Notice: WOW Flying Mounts won't get back in WOW Patch 6.1

[gamepiggy]

World of Warcraft's first major patch since expansion pack Warlords of Draenor's launch will be coming in early 2015. Today Blizzard revealed what's coming in Patch 6.1 and the rest of the year's updates.

Warlords of Draenor broke from series tradition by not allowing players to use flying mounts even at max level. Blizzard has indicated that they may reverse this decision. However, this won't be happening in Patch 6.1.

Instead, the development team wants to make the existing transportation system - specifically flight masters - more efficient.

"We have some new tech in the works that will allow flight masters to provide more-direct routes to your destination, regardless of the flight points your character knows," Blizzard said on WoW's forum. "This'll mean fewer roundabout routes; the flight masters will instead always try to send you on the shortest existing route. Hopefully, this will get you to your destination faster."

Patch 6.1, however, will include the long-awaited reintroduction of heirlooms. These experience-boosting, scaling items will be consolidated into a single collection for your entire account much like Mounts or Toys.

"Heirlooms already on characters will be collected into the new UI (similar to other Collections features), base-level Heirlooms will be purchasable from vendors, and upgrade tokens that can be used on Heirlooms to raise their effectiveness to additional level caps will be obtainable through different forms of content. We'll be looking for your feedback on the new system when the 6.1 PTR goes live."

The patch will also continue the Legendary ring quest that will run throughout Warlords of Draenor. The next step will give players the chance to recruit a Legendary follower for their Garrison. The identity of this follower is unclear but Blizzard reassures players that this companion will have "suitably Legendary abilities."

Comments from wow players on delaying of flying Mounts on Gold4fans.com

And I will now cancel my sub, good job blizz. - oneijack.

Fine by me. Flight in WoW is for content you want to burn through, not for current stuff you want to immerse yourself in. - zanmaru.

Except the treasures are all worthless once you spend the 8 hours it takes to go from 90 - 100. run around for a 20-30g vendor item , no thanks. - Phaze Doubt.

I think this is a good idea myself, chances to explore, etc, sure it might be an inconvenience but they did say 1st patch flying will be allowed. kudos blizz for revamping outland, well needed and I will be happy to enjoy the scenery, we did it in outland till we reached 60 or could afford flying so what's the big deal, timeless has no flying, thunder isle and those areas are crowded all the time. and Kane I agree with ur statement about carebearing be happy u will have an immediate jump to lvl 90 to even be able to play the area as it starts. thanks Blizzard for this awesome looking expansion. - kerymi2

Meh, no real opinion. It'll make the leveling experience fine (same as it always was), but gathering is going to be a pain - hello Garrison! Honestly it's not a huge inconvenience, but I probably won't be inclined to play much till 6.1. - Rainemard

 

[clok1966]

"And I will now cancel my sub, good job blizz. - oneijack."

Let me be the fist to say welcome back when your self imposed exile ends. And if you do quit for good, let me say congrats, you know get to have a life.


Signed
re-addicted wow player who was cold turkey for 3+ years.

 

[Rhezuss]

I think it's a good idea, brings back the days of exploration and wandering around. I didn't logged wince the expansion came out but I think i'll have to give this a try...

I don't even know what you guys are talking when I check this thread from time to time...Stronghold and all the new stuff...don't understand a thing

 

[Markbnj]

This game is so huge now, and has so much content, that I might actually think of playing it again if they would just upgrade the horribly dated game engine.

 

[Subyman]

So even at max level they don't open the new territories to flying mounts? That would be annoying. The game has so much content that having to wait 5-10 mins watching an automated flight for the 20th time tick by would be really annoying. That was my main complaint with the original WoW, which they eventually made better with fly mounts and more portals.

 

[Xonim]

So even at max level they don't open the new territories to flying mounts? That would be annoying. The game has so much content that having to wait 5-10 mins watching an automated flight for the 20th time tick by would be really annoying.

It's nowhere near as annoying as it used to be. The horde/alliance city for the new xpac are way off to the east side of the map. Your garrison (think of it like YOUR home base) is off to the west side of the map. Both have flight paths and separate hearthstones -- 15-20 min CD on each, I forget.

Plus, for the most part, the ZIG-ZAG type flight paths are gone. Most are direct or very close to it. I don't know that I've seen any in the new xpac with backtracking.

Flying is still enabled in all other zones/continents.

Besides, once you hit 100 you don't really have a reason to leave your garrison anyway. Unless you're into pet battles or world pvp or something.

 

[Subyman]

It's nowhere near as annoying as it used to be. The horde/alliance city for the new xpac are way off to the east side of the map. Your garrison (think of it like YOUR home base) is off to the west side of the map. Both have flight paths and separate hearthstones -- 15-20 min CD on each, I forget.

Plus, for the most part, the ZIG-ZAG type flight paths are gone. Most are direct or very close to it. I don't know that I've seen any in the new xpac with backtracking.

