Petition: Remove Flying Mounts - Let Azeroth Re-grow!

[Zoma]

Immersion is more than just visuals. Flying mounts definitely make the entirely world incredibly safe, for example. Nothing immersive about flying around in a world full of winged beasts with absolutely zero risk.

Which goes back to the option of ground mounts. If you need an element of danger to feel immersed, use ground mounts. Others see it as annoying, and can skip it.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

removing them would make the game better by a huge amount. but the lazies will never allow it to happen.

So we're lazies if we disagree. Ad homieum doesn't belong in discussions.

[Rickarus]

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? None of my arguments have been bad. You want to accuse them of being so, because once you've established that the arguments are bad, you won't even have to refute them. And we both know that you can't really do that, as I'm right in what I say. Granted, some of my sentences suffer from poor structure as I've been trying frantically to keep up with the discussion and never really gave each response enough time, but the arguments are rock solid.

The community is at a place right now where it's lost track of what really makes WoW an interesting place. I'm fine with that, because a year or two from now it'll have changed. It always does. One year back, the general attitude of the forum was that of flying mounts being one of the main causes for the decline of WoW, particularly in the wake of Cataclysm when we felt the full effect of being able to fly everywhere. Now, with Pandaria and Blizzard's policy of no flying until the content has been experienced once in full, people are happy about flying mounts. This is a clear indication that while flying can be good to save in on time during those long and repetitive hours of leveling alts, had said leveling experience been made more varied in the first place, the issue would never arise.

So again, I have to say that my interest in this is for the good of the game primarily, not myself. I wanted to show Blizzard that the community supports them in their second thoughts regarding flying mounts, and that they ought to spend more time making presence-inducing content instead of disconnecting us from the world. But I clearly didn't realise just how many players don't care for immersion at all.

So, EVERY player MUST be on the ground to be immersed in a world. That's what you're saying? It is utterly impossible for me to feel immersed in the world of a game while flying? Being FORCED into combat with pointless mobs or World PvP - especially ganking - (on PvP servers) that gets in the way of me enjoying the actual world, or doing the things that I actually want to do, are IMMERSING me in the world, as opposed to taking my attention away from the actual world?

I'm sorry, I guess I didn't realize, thank you for showing me the error of my ways in feeling immersed in Azeroth while being on my flying mount. I see now that your opinion is obviously fact.

</sarcasm>

[Eats Compost]

Funny thing about that.... there is risk. Maybe way more then Cata *Cough* but there is still risk it's just not as much. We have to remember, don't add so much risk that it pushes people away. Honestly flying mounts on PVP servers make the world safe. Can't say for non PVP servers.

I have no idea what risk you're talking about. Parking yourself less than 40 yards from the ground?

Also, I wasn't talking exclusively about PvP there. There are all kinds of hostile species/races in the lore that can fly and tear up the skies - the most relevant in MoP would have to be Mantid - but while we're up in the sky, we encounter zilch, and that conflict of lore and environment disrupts immersion. I think the only thing that attacked me in the air in MoP was one of the Four Winds hawks.

[Deleted]

While I would have preferred WoW without flying mounts at all, it is too late to remove them fully now. I support some sort of restrictions every now and then, though.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Tells you alot about players now, Azeroth is dead man, we wont ever ressurect it, so we might aswell just let it rot.

.....It's not dead, that's hyperbole.

[Ringthane]

Exactly this.
Whiners have already succeeded by making blizzard forbid flying in Pandaria until 90. And frankly I've seen reviews of MoP which scolded the game for that.
To answer OP: yes, I recall, I remember etc. And I hated that.
Flying mounts are the best feature ever introduced in WoW.

Yes, the whiners influenced a multimillion dollar game company. Not the designers, not the creative team, not the story people. The whiners.

Life must be very simple in your world.

And no, don't remove it. If you don't want to fly, don't fly. Sometimes I don't, just to have the experience.

[Immitis]

im just gonna say this.

Pandoras box has already been opened once you open it you cant shut it again

[Aeluron Lightsong]

im just gonna say this.

Pandoras box has already been opened once you open it you cant shut it again

This isn't a Pandora's box. Discussing lore is a Pandora's box ^_^

[Meteoric]

The existence of flying mounts doesn't prevent you from exploring stuff on the ground. And most of the time, I'm trying to get somewhere, not go on a sightseeing tour.

The problem isn't that flying mounts exist. The problem is that flying mounts were tacked onto a game after years of designing it from the ground up on the assumption that nobody could fly. There's no danger in the air, there are no obstacles in the air, there's nothing to explore in the air, you can't use any abilities while mounted, you have perfect maneuverability, there's nothing really to do while flying except go from point A to point B as fast as possible. Sadly, it's much too late to change this now.

There are games where flight enriches the game, rather than taking away from it (the various superhero MMOs are especially good at this, IMO). Unfortunately, Warcraft is not such a game. :/ But neither would it be improved by removing flying mounts.

