autorun and going afk with a flying mount. I don’t get the problem.

[FelPlague]

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

you will be able to dragon fly day 1.

[Schizoide]

We are getting a much more fun way to Explore than just press autorun and going afk with a flying mount. I don’t get the problem.

There is no problem, if it's fun. We don't know that it is, yet.

No problem for most of us anyway, some people like Jekyll are flying absolutists and won't be happy unless the old style is also allowed. I'm extremely hardcore pro-flight; I quit back in WoD when they tried to take it away forever and would not have returned to the game had they not relented. But I'm willing to give this the benefit of the doubt, until I see how it actually works in alpha.

(My benefit of the doubt ends once I see how it actually works. If it sucks in alpha, Blizzard doesn't remotely deserve the "it's only beta, wait for release!" treatment.)

[Jekyll]

We are getting a much more fun way to Explore than just press autorun and going afk with a flying mount. I don’t get the problem.

because there was no problem allowing others to fly normality. Just make both options available and you can fall with style for 3 months doing wqs.

[FelPlague]

We are getting a much more fun way to Explore than just press autorun and going afk with a flying mount. I don’t get the problem.

cause people dont want fun, they want efficiency and optimization and spreadsheets.

the wow playerbase more then most other mmo's have brainwashed themselves into no longer caring about fun, and instead worry about even the most minor 0.1% increased effiency.

runescape is prob the only other one i can think of, because that is literaly not fun, its just optimization, thats the point.
ff14 pretty much banned that mindset from the go, which is why its fun, cause if you are not allowed that, then you can actually fucking enjoy stuff instead of having to hunt for that 0.1% increase.

[Jekyll]

There is no problem, if it's fun. We don't know that it is, yet.

No problem for most of us anyway, obviously Jekyll is a flying absolutist and won't be happy unless the old style is also allowed.

I'm not happy unless we have the options. If the falling with style is fun, they would not have disabled flying and made us glide. By disabling normal flying, it shows Blizz knows that the mechanic is a hassle and they needed a way to force people to use it, hence why they are disabling normal flying.

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cause people dont want fun, they want efficiency and optimization and spreadsheets.

the wow playerbase more then most other mmo's have brainwashed themselves into no longer caring about fun, and instead worry about even the most minor 0.1% increased effiency.

runescape is prob the only other one i can think of, because that is literaly not fun, its just optimization, thats the point.
ff14 pretty much banned that mindset from the go, which is why its fun, cause if you are not allowed that, then you can actually fucking enjoy stuff instead of having to hunt for that 0.1% increase.

I find flying as fun and find everytime i have to move I need to interact or not I fall down to mobs everytime I just want to have fun doing wq, I don't find that fun at all.

[Aucald]

My biggest complaint with the expansion reveal has been the lack of definitive information.

There are a lot of hints, but they shied away from giving us actual definitive mechanics. I know a lot of this is in Pre-Alpha, but even just having some examples of the way dragon riding is "different" than flying would be great. They said it would be different, but nothing shown makes it truly different than flying other than you can do some cool things to go faster. Is that all that we're getting, or is height actually limited in some way? They never showed the player actually being forced to lose height or hitting a brick wall where they could no longer go higher due to losing too much speed, so how is this truly different?

If it's not an entirely new thing, why not just explain that they are allowing normal flying mechanics to exist alongside the interactive elements? Like explaining something along the lines of "You can still fly like you currently do but you will be slower than if you chose to interact with the dragon riding elements," if that's how the mechanic will work? Or why not explain that your height is dependent entirely on speed, so you can't fly the same way you did before?

We're in this limbo of Schrodinger's dragon riding at this point.

I have similar complaints with the lack of discussion on what end game activities will look like and the lack of specific info regarding the talent trees. I'd like more info on things so we can give concrete feedback based on what their current design intent is for these things. Even weak statements like, "We're looking at doing this with this class and spec in this way," would be better than nothing. I can sorta decipher their intent based on the images, but we don't have a lot to work with for concrete information on a lot of these things so far. It's a little frustrating.

Well, in this case, I'd say we're pre-Alpha with a lot of stuff that's not yet fully implemented or is still in the drawing board and/or brainstorming stage. So there is going to be a degree of Schroedinger space where we just don't know how it'll pan out until we can get our hands on it during the Alpha/Beta portion of the testing, depending on whether they'll be an NDA of any kind.

Remains to be seen, in other words.

[Araxie]

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.

This 100%.

OP too, If you haven't played GW2, I highly recommend it. Even if you despise the game, ArenaNet has set the undisputed gold standard for MMO mount movement, at least in my opinion (and many others). It's worth checking out just to experience a better mount system. Not only that but Dragon Riding has almost 1:1 style maneuvers, from the looks of the clips we've gotten, from GW2's Griffon and Skyscale mounts. Which isn't a bad thing, just for the record, if someone else did something better, why not take a similar approach?

Dragon Riding looks to be fun and interesting, and probably one of the best compromises there is for flying at the start of an expansion. Not to mention all the customization it looks like you can have. I'd much rather have a unique mount that you can upgrade (horizontal progression) than farming rep for another Pathfinder achievement. Christ, I'd rather eat dirt than do another "content packed" Pathfinder achievement.