As far as flying? Mostly people just like to use it as a scape goat for wpvp not being as popular as they like to pretend. Never mind things like pvp having been shifted to instanced content for a long time or that once more and more people hit max level they have less and less reason to be out in the world in general(both things that happened in vanilla as well)
What they really mean is, “we know non ganking wpvp isn’t very popular but flying makes ganking harder.”
Pretty much. My thought is that they simply add TBC servers, and free transfers to said servers. Then they do a massive server merge shortly after for the vanilla servers, and whamo. problem solved. Vanilla stays vanilla, and new server get expansions. No reason for any of these “No! TBC” “No! vanilla” arguments. both sides can be taken care of.
Classic just came out, everyone calm tf down.
There were worse things than flying.
I honestly think flying mounts don’t belong in classic, the game wasn’t originally designed for it, so like the individual above said, they need to design content around flying. Simple solution that works great for everyone? If you want QoL, Flying, etc, just play retail! Its designed with you in mind.
I will say, what I don’t understand at all is this desire to progress through the expansions. This should definitely be a separate development path from Classic+ (if you will).
Hear me out. Everything that was done for BC and onward was done to continue to grow WoW financially, and to appease the community. It’d be nice for once to have a MMO that just stays 100% true to itself and follows the design paths, goals, and experience that the original developers were aiming to achieve. Real gamers themselves, and not investors. Something wholesome and original, and not crowd sourced by the loudest critics of the games original design.
There are lots of elements of retail that us purists think are great and don’t effect the root of the game that would be amazing to add to classic, like pet battles for example, more gear, more story-based progression raids (like how you need to be attuned for certain bosses because their fire is more dangerous for lore based reasons), cosmetics, transmog, etc. But there were many decisions made over the years that just seemed designed to keep us in game and paying that monthly subscription that have obviously backfired. I mean they’ve thrown probably billions at wow with no significant increase in player base since WoTLK.
I think the resurgence and sheer number of people still playing classic currently speaks volumes to what a large portion of the community loved about the Blizzard from back in the day. Unapologetic game design that created experiences through the good and the bad.
Like as an example, in many ways, a lot of mainstream gamers would play Diablo 2 today, and see a broken game that needs “balancing” and nerfs. But the reality is that these exploits, the crazy fast dungeon running, power-leveling your friends, min-maxing, finding ways to leverage the game mechanics, etc, were what original gamers loved about that game. I say original gamers meaning those of us who played games back when it wasn’t mainstream. It felt like an achievement to get around some of the mechanics that are forced on us today. And the best part? There was still so much wholesomeness to the core game. The quests, the adventure, the story, the progression. It was all still there to enjoy. Diablo 2 only really had the one expansion IIRC, and that was all it ever really needed, and even that expansion didn’t violate core mechanics or provide QoL changes.
I worry we all are missing the point here from the return to Classic. WoW’s core game design and direction weren’t originally broken, it was just never finished. I would love to see all the original scrapped plans for Classic come to fruition in Classic+, and for retail to remain what it is for those that love it.
Also, just a note to everyone, If you think retail is better, then please stop commenting in Classic threads, your opinions are potentially giving the wrong impression about what direction needs to be taken, we have no need to defend classic versus retail in discussing classics direction forward as it doesn’t effect retail players.
TBC was a good expansion to a point. Flying was needed for that expansion do to the lay out of the world. But Flying in general was really the start of the QOL’s that began the decent of wow.
Don’t get me wrong some of the QOL’s were okay, but what is okay for one is not okay for the other. LFG + weaker dungeons in Wrath really exacerbated the slide.
So I think a lot of folks who TBC + Flying = bad gaming.
You haven’t looked very hard then. A lot of us simply didn’t like it wrt how it changed the game. That’s as valid as any argument.
I have spoken with a lot of people currently playing classic. They all want something different. A lot of them hated BC and think the game totally took a wrong turn.
A lot of people want to keep Classic in a state of stasis but change it to add even more time-consuming “features”.
A lot of people want very specific changes made to retail, but since they haven’t actually played since vanilla, they have no idea what they’re talking about.
Flying is a red herring for other problems. People either don’t understand what the real problems were or haven’t bothered to really think about it and so it becomes the convenient, easy excuse to pin everything on.
Flying as a mechanic is fine - even in the original game world. It offers a different perspective and even introduces some unique gameplay and storytelling possibilities. Kept as a late-game/end-game type of experience isn’t as detrimental as people think it is.
I am against TBC not only because of flying, but because it also started a lot that I don’t like as a PvP leaning player.