[Ethes]

While removing flying would be the best thing for the game overall, I recognise that there's almost no way to remove them without damaging the game and community. The convenience is too great, and the emotional attachment too high at this point.

The truth is that flying mounts are a parasite on the game, burrowed too deep to simply be removed without killing the host. So Blizzard do what they can to contain it: they remove flying mounts from us for as long as they are able. With every new expansion we lose the ability to fly for as long as possible, and even in the single expansion which did have flying for the levelling content, we still lost them in the two areas Blizzard expected us to spend the majority of our level capped time in (Tol Barad and the Molten Front).

Flying mounts are terrible. Awful. One of the worst design decisions Blizzard could ever have made. And yet, they cannot be removed. A real shame, because we are missing out on so much due to their existence. So sorry, this petition won't work, nor would I want it to. If this petition somehow forced Blizzard to remove flying mounts, then they'd do it before they were ready to make the change. It would severely harm the game.

Maybe Blizzard have a solution waiting in the wings. I hope that maybe one day we can lose our flying mounts entirely. The game can only be improved if it happened in the right way.

Yush, basically what I was thinking about the matter. If these mounts would've never been implemented, now that would be great. But we can't step back in time to do so and removing them from the game as it is will very likely destroy a great part of the community and the game!

[lockedout]

They aren't going to remove it, no matter how many people petition it. Just drop the subject already and move on with your life.

That being said, if you want immersion why don't you petition to remove the map? Or remove mounts? Or taxi? Hell, I don't think mail should be instant so put it on a 5-6 days time frame at least. Each AH hub should have different things on it. No more quest tracker, or just have the quest be floating words above the quest giver so we should write it down or forget what we have to do.

I can go on and on about things I think should change, but I don't create threads about them.

That's how the game used to be.....

[theWocky]

@OP... tip... fly lower to the ground...

edit: yes, i did prefer wow before flying mounts and really happy that Rift doesn't have them, but even if I did go back now, would feel odd not having them.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

@OP... tip... fly lower to the ground...

edit: yes, i did prefer wow before flying mounts and really happy that Rift doesn't have them, but even if I did go back now, would feel odd not having them.

With the way continents are designed Flying mounts are needed way more due to how big things are, mountains etc etc.

[Seolla]

I don't get it, you don't lose the option to explore on ground with flying mount available do you? If you really enjoy that, why don't you just hop on your ground mount and do it?

[Fawxey]

I have a RIFT, GW2 and SWTOR account as well as WoW.

OP Dude I'm going from point A to B to kill shit, i really don't give a fuck if it's on a mount/flying mount or on foot. In no way has being ground mounted in RIFT/SWTOR felt any better/worse to flying in WoW, it's just a fast way to travel. Nor does walking in GW2 bother me.

Shit we could be as lame as GW2 though and teleport all over the world. (*cough* Instance Wars 2, Instances of the Old Republic *cough*)
All the instancing in GW2 and SWTOR ruined my immersion far more than any flying mount has.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Its a thousand times different from the era before flying mounts. Where I actually had fun in Azeroth. With the addition of flying all the tricks and things players did to have fun were destroyed in an instant.

It may be a little exaggurated but its what my gaming experience has turned into.

Yeah it's very exaggerated I suggest not doing that. All the tricks and things players did is relative to individual so... I don't think so.

[Fawxey]

Yeah it's very exaggerated I suggest not doing that. All the tricks and things players did is relative to individual so... I don't think so.

Just putting it out here too, those "tricks" he was mentioning i am assuming were things like wall climbing tricks. Which were intentionally fixed by blizzard in patch 2.4 well before flying ever existed in Azeroth.

It was never flying that broke those tricks, it was blizzard intentionally trying to stop them by patching up textures etc so you couldn't climb them.

[UnknownShadows00]

What are you, slow? Just throw away your own flying mounts, you fat fuckin' sack of shit. Why do people like you always have to ruin the experience of other people just because you feel it'll "improve the experience for the general public" when clearly, we enjoy the novelty and convenience. If you dislike it, you know what the fuck to do. Now please, leave the board and enjoy the goddamn game, Jesus fuckin' Christ baskets!

Infracted: Don't insult other posters. - ML

[Theendgamelv3]

What ho all,

This is a poll, which might turn into a genuine petition to show Blizzard if enough people respond 'Yes'.

Do you remember exploring the ancient ruins of the Eastern Kingdoms, or the vast plains of Kalimdor?

Can you recall the feeling of crossing one of the little rivers of Elwynn on your way to Westfall?

Remember when trees and mountains looked impressive where they towered far above?

Remember not having everything beautiful on Azeroth look like low-res miniatures in the distance, while you hover idly far above?

Do you think flying mounts should stay or go?
Discuss!




Edit: removed a large chunk of text, as the part above speaks for itself.

I sure do remember all those things.....lvling 1-60 where there isn't any flying. I don't support the removal of choice.