Flying is still enabled in all other zones/continents.

Besides, once you hit 100 you don't really have a reason to leave your garrison anyway. Unless you're into pet battles or world pvp or something.

Interesting. I tried playing Pandera, but only lasted about a week. So lame. I may have to try the next content in this one. The Garrison seems interesting.

 

[OutHouse]

So even at max level they don't open the new territories to flying mounts? That would be annoying. The game has so much content that having to wait 5-10 mins watching an automated flight for the 20th time tick by would be really annoying. That was my main complaint with the original WoW, which they eventually made better with fly mounts and more portals.

thats my biggest bitch about LoD. i have a portal from my garrison to Ashran so but not one back to my Garrison? its just easier hearthing to stormwind to do what i need at AH or bank then use the garrison stone to return back my garrison.

 

[OutHouse]

The horde/alliance city for the new xpac are way off to the east side of the map.

umm horde Garrison is on the west in Frostifre.

 

[Subyman]

umm horde Garrison is on the west in Frostifre.

I didn't say that

 

[Xonim]

umm horde Garrison is on the west in Frostifre.

The Garrison is, but Warspear and whatever the alliance one is in Ashran is on the east side. I said the horde/alliance city, and specified garrisons in the next sentence

 

[BoberFett]

Flying is a convenience. I'd be fine if they waited until the next expansion to allow flying in Draenor. Once it becomes flyover territory (pun intended) for leveling an alt, I'll appreciate it. I have no problem with using flight paths at this time.

 

[Anteaus]

I'm happy about this. Now if they would only ban flying everywhere except for quest specific interactions. A while back I realized my decline in enjoyment with wow was through treating the game as flyover country and literally bounced from quest giver to quest target to quest giver pinball style. Then there are balance considerations with pvp and mat gathering. Flying was definitely great early on but my opinion is that it has become a liability.

I respect that most people won't share my opinion, but there it is.

 

[MongGrel]

Amazes me it's still up, to be honest.

Used to play 5 characters many years ago.

 

[Dannar26]

Keep the flying mounts away. Seriously. It's a cool idea but it screws wPvP, exploration, and the feeling of immersion and majesty of the game.

After I was wowed during my first flight (druids could learn their areal form at 69) it was all downhill from there regarding its impact on game mechanics.

 

[JujuFish]

Keep the flying mounts away. Seriously. It's a cool idea but it screws wPvP, exploration, and the feeling of immersion and majesty of the game.

After I was wowed during my first flight (druids could learn their areal form at 69) it was all downhill from there regarding its impact on game mechanics.

I disagree with all of that except wPVP. And since I hate PVP anyway, that is a matter of little significance to me.

 

[JeffMD]

As someone who was current up to pandaria end game, I didn't bother with the expansion. There is nothing new in it that interest me and I hate the squish they did. Healing was half my game and now it is to much work. Also leveling just plain sucks in wow.

You know I had a pretty good write up on wow's transport system compared to the teleport system used by most other games today, and I realized what I dislike about wow so much now.. its freaking slow! The game still primarily uses the old mob tagging system, you need to form groups, and if a boss you want spawns in another zone, you pretty much have no way to get their and get invited in time for the pull. Even flying takes to long. GW2/rift/ff14 on the other hand all have events going on you can jump right in. Rift make it very easy for form groups, ff14 a little less easier (and smaller raids) but it still is an invite yourself style. Less time waiting, more time to jump in, complete the event, and move on to the next which could be a half a world over.

 

[Adrenaline]

This was in the WoW thread that is stickied.

In have been debating about buying the expansion due to no flight. I was leaning towards it, still am, but no flight at 100 in Draenor is still holding me back.

Since you don't like flight, which is a huge convenience, why not remove ground mounts as well? Make you go to a stablemaster of some sort to ride a horse from one location to another like the flightmaster. You can have fun walking everywhere, you know, to slow down content consumption and do your wPvP all you want. How is all the garrison immersion working out for people? I don't see people talking about the immersion they are experiencing this expansion.

I played on a PvE server.

 

[Gryz]

No flying makes you feel like you are inside the world. Inside a huge world. Mountains have meaning. The topology has meaning. Distance has meaning. You need to think a little of how you want to move around. Just like in a real world.

Flying changes everything. It changes WoW from a world, into "just a game". You are not traveling and adventuring in a make-believe world anymore. You are just playing a game.

Trying to maximize xp-per-hour, reputation-per-hour, gold-per-hour, farming herbs-and-ores-per-hour. A quest was downgraded to: "mount up, fly above the trees and hills, look at indicator on minimap, fly into that direction, when you see a dot on the minimap, fly down, dismount, kill mob, mount up again, fly back". It took Blizzard 5 years until they realize how they had destroyed the most expensive part of their product.

There have been a few polls lately. The last big one on the frontpage of mmo-champion had as result that 70% enjoyed no-flying. In my (large) guild, the feeling seemed to be the same. The pro-flying crew is very loud, and keeps crying every day. But they are the minority.

