And the player base has never recovered. Retail servers are ghost towns and all realms are infested with CRZ instead of actual players on your server.
So yes, a “multi-billion” dollar company, run by people, can and has made such a move. In fact, it’s probably the single dumbest move they could have made – to lock the crown jewel (the single most popular feature in the game) behind a massive time-gate and a ridiculous list of chores.
Yep, spite. Pathfinger is just spite. Their hope is if they make it long and unpleasant enough, players will stop doing it and then they can just eliminate flight like they wanted to 4 years ago when Team Wrecking Ball took over game design.
Originally everyone was grounded until they completed enough expansion content to reach the expansion level cap.
However, no one had to do all the content first. Guess what? Once you have done “all the content first” you are finished with the game and there is literally no reason at all to run any alts.
New dev team imported from Diablo 3. They don’t get MMOs, haven’t the creativity to design interesting content and class design? LOL WoD and the Great Pruning proved they can’t handle any sophistication at all. This is why all classes play pretty much the same as each other now.
We don’t defend Pathfinder. Blizzard shills do at Blizzard’s behest to slow players down and keep them from burning through content. It’s not ideal but that’s their band aid solutions to things.
And now, there’s someone in another thread proposing we get rid of LFG and LFR automated group finders. It reminds me of the time “players” wanted to get rid of flying… after which Blizzard implemented Pathfinder.
They keep making rash decisions to prolong play-time but also inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot.
When Blizzard look at numbers, statistics, and profit margins, false correlations can be very misleading to them. So they continue making crappy decisions posturing them as “brilliant” ideas when really, these decisions are pissing a lot of players off and heavily contributing to the game’s decline.
True. Originally they wanted to eliminate “cyclical subs” i.e., you play, then unsub 2-3 mos. till next patch.
Now, people unsub for even longer periods. In one of my guilds, everyone who bought BfA (most didn’t) maxed their toons and then unsubbed till flight was available.
Do you think Blizzard are happy with their current sub numbers? Whats Ion just trolling when it looked like he was about to cry when he announced Shadowlands?
Most of the people who didn’t like it quit. The rest of us suckers either grinned and beared it, or like you sung its praises. Enough of the playerbase… You mean the dwindling playerbase because of Blizzard’s decisions? Decisions that include pathfinder?
Hope “enough” of the playerbase enjoys playing with a much smaller volume of people. Hope Blizzard enjoys that smaller revenue.
People have quit for lots of reasons. People quit because they don’t like LFR, that wow has become to single player friendly, people quit because of pandas and pokemon. The list of reasons is endless.
This issue is not flying. The issue is that WoW got so big that the player base by nature stopped agreeing on what the game should be.
Just read this. There are players literally claiming flying is the only thing they do and the only thing players sub for. As if the game didn’t have millions of players before flight existed…
They have tried to compromise to appease everyone. It doesn’t work because players are selfish.
It had many millions more after flight existed. And it lost millions because of the threatened removal of flight.
There was no compromise, only an ultimatum.
It is not selfish to request options. In fact, that is the opposite of selfish. I have always asked for the option to purchase a flight license. Those who like Pathfinger can do it.
It’s selfish because you refuse to admit that there are people that enjoy playing the game at max level without flight. You don’t care how many do or why they do. You even refuse to acknowledge players exist.
But again, you have your head in the sand. So nothing anyone says, no matter how rational will get you to concede anything. GL playing MoP.
Because of we did the license version, Blizzard would inflate the price to be a gold sink. Activision has made a more focus on sub longevity…so what better way to keep flying by making it a bloated price for a license?
That way they could make an avid case of how Pathfinder is fairer for the playerbase who dont play the AH or spend IRL on tokens.
Anyone that says “just don’t fly” is either being deliberately obtuse, not thinking it through, or is just completely clueless. It also shows a lack of understanding. Ground mounts aren’t what people that don’t like flying (from the start) find fun, it’s a flightless world. It’s not that being grounded is “fun”, it’s that flying 90% of the time is less fun/immersive.
Very few people aren’t going to use flight if it’s available, it’s not about self control, it’s the fact that consciously handicapping yourself by not using flight when it’s available is less fun than just using the flying mount.
My proposed solution to have flight from the beginning: nerf the flying mechanic. It isn’t very fun or unique to begin with, its just static xyz movement with no fluidity or feel. Change how flight works to be more even with ground mounts. IMO you should be using ground mounts within a zone and use flight to get over certain areas or get between zones. Idk how the new system would work, but it’s the only way for flight to be accessible from the beginning.