No flying at launch just confirmed

[Schizoide]

They tried to make the game closer to vanilla, more immersive, less flying in and ignoring everything making quests or anything else trivial

You're wrong about all that stuff, but that doesn't matter. Even if you were right, it wouldn't matter. I vote with my wallet, and I won't pay to be deceived and manipulated. They lost my trust. Completely.

[SirCowdog]

I agree that they need to make the world more immersive even with flying, but you can count on that never happening again. BC was immersive with flying but not as immersive as no flying vanilla. That being said, there were plenty of reasons to go all across the world in vanilla, and there aren't any reasons anymore.

Perhaps that's because Blizzard has decided to not include those reasons in favor of faster, weaker content that can more easily be churned out instead of spending the effort to create content with more depth (pun intended)? If there are not good reasons to engage with the content, that is a flaw of shallow design, NOT of flight.

I have to wonder... when there's so little to do in the world right now, why do we need flying?.

Sub-standard level design and lack of activities is not an argument against flight. Nor is flight a cause for that lack. I'm surprised people still attempt to associate the two.

I'm in COMPLETE disagreement with how Blizzard has done many things the last few expansions, but I at least respect that they want to build an immersive world for players. Flying completely takes away half the effort they put into creating a world when you can just fly above it and its monsters. I felt that way going from vanilla to BC, and I still feel the same way. It's not about being nostalgic and old school, it's about hindsight and realizing what I loved and enjoyed about the game.

I feel I need to clarify your statement, because its another of the common misconceptions that people keep using as an argument. Flying only detracts from the game when the design attempts to ignore that it exists. Instead of digging in and trying to fight and remove flight whenever possible, blizzard needs to accept that it's a loved part of the game, and incorporate it into the world at every opportunity.

In short: flying only hurts the game when the world is only being built in two dimensions.

People aren't quitting WoW because you can't fly,

Sorry, but yea, they are, and they have.

...they're quitting WoW because it lacks content. What content it does have is unrewarding, repetitive, recycled, easy, and boring. If there was great content, this whole "no flying" thing would be close to irrelevant.

Again I have to disagree. Flight has been a part of the game since its first expansion. You can't simply remove it and expect people to be happy. Excellent content might sway many borderline players, but you would still have a large number of subscribers that would always resent its removal.

And besides, If the goal is to make high quality content, then why cant that high quality and include flight? Blizzard's entire approach to flight since WoD is one of weakness.

[Xandrigity]

People quit wow for a variety of reasons. Flying was kinda the nail in the coffin for many mainly because of the manner of how the message was delivered. Garrisons didn't become as popular and engaging as blizzard had hoped. Over all there wasn't a lot to do besides raiding and garrisons.

[knudnat]

No flight at launch is okay, its not my preference I would much rather be able to fly at max level right away but I understand why they set this system up. What I don't get is why we are going to have to wait till God knows when to get it in the next xpac. Hell we still don't have it in WoD and the content is largely irrelevant at this point. If they are going for 12 month/2 raid development cycle there should be at the launch of 2nd raid. IF there is additional zone(s) opened those should be developed with flight in mind already or flight through a separate achievement in that zone.

[dubious_doomhammer]

You're the one assuming here. I said there is no reason to suspect they mean anything other than exactly what they've said. You're the one assuming that it means something else.

You know what is worse than stagnation? Cutting popular features for no reason to create an expansion with very little content.

You're right, there was logic. All of it financial.

Nothing about wod was more like classic. NOTHING. My immersion was actually shattered by WoD so I'm not even sure what you're going on about at this point.

You're taking "exactly what they said" out of context and making an assumption. I've made no assumptions; they said they liked how mechanism behind unlocking flying works .. they said absolutely nothing about when its coming out for Legion.

Whats 'popular' to you, might not matter to anyone else. Flying hasn't impacted my gameplay whatsoever. Flight paths take minutes, Aviana's feather, engineering thing like feather. Also, if there's such little content, why do you even care if there is no flying? What exactly are you going to fly to if there's no content?

