Back in Vanilla, the 2 continents felt absolutely enormous. Each zone took a long time to travel though, especially when you were on foot or only had a level 40 ground mount.
Hard to believe that the entire world of Vanilla Azeroth encompassed less than 16 square miles. But that was indeed the case.
Consider Azeroth’s main continents today: you can get on your flying mount and fly over any zone in less than 2 minutes. You can also see across 3 zones at a time, revealing just how small the world is. Back in Vanilla the view distance was quite low. you could only see a little ways into the zone you were in and definitely not to the next zone.
Being able to get around fast doesnt’ just make the game world feel smaller. It also makes the real world feel smaller. Today, it is routine to get in airplane and fly across the country in 4 or 5 hours. 200 years ago, such travel would have been an epic journey which might take months.
You remember when they had attunement quests that people had to complete before they were able to raid in Vanilla? That’s what time gating feels like, only without the questlines.
I don’t think they understand how much better leveling is with flying vs without. Leveling new characters you get a fresh perspective on it. Hitting 58/60 is game changing, especially for the directionally challenged like myself. I’ve already decided that I’m going to wait until 8.2 to go through bfa again, just don’t have the energy to do groundless leveling on a 3rd character. I don’t mind pathfinder, but flying should come out after the first raid, like 8.1 or 8.1.5.
I’m pretty sure that’s partly the point. They don’t want you pumping out alts from the get go, that’s why expansions tend to become more alt friendly as they go along.
Not to nitpick but it wasn’t a 180. They didn’t totally reverse this decision. They did that compromise that a lot of people still complain about. So more like a 90. Maybe closer to a 45 when you figure in that when flying unlocks, the current content moves a ground only zone.
I don’t view flight as a punishment. Even slow flight is not a punishment. When I’m on a flying mount, what I really want is the sensation of flying.
Flying shouldn’t be just a way to get from A to B. It should actually feel like I’m riding on something flying.
In my opinion, TBC’s slow non-epic flying mounts did it best. Giant birds should fly slow. It should feel like you’re riding in an ultralight airplane, not a jet fighter.
Frankly, if all we want is a way to get from A to B faster, Blizzard wouldn’t need to give us flight. A simple button on the map that let you teleport to wherever you click on the map would be faster.
That’s called fast travel, many games with huge, fun to explore worlds have that. If we could fast travel to rest points that would be a huge QoL improvement for the game. People would be more likely to do “1 more thing” before they log since you don’t have to afk for 2-3m every time you wanna go to a new area.
Curious: do you play on the ground all the time? Do you never fly, personally? If so your point falls over because you state the game is better off being no-flight yet fly yourself.
If you want to play a game that has no flight, I can recommend Elder Scrolls Online. It has not had flight from Day 1 and there is zero indication it will ever have flight. It has lovely ground mounts, a large grid of portal system and other means of instant travel around the world. People who start playing ESO understand that flight is a zero issue - its not something given to them and then taken away at the whim of the developers.
This point went by me in a woosh of that “over the head” waving gesture. How would you suggest it could any more like flying than it does? How can it not feel like flying riding on a drake with its huge wings flapping, occasionally gliding as it soars or dips at your command?
Ion here is a simple idea.
Pathfinder 1 designed similar to Legion and BfA. Getting this achieve unlocks flying in the new leveling areas.
If a new area is added, then add a Pathfinder 2 that eventually unlocks flying there if the dev team wants flying at all.
This keeps going for however many areas are added during an expansion.
Now we have a very usable setup that allows players to use their flying mounts much earlier in an expansion.
This whole flying debacle for the last 3 expansions will be my reason for not buying the next expansion. Ion wants to die on this hill i guess. Really to bad for someone who has had patience hoping they would listen to reason. Guess not.
I like flight. It feels good and I feel much more powerful when I’m flying instead of running on the ground.
But I also like flight to feel like a REWARD. Flying feels better to me when I first have to spend a significant amount of time running around on the ground before I get it.
When I finally do get it, I appreciate flying much more that way.
I guess we all see the game working in different ways. I’ve never felt like a method of travel was a reward. I didn’t see getting to 40 and buying my first raptor mount back in the day as a reward. Apparently Blizzard feels the same way nowadays because you can get a motorbike to ride in at Level 1 if you have purchased all those heirlooms…in effect, I guess it was a reward, for having spent all that gold.
Flight is a mechanism. It’s a system of travel that is designed to be used because otherwise we would not have the hundreds of flying mounts in the game. I see it being put behind hobbling, unnecessary barriers as a means of forcing players who wish to fly to undertake excessive activities that are in no way linked to the final objective. It would be like being required to go out and mine 500 nodes of ore or gather 1000 herbs in order to create a potion so we could enter a dungeon. Logic there? None. Logic in Pathfinder? Equally, none.
With all my alts, I figure I was rewarded with flight at least 100 times over various expansions up to the end of Mists. I cannot pretend that it is made anew by the process of Pathfinder, most of which are things I would have done anyway.
To butcher the lyrics of B.B. King, for me, “The thrill [of unlocking flight] is gone.”
But it is tailored to every player, there is zero excuse not being able to get some of these reps, i have it on alts from just doing the caches. People are seriously just lazy and want it handed to them.
A true happy medium would be that Ion gets his dumb time gating and hissy fit version of flying for current expansion content and previous expansions revert to just being able to buy it with gold.
I’d like to see flying unlocked once you complete the storyline in each zone on one toon. It allows each person to experience the stories as intended and then allows flying for convenience. The only reason I can think of to not unlock flying after that is just to slow down gameplay so people spend more time in game and keep paying a subscription. As a side note. Has anyone else noticed there are way more snares in the game? By snares I mean obstacles that are obscure but tend to hook the character and you almost have to back out to move on.
![:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:")