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

[Hctaz]

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.

That's totally fair to some extent, but I feel like the entire opening part of the reveal where they discussed how important player feedback was to shaping the direction of WoW overall is a little... empty when they refuse to provide us with some more juicy details so we can provide that feedback.

I totally get not wanting to elaborate on content that is Pre-Alpha, but why not at least give us some more information? I think it would be better for them to give the players a general overview of the talent options that they are thinking so that class specialists can break it down and provide dedicated and useful feedback before they get so deep into development that it's too late to make dramatic changes if the community comes up with some absolutely amazing ideas.

[Schizoide]

I totally get not wanting to elaborate on content that is Pre-Alpha, but why not at least give us some more information?

The announcement was indeed very sparse on actual information. My guess is that stuff literally doesn't exist yet. Dragonflight is very far off from release. Like, a full year. They have design goals, and concept art, and the zones are starting to be built, but this cake is still raw batter.

[Aucald]

That's totally fair to some extent, but I feel like the entire opening part of the reveal where they discussed how important player feedback was to shaping the direction of WoW overall is a little... empty when they refuse to provide us with some more juicy details so we can provide that feedback.

I totally get not wanting to elaborate on content that is Pre-Alpha, but why not at least give us some more information? I think it would be better for them to give the players a general overview of the talent options that they are thinking so that class specialists can break it down and provide dedicated and useful feedback before they get so deep into development that it's too late to make dramatic changes if the community comes up with some absolutely amazing ideas.

I'm not saying it's unwise or unnecessary to provide feedback, because I agree that it totally is necessary - but I think it's way too early to make objective statements about content or systems we don't have all the details on, or we don't know enough about because they're unfinished. By all means, state clearly and emphatically what you hope for or envision, but it's probably mistaken and/or useless to go fully critical on the content until we know more.

[Sluvs]

Permitting only dragonriding and not old-style flight has no bearing on whether the new way is fun. It will obviously be less convenient, and WoW is a MMO, and MMOs are all about optimization, so if they allowed both everybody would fly the old way, even if the new mechanic was fun as hell.

And if it is fun, I'm down it. They just need to deliver on that experience, and not replace effortless old-style flight with constant annoying micromanagement of the mount's stamina while having to land every 30 seconds to get attacked by random monsters. Do I have confidence they will get that right? I do not. But, too early to say, lets see.

Pretty much. I am okay with flying with actual gameplay involved, it is something I have always been the advocate for.

This is a videogame. Input from the player and active gameplay are better than pointing at a direction and flying.

[Prenderghast]

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.

Admittedly, whether they give others (such as yourself) regular flying or not wouldn't affect my ability to enjoy dragonriding, so that's fair. But I personally think that flying, as implemented in Burning Crusade, was a mistake that unduly contributes to hyper-efficiency and optimization mindsets. Does that mean that Blizzard should disable the more efficient way for everyone just so that the game feels a little more like an RPG? I don't know. But, if the new dragonriding system introduces mechanics and physics that are engaging without being completely obnoxious, then I hope that all flying mounts will be transitioned to that system.

Of course, we have minimal footage and no gameplay as a reference, so only time will tell whether the system succeeds or not.

[Weezull]

Actually, you need to be able to accumulate enough updraft and speed to be able to traverse obstacles and mobs to reach from A and B when using Dragonflight. Most likely you need to do the mechanic 2-3 or maybe 4-5 times before you reach your destiny and you probably get stuck somewhere with mobs you have to fight. There's no guarantee you can evade them unlike using normal flying.

Sounds fun.

[Iain]

It's just like Zelda. Your dragon is your access-pass. As your dragon learns new moves, so does your access to new regions increases. One place may need a dive, one place is at an altitude that your dragon needs to grow towards and one location has mobs that launch attacks at you that you need to dodge or you'll be dismounted.

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.

Yeah, after pathfinder. But until then your dragon will be your progression-gate.

[Sluvs]

I think this way is better, its okay to disagree though, this is how blizzard is doing it and they said their stance on flying hasn't changed

Flying is the sort of thing that if they could, they would remove from the game.

They can't and now they have been trying for a while to do somthing about it.

[FelPlague]

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.

no, they disable it because people like you exist, who do not want fun but rather optimize the fuck out of stuff and ruin it for everyone.


blizzard refusing to add a vendor who sells all BIS for 1 copper each is not them "disabling this because they know gearing through progress is more of a hassle" it is them making sure people actually have fun.

[Triceron]

To be honest, this is very much what I want to see as a compromise to having flying that is actually integrated into the game, with gameplay mechanics that support the new environment.

This is actually a very good system (on paper) and kudos to Blizzard to taking the initiative on integrating flight into a new expansion environment.

[Stricks]

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. Make it actually fun and interactive. I wouldn't be shocked if they decide to replace current flying with this style if people like it after this xpack.

