No, that’s just a fact. There is zero point in being in the world except for those daily chores. In case you were wondering, the vast majority of this game is centered around things that have nothing to do with the outside world.
So your solution to a dying open world is to ignore it and continue doing things that contribute to its death, rather than thinking of reasons to make it better.
At what point did I ever say that?
I’m referring to the distinction you make between “increased efficiency” and “being a more interesting or satisfying game play style”. I didn’t become a Tailor because I thought it was an interesting or satisfying gameplay style, I did it for the easy money to be made from bags. Many PvPers become Engineers for the combat gadgets, not because they envision themselves as tinkerers.
Efficiency is a valid reason for any in-game choice, and I don’t see that choosing flight for efficiency is any less valid than choosing it for gameplay reasons.
Now that being said, crippling my Druid’s flight form offended me in a way that had nothing to do with efficiency. I had adopted a certain class fantasy over multiple expansions.
So it goes both ways, but the decision to fly is valid in either case.
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Classic seems to be doing alright without flying. Maybe if expansions featuring pathfinder have had other issues and the problem is more complex than just flying?
Right, which is why the very next thing I wrote was:
I disagree. It doesn’t take a year to explore Kul Tiras and Zandalar. They’re not that big.
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Because flying shouldn’t BE the content. Flying should GET you to content. BC to MoP handled flying just fine. We had player freedom. Devs said here’s the content do it or don’t. Now in wow its: “well if you want to fly again just grind all this rep, do all the quests, explore all the zones then once you’ve done everything and waited for no reason THEN we’ll give you what could have made the game much more fun for the last 10 months.”
Why should we NOT having flying available at max level?
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Ah, I see. I think what you’re missing is the distinction between choosing not to role play and wanting to do less work and for greater rewards.
You want to farm gold and don’t care which profession gets you gold, you just want gold. You want to win in pvp and feel like certain engineering items will help, but don’t care about the theme or flavor of engineering. These are both cases where you’re engaging with game systems for their mechanics and not their storytelling/characterization aspects. You’re putting in effort for greater rewards.
In the case of flying, people simply want to engage less with the game but see greater returns. They don’t want to have to know which mobs will aggro, where patrols are, how the terrain is shaped. I’m hesitate to word things this way because people are bound to be defensive and feel like i’m accusing them of some evil- but that isn’t my intent. It’s human nature to want to do less and get more. Blizzard has to balance that against creating the best game play they can.
SOOOOOOoooo we both agree that pathfinder isn’t the problem? ok 
Well, my last two paragraphs explain what I believe would be a far better approach to flight in the game than re-gating it at the start of every expansion.
I do agree that the game has a lot of other problems not related to flying though.
Remember where I said that a lot of this stuff is in people’s heads? This isn’t a thing…like at all. People had finished BFA’s initial story and were running dungeons at 120 in the same day it released. As I said, if Blizzard wants to start making a game where things like this matter, I’m all for it, but as it currently stands, this isn’t the case.
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The best compromise I’ve seen is to have flying be available to purchase per individual characters, and then the Pathfinder Achievement unlocking it overall. Then, they can timegate/repgate Pathfinder all they want and not cause too many issues with people that want to rush into flying.
And no, I don’t buy into that “flying makes the world seem dead” argument. While leveling BfA during the Launch month, I saw very few people out and about anyway thanks to sharding. That might just be that I rarely PvP, but that’s how it happened.
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And I’m happy that we have an mmorpg where we have goals to work towards that give us a feeling of accomplishment. I don’t want everything given to me on a silver platter all at once with no work involved.
Pathfinder is like 0.00000000001% of the stuff WoW offers you to do.
Let’s not die on this hill.
I like the concept behind Pathfinder: go do all the thing before you get flying. It basically treats flying as a “cheat” that you can unlock after having done all the game. My only complaint is that it’s timegated. Maybe if they allowed you to unlock it per zone? So like… Drustvar. You have to finish the Drustvar quests and get Order of Embers rep to revered to fly in Drustvar. Then tack on like… Let’s say each day, you get an Emissary Quest that applies to one of three factions, and you chose which one. It’s a bit better.
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I was one of those people that hit 120 the first day. I also went back and did all the side quest chains later, did all the little story lines. Also gathered lots of things and leveled professions outside of dungeons. Just because you don’t enjoy something doesn’t make it not exist.
It’s not about not enjoying something, its the fact you keep bringing up this magical world where staying on the ground would somehow improve gameplay when that just isn’t the case. All it does is cause tedium and annoyance for a player base that generally only cares about the things that doesn’t exist in the world. The world isn’t developed in a way that warrants exploration and all the other things you mentioned.
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While not my favorite system i dont mind pathfinder. HOWEVER, i very much mind the timing.
pathfinder part 2 should be unlockable during X.1 at the latest not X.2 IMO. I also think the restrictions should be loosened for old content. I really dont care if some new or returning player doesn’t have to work as hard as I did when it was current.
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For current content, I’d say this is a fair characterization. But the ability to skip aggro and ignore patrols is entirely a game design issue. For example, In BC Horde players could not fly over Alliance towns (and vice-versa). In Pandaria, there were hawks that could aggro you.
The decision of WoW designers to restrict themselves to a two-dimensional game surface is completely one of choice. They could engage with Flying the way they engage with other mechanics that modify your interaction with the gameworld.
More to the point, you could look at Stealth as the OG content-bypassing mechanic. I can tell you that my Warlock approaches quests completely different than my Druid does. And in fact, there are a few in-game counters to Stealth. They simply design the game to take Stealth into account.
I’ve never seen anyone question whether Rogues were playing the game to engage less but see greater returns. Well, I have, but usually from ganked casters.
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