AT World of Warcraft Thread (Warlords, Where do you play, General BS and all that)

[Gryz]

Anyone of you playing The Witcher 3 ? Guess not.

But if you were. Imagine you had a flying mount. From the start. You just fly from question mark to quest-marker to question mark to quest-marker. Nice frigging game that would be.

The only reason to re-introduce flying would be that "things go faster". For the OCD gimme gimme hoarding crowd. For the original target customers, the fantasy RPG people who want to play games together in a huge, imaginary, immersive world, flying wouldn't add a thing.

When Blizzard creates a new expansion pack, a huge amount of their budget goes into designing and building the world. With flying, that world becomes irrelevant. Everything is just landing-targets on a huge 2D plane where you can land with your helicopter. Flying actually removes the world. So in other words, flying destroys all the budget that Blizzard had assigned to building the world. They destroyed their own property. It's only natural that they want to protect their effort.

If you don't want to see that, fine. If you want your "gimme gimme gimme, Blizzard always gave me my gimme gimme gimme, why not now. Momma !!!, you're out of luck. Blizzard will not go back and make the same mistake again. Flying is gone.

 

[artemicion]

And you can still walk from point A to point B today as dragons and other creatures fly overhead. What is preventing you from doing that?

Nothing? I don't care if they implemented flying at this point. I experienced the content on foot/ground mount, and I liked it. I'm not against them implementing flying at this point, I'm just saying I understand their rationale for removing flying. If they said going forward, that flying would be allowed but content would be designed to be enjoyed best without flying, I wouldn't mind either.

 

[Fingolfin269]

If you don't want to see that, fine. If you want your "gimme gimme gimme, Blizzard always gave me my gimme gimme gimme, why not now. Momma !!!, you're out of luck. Blizzard will not go back and make the same mistake again. Flying is gone.

Why do gamers tend to resort to terms like 'crying' and 'momma' when someone has a dissenting opinion? It really undermines your post.

And you don't know today's Blizzard if you think they always stick to a decision. If they do or don't go back it's not because of you or your feelings it's because of their bottom line.

Like I said before, this is more about a shrinking subscriber base and the need to control the only thing they have left in their power: cost. One way to cut cost is by cutting down on development. They can spin it however they want but by not allowing flying it means they don't have to focus on all of that content in the sky, just the content you need to see when flying their predetermined routes. Eventually they will likely cut cost by removing that as well. The gnomes will develop a teleporter that takes a minute to charge up and you'll then be at your destination. No need to program for any content from a top-down vantage point then.

 

[artemicion]

Why do gamers tend to resort to terms like 'crying' and 'momma' when someone has a dissenting opinion? It really undermines your post.

And you don't know today's Blizzard if you think they always stick to a decision. If they do or don't go back it's not because of you or your feelings it's because of their bottom line.

Like I said before, this is more about a shrinking subscriber base and the need to control the only thing they have left in their power: cost. One way to cut cost is by cutting down on development. They can spin it however they want but by not allowing flying it means they don't have to focus on all of that content in the sky, just the content you need to see when flying their predetermined routes. Eventually they will likely cut cost by removing that as well. The gnomes will develop a teleporter that takes a minute to charge up and you'll then be at your destination. No need to program for any content from a top-down vantage point then.

Your argument makes no sense in light of the fact that Aviana's Feather exists in the game and allows all players to view any portion of WoD from the sky as if they are flying.

They did not save any costs taking away flying from the game.

 

[Gryz]

Why do gamers tend to resort to terms like 'crying' and 'momma' when someone has a dissenting opinion? It really undermines your post.

Because this argument is getting so old, I can't find good words to describe it for a thousandth's time. And in this specific case, I know I am 100% correct. The pro-flyers just want their easymode, time-saving feature. Because they care about rewards. And not about gameplay.

I agree that Blizzard has the goal of reducing development costs very high on their priorities list. Much higher than the goal of developing fun content. But adding flying will not lower development costs. In fact, it's much harder to design (different) content that is still fun, immersive and sometimes even challenging, when you can do that with a flying mount.

 

[Ns1]

And not about gameplay.

The alternative view is: walking from point A to point B is not gameplay.

This has been around since the UO days - nobody's got time to walk, need to slay mo liches.

