Look at the sub numbers in relation to gating flying behind rep, quests, and exploration. Your casual player base does not have time for that nonsense and running around on horseback is brutal. Flying was the best quality of life change ever implemented. The numbers don’t lie. Stop gating it!
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their worst decision was allowing themselves to be eaten by activision.
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Nah. The worst decision they ever made was letting the hamsters become sentient and take over the company.
All hail our Hamster warlords!
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I agree. Flying should have never been spitefully gated like this.
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Actually, though they redacted it, their worst decision was the plan to make everyone post under their real name. That backfired when one of the CM posted his real name. That went horribly wrong.
Blizzard quickly abandoned the idea when they saw how it’d be abused.
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The forums were Blizzards worst decision.
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Says the person with 861 posts…
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I never bothered with WoD flying. Just was really upset they would gate it. Leveling alts through there is dreadful
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Where can I see the sub numbers? 
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It’s a stress that just keeps compounding expansion after expansion. People are really weary of flying being pushed out so far in new expansions.
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This is true, adding flight was one of the best decisions for game QoL, that they ever added. Adding flight was one of the best decisions they ever made for improving in game immersion, because without it you get channeled to flight paths that remove all control of your character and induce you to alt-tab out of the game, or to get constant loading screens with the whistle and hearthstone.
But gating flight was not the worst decision they ever made.
The worst decision was trying to remove flight outright.
Obnoxiously time gating flight like they have done in BfA, Legion, and what ultimately happened in Warlords was their second worst decision.
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In an expac that could be described as a series of bad decisions, that’s a bold statement.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying it’s bold lol.
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I’m glad they gated flying, makes me more money on herbs
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Thank you kind sir. I promise to be ruthless but fair.
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I see you got mad at me for asking that question lol. My objective was not to upset you, but to confirm something.
I know wod caused a lot of damage to the game, but legion, with gated flying, actually felt like a successful expansion.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not support the scummy thing they have been doing with flying, but they stopped releasing sub numbers to shield themselves behind expectations instead of getting destroyed by facts (although it is evident BfA is not doing as well as legion).
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I’m not mad, I tried to edit the post and it deleted it… not sure why. You can definitely look at the sub numbers when they were available and relate it to gating. It continued on a downward slope and I think there’s a definite relation. I know that once I started my career - gating flying was the main reason I stopped playing. Everything took too long.
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I agree with you. It is logical and simply a better design choice for their players to allow:
Pathfinder 1 - Work at the beginning of an expansion or by the first patch
Pathfinder 2 - Works in the next zone added in an expansion
I don’t even care if they add even more requirements for Pathfinder 1 like killing all rares and finding all treasures, but by the first patch I had done everything. I paid my damn dues. I should have been flying.
And, I know I am not alone in not playing after that. The way I play (and I assume the devs want me to play), is to play the start of an expansion, and get Pathfinder 1 finished. Then, not log on for about 9 months or so. THEN log in and finish it up to get flying and level my 31 alts. That’s when they get way more played time metrics and such from me is when they DO add flying lol
Otherwise, the only reason I even logged on was to get a Zanda this time, leveled him up in 4 days, and I won’t be back til Pathfinder 2. Hope they wonder why my played time and log in metrics are so terribly low.
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they had it perfect with MoP , on the ground until max level and then buy flight.
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I agree completely with your statement - I don’t mind the work. That’s fine, I liked it better the way they did it in MOP like Yaccia stated, but if it was even possible in the beginning of the expansion I’d probably stick it out even if it required a lot of (unnecessary imo) busy work.
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Numbers lie all the time. There are many many reasons why sub numbers would be done (not that you have any proof of what they actually are) and the most likely cause is simply the age of the game itself.