You're also privy to their financial decisions?

Again, your opinion.

[Schizoide]

All we know for sure is it won't be in 7.0. And that isn't OK.

[Deleted]

Flying increases the content I can or will do and the quality of it. I don't understand why blizzard manufactured this issue and insists on continuing it unless they have no plans to ever give us good expansions again.

This allowed the anti-flight sociopaths to spew so much hateful gloating on the rest of the playerbase that the rest finally started hating them back and burning their time oposing the said sociopaths. Time they could use appreciating more fully just how fucked up WoD is as a whole and contributing to the trend of thanking Blizzard for their awesome WoD job with our wallets.

Blizzard said they are happy with how flying went in WoD, given that we don't have it yet it's pretty clear the intend to add it months after the last content patch.

Of course they are. Effectively, flight never happened in WoD, unless you consider the last patch to be really "current" when lots of guilds already killed Archi Mythic. I don't know if any Blizdevs ever spent a minute writing any code specifically to support flying in Draenor but it seems in Legion they won't even have to pretend they are trying.

[Goge]

I'm gonna throw in my 2 cents here.

* Flying should be available at launch.
* Flying should be earned through a meta (much like Draenor Pathfinder)

After exploring and completing the content on my main, i just like the comfort of being able to fly on my main and alts (for faster leveling for example)
If they want it to take 2 months before you can earn flying once you hit level 110, they can implement that through the meta achieve.
(Example given: One of the achievements for the meta is completing a series of weekly quests, like the garrison campaign)

If they take the "It will be added in a random future patch"-route, they can postpone it for however long they please. And we all know how people liked that for WoD.

[Maneo]

All we know for sure is it won't be in 7.0. And that isn't OK.

Agree and you know what else isn't ok.

WoD still doesn't have flight ... what happened to "weeks not months" Par for the course in regards to flight I guess more lies.

Seriously I don't care your stance on the issue, but we as a community need to come together and tell Blizzard that lying and misleading your consumers is not ok.

I know you don't care it doesn't effect you, or you just enjoy getting a response out of people who do care about it ... Here is the thing though they did this w/a loved feature that had been in the game for 8 years. What will be the victim next?

[Jewsco]

Agree and you know what else isn't ok.

WoD still doesn't have flight ... what happened to "weeks not months" Par for the course in regards to flight I guess more lies.

Seriously I don't care your stance on the issue, but we as a community need to come together and tell Blizzard that lying and misleading your consumers is not ok.

I know you don't care it doesn't effect you, or you just enjoy getting a response out of people who do care about it ... Here is the thing though they did this w/a loved feature that had been in the game for 8 years. What will be the victim next?

Exactly what else will they randomly decide they don't want in the game anymore?
Pvp?
Dungeons? Sure seems so with his many we have gotten lately.
Pet battles?
The list could go on and on.
Then add how they handled this decision and you get the debacle that is WoD.

[hyphnos]

I'm gonna throw in my 2 cents here.

* Flying should be available at launch.
* Flying should be earned through a meta (much like Draenor Pathfinder)

After exploring and completing the content on my main, i just like the comfort of being able to fly on my main and alts (for faster leveling for example)
If they want it to take 2 months before you can earn flying once you hit level 110, they can implement that through the meta achieve.
(Example given: One of the achievements for the meta is completing a series of weekly quests, like the garrison campaign)

If they take the "It will be added in a random future patch"-route, they can postpone it for however long they please. And we all know how people liked that for WoD.

It is really amazing to watch people bend over backwards to try to "compromise" and seem reasonable as Blizzard's, that's right, Blizzard's stance of flying has evolved.

When they released flying at launch at Cataclysm and flying in Azeroth, there was no protests just glee over flying.
When they held back flying and didn't allow alts to get a tome in Mists there was a huge amount of protest, then people started with the "oh we're okay with no flying while levelling" when 6 months before that they weren't.
Now WoD comes out and everyone thinks the reasonable thing to say is we're okay with a pathfinder-like achieve, just please don't string us out.