 

[Jax Omen]

Your argument makes no sense in light of the fact that Aviana's Feather exists in the game and allows all players to view any portion of WoD from the sky as if they are flying.

They did not save any costs taking away flying from the game.

This. Everything in WoD still had to be built to be "flying capable". Even Ashran (you can Aviana's over a significant portion of it before you get booted out).

Calling this a "cost saving" measure is disingenuous at best, FUD at worst.

 

[artemicion]

Really, if you want to knock Blizzard for being lazy and cutting costs, the giant elephant in the room, IMO, is the fact that they are super lazy in terms of developing unique and different experiences for Alliance vs. Horde.

I like WoW a lot, even WoD, but my biggest gripe would be Blizzard's lazy approach at creating a distinct Horde experience vs. Alliance experience. 95% of the quests are the same. The dungeons are the same. The raids are the same. Heck, the story has been lazy-mode for each expansion since vanilla, with Blizzard creating some contrived reason for both Horde and Alliance to fight the same raid boss, be it Illidan, Lich King, Deathwing, Garrosh, or Gul'Dan. Alliance and Horde have been allies in more combat scenarios than the United States and Canada. They should be BFF by now.

Is it too much to ask for an expansion that's truly Horde versus Alliance, with unique experiences for both sides? Alliance dungeons where you fight Horde enemies and vice versa? Horde raids where you fight Alliance bosses? Asymmetric PVE raids, like if you are Alliance you are attacking a Horde city with a Horde raid boss at the end, or if you are Horde you are defending the same Horde city from an Alliance attack?

 

[Aikouka]

Is it too much to ask for an expansion that's truly Horde versus Alliance, with unique experiences for both sides? Alliance dungeons where you fight Horde enemies and vice versa? Horde raids where you fight Alliance bosses? Asymmetric PVE raids, like if you are Alliance you are attacking a Horde city with a Horde raid boss at the end, or if you are Horde you are defending the same Horde city from an Alliance attack?

One word... balance.

Also, PVP. Play it. I doubt that most players really care about Horde vs. Alliance. Hell, the whole reason why I have two accounts is because I used it to play both factions on a PVP server.

 

[Phoenix86]

The alternative view is: walking from point A to point B is not gameplay.

It can be, as much as it isn't.

Walking from A to B to C to get to your quest objective at D is pretty boring.

Fighting your way into a town, then it's keep, then your objective is more engaging than flying past all that "boring stuff" and killing 1-2 mobs for the objective.

Some of the better quests (opinion) are a set or string of several quests that have you go in and slowly clear out an area with a purpose. Go to the farmhouse for one quest, the abandoned inn for another, main keep for a 3rd/4th with the areas between loaded with mobs and a couple pats to keep you on your toes.

Think Admiral Taylor questline. Now imagine that with flying.

The down side of forced ground travel is zone like spires, large mountains that you may or may not be able to cross. If you can it's not likely faster than just going around because it's not a straight line by any means. So you go around, and that sucks.

But hey, Gryz has it 100% figured out, so there can't be anything wrong with ground mounts only.

None of any of that matters if Blizzard won't stop making one stop shops where everyone stays. Then wraps it in an instance, so no one even sees each other in the same one stop shop.

 

[ViperXX]

Crying on these and other forums about what we think is broken with the game is a waste of time. I think there needs to be a developer take a player to lunch program. That way they can hear what's wrong with the game from the source.

 

[Sixguns]

I dont understand why Gryz is the biggest voice for Blizzard and wow since you dont play the game anymore.

As for me, no flying sucks and I really think that I am done with the game until it comes back. All I ever do is garrison stuff because the thought of having to use a ground mount to go do anything is lame.

I am totally ok with no flying until lvl cap. By that time Ive seen all the zones so let me fly. And who is flying so high up that they arent seeing the world? I would also be a few feet off so I am getting the same view that I would be if on the ground.

 

[cuafpr]

Anyone of you playing The Witcher 3 ? Guess not.

But if you were. Imagine you had a flying mount. From the start. You just fly from question mark to quest-marker to question mark to quest-marker. Nice frigging game that would be.

The only reason to re-introduce flying would be that "things go faster". For the OCD gimme gimme hoarding crowd. For the original target customers, the fantasy RPG people who want to play games together in a huge, imaginary, immersive world, flying wouldn't add a thing.

