The Carrot Has Been Removed, Thoughts On Flying. + Second Quarter Predictions?

Post by Rankkor

The trouble is that it's a decision where the limitations it brings (or brought, as it's been in place for a long time now) are immediately and very easily understood while the benefits are more nebulous and long term. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of the discussion we see is negative regarding the decision but I don't believe that the voices we hear opposing it actually bear any relation to a potential lowering of enjoyment (from those vocal opponents themselves or from the wider playerbase). I think it's more just a reaction to a perceived restriction of freedom, against which it's easy to knee-jerk.

I think this post addresses your point in a much more eloquent way that I'm able to manage.

Its why so many people feel like blizzard is being "lazy" with this. And to a certain degree, I have to say they are kinda right.

Whenever something is not working, rather than iterate and try to make it work, they just nuke it down. IF flying was causing problems, they should have addressed them and work on them, rather than literally cut the knot off entirely. This is a very dearly regarded feature for a lot of people. Just imagine if they tried to remove pet battles, after how many people enjoy them, just because they can't really balance them or add anything new to them.

Here's a tiny excerpt from that post:

So far, it would seem, that if you can't make a feature work by making it simpler, you just remove it. It's basically their entire approach to content with WoD, with the exception of garrisons - which are obviously "too big to fail". Even in this example, garrisons are a pale shadow of what they were intended to be when announced on blizzcon.

Look at scenarios...did they do work to make them better, assuming they weren't working out in MoP? Nope. Removed. Replaced with...nothing. Abilities, item upgrades, reforging, professions, etc? Either deemphasized or removed entirely.

Post by lankybrit

I have a question. Will flying come to Dreanor when 7.0 ships?

Post by 335450

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Rankkor

I have a question. Will flying come to Dreanor when 7.0 ships?

Nope. They said in no uncertain terms that they will never bring flight back. Not to Draenor, nor any new zones, nor any new expansions released from now on. Pretty much the only parts were we'll be able to fly are pre-draenor zones. Anything else after 90 is ground-exclusive.

I honestly can't properly express how badly I'm hoping they change their minds about this, because it seriously demotivates me from pretty much getting any mount now. I was farming the Ashes of Al'ar since god knows when, and I just don't see the point anymore if I can't fly on it. I got the Firehawk from Ragnaros and I can't use it because it looks utterly stupid running on the ground when the mount is 80% made of wings.

Post by jarycu

I think this

That thread has gained SIXTY PAGES in the 5 hours since your quoted post was posted. It's at 355 pages as of right now and growing, and there is a petition linked farther down the page with close to 1000 players having already signed it.

Here's the petition:

Petition to Re-Instate Flying on Change.org

I'd love to see how many from Wowhead will go to sign it as well. My name's already on it.

As one poster aptly put it, putting flying in the game doesn't hurt the people who don't want to fly. All they have to do is not hit the spacebar and fly. Not putting it in, though, kills the rest of us. I've personally farmed 12 dragon mounts so that I could fly around on them...do you know how much it sucks trying to run around on the Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher on the ground when it gets stuck under trees and can't pass through doors? I didn't spend 2 years trying to beat the LK only to never use it in current content again.

First garrisons, then catching 5 billion fish to upgrade a building I haven't seen or used in 45 days, then giving me the same 6 mounts in 47 different colors each and calling them new, and now taking away one of my favorite parts of the game.

I finally understand why I downloaded Star Trek Online the other night and started playing it. I can fly EVERYWHERE in that game since, you know, it's in space. If Blizz bought it, I bet they'd make me teleport everywhere.

Post by Rankkor

Post by jarycu

I think this

That thread has gained SIXTY PAGES in the 5 hours since your quoted post was posted. It's at 355 pages as of right now and growing

If I'm not mistaken, its the fastest growing thread ever made in the forums since the last controversial decision by blizzard. Namely when they tried to implement Real ID on the forums. That escalated quickly.

I saw that referenced a page or 2 later. I wasn't around for that, so I'm not familiar with it.

Hozzikostas (sp?) will have a ton of reading to do when he gets to work on Tuesday after the holiday.

Post by 235245

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by asakawa

I think this post addresses your point in a much more eloquent way that I'm able to manage.

Its why so many people feel like blizzard is being "lazy" with this. And to a certain degree, I have to say they are kinda right.
The discussion of this subject gets very quickly mixed up with other subjects as people try to generate practical reasons for how they just feel about it. There are other issues with the game, there always are, but the Garrison-Prison effect, or the uninspiring PvP, or the underutilisation of Dungeons, or the overutilisation of LFR, none of these things contribute to, or are indicative of, anything to do with flying. They just muddy the waters and we could have a conversation about that stuff but it's not relevant or apt to this one.

Whenever something is not working, rather than iterate and try to make it work, they just nuke it down. IF flying was causing problems, they should have addressed them and work on them, rather than literally cut the knot off entirely.
There was a quote from (iirc - and I may be wrong about who) Pardo way back in late tBC or perhaps early WotLK where they said outright that flight was a mistake. It was almost instant regret. They have been iterating and working on making it function for 5 expansions now. At what point is it okay for the iteration they try next to be no flying (WoD) and for them to learn from that iteration, "hey, this solves so many problems and makes our game better than before!".

