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

[Dractier]

You have to explain it because you clearly don't know what you're talking about. The "whole new area" doesn't "disappear" because of flying (which is an insane thing to say considering they have pseudo-flying which they think will ENHANCE the experience). What's an "MMO atmosphere" and why does it disappear just because you can fly? You're using vague terms in ways that imply everyone knows them and their implications, but that's just a way of sidestepping the responsibility of actually explaining yourself.

I’m not being vague you just aren’t grasping extremely simple concepts. Like it’s actually surprising how you don’t pick this stuff up.

If you are flying over and not interacting with 90% of the content on the ground (the hills the obstacles, the mobs, the pvp) you are skipping over it. Sure it doesn’t ‘get rid of it’ but I never said this content is literally deleted, it just gets skipped over and blizzard doesn’t want players doing that. You need to tell me where your disconnect is with this very simple, very elementary statement.

So how does that answer my question? Would it not be better to give people who don't like this the option to not do it, if it means people who DO like it can still do it? And if giving that option to people means everyone takes the skip - doesn't that sort of mean there ISN'T as much value in all of this as you think? You're again just throwing empty phrases, gross generalizations, and vague assumptions - how flying somehow "skips all of this" (as opposed to, say, focusing on the coolest parts), how exploration not only has intrinsic value to everyone but is also completely invalidated by flying (neither of which is self-evident in any way), or how flying somehow means you can't/won't "soak up all the new content" (clearly not true since they're giving people pseudo-flying and portray that as a good thing). And, most egregiously of all, that somehow this being an mmo means that flying "skips over the game" when all it does it affect ONE tiny aspect of the massive genre complex that is MMORPGs.

I literally answered this question right here in case you incapable of reading

Blizzard designed their new expansion for you to explore and for you to travel around and soak up all the new content they are giving you. Just because you don’t value this as content doesn’t mean it still isn’t content. And they clearly don’t WANT people just getting on flying mounts and skipping all of this. They want you to jump into the world and explore it.

And what makes this even better is that this is quite literally their words not mine. It’s not that they never thought of the option that maybe some players want to skip it, they straight up said THEY DONT WANT ANYONE TO SKIP IT. So with that thought in mind, they don’t care if you would rather do X, they are going to make sure you do Y.

Let me really dumb this down for you.

There’s a new game called elden ring right? It notorious for being really difficult. Well what you’re basically asking is for the devs to put in a dragon at the beginning of the game so you can just fly over areas you want to skip. It’s not that they aren’t adding this dragon in the game because they haven’t considered your little feelings about how you would rather just fly, they don’t add it because they want you to EXPLORE THE GAME. It doesn’t matter to them if that isn’t important to you.

That's another strawman. I care about the world, and I think exploration is cool. Where I disagree is that flying somehow completely takes those away. I in fact VEHEMENTLY disagree with it, to the point where I think flying MAKES THOSE EXPERIENCES BETTER, not worse.

Again, you used strawman incorrectly. You seriously need to Google that phrase before you continue to misuse it.

Let me make this very simple for you. Blizzard doesn’t care if you don’t believe it takes away from the game. The fact of the matter is BLIZZARD thinks it takes away from that aspect of the game which is why they turn it off at the start.

[Biomega]

Like it’s actually surprising how you don’t pick this stuff up.

What's actually surprising is that you stubbornly refuse to explain yourself in specific ways. You throw out vague terms and generalizations, and then go "lmao bruh HOW ARE YOU NOT GETTING IT I can't even" when I ask for clarification.

You know what that tells me? You have no clue what you're actually saying. You have some preconceived, generalized notion of things that's super obvious to you, but as soon as someone puts their finger down and says "okay, but why, exactly?" you can't give an answer that isn't in the same platitudinal vein as your initial waffle.

it just gets skipped over and blizzard doesn’t want players doing that.

That's my point. "Blizzard doesn't want it" is a VERY different argument. They're not concerned with fun per se; they see fun as a function of player engagement, and it matters only if and as far as it facilitates that. Dragonriding may well be fun (to a degree; or it may drop off quickly it's hard to predict) but their primary goal here isn't maximizing fun, it's maximizing engagement - which includes, by their own admission, gating movement.

I literally answered this question right here in case you incapable of reading

This is baffling to me. Why would you say that when it's such an obvious lie? All you do is say "This is what Blizzard thinks about it". It says NOTHING about the core of my question, which is how does me being able to fly take away your fun of not flying. You haven't even ACKNOWLEDGED that, let alone answered it. All you can resort to is "But Blizzard said...", which is zero actual engagement with the issue at hand.