When Blizzard creates a new expansion pack, a huge amount of their budget goes into designing and building the world. With flying, that world becomes irrelevant. Everything is just landing-targets on a huge 2D plane where you can land with your helicopter. Flying actually removes the world. So in other words, flying destroys all the budget that Blizzard had assigned to building the world. They destroyed their own property. It's only natural that they want to protect their effort.

If you don't want to see that, fine. If you want your "gimme gimme gimme, Blizzard always gave me my gimme gimme gimme, why not now. Momma !!!, you're out of luck. Blizzard will not go back and make the same mistake again. Flying is gone.

except you would be about 100% wrong for me, flying added to immersion and the RPG aspects of the game, taking that out has destroyed what little was left.

Also the only reason flying allows quest mobs to be skip able is weak quest design.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Because this argument is getting so old, I can't find good words to describe it for a thousandth's time. And in this specific case, I know I am 100% correct. The pro-flyers just want their easymode, time-saving feature. Because they care about rewards. And not about gameplay.

Looks like I may be wrong about the cost saving deal here if there is away to still see the entire world using another item. I don't play that much at all anymore so actually had no idea about that item.

But I really don't get this argument that flying is easy mode relative to riding a horse. If you're going from A to B what is the difference other than saving time? Why would anyone not want to save time traveling from A to B???

 

[Harabec]

The only reason to re-introduce flying would be that "things go faster". For the OCD gimme gimme hoarding crowd. For the original target customers, the fantasy RPG people who want to play games together in a huge, imaginary, immersive world, flying wouldn't add a thing.

If you look at it like that, then anything other that being immobile is time-saving.
Flying is too fast?
Why not epic riding?
Why not running?
Should players just be able to walk slowly? You could buy a "Chinese-walker" token from Blizzard to take your character somewhere else when you're at work.

 

[KidNiki1]

And in this specific case, I know I am 100% correct. The pro-flyers just want their easymode, time-saving feature. Because they care about rewards. And not about gameplay.

except you are NOT 100% correct. i am pro-flying, specifically because i LOVE to explore this game. every bit of it. i love the zones, i love the skies. i absolutely love flying over certain areas of the game. i love to see if i can land on that little bit of the tippiest toppiest mountain top to take a screenshot of myself. i like to fly straight up and switch out of flight form and see how close i can get to the ground and go into flight form without dying. there is no game reward for that.

there was no game reward when i flew to the south of AQ a few weeks ago and found a cave i had never seen before and went and explored it. there was no game reward when i then flew to the top of the hills in that area and took a screenshot of my character with the most amazing looking sky and clouds behind me.

there is no game reward to my druid being able to skim the top of lakes and streams, making my feathers cause ripples in the water as i pass.

these things aren't saving me time. these things aren't making anything easy mode for me. these things allow me to live in my fantasy world and do something i could never do in the real world... fly.

soaring above the land in wow is one of the most serene and amazing feelings i have ever gotten from a game. buzzing my way through trees and over mountains is a freedom i will never have any other way but this game.


so YOU ARE WRONG about why some people want flying and i am SO TIRED of you acting like you speak for everyone. YOU DON'T. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME OR HOW I PLAY THIS GAME. stop speaking as though you do. it is rude and arrogant.

i love flying in wow because i love flying. and i will never be able to do that here on earth.

and now, sadly, i won't be able to in future expansions of the one game i have spent the most time and money on.

and that makes me sad.

 

[artemicion]

One word... balance.

Also, PVP. Play it. I doubt that most players really care about Horde vs. Alliance. Hell, the whole reason why I have two accounts is because I used it to play both factions on a PVP server.

Balance is a easy scapegoat with an easy fix. Make the Horde exclusive dungeons and the Alliance exclusive dungeons drop the same loot. Though it'd be nice if they designed separate skins for the Alliance gear and the Horde gear even if they have the same stats.

I'm sure you're right about most players not caring about Horde vs. Alliance. I'm not going to threaten to quit the game or start an Internet forum sh!t-storm over my personal preferences unlike some WoW players... It's just my suggestion going forward that it'd be nice if you could experience a materially different story switching factions. The original in the series was Warcraft: Orcs VERSUS Humans, after all. Now it seems like World of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.