Blizzard must be stupid to re-enable flying in Draenor.
Especially now that there is no content after you ding 100.

 

[Adrenaline]

The poll on mmo could be voted on repeatedly by refreshing your browser.

The official Blizzard forums were cluttered with flight threads and people wanting it. The mods finally cleaned all that crap up.

It is Blizzard's game and they can do as they please.

 

[Anteaus]

Since you don't like flight, which is a huge convenience, why not remove ground mounts as well?

The difference is between going "through" content versus going "around" content. It's not the mounts themselves that are the issue. On a ground mount, the player is still in a position to interact with mobs and other players as they transition from one locale to another. The game was designed around this.

In vanilla, a chunk of the XP you received was from killing mobs that stood between you and your goals/quests. There was also an element of risk, because moving through a zone might mean actively avoiding certain types of enemies. For those for which PVP matters, flying mounts cheapen things. It's too easy to drop from above, kill, and then stay in the air like a chicken out of reach. I used to love forming hunting parties to neutralize griefers. Flying mounts have made that virtually impossible unless they actively put themselves in harms way.

The worst offence of flying mounts is that they create a perception that the game is more boring now than before, simply because they allow players to pinball through quests. For example, if you buy a flying mount at 60, you can bounce from quest giver to quest target and vice versus all the way through to 90. You do that for days on end starting at 60 and I can understand why people want to hurt themselves. That's f'ing boring, even for those that has seen the content. Sadly, this also means that so much of Blizzard's best WoW content get's pushed aside for efficient leveling. Using a ground mount means seeing the content as it was meant to. It's not the speed of travel that is the issue, it's content avoidance.

My opinion through hindsight is that they should have kept flying mounts at their original levels, i.e. 70 for BC, 80 for WOTLK, 90 for Panda, etc, and kept them out of old world.

Anyways, that's my opinion but I completely understand the counter argument. Once upon a time getting one character to max level was an achievement. It took me longer to get from 1-60 in vanilla than what it takes to get a character from 1-100 today. Perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough back then, but once I dinged 60 and got that first epic ground mount I was ecstatic. Today, gamers just want cheese.

 

[lupi]

Notice: This was in the wow thread some time ago so WTF is this thread attempting to do?

 

[Aikouka]

The worst offence of flying mounts is that they create a perception that the game is more boring now than before, simply because they allow players to pinball through quests.

I disagree. I think people like yourself try to blame the boredom of WoW on things such as flying, but as a fellow longtime player (I started playing the day after the game came out), I don't think that's the case. I think the real problem is in the mindset of the players. Blizzard has essentially fashioned the players into realizing that the leveling process is nothing more than a gateway. It isn't meant to be fun... it's meant to take up time. The real fun of the MMO is everything at the end.

Anyways, that's my opinion but I completely understand the counter argument. Once upon a time getting one character to max level was an achievement. It took me longer to get from 1-60 in vanilla than what it takes to get a character from 1-100 today. Perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough back then, but once I dinged 60 and got that first epic ground mount I was ecstatic. Today, gamers just want cheese.

It was an achievement, but that was part perception and part game design. In the beginning, most weren't tainted by this idea of "level up to max, get into the latest raid! ASAP!!" I had some friends that did nothing more than explore everything... even if it killed them (in the game). That's what they enjoyed!

It also helped that the game was far, far less forgiving. Part of that was in the lack of mounts. You didn't even get basic riding until level 40, and I believe it was quite pricey for most players. You couldn't get epic riding until level 60, and it was 1000g per mount. For any newer players, that was a lot back then. Another thing that affected the game is that they didn't really care if the game was difficult, and I'm not just talking about raids. Back in the day, group quests weren't uncommon, and you really needed a group. In WoD, all you need to do is be in combat with a mob to get its loot drop. It also didn't help that the game was made more difficult artificially by the poorly allocated gear. I sure did love my Rogue's Tier 1 gear that had strength on it.

 

[Anteaus]

Notice: This was in the wow thread some time ago so WTF is this thread attempting to do?

The occasional side-thread won't disrupt the paradigm of the sticky thread. I'm sure the OP didn't mean to step outside the box. As for the topic...well, WoW threads always tend to detour wildly.

 

[lupi]

I disagree. I think people like yourself try to blame the boredom of WoW on things such as flying, but as a fellow longtime player (I started playing the day after the game came out), I don't think that's the case. I think the real problem is in the mindset of the players. Blizzard has essentially fashioned the players into realizing that the leveling process is nothing more than a gateway. It isn't meant to be fun... it's meant to take up time. The real fun of the MMO is everything at the end.

yep, in vanilla a substantial amount of the gameplay was leveling up. now it is all about what to do at max level. no flying is another artificial gate added to add "depth" to those max level activities. And like most things gated in the game, it sucks because it serves no purpose other than slowing down what you can accomplish while in game.