It’s not that they never thought of the option that maybe some players want to skip it, they straight up said THEY DONT WANT ANYONE TO SKIP IT.

And my point is, that's not about fun, it's purely about engagement. In fact, it invalidates some arguments of fun, because if things WERE actually fun in and of themselves, then people would do them even if given the option to skip them; but that's not what's happening. So clearly the value of losing those things can't be as big as people make it out to be, since the choice players make when given a choice demonstrates a CLEAR preference for skipping.

There’s a new game called elden ring right? It notorious for being really difficult. Well what you’re basically asking is for the devs to put in a dragon at the beginning of the game so you can just fly over areas you want to skip.

That's a false analogy, because that game has no content outside of the actual world. WoW not only does have that, but in fact you could argue that MOST of its content DOESN'T involve the world. That's like saying "so you want a racing game that just ports you to the finish line, do you?" which is equally inane because the goal in those games is the race itself, not the destination; whereas in WoW, it's practically ALL about the destination, as the in-between is largely meaningless filler people skip anyway; flying is just a more convenient way of skipping it. Nobody in WoW goes "damn I wanted to do this quest but now I've spent an hour killing these trash mobs in the mountains that I stumbled upon, man I really explored something today" - that hasn't been a reality since 2005, and is nowhere near what the game is like in the present day.

That's part of the problem, really. The devs cling to this nostalgia-colored vision of WoW's original conception, but things have moved on. Not just in the game, but in gaming in general. Filler content is an anachronism.

Let me make this very simple for you. Blizzard doesn’t care if you don’t believe it takes away from the game. The fact of the matter is BLIZZARD thinks it takes away from that aspect of the game which is why they turn it off at the start.

I mean that's pretty trivially true, but the disagreement is a philosophical one. My whole POINT is that I don't think it takes away, but rather that it adds; obviously Blizzard disagrees, THAT IS WHY I AM MAKING THAT POINT.

[rmh1985]

All it comes down to for me is that I have more fun when flying is available, and have less fun and get burned out really fast when it's not. The only recent expac I didn't get totally burned out from and frustrated with was Legion, which I waited until flying was available to play. BFA - burned out horribly, stayed solely to raid. SL, burned out horribly again and didn't enjoy raiding enough to stay. I hate ground travel in WoW and I just want to enjoy what's at my destination. I learned my lesson. If I ever play DF, it will be sometime in the future after normal flying is added. I'm done wasting time and money on a design choice that brings me nothing but misery.

[Dractier]

What's actually surprising is that you stubbornly refuse to explain yourself in specific ways. You throw out vague terms and generalizations, and then go "lmao bruh HOW ARE YOU NOT GETTING IT I can't even" when I ask for clarification.

Oh sweetheart…

If you are flying over and not interacting with 90% of the content on the ground (the hills the obstacles, the mobs, the pvp)

Do you need someone to read what I’m writing to you for you? I’m giving you very specific examples of what I mean. And not that I even need to. If I say flying skips over content, 99.999% of players will know what I’m talking about. You really need to keep up in this conversation if you want to get your point across I can’t be spending this whole time explaining 3rd grades thoughts to you.

You know what that tells me? You have no clue what you're actually saying. You have some preconceived, generalized notion of things that's super obvious to you, but as soon as someone puts their finger down and says "okay, but why, exactly?" you can't give an answer that isn't in the same platitudinal vein as your initial waffle.

My whole, entire post, was me explaining to you the “why exactly”. I gave you the reasons why blizzard made these decisions. And I even went into specifics by mentioning things like world and mobs and the actually environment you are flying over. But for some reason even though it’s spelled out for you so simply, you still can’t understand it. Honey I can only explain things so simply, if I had to understand it for you I would, you need to put in a little work yourself.

That's my point. "Blizzard doesn't want it" is a VERY different argument. They're not concerned with fun per se; they see fun as a function of player engagement, and it matters only if and as far as it facilitates that. Dragonriding may well be fun (to a degree; or it may drop off quickly it's hard to predict) but their primary goal here isn't maximizing fun, it's maximizing engagement - which includes, by their own admission, gating movement.

See this is an issue, this is where someone like you enjoys/doesn’t enjoy something so your narcissistic brain thinks that’s how everyone thinks.

Blizzards job, as a developer of an mmo game, is attempt to make the game fun. Now at the very core of the mmo genre, is exploration. This isn’t a debate. This is what it is. I do NOT care about how you feel or think about this statement. So when they make an mmo exploration has to be one of the main drives and make it fun for people. And in their mind flying over things isn’t fun. No matter how hard you disagree with this won’t change that fact sweetie.