And IMO it sucks that the Orcs versus Humans aspect of the game has been relegated exclusively to PVP. PVP generally has no bearing on the story of the world, so you don't get the same quests and lore attached to it. I kind of liked the contested zones in vanilla where your faction would get PvE quests killing mobs in the enemy faction's camp. Seems like they abandoned those types of quests to save costs developing identical quest lines for both factions.

 

[chitwood]

This is snipped from another forum, not my post, but he has some good pro-flying points.

In a game where the community is dying, the last thing they should have been doing is to set the player community at each other’s necks. This is a super divisive issue and the way they went about the decision has managed to focus just as much anger on the other side of the community, as it has on Blizzard. I can’t help but feeling that the reason flying has been removed is because of them, because of the anti-flying community. The rational part of me knows that is not true. But, the way Blizzard has gone about making this change has made it appear that it is in large part due to player feedback saying that players don’t want flying. That is bullshit, millions of us do. Blizzard should own-up to the fact that they are making this decision for their own reasons.

Really, waiting until 4pm on a Friday before a 3 day weekend and then dropping this bombshell via a lesser-known third party website is pure bullshit. Add to that the fact that they just released a new flying mount the week before, and that on the advertisement in the launcher it shows that flying mount flying in Shadowmoon Valley, then I think they are dangerously bordering on fraud. But in either event it’s a big middle finger to the players.



Another thing: my damn druid. What the hell, he got amnesia? He can’t remember how to turn into a crow whenever he is in Draenor? I didn’t realize how much bird-form meant to me until it was gone. It makes me not even want to use my druid anymore.

This is a fantasy game, so obviously there are many things which require that you suspend your disbelief. But I find the lack of ability to fly particularly hard to ignore. Why can I fly here, but not there? Why can I fly on a gryphon that I pay a taxi fee to, but I can’t fly my other mounts? I can ride on my dragon, and he can flap his wings, but if we ride off that cliff we will plunge to our deaths? WTF.

 

[Gryz]

i am pro-flying, specifically because i LOVE to explore this game.

If you love flying so much, more than anything else, maybe you should try playing a fight-simulator. Not a fantasy mmorpg.

Without kidding, I don't want to scare you away from the game. But I do think that you could experience the things you wrote about, without flying. Well, maybe not the ripples on the water. Did you play during vanilla ?

I've had similar experiences as you describe. But while riding my skeleton horse. I think it's easier for Blizzard to build a world where you can roam around and find stuff and feel amazement and wonder, while riding around than when flying around.

When I was lvl45, and just got my skeleton horse, a good friend of me and myself decided to ride from the Undercity to Booty Bay. Through Alliance lands. We had been in the Wetlands, to do a quest for a warlock-pet there. But the rest was unknown territory for us. I can write pages and pages about it. I still have the screenshots. It took us 3 hours to get there. One of the best memories of WoW. If we had been able to fly, we would have just flown there. Would have taken us 15 minutes.

I started playing WLK 2 months after release. I set a goal to explore the whole world at level 70 (in stead of level 80). The Storm Peaks were designed for flying only. But a friend of mine managed to get in (both lvl70). Icecrown was also tricky, with all the 80 mobs. We got the world-explorer achievement at 70.

I started playing MoP in January 2014. The first thing I did was disable xp-gain. While being level-85 I rode around Pandaria. Explored everything. I didn't get the achievement, because there was one area you couldn't reach without flying. I spend almost 2 weeks at lvl85. Awesome. I hunted all the special blue mobs. And killed them all (except the ones in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Lvl 91 mobs were just too hard when you are lvl85. All my swings were glancing off). I really got an appreciation for Pandaria. Then I unfroze my xp, started doing quests, and the magic was gone. WoW had turned into "just another game" again.

I had high hopes for WoD regarding exploration. Because of the no flying. Blizzard put a lot of stuff in Nagrand for exploration. True. So much, it almost felt like a faire. But when I rode around on my skeletal horse in Frostfire Ridge and Gorgrond, there was actually very little interesting that I encountered. I think Blizzard dropped the ball here.

One last remark. Over the years, I ran into less and less players in the world. Also because my server went from high-pop in vanilla to low-pop in MoP. But even then. I saw less than a handful of players while leveling in Pandaria. Maybe at the farm in Half-Hill some times. My server merged with 2 others. Still hardly anyone. We merged with a huge Alliance server. Then I saw players more often. Then WoD happened. It was unbelievable ! Players everywhere. Horde and Alliance. The server felt really alive. I know it was because of the new expansion. But even 5 weeks later (when I stopped playing), I would still encounter people. Even when everbody would stay in their garrisons. Even then, you'd see people everywhere. Because they were not high up in the air flying. It's fun to see others in an online game. If not, I could just play a single-player game.

