Dragonriding is destroying exploration

[Pakheth]

Again, if they did Garrisson, they could have done. If others mmo did, i can't fathom how wow could have not

The problem with Garrison is that they started too big and wanted to do too much, in an expansion that failed and was cut in half

Garrisons didn't work like housing does in most other games I've played though. In Garrisons you have a few preset locations where you place preset created buildings. The only thing you could change was which plot they were placed in. That is not the same as free placing of objects in an open map like other games offer. Not even close. You couldn't even move furniture around which is like one of the most basic things games with housing offer.
Other games offer a toned down world builder/designer with certain limitations. Garrisons was a glorified character barber for buildings and that tech isn't really based on a world builder/designer like other games do. If Blizzard is to offer a housing system based on their world builder/designer then the original tools made for the engine need to be simplified substantially, which as Biomega mentions, might not be as easy as you think with old patched engines such a WoW's.

[Zka]

Wait, what? Dragonriding is available immediately and it is actually useful for skipping nonsense forced ground travel? I might buy the expansion after all

[Pakheth]

Wait, what? Dragonriding is available immediately and it is actually useful for skipping nonsense forced ground travel? I might buy the expansion after all

You have to get to the Ruby Pools halfway through the first zone but yes, pretty much immediately available.

[Syegfryed]

Garrisons didn't work like housing does in most other games I've played though. In Garrisons you have a few preset locations where you place preset created buildings. The only thing you could change was which plot they were placed in. That is not the same as free placing of objects in an open map like other games offer. Not even close. You couldn't even move furniture around which is like one of the most basic things games with housing offer.
Other games offer a toned down world builder/designer with certain limitations. Garrisons was a glorified character barber for buildings and that tech isn't really based on a world builder/designer like other games do. If Blizzard is to offer a housing system based on their world builder/designer then the original tools made for the engine need to be simplified substantially, which as Biomega mentions, might not be as easy as you think with old patched engines such a WoW's.

I don't buy that isn't possible, with other mmo doing it, sorry, yeah, Garrison is not the same, but tis close to what people wanted at first.

I bet we can find private servers who haave it

[baskev]

there's parts of zones you can't get to without using flying its not some optional time saver, its the way you're supposed to navagate, and places where you're not supposed to go they have gates already

Indeed.

But my reaction is more on the line of: some like it, some do not. Never will everyone be happy with 1 system in WoW.

and sidenote to your comment. Yes some are made to be a bit timegate. I like that, and its a way to tell a story. It does not stop people from leveling. If they do not like small bit of "time" gating like that...gaming might not be something for them. At least gaming with a story "mode"

[Pakheth]

I don't buy that isn't possible, with other mmo doing it, sorry, yeah, Garrison is not the same, but tis close to what people wanted at first.

I bet we can find private servers who haave it

I want housing as much as you, but I also know WoW is a patchy mess of nightmare code. It took them over a decade to change the size of the standard backpack due it being hard coded into the system. At this point it might be too risky and time-consuming for them cost-wise to make it easy to use.

Of course I hope they do it sometime, and that it will rival the one Wildstar had.

[Coolface330]

Reasons like this, I wouldn't be surprised that Blizzard just ignores all Community Input and just Develops this game based on Pure History and Instinct.

They literally can't listen to the people. People cannot comprehend this. One guy wants dragonriding. The other guy thinks its a bad idea. Someone's gonna get mad. And wether they get mad by listening to one guy or the other - I rather they listen to themself because in that case - they don't ignore one guy - they ignore everyone. :P

[Archy]

Again, if they did Garrisson, they could have done. If others mmo did, i can't fathom how wow could have not

The problem with Garrison is that they started too big and wanted to do too much, in an expansion that failed and was cut in half

You have so little technical knowledge, that you can't even "fathom" why it would be a massive undertaking? Do you know that different games have different game engines? That WoW is built on an inhouse engine, which foundations are 20+ years old?

Garrisons were exactly as intended. The problem was the engine. They never intended to have more customization. Maybe more options in a drop down list but not the level people would like in housing. Having a fixed positions for things, were you can select between a few, is very different from moving things around freely. That was the real restriction.