This is baffling to me. Why would you say that when it's such an obvious lie? All you do is say "This is what Blizzard thinks about it". It says NOTHING about the core of my question, which is how does me being able to fly take away your fun of not flying. You haven't even ACKNOWLEDGED that, let alone answered it. All you can resort to is "But Blizzard said...", which is zero actual engagement with the issue at hand.

Okay here I’ll say this. Again. This time slowly.

It. Doesn’t. Take. Away. From. My. Experience.

But. That. Doesn’t. Matter. Because. Blizzard. Wants. YOU. To. Have. The. Same. Experience. As. Me. Which. Doesn’t. Involve. Flying.

See you’re asking a dumb question, and it tried to be a bro and explain to you why that question doesn’t matter. But you choose to bang your head against a wall that isn’t getting you anywhere so I guess you have fun with that.

And my point is, that's not about fun….

Blah blah blah not reading the rest of that paragraph. That’s not fun… TO YOU. YOU don’t think it’s fun. Blizzard thinks making players explore and see the game is fun. That’s the only thing that matters here.

Idk how else to say this. NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK IS FUN. OKKKAAYYYYY??!!

That's a false analogy, because that game has no content outside of the actual world. WoW not only does have that, but in fact you could argue that MOST of its content DOESN'T involve the world. That's like saying "so you want a racing game that just ports you to the finish line, do you?" which is equally inane because the goal in those games is the race itself, not the destination; whereas in WoW, it's practically ALL about the destination, as the in-between is largely meaningless filler people skip anyway; flying is just a more convenient way of skipping it. Nobody in WoW goes "damn I wanted to do this quest but now I've spent an hour killing these trash mobs in the mountains that I stumbled upon, man I really explored something today" - that hasn't been a reality since 2005, and is nowhere near what the game is like in the present day.

That’s not a false analogy at all. Elden ring has a ton of content. It has collecting. It has leveling. It has boss fights and mini boss fights. It has pvp. It has coop play. The world is only a part of that, just like wow.

It was a perfect analogy I just don’t think you’re firing on enough cylinders to pick it up.

That's part of the problem, really. The devs cling to this nostalgia-colored vision of WoW's original conception, but things have moved on. Not just in the game, but in gaming in general. Filler content is an anachronism.

Lol ok

I mean that's pretty trivially true, but the disagreement is a philosophical one. My whole POINT is that I don't think it takes away, but rather that it adds; obviously Blizzard disagrees, THAT IS WHY I AM MAKING THAT POINT.

Ok well let me make this point very very very clear to you. The game isn’t designed around your opinion. No one cares about your opinion but you. So quit throwing it out there when it comes to stupid questions like this.

“OMG WHY DID BLIZZARD DO THIS THING”

“Because they think it’s fun”

“BUT THATS NOT MY OPINION OF FUN”

“Ok well that’s a lot of peoples idea of fun so….”

“BUT ITS NOT MINE”

“I’m sorry who cares?”

[Biomega]

Idk how else to say this. NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK IS FUN. OKKKAAYYYYY??!!

Well, at last there's a genuine statement from you.

If you'd just had this immature outburst from the start, you could have saved me a lot of time. I thought we were having a conversation. Turns out I was wrong.

Glad we could clear this up.

[Dractier]

Well, at last there's a genuine statement from you.

If you'd just had this immature outburst from the start, you could have saved me a lot of time. I thought we were having a conversation. Turns out I was wrong.

Glad we could clear this up.

Immature outburst lol ok. Well you weren’t quite grasping a conversation above a 5th grade level so I figured I would try to dumb it down for you a bit so you could understand.

Glad you finally understood.

[huth]

Leave it to a fanboy to think a limitation of an existing feature is considered an upgrade.

So now they're taking away regular flying that got you everywhere you wanted and give us a crappy baseline glide system that can be improved with dragonriding skill to gain more altitude and speed? Basically first nerfing you and letting you earn back what was stolen? Yeah, that isn't an upgrade, it's a downgrade.

You're not getting Flying at the start either way. "gliding" is still more than you would have otherwise. So no, it's still an upgrade. And imo they should just never bring flying to DF at all and should have stood their ground in WoD.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Do you have a source on that, please?

