The statement that flight would be removed came with WoD which caused a huge backlash from the customer base. It is my belief that they had switched world engines and had not really developed the skills necessary for flight for that particular engine, and instead focused on the “Next Big Thing” which was jumping and rat maze puzzles to get to “Treasures”.
When the uproar became obvious when people started unsubbing, they had to reverse course, but the flight infrastructure had not been developed, and they realized that they would need to shift resources to implement flight. I believe in order to save face and not say that they had to redesign the world for flight due to a bad decision, they created “Pathfinder” in order to string along the suckers until they were actually able to implement flight properly. They had the ability all along, with Goblin gliders and the wormhole generators, but for the general population, they really did not want them to have real flight.
In WoD, the reputation grind was based in part on the Sabrestalkers Rep, which was a simple rep grind killing Elite mobs. The result were some of the funnest times grinding rep for hours with PUG rep groups and I was able to finish it in a few days. That mechanism brought people together for mindless slaughter of strong mobs, and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, Blizzard thought it went too fast, so then they gated to reputation gained only through a limited set of dailies. I personally hate this time gating. If I want to Binge in WoW for a whole weekend, I see no reason why I should not be able to.
So with the “Success” of pathfinder, they were able to defer allocating resources to flight, and continue to focus on a linear path through the “Story” which they think supercedes actually having fun in the game. I like the story, but forcefeeding it to me by providing a conveyor belt through identical pathways is not conducive for replayability. Even with flight, doing the same thing with Alt’s is monotonous, even with flight. To add insult to injury, World Quests are nothing more than re-purposed story quests which we have already done before for the most part. It’s boring as Hell, and the grind for Azerite is totally unrewarding to me. It’s an arbitrary afterthought and time sink.
Playing Classic during the stress test really drove it home for me why I have been playing WoW since the first stress test 15 years ago. There is definite danger and skill and teamwork are essential in Classic. Tradeskill’s and talents are meaningful, and honing your weapon and defensive skills paid off in immediate and tangible ways. People throwing buffs at strangers broke the ice, as it really made a difference in gameplay.
Contrast this to the current beginner experience which is trivial and wholly unrewarding. level 15 in 2 hours, but it’s a generally boring experience.
I think the idea that Blizzard knows better than the playerbase is wrong minded and the backlash will become to much.
But Blizzard is smart. They have released Classic and they will see how many people discover the original game and find that it is intricate, takes skill to become proficient, and cultivates community instead of pulling every single mob in the dungeon and burning them down with AOE in a pug. This will keep the cash flow and a skeleton Dev team funded if and when they have a new expansion, but in it’s current state, retail wow is in shambles for all of the changes and overpruning of classes. Retail is still beautiful and fun in a simplistic way, but give me the challenge of Classic anyday.
