Outside of Cata, flying has been unlocked later in expansions since flying was introduced. Whether thst was after we earned max level and acquired the gold or after Pathfinder, flying did not exist during leveling in every expansion except Cata— for obvious reasons.
Borrowed power systems would like a word with you.
Pretty irrelevant at this point, though.
Even in cata, you needed to buy a flight master’s license to fly on Azeroth.
But that’s the only time we were allowed to buy it at low level day one of the expansion to level with flying. You couldn’t do some of Cata content without it.
It’s like Super Mario Brothers on the NES - why does Nintendo hate gamers and force them to go right and jump?!?
Their most recent games allow for multidirectional movement and play! Yet, SMB on the NES is 2 dimensional and only allows you to move to the right!!
What are these game making companies doing?!!? Don’t they know they need to update all their games to match my expectations and demands?!!?
Rrreeeeeee!!
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a much more ridiculous argument.
In Warlords, Blizzard didn’t even plan for there to be any flying until enough of an outcry was made, at which point they gave us Pathfinder in two parts–which required constant reputation grinding and meta achievements for an expansion that was already written off as a failure for many people.
So, yes, you had to wait in order to fulfill the requirements for both achievements, by actively playing the game almost on a daily basis just to get it in any reasonable amount of time.
Legion and BFA they had the whole concept down solid by making the first part achievable after release, but locking the second behind the X.2 content patch. Which meant you still had to wait, and you still had to complete the meta achievements.
So, (by your logic), why have they been time gating Dragonflight for the past few months?
An expansion launch is not the same as arbitrarily locking flight behind time-gated mechanics. Holy cripes.
We need to look at what time gates truly are, though.
For example, the Covenant campaign was a true time gate. You could only get so far before you hit a stopping point and couldn’t progress any further until you were allowed the next week. Currencies and reps in Old Republic only allow you to earn so much per week.
Those are true time gates.
Something that didn’t exist yet being a time gate? I’m not sure. On one hand, when it was put into the game, you weren’t blocked from earning it. But on the other hand, we did have to wait for it to be put into the game first.
It’s a strange line that I’m not sure where it falls.
SL flying required Korthia, BFA required mechagon and nazjatar, Legion required the armies of legion fall.
None of those were available in the x.0 patch.
But I’m not the one who originally said that it’s a time gate to require content that’s not out yet.
Not even. The covenant campaign was a staggered release, as once that chapter was available you could do it as soon as you unlocked it when you got to it later, you didn’t have to wait a week between chapters if you got to it 3 months down the line.
A true time gate would be original covenant swapping, as no matter when you started the swap you needed to wait till next reset to complete the swap.
you already PAY to get flight, so yeah, Pathfinding needs to stop being the dumpster fire between me and flight in what are otherwise fun zones. It’s BFA, two expansions old. Let it go.
Which is literally a time gate.
Needing to wait until a future patch just to unlock the ability to fly makes it a time-gate, on top of that requiring an achievement that takes time to complete based on daily and weekly resets. Perhaps not on the same level as requiring an arbitrary amount of time spent on content in order to unlock the next stage, but the very fact that you’re still forced to wait until it’s released does not make it much different.
Whereas, in Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm you still had to expend a moderate amount of gold but the ability to do so was available from the beginning. The only mechanic blocking you from doing so was your ability to generate virtual income at a reasonable pace.
Are there actually people who say this? Oh my god that’s crazy, I don’t even think I’ve ever personally seen anyone oppose just opening up old Pathfinders for everyone. I didn’t even know people that awful existed.
What is wrong with them?!
There is a difference. A time gate forces an arbitrary amount of time in order to do a thing, and if you did the campaign (in this case) later in the patch, there was no wait time. You could run the chapters as soon as you had enough renown.
So needing to wait till content is released in order to get the benefits of that content is a time gate?
I couldn’t care either way for BfA. The flight points are convenient and abundant. Unless you’re intending to spend hours in Kul Tiras then I’m not sure why you wouldn’t be unlocking it passively, and it’s going in the TW cycle in DF where you won’t even have to grind the reps. Rep tokens, my beloved.
I am worried about the impression SL will have with how absolutely sparse and irrelevant the FPs are. Good thing it’s not part of the New Player Experience.
Gatekeeping flying and allied races isn’t content, it’s making you grind old crap to get content and that’s what they’re complaining about. Gating it based on your level ought to be more than enough IMO.
A time gate in video games is when you can only get so far before you are stopped from going further until a period of time has passed for you to continue on.
Right, and if you get to the covenant campaign later, you can do it all in 1 sitting.
Right now, the game is not stopping you from doing the entire SL campaign story in 1 play session. (it would take a long time, the only limit is how long you can play)
Like I’ve said before, it’s a little different when there is a feature that is already in the game being locked behind the requirements of a series of meta achievements that take time to complete on top of waiting for a future patch.
You’re the one insisting on drawing strawman arguments.