Dragonriding
Flight as it has existed is swimming through the air. No momentum, physics, or gravity.
Flying has the potential to shrink the world, eliminate danger, reduce exploration.
Long term, convivence is paramount, so the team let people unlock flying after some amount of time in the expansion.
At launch, this time around they wanted to do something new and exciting, rather than just being stuck on the ground.
In the first or second leveling zone, first day of the expansion, you gain the trust of a dragon companion that you can call upon. They initially have limited stamina and experience.
There is a stamina bar that is depleted through gaining stamina or doing moves.
Standard flying is still the long term plan for Dragonflight.
The Dragonriding we have seen in the videos so far will be fairly early in the experience. It won't start out lame and have you work to make it feel good.
TBD how you'll advance your Dragonriding skill. They don't want to tie it to one specific type of content, as that is limiting.
Long term, allowing Dragonriding outside of Dragon Isles is a possibility. In the near term, this is an expansion specific feature, taking place in an environment built for it. Player feedback is key.

They LITERALLY said it during the interview about how flying is going to work

[Schizoide]

Yes they did, several days after I made that post.

[THEORACLE64]

We don't know that yet. It COULD be fun, but how fun it is, and how long that fun lasts if it's built into something you need to do repeatedly and all the time (movement) is unclear.

We DO know their stated design goal isn't fun - it's gating. Not only by delaying "hard" flying, but also by delaying the "soft" flying of Dragonriding. That's a philosophy I simply disagree with on a fundamental level. Convenience should not be the target of "content"; CONTENT should be content, and convenience should simply facilitate it. I think flying vastly improves the enjoyment of content by cutting down on the non-content in between, and if exploration is something you're worried about then just design it with flying in mind - or make it fun on its own merit. I've had people bring up things like jumping puzzles before and how flying invalidates them as an element of "fun" - which makes zero sense to me, because you can still do those puzzles if flying exists by simply choosing not to use flying to circumvent them; and if people don't want to do that, then maybe just maybe these puzzles weren't actually all that fun to begin with, and they should have made something else.

Seeing how flying is 100% not fun and was never designed to be, anything that's a new take on it is going to be more fun.

[Schizoide]

Not at all. Flying is just transportation, it's infinitely convenient and controllable. It isn't fun or not fun, it's just how you get from A to B. Let me give you an example to illustrate.

If you ever played the Necrolord covenant, they have weekly quests where you have to mount up on one of your abominations to drag an item back to the base. This abomination (Flytrap, I think his name was) can run substantially faster than ground mounts, you take no fall damage, and you can mine and herb while riding him too. You can use him wherever and whenever you want, not just on that quest. So what's the catch? Well, you need to hit a button every 7 seconds or he slows down to a walk.

How often did you see people riding Flytrap, even before flight was introduced? Outside of those doing that weekly quest which forces you to use him, I never, ever, EVER, saw anyone riding around on their abomination. So there's a directly analogous example where you can introduce gameplay and even offer substantial advantages to encourage players to use it, but they still pass due to the micromanagement required.

If people choose to use dragonflying after normal flying is allowed, THAT is the measure by which it should be judged. If that happens, Blizzard absolutely knocked it out of the park. An unqualified win. If not, even if the moment to moment gameplay is entertaining to many, it's just another gimmicky vehicle thing.

[Biomega]

Seeing how flying is 100% not fun and was never designed to be, anything that's a new take on it is going to be more fun.

Walking isn't fun either. Not everything has to be FUN. Movement is a facilitator of fun, to make the demand (even implicitly) that it should be content in and of itself is pretty silly.

I don't like to make predictions, but I wouldn't be surprised if 2 months in people say "okay dragon riding was cool at first but now I have to do it ALL THE TIME to get anywhere and it's pissing me off, I just want to turn on my mount and afk fly somewhere to do my quests".

[Schizoide]

Yes, that is an example of how Blizzard can completely fail in implementing this new feature. Of course some people will say that regardless, but hopefully most of us find it it fun on a moment-to-moment basis while not being too annoying and micromanagement-heavy. We shall see.

[huth]

Not at all. Flying is just transportation, it's infinitely convenient and controllable. It isn't fun or not fun, it's just how you get from A to B. Let me give you an example to illustrate.

In WoW. In other games, it's different. This is not a good argument to leave it that way.

Flytrap's problem was that other Abominations make for better combat companions, and as Blizzard has observed, players will always choose throughput over utility.