Again, I am sorry if you miss your flying. I am sorry that Blizzard did not make better use of the world to make a fun game. But the problem is not no-flying. I'm sorry people can't see that. On the other hand, I am still convinced that many players (not you!) are mostly concerned in efficiency. Not immersion.

 

[cronos]

If you love flying so much, more than anything else, maybe you should try playing a fight-simulator. Not a fantasy mmorpg.

Without kidding, I don't want to scare you away from the game. But I do think that you could experience the things you wrote about, without flying. Well, maybe not the ripples on the water. Did you play during vanilla ?

I've had similar experiences as you describe. But while riding my skeleton horse. I think it's easier for Blizzard to build a world where you can roam around and find stuff and feel amazement and wonder, while riding around than when flying around.

When I was lvl45, and just got my skeleton horse, a good friend of me and myself decided to ride from the Undercity to Booty Bay. Through Alliance lands. We had been in the Wetlands, to do a quest for a warlock-pet there. But the rest was unknown territory for us. I can write pages and pages about it. I still have the screenshots. It took us 3 hours to get there. One of the best memories of WoW. If we had been able to fly, we would have just flown there. Would have taken us 15 minutes.

I started playing WLK 2 months after release. I set a goal to explore the whole world at level 70 (in stead of level 80). The Storm Peaks were designed for flying only. But a friend of mine managed to get in (both lvl70). Icecrown was also tricky, with all the 80 mobs. We got the world-explorer achievement at 70.

I started playing MoP in January 2014. The first thing I did was disable xp-gain. While being level-85 I rode around Pandaria. Explored everything. I didn't get the achievement, because there was one area you couldn't reach without flying. I spend almost 2 weeks at lvl85. Awesome. I hunted all the special blue mobs. And killed them all (except the ones in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Lvl 91 mobs were just too hard when you are lvl85. All my swings were glancing off). I really got an appreciation for Pandaria. Then I unfroze my xp, started doing quests, and the magic was gone. WoW had turned into "just another game" again.

I had high hopes for WoD regarding exploration. Because of the no flying. Blizzard put a lot of stuff in Nagrand for exploration. True. So much, it almost felt like a faire. But when I rode around on my skeletal horse in Frostfire Ridge and Gorgrond, there was actually very little interesting that I encountered. I think Blizzard dropped the ball here.

One last remark. Over the years, I ran into less and less players in the world. Also because my server went from high-pop in vanilla to low-pop in MoP. But even then. I saw less than a handful of players while leveling in Pandaria. Maybe at the farm in Half-Hill some times. My server merged with 2 others. Still hardly anyone. We merged with a huge Alliance server. Then I saw players more often. Then WoD happened. It was unbelievable ! Players everywhere. Horde and Alliance. The server felt really alive. I know it was because of the new expansion. But even 5 weeks later (when I stopped playing), I would still encounter people. Even when everbody would stay in their garrisons. Even then, you'd see people everywhere. Because they were not high up in the air flying. It's fun to see others in an online game. If not, I could just play a single-player game.

Again, I am sorry if you miss your flying. I am sorry that Blizzard did not make better use of the world to make a fun game. But the problem is not no-flying. I'm sorry people can't see that. On the other hand, I am still convinced that many players (not you!) are mostly concerned in efficiency. Not immersion.

You actually just made a great point for pro-flying folks with your experience in LK and Pandaria. You just said that you still could play the game that you wanted to play and enjoy it immensely without flying, even though you could if you wanted to, because flying is an option.

But with flying not being an option, *only* you and people who think like you will be able to enjoy the game, while others who do like flying and explore from above, won't be able to enjoy their game because they don't have the option to do that.

 

[Aikouka]

Balance is a easy scapegoat with an easy fix. Make the Horde exclusive dungeons and the Alliance exclusive dungeons drop the same loot. Though it'd be nice if they designed separate skins for the Alliance gear and the Horde gear even if they have the same stats.

