Wrath's Flying Model = Perfect

[Rafzor]

Being able to fly is one of the things that really separates WoW from other MMOs. Most MMOs don't have the balls to do the massive amount of development it takes to make a world fully rendered where you can go any where. It is just a real shame that WoW did that and now they don't think it is good any more.

I personally feel like I can experience more of the world and the beauty of the design when I can view it from all angles and see off into the distance. Icecrown is a perfect example. That zone is extremely boring looking if you are grounded the whole time. But if you fly over it and can view the entire thing as a whole, it is quite intimidating and gorgeous. I know that zone was kind of designed for flying but that is a perfect example of how great flying can make the world look.

Plus, who wants to run around at 100% mount speed when we have 310% for flying! Trust me, that will get real old once you have already played through the zones and just want to get from point A to point B.

If you have flown around the maps you would notice that a huge majority of mountains in WoW are nothing else than shapes with some grass / trees / snow on the top, nothing special at all that should make you so super excited.

[Orangetai420]

This made me lulz. It's like comparing Dungeons and Dragons 4E to 1-3.5E. You just can't. 4E was good for beginners and added some flavor, but it took away from the soul of the game.

I am all for grounding people. I love my flying mounts, but we're trying NOT to be noticed right away by the warlords while we build our mini-armies (Garrisons).

+1 for you good sir/madam. I loved 3.5 and hated 4e, convenience and streamlining things is not always a good thing.

[ablib]

Why is this model seemingly being ignored?

There are a lot of Wrath models that are seemingly ignored. The subs have suffered because of it since the end of Wrath.

[alucardtnuoc]

For the most part people forget this. No matter how obvious you make these little points of immersion, if someone doesn't care about it, they're not going to visit it, regardless of how inconvenient and arduous they make travel.

Unless of course it has a reward, but thats a whole different thread.

I've explored every corner of this game, many many times and I've done it all on my flying mount. Explorers are going to explore. Why limit the time it takes to get there?

What if they include things you have to climb up, by making jumps... your "explorers" are just going to take the easy route and fly. If an easier method exists, people will use it, so if they DID include lots of things for people to explore and have to find tricky ways to get up to them... it all goes to waste if you can just hop on a mount and go up it.

I don't care if flying is introduced or never implemented, I will go about playing the game the same way. One day at a time.

[Luko]

Explorers can have their niche but why does it have to be in a way that ruins it for World PvPers? I don't think Ashran can truly be considered "world PvP", its a specific zone designed for PvP and that kind of goes against the idea of what traditional world PvP is all about - spontaneous battles that occur while you are questing/out in the world.

First of all, Wpvp was dying off long before flying mounts came into the picture. You can blame BGs for that. All flying allowed people to do was fly away from an encounter they didn't feel like having.

Anyway, more objectively, the Xpac is launching with no flight so we're going to have to deal with that. It's going to be a drawn out, slow and potentially monotonous patch for many. Once it's rereleased in 6.1 (if it even takes that long) I'm sure we'll also notice a boost in player involvement in the world as well.

You guys that seem to think being achored to the floor is essential for immersion will have had your moment in the sun and afterwards, the rest of us can go about our normal business.

[Slummish]

Remember how crappy and sloppy Azeroth was before they started designing maps with flight in mind? Flight made the game what it is today. Outland would have been nothing more than giant red wastes, bright blue bogs, rocky purple outcroppings and a seething green pit of fel-sludge. The maps required flight. The maps were more interesting because of it. We started in HFP and ended up there again to kill Kazzak (again) long after end-game began. The same goes for Blade's Edge. Without tiered maps requiring flight, most of Blade's Edge's content would be left to humdrum leveling. Instead, we came back to grind with ogres and sky-captains. In WotLK, flight gave us Naxx and Malygos, the Titan hideouts lining the walls of Sholazar, Icecrowns airships and quests along the battlements. In MoP, it provided dragon races, islands in the southern seas and a means of capturing little goat battlepets perched on far-off peaks. Without flight and everything that sort of access brings with it, WoW becomes just another trite and slow-moving (and tiresome) experience. I have a hard time believing anyone with half a brain and a shred of love left for WoW who has any kind of say within the ranks of Blizzard would seriously let the game take that course. WoW depends on the depth and vastness of its worlds to hook new players -- remember the first time you saw SW or Orgrimmar? I do. That sense of grandness and wonder fades and all that's left to replace it for those of us who have been here the whole time are bigger and better maps with more to do and more to see. Killing flight would cripple the game as we've come to know it.

