It’s because they think flying is too good for the beginning difficulty curve of a new expansion. I kind of agree with them. It’s harder to find secrets and explore a zone with more limited vehicles.
I dunno, I don’t mind it really. Then again I had all of Breath of the Wild to get used to the stamina system via the glider. The only difference is that you can’t replenish the stamina in BotW naturally like you can in DF.
Or…flloating islands over Nagrand in Outland. Because, um…magic stuff, fantasy related “the only rules that apply are the ones we say apply” sort of design.
Umm…ah…what? It what? I’d pull up one of my ‘cat looking surprised’ gifs except I cant be bothered. How does being able to fly from A to B cheapen the game? Does using a portal cheapen the game? Or a flightpoint? Or a mage teleport? Its just…a system of transport fer gawdsake.
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That would be the right thing to do but Blizzard rarely does the right thing
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I’m just sitting here waiting for vigor to fill up, feeling a little drained with this atm, I just want to travel, I’m tired of the hoops needed in this game to get someplace.
Blizzard just can’t help themselves, everything fun has to be gated.
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It allows you to ignore the game almost entirely.
Why bother making zones if players can just hop over anything.?,
Yeah the planet blew up so physics got wonky. Ofc its all made up its a computer game, its just line of codes. But its meant to emulate an alternative world and that requires some degree of coherence tp grasp the attention of the players.
this has been my main argument through all of this: classic to DF mounts, ground and air, have been modes of transportation, a faster form of walking if you will. DF launches and suddenly we have to interact with it and “it’s more natural” and better than “air swimming” (a phrase I never heard before DF.)
So, if everyone wants it to be more interactive, what next–applying the same logic to ground mounts? Stamina which lets you go faster for a while but have to let it recharge? Jumping puzzles to gather glyphs for improving the mount… yeah that would not go over well at all.
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And the weird thing is, I can never recall seeing anyone complain about flying prior to this expansion. It was perfectly acceptable and the only bad part was Pathfinder (which is a pimple on the face of WoW). Yet now its ‘air swimming’ and Bad and dragonriding is SO much better because reasons.
They should have what ESO has for ground mounts - you have to earn high speed mount movement. You start of slow and it takes quite some time to get to the highest speed. Hell, maybe Blizzard will think of a good reason to do that. 
Yeah, dragonriding is a bane, you can’t even take a moment to watch the land go by lest you run out of power and end up flapping madly and sinking like a stone. You were talking about dragonriding, yes?
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You clearly weren’t around then.
TBC = Available day 1 when you hit level 70, (68 for Druids.)
Wrath = Available day 1 when you hit level 77.
Cata = Available day 1 for everyone level 60 and up.
Mists = Available day 1 at level 90.
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Nope. You said what you said.
I guess you think players with cerebral palsy, vertigo/motion sickness, or one arm should just, “git gud” when they can handle regular flight just fine even with their limited abilities, even though the entirety of the Dragon Isles is designed around flying.
My question is how?
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They have, launch day, TBC through Cata.
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But they have. It was there for you to get the moment the expansion opened and you reached the appropriate level. That (and the cost of the license) was the only requirement.
It isn’t ‘air swimming’ (curses to whoever invented that stupid name) . It is flight. It says Flight License when you buy it, not Air Swimming License. Its a derogatory term to belittle something we have enjoyed since TBC, and for which the game has provided hundreds of flying mounts (none of which can be used in this expansion, thank you Blizzard).
I mean, jeez, I got a Zenet Hatchling in the Dragon Isles the other day and I can’t use it there!. It’s just crazy…
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What’s the argument exactly? “It’s different, so it’s bad?”
Yes, flying mounts have literally just been “air swimming” since their inception in TBC. What’s the issue with them trying to make it more interesting/interactive?
The main reason I love both is that they’re unlocked account-wide, no matter your level (alts for Pathfinder), as long as you have Expert Riding.
I never want to have to unlock flying on my alts again, especially by being grounded until level cap in content I’m repeating.
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well what the argument with normal flying its different so its bad get outta here. i didn’t see no one on the forums asking for dragonriding in the first place flying was fine no one was whining everyone got over the pathfinder and just did it. its pretty clear some people want normal flying for whatever reason nothing wrong with it but as blizz always does they test peoples patience to the extreme until people straight blow up or unsub it’s amusing some of things blizz does. like 3 expansions of overannoying systems til everyone got so mad and they lessened the hassle in every expansion later to finally just give in and totally remove. the only reason normal flying is gated is just testing the playerbase and to see the reactions same as wod.
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For me it would be more, its different AND its bad. Making things interesting/interactive is a worthwhile design. Making a core game system and pretty well the hook for the expansion difficult for a portion of the players is not.
Did they call it that back then? I do know that I’ve been playing since early Wrath and nobody that I ever saw or heard called it that then. In fact, DF is the first time I ever heard this meme of a title.
The thing is, many people who stridently support dragonriding just forget that most of us who like normal flight don’t ask for dragonriding to go, we just want the normal flight system put into the expansion asap. And I, for one, will be mightily p’d off if we get hit with a Pathfinder after they proved unreservedly that providing a form of flight from the start was a simple thing to do.
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The cloud serpent course was one of the requirements to unlock cloud serpent riding.
It may have had a race included, but there was at least one achivement, “In a Trail of Smoke” There may be more I just couldn’t find.
But we have flying horses and cities in the air. What are you talking about?
How? I can’t level by staying on a flying mount.
As for flying cities, we have two Dalarans, one in Northrend, and one in the Broken Isles.
Shadowlands was an entire expansion of islands in the sky.
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This thread reminded me of one developer (maybe former developer?) that said that we could have had better enemy AI, but players complained too much about that sort of thing, so we still just have enemies that do basic attacks in the open world.
Now, I’m fine with them adding hovering to the Dragon Isles. I also want them to add Dragonriding to the other non-Dragonflight zones where flying is enabled. And I’d love it if I could have my ghost dragon Dragonride while I’m dead, as an option, of course.