It gave us the arena system. Arenas focused around using line of sight and juking, usually in a 2v2 or 3v3 match. This really isn’t what WoW is about in most other PvP environments. And the arena ranking system is how they wanted players to get gear? It’s an isolated playstyle. They started to balance PvP around it.
With the arena balancing came a homogenization arms race. Warriors were designed to counter healers, but lack healing themselves. They gave them second wind. Rogues were CCers that were susceptible to CC themselves. They gave them cloak of shadows. Mages were casters with a large number of cast times. They gave them more instant casts. Druids were weak in vanilla, but at least they followed the rule that casters use mostly cast bars. BC changed them into instant casting mobility gods that only warriors with piercing howl could really counter.
I think that PvE players should also be upset with this to some extent. It was the game being designed around the esport. I get that they loved all those raids, but it really was the beginning of class homogenization. They tried to make spells/talents exciting by making them cover class weaknesses.
I didn’t realise that there was ANY significant opposition to the idea of TBC legacy servers, except for a vocal minority on these forums that are concerned that this would further fragment the playerbase. (Which, for the record, I don’t consider to be a valid concern.)
I played TBC and loved it. Loved it. Every aspect. I would play it again but we’ve been there done that. I’m torn between wanting totally new content in a lateral world move like new areas New raids yet still the classic experience with no changes including flying and going TBC into Wrath and not messing the game up. If they could pull off the lateral expansion with new content it’d be great. Keep it the MMORPG it was, and take some lessons from the old Ultima Onine.
But those arguments aren’t valid arguments against implementing TBC legacy servers, since you don’t have to play on them and it won’t remove your capacity to play on Classic servers. You don’t like TBC PvP? Just keep playing on Classic servers.
Just let everyone play what they want to play.
Because flying ruins the immersion of the game and circumvents the entire world by allowing you to simple bypass the entire world. Not only does it ruin PvP, it also negates any sort of threats from the PvE world.
If flying mounts had a cooldown, and a short duration, I could see it being implemented ok.
Give flying mounts a 1 hr cooldown and only allow 3 minutes of flight at a time.
I played in vanilla right through BC until just before WotLK came out. I totally got the convenience of flying and when I came back to the game in WoD I of course have striven to get flying asap for each expansion because it makes so many things so much easier, saves you time etc., but I always felt it removed me a bit further from the world I was supposed to be in and made that world seem a little smaller.
It also totally lessened the threat of the opposite faction for me. Not completely, obviously, but quite a lot. In vanilla it was always a little thrilling to see a player name in red just over yonder, making me run behind a tree in an attempt to hide from a potentially hostile ally. No one likes getting ganked, but at the same time the threat of it, the thought that I might have to run or get killed, I might not get away, I might have to make a b line for my fellow horde I see over there and hope he backs me up…it added excitement. Once I could fly, well, I saw that player name in red over yonder, and I mounted up and F’ed off.
We’ve sacrificed a lot of excitement and wonder for a little convenience, and flying mounts is just one example.
Only if you never land.
To forestall you counter-argument, I’m going to say that I’m enjoying Classic immensely. And it doesn’t have flying mounts. And that isn’t spoiling my enjoyment of Classic. Most times, except when I see threads like this, I never even consider the lack of flying mounts.
But TBC had flying mounts. And content designed around having flying mounts. And these are legacy servers. They’re intended to be a best approximation of the original game as Blizz can manage, so that people can play that content as was originally intended. They’re not intended to be new content. If that was the design intent, they could just implement Classic design philosophy into the next Retail xpac.
I love being able to fly! I remember when I got my first flying mount, I went everywhere just so I could see the absolutely stunning world that was created for us to play in from a new angle. From trees to deserts it was all so captivating to see from above. And you could just watch the world go by all around you, from players doing their thing, to npc’s/mobs, and the colors! I would def play TBC again because I loved the content, and the flying was the cherry on top.
I covered what causes people to do this in this other thread: Argument against TBC ? ANYONE - #236 by Grimmish-mankrik
Your comment is completely irrelevant.
I remember being chased by players on the Phoenix mounts through Zangarmarsh on my very slow gryphon and getting kited out of the sky. Or landing on a shroom and duking it out. But it got old fast, and eventually no one seemed to be out fighting, I’m guessing because of Arenas. WPvP declined, the World felt smaller, nothing pre-BC mattered. I would have preferred more content updates (not expansions), even if it came out slowly. But the people wanted expansions faster and faster every time.
It was by far the best expansion but also started the trend of me quitting every expansion. I never unsubbed for Vanilla.
Also forgot, belfs, Draenei & H pallys & A shammys. I never liked that they did that.