[druchii5]

Ehhh....I'll reserve judgement until I try it, but not happy about the decision personally because I'm weary that the new flying system will be a mandatory mini-game component in itself that will be required to experience content. I would prefer normal flying from the get-go for this reason alone. Also (more of an RP thing), but I don't want to be forced to only use a Dragon mount on characters. Doesn't quite fit a lot of the races.

[Razorice]

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.

That'd be great. I'd be queuing m+ quicker.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

This actually looks like a fun system. Reminds me of demonic leaping on my goblin glider with nitro boost.

[DarkAmbient]

It totally makes sense that your dragon mounts wouldn't be able to fly in the Dragon Isles.

[Wonderment2]

The new system looks fun. I'd be using it everywhere anyway.

[Hctaz]

I'm not saying it's unwise or unnecessary to provide feedback, because I agree that it totally is necessary - but I think it's way too early to make objective statements about content or systems we don't have all the details on, or we don't know enough about because they're unfinished. By all means, state clearly and emphatically what you hope for or envision, but it's probably mistaken and/or useless to go fully critical on the content until we know more.

Right... I think we're thinking the same thing but we're missing each other? Probably because I'm working from home so I have less time to make my posts make as much sense as I'd like.

We both agree on the fact that it's completely pointless to provide feedback on what we are currently looking at. I actually have said the same thing to many people who are providing criticism on the expansion outside of things we directly know. I have seen people say with 100% certainty that flying will exist the way it currently does and I have also seen people say with 100% certainty that flying is going to be completely overhauled.
It's quite baffling considering we literally have no concrete evidence either way.

What I am saying I'm upset about is the fact that we don't have anything more than vague statements from Blizzard like, "This isn't flying as we know it."
How is it not? That phrase is so open to speculation. I totally get that it's Pre-Alpha content, but I think they should tell us their current state of mind or the way it's currently implemented in said Pre-Alpha so we can provide actual objective feedback.

Same with talent trees. Let us know what kind of abilities you're looking at putting in these things so we can at least give some feedback now before it gets so late into development that it's not really possible to change things based on great feedback that they have gotten.

It would also help stop these speculative debates from popping up as well LOL

- - - Updated - - -

The announcement was indeed very sparse on actual information. My guess is that stuff literally doesn't exist yet. Dragonflight is very far off from release. Like, a full year. They have design goals, and concept art, and the zones are starting to be built, but this cake is still raw batter.

Oh yeah, I totally think that's the case as well.

I just also think that they already have a lot of these ideas down conceptually. There's been too much work put into Dragon Riding at this point to suggest that the ideas have not been fully thought of at least. They might not be fully implemented, but I don't think they would have shown us anything if the paper concept hadn't been fully completed.

So it's frustrating knowing that they probably have specific information that they could provide us on what they are planning to do with talent trees and with Dragon Riding (like if it will be completely different than regular flying and more like gliding with style or if you can fly normally as well), but they don't want to tell us yet.

I'd rather them give us the paper concepts so we can definitively provide real feedback instead of sitting here speculating on how things will work. Mainly because that feedback is probably at its most malleable RIGHT NOW when they're still so far away from finishing the game. By the time things get into a beta, it will probably be too late to dramatically overhaul something if the players provide some absolutely banger ideas that they really agree with.

[Schizoide]

The mere thought of providing design concepts before any implementation for player feedback would give Blizzard hives. They're trying to course-correct, Ion acknowledged that directly, that all their long-held ideas about friction being important, time-gating, borrowed power, etc, need to be reexamined, but I can't imagine they'd go that far.

I expect we'll see an alpha with no NDA starting in the next month or two, and that alpha will give us our first look at how flight is actually implemented in the expansion. That's when feedback will be important, and when we'll see if Ion was just blowing smoke or if they'll actually listen to players.

[Alroxas]

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

This isn't a bad thing.

No it very much is a bad thing because we currently don't know how much interactivity it requires to get from point A to B.

Take the comparison to web-slinging in Spiderman, you can't auto-cruise along. It requires regular user input which means you can't be doing something else while you're web-slinging along.

So to translate, let's say you are in ZM heading to the North Easter part because there's a WQ or rare up there. Because of the inputs required for Dragon Riding, you won't be able to say open up your map to see if there are any other rares or POI that you want to also check out.

Anti-hovering can also be an issue. You can't just hover around above a rare to wait for other people. You would need to either find a close enough place to land (without aggroing other mobs) or do some sort of looping around as you wait.


Sure the idea is nice on paper. Look it's an interactive way you can "fly" from point A to point B... until you realize that it's always on. Which is a big difference from current flight where you can set auto-cruise control or auto-hover while you wait or look up something.



Heck I would even settle for traditional flight in parallel with dragon flying... so that traditional flight still gives you the option to auto-cruise/auto-hover at a generally slower movement (say 300% movement speed) while dragon flying at full potential can boost players up to 600% or higher movement speed provided they are playing the mini-game.

[pahbi]

The only thing I trust Blizz to do is take a idea like this and turn it into the most miserable, repetitive, time gated, horrible experience possible to ensure that not a microgram of fun is had from it.