[stabetha]

Explorers can have their niche but why does it have to be in a way that ruins it for World PvPers? I don't think Ashran can truly be considered "world PvP", its a specific zone designed for PvP and that kind of goes against the idea of what traditional world PvP is all about - spontaneous battles that occur while you are questing/out in the world.

flight had very little if anything to do with the downfall of world pvp, instanced pvp is what killed world pvp.it boils down to "I don't like flying and don't have the willpower to not use flying mounts so everyone must enjoy the game the way I do."

[Luko]

flight had very little if anything to do with the downfall of world pvp, instanced pvp is what killed world pvp.it boils down to "I don't like flying and don't have the willpower to not use flying mounts so everyone must enjoy the game the way I do."

Exactly.

convenience and streamlining things is not always a good thing.

Of course, that's common sense, but the same is (again, of course) true about the alternative. Gating something behind a time wall of obligatory slower travel does not make it more immersive or satisfying.

[Rafzor]

Remember how crappy and sloppy Azeroth was before they started designing maps with flight in mind? Flight made the game what it is today. Outland would have been nothing more than giant red wastes, bright blue bogs, rocky purple outcroppings and a seething green pit of fel-sludge. The maps required flight. The maps were more interesting because of it. We started in HFP and ended up there again to kill Kazzak (again) long after end-game began. The same goes for Blade's Edge. Without tiered maps requiring flight, most of Blade's Edge's content would be left to humdrum leveling. Instead, we came back to grind with ogres and sky-captains. In WotLK, flight gave us Naxx and Malygos, the Titan hideouts lining the walls of Sholazar, Icecrowns airships and quests along the battlements. In MoP, it provided dragon races, islands in the southern seas and a means of capturing little goat battlepets perched on far-off peaks. Without flight and everything that sort of access brings with it, WoW becomes just another trite and slow-moving (and tiresome) experience. I have a hard time believing anyone with half a brain and a shred of love left for WoW who has any kind of say within the ranks of Blizzard would seriously let the game take that course. WoW depends on the depth and vastness of its worlds to hook new players -- remember the first time you saw SW or Orgrimmar? I do. That sense of grandness and wonder fades and all that's left to replace it for those of us who have been here the whole time are bigger and better maps with more to do and more to see. Killing flight would cripple the game as we've come to know it.

They didn't really change the zones at all for flying, just destroyed things to make it look different in Azeroth.
Hellfire Peninsula they even ended up doing a teleport up there from the Isle of Quel'Danas, but I feel a tunnel system with lots of hard mobs would have served a purpose same with the Blade's Edge how to get to the upper Crystal parts.
We allready had Naxx without flight in Vanilla, also you could get to Malygos without flying.
Did you really do any real flight combat apart from vehicles in Icecrown so a FP to the ship would still work?
The Sholozar Titan places, one next to wintergrasp can be accessed from Wintergrasp by land mount and the one next to the sea is almost on ground level so I don't think the small flying makes the place so different.
And one cool quest in MoP makes flying worth it ?

How do you think making an super easy way of getting from place to place makes the whole place bigger, because to me when getting over a ledge isn't as simple as going on your flying mount instead of finding a mountain path to get there doesn't make the place bigger at all.
Also I don't think if they need to make every place fully complete it will let them make the places bigger by any means, if anything they will be smaller because needing to put detail in every place instead of the areas 95% of the players will access.

[Hitei]

They didn't really change the zones at all for flying, just destroyed things to make it look different in Azeroth.

No, they absolutely changed tons of terrain.

Most zones pre Cata were surrounded by poorly textured regions, regions that were completely flat, regions with holes and weird terrain errors.

[Spalding]

Maybe they should make it so that you can fly once every 15 minutes for 45 seconds.

[Khroom]

I think it should be no flying until level cap, and then you can just buy it for like 3k gold or something. Leveling up without flying, to me, seems like enough time to see everything.

And MAAAAYBE~~~ later, Blizzard can add flying at 90 so people can level alts faster.

[Mormolyce]

I respectfully disagree, it's more of a design philosophy than anything else.

If they are delaying flying until a content patch that means they want people to see the world from the ground, the quality of the artwork is kind of irrelevant (if that's what you meant, otherwise I apologize for the misunderstanding)

I mean the content, not the art. WoD suspends flying in order to allow its ground-based endgame content to work, much like TI and IoT and MF and Tol Barad and every other endgame zone, the difference being that it'll be available from launch. Until we've seen it it's pointless to speculate about whether or not that's a good design.