For fuck's sake people, for the entirety of TBC, WOTLK, Cataclysm, and Mists the only requirements to buy fly was reaching a certain level by whatever means you chose yourself and pay the fee.

Look at the number of YEARS those expansions represent. It frankly DOES NOT MATTER if we miss a quest or two in a zone, if we don't check of every box in every zone for a meaningless explore achieve, or if we collect X of their stupid ass treasures so that some artist somewhere doesn't cry because we don't look at some crappy tree/mob/item or whatever.

Flying should be in at launch and trainable like it was for years unless Blizzard gets off it's ass and changes the transit system in the game to something remotely tolerable. It really isn't necessary to compromise or pretend to be reasonable with Blizzard for "discovering" yet another one of their theoretical problems that don't actually exist and to simply insist that what wasn't broke didn't need to be fixed.

[Schizoide]

Flying should be in at launch and trainable like it was for years unless Blizzard gets off it's ass and changes the transit system in the game to something remotely tolerable. It really isn't necessary to compromise or pretend to be reasonable with Blizzard for "discovering" yet another one of their theoretical problems that don't actually exist and to simply insist that what wasn't broke didn't need to be fixed.

We all have different pain thresholds. I'm not happy with Pathfinder, but I'm willing to accept it-- that's what a compromise means. I will continue to subscribe and pay for Legion if they live up to their promises and give us Pathfinder and flying in 7.0. If they delay flying (which is what they are doing), I won't.

Your threshold is just a bit lower. And that's perfectly legit too.

[Dhrizzle]

We all have different pain thresholds. I'm not happy with Pathfinder, but I'm willing to accept it-- that's what a compromise means. I will continue to subscribe and pay for Legion if they live up to their promises and give us Pathfinder and flying in 7.0. If they delay flying (which is what they are doing), I won't.

Your threshold is just a bit lower. And that's perfectly legit too.

Could you link where they promised to put Pathfinder and flight in 7.0? Everything I've seen has suggested it will be coming in 7.X

[Glorious Leader]

We all have different pain thresholds. I'm not happy with Pathfinder, but I'm willing to accept it-- that's what a compromise means. I will continue to subscribe and pay for Legion if they live up to their promises and give us Pathfinder and flying in 7.0. If they delay flying (which is what they are doing), I won't.

Your threshold is just a bit lower. And that's perfectly legit too.

The current plan for flying is not a compromise though. It meets all the developers goals but is still awful for players. Secondly why are we compromising with the developers? Do they need us or do we need them? Is their vision (for lack of a better word) more important than being entertained?

[Demoneq]

The current plan for flying is not a compromise though. It meets all the developers goals but is still awful for players. Secondly why are we compromising with the developers? Do they need us or do we need them? Is their vision (for lack of a better word) more important than being entertained?

Yeah, I agree - "you get flying, once you do (nearly) everything there's to do, without it, first" - well, nope. If they want my money, they can shut up, shove their "vision" where the sun doesn't shine, and do in a manner that's acceptable for me. Or they can sulk that they don't get their way, continue being petty about it, and pretending everything is fine, and those not agreeing and not putting up with their bullshit are just not getting it, "playing the game wrong", and whatnot.

[Schizoide]

Could you link where they promised to put Pathfinder and flight in 7.0? Everything I've seen has suggested it will be coming in 7.X

You people (and yes I mean you people in the pejorative sense) always come back to the literal wording.

"Oh they said we intend to give flying in 6.1! That wasn't a promise!"

Like we're children who can't interpret clear meaning.

Read the Pathfinder achievement. Read the developer's explanation of Pathfinder. Their design goals. Based upon that context, it makes zero sense to delay the achievement and its reward. Doing so is deceitful and manipulative, and I won't be a party to that.

A literal reading of their words, which is obviously where you're heading, leads towards allowing flying several months after the last patch of the expansion. And yes, that is absolutely what they're doing. But that's batshit crazy. My original interpretation makes sense and delaying flying doesn't, due to the very nature of the Pathfinder compromise.

