I think that’s the crux of the issue. For starters, we know there are players who will level up to max level, on the first day of an expansion release, and then a week later have the audacity to complain to Blizzard that, “I’m bored! There’s nothing left to do right now!” It happens a lot, actually.
I don’t believe Blizzard creates content so that people can “no-life” it; I’m sure the game developers expect us to have other obligations in real life than just being immersed in WoW as a second life. In fact, I’m sure they understand the dangers of making video games an addiction, which is why they may try to time-gate certain things. They even have a tip in one of the loading screens that alludes to that.
Flying wasn’t an issue UNTILL BLIZZARD made it one. We had flying… nobody said anything about taking it away. If anything we said the world back in the vanilla days was better and more player interaction without it but never to take it away. IT WAS NEVER AN ISSUE UNTILL BLIZZARD MADE IT ONE.
I agree; however, I also understand this one, simple truth: at the end of the day, it’s still Blizzard’s game. They have every right to give something and to take it away. And we, as paying customers, also have every right to disagree with Blizzard’s decision to take something away that we enjoy by not giving them any more of our money.
And as it was with WoD, that sort of response by we the consumers will demonstrate to Blizzard that their decision is a poor one, and they’ll react accordingly. If the community doesn’t agree with Pathfinder, then “voting with our wallets” is definitely the next step to let Blizzard know we don’t agree with their decision to have it. But the fact that Pathfinder still remains could be an indication that not enough of the player base disagrees with their system to time-gate flight through Pathfinder achievements. Only time will tell, though, I suppose.
No disrespect but I stopped reading at “is Blizzards game” Yes you’re right, everything belongs to them, no doubt. If you want to make a move such as gating flying behind a whole year behind achievements and grinds and what not and piss off a whole community and make them not like you and sometimes quit for the purpose of ABSOLUTELY nothing because gating flying behind pathfinder has done nothing positive for anyone then my friend… Crash and burn… that’s the only way you’ll learn (I mean them) ^^
regarding pathfinder while there really is no legal basis to bring one at this point nothing short of a lawsuit would actually get Blizzards attention
lets be realistic it appears the current development team is adamantly determined to get their way no matter how much money these kinds of decisions cost the company
Translation: “I don’t want to rebut an opposing view using critical thought by means of analyzing premises and adherence to the laws of logic and reason; I just want to be lazy and vote with the majority of people who’d rather use feelings and emotions to express disagreements that go against the status quo of the forums.”
There is no need for critical thought here, this argument has been done a 1000 times over, and I’m reporting this post for spam like I should have at the start.
Now you’re just being vindictive, which further proves my point that you’d rather appeal to emotions and feelings than logic and reason to explain why you disagree with me.
To prove that point even more, let me ask you 2 questions:
On what grounds is my post spam?
Can you show examples of other posts that have argued that Pathfinder was created because of the players’ lack of moderation? That should be easy for you, since my argument “has been done a 1000 times over.”
And yet if they want to keep us playing the game, they have to be willing to bend.
Because if you write a book that is pure garbage and cop an attitude of “its my book, you don’t matter!” you’ll quickly find sales will suffer.
It’s a balancing act. One Blizzard more and more is failing to achieve. Because they refuse to bend. Pathfinder being drawn out over almost a year is not bending. It’s trying to DISCOURAGE players from wanting to fly. It’s an old tactic.
Take something people want, make it unpleasant to get access to it. Eventually fewer and fewer people will want it. Because its not worth the effort.
Also, the whole “they chew through content too fast” runs afoul of another simple factor. Blizzard more and more is relying on excessive amounts of repeatable content just to ‘pad’ the game. TV series call things like that “filler episodes” or in extreme cases, “filler seasons”.
It’s there to pad out the series, but doesn’t actually improve things. It’s essentially hot air which for a short time will fill your stomach. But the air dissipates over time.
And we managed just fine for years up until they went and said “flying is expensive to put into the game, and we’re too stupid to make it engaging, so we’ll just remove it!”
And they realized that was a horrible idea because of backlash. So, since they couldn’t get rid of it without negative consequences, they turned around and tried to make it as unpleasant as possible while also demonizing it as the cause of all the ills in the game.
Imagine the diversity of content we could have, if instead of attitudes like “this is hard to design around and we regret ever putting it in the game” the dev team embraced everything that’s been added over the years and expanded on it.
But more and more, I honestly think they’d rather be working on stand-alone games than do the work required for a persistent world game. That’s why we get rental gear gimmicks and reinvented wheels every expansion.
I pretty much acknowledged that in the portion of my post that you failed to quote, where I stated:
The point of contention is whether the content is “pure garbage” or not. To players like me, it’s not, especially if you play the content for what it is–stories in an MMORPG. The point of the expansion is not to steamroll through content in order to fly; it’s to immerse yourself into the conflicts (the “Warcraft”) within the narrative.
This game is more than just a flight simulator or an action game; it’s an MMORPG. Flight or not, there are supposed to be elements where it takes long to earn something because we are part of the storyline. Repeatable content is a trait of MMORPGs, after all. Many players have forgotten that, though.
Now, if you’re not enjoying the grind towards flight, higher-leveled gear, etc., then that’s understandable. But don’t be angry at Blizzard for installing grinding systems in their game when it’s an MMORPG, not a first-person shooter, fighting game, or anything else. And they have the intellectual right to set the conditions for players to earn flight in WoW.
If you don’t like it, then let Blizzard know by cancelling your subscription or not buying Game Time, which will affect their bottom-line. But, at the end of the day, it’s their decision, and they have to face the consequences of it from the consumer. That’s the beauty of a free market.
We can also let blizzard know we’re not happy by speaking up and hoping our voices are heard.
They’ve listened in the past when there was a huge enough backlash. Both cancelled subs and large numbers of voices spoke up.
People spoke out against the plans to require your real name be used on the forum. Blizzard realized, along with some bad actions taken by disgruntled fans, that it was a bad idea.
It’s the combination of how you voice your protest that produces results.
I think hackers figured out how to break RealID. I had a friend whose account was hacked, everyone’s account on his friend’s list was hacked. I’m not sure if the hackers felt sorry for me or if Bliz caught it before they could transfer my gold and restored my items, but I made out and had more gold after I was hacked.
People have been protesting with their voices against the Pathfinder achievement since WoD; yet, Blizzard has not changed its decision, which means Pathfinder is here to stay. So, using your voice isn’t going to change anything with gating flight.
But protesting with your wallet is different, and it’s more effective (which is how flight remained in the game).
And the challenge should be doing content, not reaching the content in the first place. If I slay 100 of your enemies on the way to your quest, but none of them count because they weren’t part of the quest, then the entire trip there just points out how meaningless the tasks we’re doing really are.