[infinitemeridian]

It's not "destroying it", dragonriding is great fun. However, I do agree that it makes the world feel small. I'm not sure if that's the dragonriding or the overall area this expac, but the new landmass feels very small compared to previous ones, even SL.

[Thundering]

dragon riding is super boring in generally could just as well have the normal slow flying mount again.

[Unseen Guest]

NO it isn't. There are places you cannot get to without flying.

What places do u need to go to that require flying? I said NEED not WANT.

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Reasons like this, I wouldn't be surprised that Blizzard just ignores all Community Input and just Develops this game based on Pure History and Instinct.

They literally can't listen to the people. People cannot comprehend this. One guy wants dragonriding. The other guy thinks its a bad idea. Someone's gonna get mad. And wether they get mad by listening to one guy or the other - I rather they listen to themself because in that case - they don't ignore one guy - they ignore everyone. :P

This. Sooooooo this.

[Lei]

OP, what is exploration for you exactly? Getting the fog removed from your map and that's it? Exploration means you go into caves, you go into sub zones, valleys, ravines. How flying blocks this exploration?

For me it's the exact opposite: I LOVE that I don't have to run through enemies on ground. I love how I can make it to a rare with flying. I love how I didn't rush to max level but I took my time and completed exploration achieves, pet battles.
I LOVE NOT BEING GROUNDED.

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The zones are "what" big? The size of Northrend zones? Yes, but how does it matter? There's only 4 of them. What I am saying is that Dragonriding could work basically on any continent, let it be Kul'Tiras, Northrend, Pandaria or Draenor - the Dragon Isles are not different to the usual continents in that regard. Every expansion had vast zones with lots of open spaces and zones where this is less the case - it's not different for Dragon Isles. That's why I fail to see how the Dragon Isles were designed with Dragonriding in mind, because they are really not. Verticality is dominating because we can fly from day 1. This could have worked exactly like this in every expansion since WoD if flying would have been enabled from day 1 - there's just no difference here. There's nothing "agree to disagree" when I'm stating the obvious. I don't say you might not enjoy or like it - but all of this could have worked with the usual flying enabled, we really didn't need Dragonriding for it.

I thought this is obvious.
With more zones you usually get mountains surrounding it that divides the zones. Wotlk map design just started to evolve from generally flat land + mountains around it. But those mountains take up space. They function as zone dividers.
Flying with high speed in an enclosed arae that was not built for it is not very good.
We already have memes about dragonriding where people fly with 90000000% flying speed and get stuck, full stop, on a tiny branch.
Also this is meant to be a homage to mop. Valley of the four winds? kun lai?
this is a land where dragons supposed to live and hunt and breed. And where their prey lives (huge mammals like mammooths) that also need space. (Ohnahran plaines). where a nomadic hunting clan lives. nomad = large flat plaines.

Wod zones often got the criticism of being claustrophobicly enclosed, tiny pockets everywhere (mind you without flying) packed with enemies.

[Nyel]

I thought this is obvious.
With more zones you usually get mountains surrounding it that divides the zones. Wotlk map design just started to evolve from generally flat land + mountains around it. But those mountains take up space. They function as zone dividers.
Flying with high speed in an enclosed arae that was not built for it is not very good.
We already have memes about dragonriding where people fly with 90000000% flying speed and get stuck, full stop, on a tiny branch.
Also this is meant to be a homage to mop. Valley of the four winds? kun lai?
this is a land where dragons supposed to live and hunt and breed. And where their prey lives (huge mammals like mammooths) that also need space. (Ohnahran plaines). where a nomadic hunting clan lives. nomad = large flat plaines.

Wod zones often got the criticism of being claustrophobicly enclosed, tiny pockets everywhere (mind you without flying) packed with enemies.

Dragon Isles has claustrophobic (parts) zones, too. That's not something exclusive to previous expansions. Previous expansions had massive free land to roam around, heck Northrend was build with flying in mind as well later on. So I still don't see the arguments that the Dragon Isles were particularly build with Dragonriding in mind. The zones are as all the zones before and the zones that will come after, cookie cutter and Blizzard's standard. Nothing "special" about them (except that they look fantastic).