[rebecca191]

I think standard flying is kinda fun. at least the first few times you are seeing an area from the air. Eventually that fades away I guess, but at least it remains tolerable, unlike ground travel which I find intolerable at max level. Since they've already said they are adding regular flying later, I'll probably just do what I did with Legion and get DF shortly before flying is added so I can complete whatever stupid boring task they've added to unlock it. I already gave no flying at max level a fair try across multiple expansions and I know it's not for me. Unless the expac totally flops, then I'll skip it altogether, but assuming it gets at least a decent reception, that is my plan. It's especially bad for me because they've already said the continent will be bigger than Northrend, which had standard flying at 78. I don't find the choices of either ground travel or a mini game acceptable travel options for a zone that size.

[Void Priest]

If they're going to copy Guild Wars 2 mounts, I wish they'd just go all in and not just the new dragon mount gimmick. Guild Wars 2 style mounts are well worth basing a mount system on, and world design at that, but if it's restricted to a single mount, and a single new expansion, I worry it'll end up like so many new WoW features that get abandoned and ignored. It's one of those things that, I believe, will only work if they go all in. Given how many mounts they like to add to the game though? It just may not be possible. So I'm back to worrying this will just be another abandoned feature.

Mostly this just seems like another reason not to let us use the flying mounts we've earned, and re-earned, and re-earned, and re-earned the right to use for so many years that re-earning it again just seems like a pointless headache, and no sane person ever wants a headache.

[Glorious Leader]

How about we add the ability to teleport across the map to any location in an instant? You can still fly, so it doesn’t hurt you. Just fly instead if you want to. /s

Oh oh I know, how about we add a gear vendor for raids? You can still farm the raid for the gear if you want, so it doesn’t hurt you. If you feel forced to buy gear from the vendor then you just lack self control. /S

See how stupid that sounds? Wouldn’t be surprised if people here didn’t…

I’m not saying flying shouldn’t be added again, but some of the arguments for it here are incredibly asinine.

I know this is sarcasm but I don't think you understand that even if the choice of flying or not is illusory its still technically a choice. Heavy handed developers literally denying flight until some stupid arbitrary point in the expansion is the ABSENCE of choice entirely. if you're going to sit and point out how much of an illusion it is you have to recognize that simple fact as well.

[Usernameforforums]

My main fear isnt flying itself but the verticality of the zones. If height is the main way we fly/glide then we are going to have to a lot of unnecessary climbing. This sounds like a nightmare for gatherers.

[DechCJC]

I know this is sarcasm but I don't think you understand that even if the choice of flying or not is illusory its still technically a choice. Heavy handed developers literally denying flight until some stupid arbitrary point in the expansion is the ABSENCE of choice entirely. if you're going to sit and point out how much of an illusion it is you have to recognize that simple fact as well.

Nono, I know it’s a choice, everything we do is a choice. If I wanted to crawl on the ground like a slug to work every day I could, it would be ridiculously impractical, but it’s still my choice to make.

While flying exists, dragon riding/ground transport is like crawling like a slug. It becomes far less appealing.

I actually agree that flying should be in the game relatively early after exploring the isles fully, I don’t think there should be a need for rep requirements or waiting for 10.x, though I’ll admit it doesn’t bother me either way as much as others. However, this is only if dragon flying remains a competitive alternative to flying and isn’t just a weaker version of transportation. We’ll see.

I just think that having flying and dragon riding available at the get go is a terrible idea. People here constantly point out that I can just not use the flying; but as I tried to point out in my previous post, it’s not that simple.

The only situation where I would allow both at once on release day is if dragon riding is vastly superior to normal flying in every way if used properly; But that’s unlikely considering there’s an upgrade system. However, If it were the case then I would be fine with this as there are clear benefits to both. Flying is slow and easy, dragon riding is fast but harder to handle. That’s a fun choice where flying doesn’t just overshadow dragon riding, but you can bet that currently at release, it would.

[Jekyll]

Yeah but those are just DH glide though none of them ‘fly’ it’s just a glide.

Why are you so confident at being incorrect? That's probably one of the most wrong statements on this forum, my God.

- - - Updated - - -

Walking isn't fun either. Not everything has to be FUN. Movement is a facilitator of fun, to make the demand (even implicitly) that it should be content in and of itself is pretty silly.

I don't like to make predictions, but I wouldn't be surprised if 2 months in people say "okay dragon riding was cool at first but now I have to do it ALL THE TIME to get anywhere and it's pissing me off, I just want to turn on my mount and afk fly somewhere to do my quests".

oh nooo, how dare you don't want to spend your time struggling trying to get from A to B for the Nth time in 3 months just to do dailies. Apparently wasting your time travelling to do content so you can actually do other stuff is fun and immersion and must be forced to other people