Balance isn't just about the gear. You're talking about separate encounters, which most likely means different mechanics... especially since the locations would be different. We have sort of seen faction-influenced fights like that horrid PVP-ish fight that everyone hated in TotC. Anyway, we have also seen balance issues related to the factions. The biggest one was the class availability differences in Vanilla, which lead to Alliance getting Shamans and Horde getting Paladins. I remember cursing those blasted Horde for having Earthbind Totem on Razorgore the Untamed (first boss in BWL), because we had such a huge problem with that boss (until we figured out the AoE fireball + release control strategy).

The point is that Blizzard doesn't want to give people a reason to state that one faction "has it easier" than the other.

I'm sure you're right about most players not caring about Horde vs. Alliance. I'm not going to threaten to quit the game or start an Internet forum sh!t-storm over my personal preferences unlike some WoW players... It's just my suggestion going forward that it'd be nice if you could experience a materially different story switching factions. The original in the series was Warcraft: Orcs VERSUS Humans, after all. Now it seems like World of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.

The original title actually doesn't have a "versus" in it. It's WarCraft: Orcs & Humans. While it may have had the Orcs against the Humans, it's important to remember that they were controlled by the Burning Legion through Mannoroth's blood. I'd like to think that it has turned from a simple story of "us vs. them" into more of a story of coexistence.

Frankly, what I think is lame is that there's no capability to switch your allegiance. It's pretty silly that there's no such thing as a Human that wants to live his life in Orgrimmar or a Troll that just wants to play in da snows of Dun Morogh, mon!

And IMO it sucks that the Orcs versus Humans aspect of the game has been relegated exclusively to PVP. PVP generally has no bearing on the story of the world, so you don't get the same quests and lore attached to it. I kind of liked the contested zones in vanilla where your faction would get PvE quests killing mobs in the enemy faction's camp. Seems like they abandoned those types of quests to save costs developing identical quest lines for both factions.

They kind of gave us a remnant of one of those quests in WoD with the Barov quest. The one from Vanilla was in Western Plaguelands where your faction's Barov brother gave you a quest to kill the other faction's Barov brother. Well, the new one is a little nicer as your enemy isn't really a faction minion anymore, but I think they wanted to at least give the old quest a nod (especially since the reward is an updated version).

I started playing WLK 2 months after release. I set a goal to explore the whole world at level 70 (in stead of level 80). The Storm Peaks were designed for flying only. But a friend of mine managed to get in (both lvl70). Icecrown was also tricky, with all the 80 mobs. We got the world-explorer achievement at 70.

In my opinion, this part has the only valid criticism in your entire post: the fact that no zone should be designed to require flying. While requiring flying can lead to some really nifty looking zones, Blizzard usually accomplished spacing with teleportation in the past, and they can continue to do that in the future.

Again, I am sorry if you miss your flying. I am sorry that Blizzard did not make better use of the world to make a fun game. But the problem is not no-flying. I'm sorry people can't see that. On the other hand, I am still convinced that many players (not you!) are mostly concerned in efficiency. Not immersion.

Man, this part really irks me. It reads like it's full of some sort of delusion of grandeur that you think it's okay to tell people that their claim that no-flying is a problem is actually not one because you think it's harmful to YOUR enjoyment of the game. Holy $#@%, that is so goddamned self-centered! You then go on to state that most players probably just care about efficiency, and my response to that... who cares if that's their reason!? If a player is just traveling from A to B, it's their prerogative if they want to do it at a leisurely pace of 3 hours via ground mount or 15 minutes via a flying mount.

One word... CHOICE.

 

[lupi]

If you love flying so much, more than anything else, maybe you should try playing a fight-simulator. Not a fantasy mmorpg.

Without kidding, I don't want to scare you away from the game. But I do think that you could experience the things you wrote about, without flying. Well, maybe not the ripples on the water. Did you play during vanilla ?

I've had similar experiences as you describe. But while riding my skeleton horse. I think it's easier for Blizzard to build a world where you can roam around and find stuff and feel amazement and wonder, while riding around than when flying around.

When I was lvl45, and just got my skeleton horse, a good friend of me and myself decided to ride from the Undercity to Booty Bay. Through Alliance lands. We had been in the Wetlands, to do a quest for a warlock-pet there. But the rest was unknown territory for us. I can write pages and pages about it. I still have the screenshots. It took us 3 hours to get there. One of the best memories of WoW. If we had been able to fly, we would have just flown there. Would have taken us 15 minutes.

