If they give a reason and approach for the design change that makes sense, like they did when they decided to move away from flying, I imagine I’ll be fine with it.
My enjoyment of the game isn’t based on getting flight so that I can take it easy and rack up stuff without having to engage with the world, which seems to be why most people in this thread want it added back in from day one. So, I would hope that if they brought it back it would be in a way that adds a challenge to the game and discourage people from trying to use it just to flit around in easy mode.
I’m okay with the gatekeeping of certain races. When Allied races were first introduced I thought it was cool and still do since they feel like bonus content we got at the end of Legion. However, putting the Zandalari and Kul Tirans behind so many restrictions was a dick move since they are supposedly a feature of the expansion pack. If Blizz really wanted to keep them out when the expansion first launched, fine, that makes sense for lore purposes, but just make it timed or make us do a basic quest chain to get them. But all these quests and achievements and reputation, blegh, it sucks. I paid for these races and I still can’t role one until I jump through some more hoops. Here’s what I would have taken instead: give us Zandalari and Kul Tirans with our payment for the expansion, and make us unlock some deeper cuts like, idk, the Sethrak.
In addition to flight being the crown jewel, another claim to fame other games do not share is the seamless connection between areas on the continents. Immersion? Oh yeah.
That’s a huge assumption on other players, and a disregard for how a lot of others enjoy the game. Notice you started the 2nd paragraph with “My enjoyment…”.
That being said I’m not totally on board with flying right at level cap either, but they can integrate flying in a way that flows with the design of the zone/theme/story. They are choosing not to for what I’m fairly sure are financial reasons, but they’re also not removing flying for financial reasons. Delaying flight a year after release is not acceptable.
Not really. It’s a pretty common theme from folks demanding flight. You don’t even have to leave this thread to find it.
They can. They can also integrate player housing, third faction, no factions, 90 slot bags, a bard class, 600% speed mounts, cross-realm AH and any other number of changes. But they don’t, and in the case of holding back flight they have a reasonable design rationale.
Citation needed.
Well, sure, when the player base went ballistic over flight in WoD they added Pathfinder. The fact that they haven’t taken further steps to add flight back in further suggests the majority of players are fine with it as well.
It boggles my mind how unwilling blizzard is to innovate or build upon it, it’s like their sad attempt at player housing. “It’s too hard so we quit” is what it boils down to since they had clearly tried with that one quest in cata and the aerial jousting quest. Not saying I wanna constantly be tapping keys to fly but a similar system could be tried at the least.
I’ve always said I’ll never play another MMO but I’m seriously considering giving FFXIV a chance. I’m just so sick of these devs that just seem so combative toward their playerbase.
Except the reason they gave for PF is a big lie. They want us to experience the content from the ground. Ok. PF1 accomplishes that goal. Then they slap the biggest time gate that’s ever been in wow onto it with zero reasoning. The devs have never addressed why flying is gated beyond PF1.
Shadowlands is undoing that by making four of the new zones their own separate maps that are not connected to one another. This will make the game experience disjointed.
They did back in WoD when they made the decision to delay the first Pathfinder. It’s right there in the interviews. Their decision is based on the multi-player game experience as a whole, not the individual player experience, which is perfectly legitimate in the design of an MMORPG. Once any group of people has flight, the world dynamic changes for everyone. I won’t repeat the reasons why, they’ve been hashed and rehashed in this thread and others already.
Yup. PF2 started in legion and it was a bad precedent that they have not recovered from. Participation for PF2 in BFA is so much drastically lower than PF2 of Legion it shows that their model is failing.
Which is exactly what is wrong with wow today. The devs want to tightly control “player experience” instead of taking the approach of “here’s the content, here’s flying go do it or not”.
If that’s their concern, they really miss the mark by going after flight. The multi-player experience is enhanced by the content, not by the travel mode. For example, take Sunsong Ranch in Mists. That was content that got players together in a location where interactions could occur. Along with the various NPCs, it felt real-world, like a real marketplace. Same with class halls in Legion where players would congregate. It’s the content design that enhances the multi-player game experience.
Compare that with riding by another player on a ground mount. What chance for interaction can possibly happen if two players simply ride past each other? Travel, even ground travel, doesn’t provide that experience.
LOL No. They didn’t bother finishing Tanaan before they released WoD. Given the absolutely nothing they did throughout the expac, this was the reason, for the first time since it was introduced, that the world was not flight ready at launch.
Are you saying Shadowlands is not going to be one seamless map like the Azeroth continents and even Outlands? At least you could fly directly accross the void expanse, from Hellfire Peninsula to Netherstorm.
Nefarious plot to get rid of flight: Make obtaining it so singularly and increasingly unpleasant eventually no one does it. Notably they haven’t removed PF from any of the old content – as if anyone is going to bother with it now.