What’s being taken away? I mean, flight paths are still there and numerous and have even been sped up a little (REMEMBER FLIGHT PATHS BACK HOME AFTER TELEPORTING TO MOONGLADE AS A LEVEL 20 HORDE DRUID?).
The boats and the like still exist.
They added portals to places, even a hub of portals putting some mages out of business.
Mounts were made faster and more accessible.
In old content, mounts were given the ability to fly making moving around the old world super-easy and fast.
Hearthstones. Hearthstones. HEARTHSTONES!? I have one to my Garrison (Free WoD-zone teleport which is one portal away from Ashran’s City-Portal hub), one to Legion Dalaran (Free Legion-zone teleport which has a portal to Org), and my normal hearthstone, which is now a toy that doesn’t use bag space because everyone got a toy hearthstone last December. Oh. My hearthstone also has a 4 minute CD when used in current-content areas. Versus the 30 minute CD of the old-old Hearhstone.
We were also given a whistle to teleport us to the nearest Flight Path, in case walking there was too inconvenient.
I fail to see what has been ‘taken away’ in regards to moving around the world. TALENTS on the other hand. Glares at Affliction’s level 15 row
This is specifically relating to travel. EQ was harder than Vanilla. Vanilla was harder then BC - Mists. BC - Mist was much easier than travel in WOD onward.
Lets look at the whole quote
Yes casuals have it easier in the normal casual related activities like leveling. Not raiding. Not dungoens. Not rotations. again this was responding to a tangent you ran off on. Probably because you are expecting a canned argument that a lot of other people throw out. Like you jumping to conclusions about portals. You do it everytime you want a back and forth with me. I dont mind, but at some point I would expect you to be able to realize that everyone doednt have the EXACT same opinions if they fall on one side of an issue.
You however, make the same canned responses from 99% of the hardcore arguers on here. quility of gear does not relate to the easiness of WQ. Those are separate arguments.
this must be another, “it’s our flying, and we want it now!” entitlement posts… because if you go back to the OP’s article, there’s no mention of players being able to flying, with the exception of the flight masters’ help.
This is a post about map design and nothing to do with flying.
But Blizzard devs back then wanted to make things polished and easier compared to other MMORPGs on the market.
When people say vanilla WoW map design was hardcore it doesn’t compare to Everquest corpse runs or Lineage 2 runs from one map to another during castle siege times. During castle sieges in Lineage 2 all portals were disabled. So, if your siege team died you ran all the way back to the siege which literally took 20-30 minutes of running back.
it’s funny then, how a lot of the defenses to “support” the OP boils down to flight in some form or fashion. but yeah, i guess you can consider that part of map design as well - since you claim legion’s maps were designed for vertical play, and how bfa maps aren’t ground mount friendly…
Vanilla maps didn’t have flight. That is well established at this point.
But vanilla maps compared to current maps makes it painfully obvious. The devs were not against players exploring vanilla maps. But they used different ways to slow players down going off the “main path”.
Currently WoW maps use extreme vertical scaling and with large amounts of water bodies breaking up maps. In older WoW maps you have maps with lots of water bodies or lots of hills and mountains. Rarely you had both as feature in WoW and the vertical scaling ramped up starting with WoD.
They drastically moved away from open world large quest hub type of designs to very linear on rails designs. One way gives you the freedom to play the game the way you want, the other leads you by your nose and you’re just along for the ride. Parts of legion and BfA are just annoying to deal with. Every little thing you do agroes multiple things.
I swear the SWTOR designers took over around legion.
The “Made in Kul Taris” quest lines is probably the best example of a design that has no respect for the players time or money. One quest at a time and you need to fly at least half way across the continent 15 times or so. Plus an escort quest where you’re slowed and the NPC protects you. So just walk slowly and watch an NPC fight.
World Of Warcraft is still unique and has allot to offer even today, their problem is the development and content, its way to easy to play wow then in the past. There is no challenge left in the game players are given system that reward no work. Also they are constantly adding stupid stuff that dont make the game funner just easier or not needed. They are falling prey to the same things that killed other great mmorpgs, giving the player base everything they want with no challenge. The other problem is and they are actually working on it is they are upgrading graphics which was needed 5 years ago. This is how I feel about just my opinion.
Concepts people. Overarching philosophies.
Easy travel concept vs difficult travel concept.
Devs saying lets make this easier vs lets make this harder.
No, when the game launched, boats and flight paths were good enough. What has changed is people’s expectations.
What you doing is projecting your expectations onto the words of a decade old article that states the exact opposite. For all you know the author STILL thinks that boats and flight paths make travel simple and straightforward.
I am not anti-flight, but I am against people who rewrite history for fit their own objectives.
No I am using the article because it reinforces what “I” experienced in Vanilla. I mean coming from EQ, these WoW babies want things like flight points. Dang casuals ruining MMORPGs.
If you read the rest of the article, every single items that discusses WoW talks about how its easier than MMORPGs of the day.
My agenda is reminding people thats what WoW was. Hello Kitty MMORPG. Its why I came here and stayed here.
What I see as the biggest problem regarding travel in the game right now is the fact that the world is eight expansions bigger than it was back in Vanilla. We need more options in order to travel efficiently. Efficient travel lets us play the game instead of tabbing out while our character wastes time on a taxi flight.
You are either misunderstanding what is being said there or being intentionally misleading to help your side.
The first point made there is hearthstones and now in bfa our hearthstones are like 17 minutes long with that perk and everything else on top of it. That, plus the whistle, the alchemy item, the ring, and all the various other portals have really changed how people travel.
The world feels very shallow when you can just port half way across it every 15 minutes, and despite your post being about classic you fail to realize that was one of the strengths of classic.
The massive world with 15 plus minute travel times around it made the world feel very realistic and alive. You couldn’t port in and port out whenever you wanted.
The game is actually becoming more like how it was in classic, so its almost ironic this discussion is happening in this way, despite all the things mentioned in that article are basically present today on steroids.
When you start out talking about classic WoW, and then change it to “No, I wasn’t talking about classic, I was talking about BC through MoP!” (which is when flying was introduced and available right at max level), it sure LOOKS like that’s what you’re talking about.