I started playing WLK 2 months after release. I set a goal to explore the whole world at level 70 (in stead of level 80). The Storm Peaks were designed for flying only. But a friend of mine managed to get in (both lvl70). Icecrown was also tricky, with all the 80 mobs. We got the world-explorer achievement at 70.

I started playing MoP in January 2014. The first thing I did was disable xp-gain. While being level-85 I rode around Pandaria. Explored everything. I didn't get the achievement, because there was one area you couldn't reach without flying. I spend almost 2 weeks at lvl85. Awesome. I hunted all the special blue mobs. And killed them all (except the ones in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Lvl 91 mobs were just too hard when you are lvl85. All my swings were glancing off). I really got an appreciation for Pandaria. Then I unfroze my xp, started doing quests, and the magic was gone. WoW had turned into "just another game" again.

I had high hopes for WoD regarding exploration. Because of the no flying. Blizzard put a lot of stuff in Nagrand for exploration. True. So much, it almost felt like a faire. But when I rode around on my skeletal horse in Frostfire Ridge and Gorgrond, there was actually very little interesting that I encountered. I think Blizzard dropped the ball here.

One last remark. Over the years, I ran into less and less players in the world. Also because my server went from high-pop in vanilla to low-pop in MoP. But even then. I saw less than a handful of players while leveling in Pandaria. Maybe at the farm in Half-Hill some times. My server merged with 2 others. Still hardly anyone. We merged with a huge Alliance server. Then I saw players more often. Then WoD happened. It was unbelievable ! Players everywhere. Horde and Alliance. The server felt really alive. I know it was because of the new expansion. But even 5 weeks later (when I stopped playing), I would still encounter people. Even when everbody would stay in their garrisons. Even then, you'd see people everywhere. Because they were not high up in the air flying. It's fun to see others in an online game. If not, I could just play a single-player game.

Again, I am sorry if you miss your flying. I am sorry that Blizzard did not make better use of the world to make a fun game. But the problem is not no-flying. I'm sorry people can't see that. On the other hand, I am still convinced that many players (not you!) are mostly concerned in efficiency. Not immersion.

Last time I was in org I noticed a couple dozen mounted npcs flying around. Guess you had better let blizz know that such a display should be impossible and totally breaks the game for you.

 

[JujuFish]

*snip*

Again, I am sorry if you miss your flying. I am sorry that Blizzard did not make better use of the world to make a fun game. But the problem is not no-flying. I'm sorry people can't see that. On the other hand, I am still convinced that many players (not you!) are mostly concerned in efficiency. Not immersion.

You are so unbelievably full of yourself. You think the only way people can be immersed and enjoy the world is your way. Get over yourself. You're nothing special and your fulfillment doesn't dictate how other people enjoy the game.

 

[Xonim]

Sure no-flying can be frustrating at times, but overall I'd say it enhanced the WoD experience. There were a few times running places I shouldn't have been where I ended up dying to higher level mobs when leveling. Navigating those areas can sometimes be a minigame by itself. Flying would completely bypass that type of stuff and makes the game feel less adventurous to me.

I guess it could also be due to my playstyle ... I'm rarely 100% focused on WoW anymore, and there's always something on Netflix to keep me entertained while flying from point A to point B. Apparently I just play at a slower pace now than I used to.

I guess I don't really care one way or the other, but if I had to choose I'd stick with no flying. It'd just be nice if it was declared flat-out (and maybe they did, I can't read that link a page or two back while at work) that there would or wouldn't be flying now and/or in the future. /shrug

 

[KidNiki1]

If you love flying so much, more than anything else, maybe you should try playing a fight-simulator. Not a fantasy mmorpg.

i didnt say i love flying airplanes, or spaceships. I have done both in other games. Again, please don't assert that because you see something a certain way, i should as well.

Did you play during vanilla ?

i absolutely did. leveled up to 60 in vanilla. i rode my mount all over the place. i had every area of every zone explored BEFORE they made it an achievement. i wasn't concerned about endgame or maxing my stats and gear and gold and all that then, and i am not now. i have never been. that's not how i play this game, and regardless of what you think you know, there are many others who play this game like i do.

go on pretending that you know how i, and many others, play this game tho.