Now, don't get me wrong. I would quit WoW anyway over delaying flying alone. But the developers' deliberately misleading statements, deceit, and subterfuge are what truly enrages me. Their transparent agenda to covertly withhold/delay flying even after they overtly capitulated to the clear will of the players. We won, and they told us they'd do it, and now they're pulling it back. Screw those guys.

[Dhrizzle]

The current plan for flying is not a compromise though. It meets all the developers goals but is still awful for players. Secondly why are we compromising with the developers? Do they need us or do we need them? Is their vision (for lack of a better word) more important than being entertained?

It's terrible for players who want flying to come quicker or easier, and it's terrible for players who want personal flight to be completely absent from the game.

It's a compromise on "no flying at all" that allows players to earn flight for the shear joy of flying whilst ensuring the devs can design content under the assumption it will be tackled from the ground.

[Maneo]

removing flight added nothing to the game but tedium and annoyance.

The problem is that very tedium and annoyance exceeds the fun or rewards to be had in pretty much all of WoDs open world content post level cap.

Blizzard has two options:

1. make the rewards obnoxious so people will be encouraged to do them in spite of the tedium and annoyance
2. Return flying to reduce the tedium and annoyance.

Honest question to you anti flight people.

Do you guys seriously find taking a flight path (pretty much the definition of breaking immersion), hoping on your ground mount riding through an area for the 20th time (that is no different then the first), dealing w/WoWs horrible collision mechanics, terrain inconsistency, and leveling mobs so tightly packed you either have to take a 5 minute detour to avoid or take 5 minutes to kill even though they offer no threat challenge or reward to be compelling game play?

I challenge anyone to provide positive impact removing flight had on PVE servers (majority of the player base).

Combine that w/how Blizzard handled flight in WoD, lying and misleading the player base (we all should be speaking out against this). Makes the future of this game very dire.

I predict that WoW will be down to 3.5 million subs before WoD is finished, unless of course flight returning either stabilizes or increases sub numbers but according to you anti fly boys that can never happen because "No one cares about flying"

Never mind Mr. Chilton said, the only way we would get flying is if a "significant majority wanted it then maybe", or the fact that when they were finally up front and honest "No flight in WoD or any future content" it took them a whole two weeks to change course.

Guess it was you anti fly boys that are the vocal minority huh?

I also predict that Legion w/have the most lackluster launch of any expac, with the smallest increase in subs (8 million total)

I also predict the expac following Legion will be the last significant expac we will see in WoW.

Lastly I predict that years from now when people discuss the death of WoW, WoD is going to be considered that catalyst for it.

[Schizoide]

It's a compromise on "no flying at all" that allows players to earn flight for the shear joy of flying whilst ensuring the devs can design content under the assumption it will be tackled from the ground.

Yes, that was the Pathfinder compromise. That's OK. Very few people are happy with Pathfinder, but most of us accepted it, in that we weren't going to quit over it.

We just want it in 7.0.

[Dhrizzle]

You people (and yes I mean you people in the pejorative sense) always come back to the literal wording.

"Oh they said we intend to give flying in 6.1! That wasn't a promise!"

Like we're children who can't interpret clear meaning.

Read the Pathfinder achievement. Read the developer's explanation of Pathfinder. Their design goals. Based upon that context, it makes zero sense to delay the achievement and its reward. Doing so is deceitful and manipulative, and I won't be a party to that.

A literal reading of their words, which is obviously where you're heading, leads towards allowing flying several months after the last patch of the expansion. And yes, that is absolutely what they're doing. But that's batshit crazy. My original interpretation makes sense and delaying flying doesn't, due to the very nature of the Pathfinder compromise.

Now, don't get me wrong. I would quit WoW anyway over delaying flying alone. But the developers' deliberately misleading statements, deceit, and subterfuge are what truly enrages me. Their transparent agenda to covertly withhold/delay flying even after they overtly capitulated to the clear will of the players. We won, and they told us they'd do it, and now they're pulling it back. Screw those guys.

So basically you're taking what you want to happen and purposefully misinterpreting what the devs say so you can claim they're breaking promises?