[Lei]

Dragon Isles has claustrophobic (parts) zones, too. That's not something exclusive to previous expansions. Previous expansions had massive free land to roam around, heck Northrend was build with flying in mind as well later on. So I still don't see the arguments that the Dragon Isles were particularly build with Dragonriding in mind. The zones are as all the zones before and the zones that will come after, cookie cutter and Blizzard's standard. Nothing "special" about them (except that they look fantastic).

"With flying in mind" itself doesn't mean habitating nozdormu and Alex size dragons and their whole families. Also regular flying is what? 420% speed. Dragonriding? Storm peak's "flying in mind" is nowhere near the detail (vertial richness) of Dragonflight zones.
Sure there are mountains in dragonflight but it actually fits the theme. just hear Attenborough telling you how these dragons go up to build nests and stuff in the mountains, but come down to hunt to the plaines. And the young smaller dragons can still fit between the canyons of Taldraszus to hunt or whatever. I think the zones just make sense. They are immersive, this is how I imagine dragons living. Cookie cutter or not, that's another side of the story.
The scale of the world and mountains and complexity since vanilla (onyxia in her lair) has just evolved so much. Just think back to TBC grounds and mountains and how kun lai summit's mount neverest was a thing back then. Now?
The devs prove time and time again that they can acclimate whole zones to ground living or flying. This is no doubt them building for dragonriding. It has it's avatar vibes, it's how to train your dragon vibes. It's not a coincidence.
Cookie cutter for me means: here is surely a cave with a rare in it. Heck yeah, sure it is! Here should be some treasure lying around. Yap, jackpot. But that's a different side.

[Mafic]

I absolutely do know what im talking about. I've been around for a long time

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Does the current blizzard give you the impression that they can design a decent housing system and an expansion? Blizzard is probably the least effective "big" mmo company out there. They'd botch it completely.

And we do not have the right to demand it either. We can only hope... well tbh, wow is the least social mmo i think, housing would be worthless a day after release except for social guilds and rp players.

The social aspect still exists through discord as an example but in game I agree it is not there anymore. But any MMO or MMORPG that can integrate the new social aspects into their game and they will rise in popularity.

[tacoloco]

I think they should have gated it a bit more.

If it was gated more there would be people complaining that it's gated too much. Personally, I'm happy to have it and I'm exploring more now that in previous expansions.

[Jastall]

It's not "destroying it", dragonriding is great fun. However, I do agree that it makes the world feel small. I'm not sure if that's the dragonriding or the overall area this expac, but the new landmass feels very small compared to previous ones, even SL.

Objectively I think people did the math and it's the biggest landmass since Northrend in terms of footprint, if you include Forbidden Reach. I dunno how much of that is made out of stuff like mountains where there's nothing going on, but Dragon Isles are indeed quite big. It's just that we're zooming through them at more than double normal flight speed.

Personally I maybe would have liked more plains and fewer mountains as part of the continent's design, but on the other hand dragonriding makes verticality a non-issue or even a plus in some cases (such as Glyphs being almost always located up high making you look for them there). Whereas for example in Wrath I feel like the only zone that actually used verticality well was Storm Peaks, everything else was just points of interest on the ground surrounded by flatlands devoid of much of anything.

[baskev]

If it was gated more there would be people complaining that it's gated too much. Personally, I'm happy to have it and I'm exploring more now that in previous expansions.

Yup. Again that was the point i was making.

[Syegfryed]

You have so little technical knowledge, that you can't even "fathom" why it would be a massive undertaking?

Because we see examples working in other games, and blizzard is not an indie company.

I want housing as much as you, but I also know WoW is a patchy mess of nightmare code. It took them over a decade to change the size of the standard backpack due it being hard coded into the system. At this point it might be too risky and time-consuming for them cost-wise to make it easy to use.

Of course I hope they do it sometime, and that it will rival the one Wildstar had.

Seems like thy are just lazy.

[Archy]

Because we see examples working in other games, and blizzard is not an indie company.

So you just ignored the part about the different game enignes, huh? Also it's still a *company*. They have to allocate their time and ressources. Putting a lot of effort in a part of the game that isn't its strength, might not be a good decision. In addition to that, there are always problems with housing. It's not a "no brainer" feature.