Not necessarily, there could be more no-fly zones or they could limit flying to short durations - flight that is long enough to get you to those distant/hard to reach places you want to explore but not long enough that they replace flight paths or allow you to 'auto-run/fly' across the entire continent. (EDIT: and if they went this route who is to say all flight mounts have to be created equal? they could have rare mounts that have more 'stamina' and can fly further distances, opening up new areas to explore)

No, because if you could fly for short durations in TI that would break the whole island. Same deal.

Sure they could set aside a zone for flying, one with no endgame content, but what would be the point of that?

- - - Updated - - -

There are a lot of Wrath models that are seemingly ignored. The subs have suffered because of it since the end of Wrath.

Subs did not grow significantly in Wrath's lifetime, it was a plateau.

[Duravian]

In Wrath of the Lich King, one of your characters had to reach max level to acquire flight. After doing so, a BOA book was purchasable from the flight trainer to learn flight on your alts at level 77 (3 levels below Max at the time, and 9 levels after the minimum requirement for access to Northrend).

**I do NOT remember if this was instilled at launch or if a patch instigated this**

** EDIT added thanks to poster. Flight was available from a trainer on your first max level character as of level 77 - Point of post remains valid despite error**

+It provided a gold sink.

+It made players experience the content from the ground as intended by designers.

+It provided an advantage to Altaholics while not detracting anything from players who do not play alts.

+It would give Blizzard ample time to reasonably have flight available in WoD.

Why is this model seemingly being ignored? It it is a great compromise between several point-of-views regarding flight in WoW.

Uh... OP, they did the same exact thing in MOP. No flight through the 5 levels of Pandaria and then a gold sink flight upgrade that you'd have to purchase on alts as well.

[Shefu]

Not gonna buy WoD until patch 6.1 and if they decide to exclude flying completely from the new expansion, then what can I saw it's been a cool ride up to now.

Flying is ONE of the things that makes WoW special from other MMOs. I didn't collect almost 200 flying mounts just so I won't be able to use them in a new expansion. Screw that.

And yes the model in Wrath was solid. Especially after the book was available for purchase.

[Rafzor]

No, they absolutely changed tons of terrain.

Most zones pre Cata were surrounded by poorly textured regions, regions that were completely flat, regions with holes and weird terrain errors.

Only flat zone I can remember was West of Stonetalon mountains. Otherwise atleast according to my memory it wasn't flat parts but just lots of mountains full of nothing.

[Ickz]

Another flying thread. Yay. Adding flying in the first place was a mistake. Blizzard knows this, other MMO devs know this (which is why flying isn't in many other MMOs). Let's first see how the game feels when designed with ground mounts in mind before begging about being able to hit autorun and go afk from place to place.

[Lupinemancer]

Personally, I see no reason why Flying can't be added at max level after you're already done with most of the zones anyway, like they did in Pandaria.

[Okacz]

No, because if you could fly for short durations in TI that would break the whole island. Same deal.

Makes me wonder. Timeless Isle is a cool place, yeah, but what a pain in the ass is the whole climb to the bridges and to Ordon Sanctuary. Not only is it long, but the amount of lolchargers on the way make it quite annoying.

You can say - hey, it's working as intended. Players have to fight their way up instead of just hopping on a flying mount and getting to their destination. Makes sense - but hey, what about pretty much 90% of the playerbase who just ride past all those enemies, ignoring as many as possible? They are not fighting anything but inconvenience. Myself, I use a - hear hear - flying mount outside of Timeless Isle, fly into the isle and use a glider from there, since it's faster and, well, cooler. And yet, the island still works.

So, how does flying break all that?

[Deleted]

They've always been trying to implement flying in different ways, BC is was when you were high enough level and had loads of gold to be able to buy the learning and the mounts, Wrath it was a BoA book but turned into an alt just being able to learn it with enough gold, Cata you already have the flying it just migrated into flying faster, MoP we had to run everywhere before getting to max level then buying it again. Now for WoD it's the same as MoP, we just don't actually know if they will allow us to fly at the end of it, which frankly I'm fine with.

I actually like running on my ground mounts, it feels more into it; charging into battle on a mighty steed feels great at first the idea of no flying made me sad. But not for reasons you may be thinking of, I was sad because I thought it would be taking away my flying mounts, but they are making it so flying mounts can run around on the ground but can't take off. So I am happy with that frankly, I hate the idea of making them feel neglected :<