My apologies my liege. I did not realize Blizzard has ordained you as the official voice and arbiter of the hivemind. Forgive me for having the crime of thinking my own thoughts.
DF is absolutely not flying and you can be all gloom and doom if you want, but I’d bet my entire account worth of gold regular flying will come to the dragon isles. Blizzard already said it once upon a time ago and no I don’t care NEAR enough to google and try to find it. They’ve been nothing but consistent with flying access since WoD and before you even try and point your finger at the maw/korthia, they said from the get go that flying would never be enabled there.
If anything, I think people should be grateful we even have a method of flying to get around and we get it early and it’s enabled for alts and alts don’t even need to go on the dopey rune hunt (plus most runes take minimal effort to get and can be obtained while you are in the area for questing).
But where is the relevance? So what if it is gliding? You’re going to use it and suck at it and/or master it to fulfill your goals in the game. It won’t be no skin off anyone’s nose if you opt to snub it and never use it. You’ll just be limiting your method of getting around and engaging with the game.
Oh I hope it does. I imagine after a few months I’ll be used to the ludicrous speed of dragonriding, and zipping past people opting for regular flying will be just the thing to refresh my perspective.
the ground questing runes I’ve gotten have only unlocked appearance, except the first one which does give a little Vigor regen. I have 2 sky runes. I typically use my proto-drake (I just got the green one) for fancy gliding. I will probably focus on getting all the runes I can and hopefully change my attitude about Dragon-riding. I just think it;s poorly implemented
I played the Beta completely blind and intentionally and I’ll fully admit I sucked initially at dragon riding. I understand the concepts on a fundamental level, but it took many a wasted vigor to get the sense when to build speed and then later to translate the speed to straight up vertical momentum. It also gets super easy with more unlocked talents but they aren’t needed.
I managed to find all but some of the more obscure ones just flying or “gliding” around and I had a friend who “cheated” and looked the rest up. The game even tells you now when you are near one. There will also no doubt be addons marking them. I found the ones I did by just looking at the achivement and where the location it said it was and then just going to that area. Most are high-ish up but not actually hidden.
I’m of the opinion that one is better working around a brick wall rather than punching or bashing their skull against it. It isn’t like Blizzard is going to just announce that they give up and DF is going away and flying in its place so instead of fighting against it, learn to work with it.
And it looks like your view isn’t 100% for the whole community. It sure isn’t for me; the speed at which you can move with dragonriding is so much better than the no clip swimming we have now. After playing the beta, the live game is so slow and boring by comparison.
Obviously, you are of course free to your opinion, you don’t speak for anyone but you, just like I don’t speak for anyone but me. And I can say right now I want dragonriding throughout the game. That said, people can have slow flying and choose to use it. Don’t see a harm in that.
Hate to break it to you, but, other than the Skyward Ascent ability which is a very short powered climb, the rest of it is entirely a gliding mechanic.
Skyward Ascent is the only ability that lets you truly regain any real altitude when used properly. Without that or catching an updraft, your flight time is purely limited by momentum.
That’s gliding.
Yes, you can cross an entire continent very quickly once you master the skill and unlock the talents. I’ve watched skilled glider pilots in RL stay aloft for hours.
That does not change the fact that is is basically gliding with benefits.
That’s MY perspective, of course. Your mileage may vary.
So without the mechanics that make it not gliding, it’s totally gliding?
I don’t much care what you call it, my experience is that it’s a lot of fun. The vast majority of people who have tried it have had the same experience.
Note that I said “gliding with benefits”. I’m not going to argue semantics with you.
And yes, it can be fun in and of itself, and it is very useful as a travel mode. Outside of that however, my opinion is that normal flight has much more utility for doing things outside of just getting from point A to B… aerobatically.
The only thing air swimming has for me is the fact I can use my flight form (which I still think is an annoying oversight on dragonriding). Hoping Blizzard maybe thinks about this.
I do know that gliding blows air swimming out if the water, at least, lol.