This is a very dearly regarded feature for a lot of people. Just imagine if they tried to remove pet battles, after how many people enjoy them, just because they can't really balance them or add anything new to them.
That's not an apt comparison because pet battles are a whole mini game in themselves. Flying mounts are just a means of travel (which is why I can't comprehend the emotional attachment people have to them). If travel becomes too onerous without them then I'm quite sure Blizzard will add more means of travelling to compensate.

I totally support people who want to let Blizzard know they disagree with this decision but I have yet to see a single compelling argument for that opinion. The reasons are getting more multifarious and drawing in complaints from many other, unrelated, areas of the game. When that happens (and we've seen it a lot over the years) it tends to mean that people just don't want change to their status quo.

Perhaps there are ideas Blizz have had over the years for things they would like to do but can't because of flying. I would agree that we haven't really seen that kind of inspiration in WoD but maybe we will in the next expansion now the decision has been properly made. Even if not, I used to fly to a place but going high up, pointing my arrow towards where I'm heading on the world map and turning on auto-run. Now I get a taxi and then run the last bit. I don't see anything to get passionate about in either case here.

Post by jemaris

Kinda disappointing that Druids Epic Flight Form will be redundant. I have no compelling argument for or against the removal other than that.

Post by jarycu

It was almost instant regret. They have been iterating and working on making it function for 5 expansions now. At what point is it okay for the iteration they try next to be no flying (WoD) and for them to learn from that iteration, "hey, this solves so many problems and makes our game better than before!".

I didn't play in Vanilla, TBC, or WotLK because I found the game to be boring - it just didn't grab me. I played in Cata, which I've read is the worst expansion to the game, but I loved it. I loved the dark theme, the way it played, the music, the zones, everything. To this day, Twilight Highlands is still one of my favorite zones (#1 is Winterspring).

The part of your comment that I quote Asakawa completely blows me away. What problems does being trapped on the ground solve? Yes, I completely understand that it makes the game last longer. It makes the player stop and think about how to get around a mountain instead of over it. It allows the developers to be "clever" and put an inconsequential "treasure" on top of a toadstool and then setup a glider half a zone away that you have to float from to get to it. Yay! My game is so much better now! /sarcasm

If destroying flights were to solve so many problems, why don't the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, et. al., banish flight because then the terrorists wouldn't be able to get around as quickly? That would "solve so many problems" as well. Humans don't need to move around so quickly. Airplanes, helicopters, fighter jets, drones...they're just "conveniences," not necessities, so we should just dump them, too.

Warlords of Draenor, while adding some cool things, is a very very weak expansion. Want proof? Here are two faux interviews that I've found. Yes, they're fake. They're hilarious, but, once you quit laughing, think about the points they make.

Behind the Scenes WOD 6.1
Behind the Scenes WOD 6.2

Post by asakawa

Wow, we're Godwinning with terrorism now? This is a discussion of a game and I don't expect to see glib and tasteless comparisons to real life issues like terrorism. #SeriousFace

That silliness aside though, Jarcyu, you're making my point. You talk about how you loved something that others greatly disliked. Of course there's a range of opinions on everything. You like Cata but dislike WoD, you like flying and dislike its removal - do me a favour and understand that others don't see things the same way and they're every bit as valid in that opinion as you.

You didn't enjoy the extra difficulty to reach treasures in WoD, that's fine. Some people loved them. You didn't appreciate having to battle through the game's content to get from point A to point B, you'd rather fly up and over things. That's fine but that's something Blizz have an issue with. I'm saying that your opinion is entirely valid and fair but you should avoid doing the opposing view a disservice by setting up a silly strawman and trying to ridicule it.

The other way in which you make my point with your post is that your argument for flight is that WoD is a weak expansion. I'm all for a discussion of WoD's relative strength or weakness as an expansion but that's irrelevant to a discussion about flight and its place in the game.(##RESPBREAK##)16##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##

Post by darkelemental1

And yet there is something inherently wrong and dangerous with an opinion that seeks to limit others from doing something that doesnt affect you. Any game or developer that feels removing large aspects of a game after so long will improve the game, sets a dangerous precident. We have seen this on a smaller scale with Ashran where rather than fix glaring issues of non combat by making it more enticing, they have cut down on the experience to try and force the interaction. Removing flight falls along that same line of thought and the enormous wave of "discussion" has proven that the only interaction it has generated has been setting players at each other's throats. For many, flight was a large aspect of the game and remained patient for its eventual addition to WoD only to have the rug pulled out from under them, no community discussion, no acknowledgement that they were angering a large part of their player base, and seemingly no additional features to compensate ( like sped up ground mounts).

No matter the side of the discussion you are on, this was a loss for the game. Forcing players on the ground hasnt increased player interaction so far, why would that change now? This is just the largest takeaway in a growing trend for Blizzard to remove rather than adapt or grow. And if they happen to backtrack now or even later they will be at the mercy of a flippant player base who will be emboldened by a large victory over the company.

This isnt a pretty scenario and it wont get any prettier as it sits now.

Post by asakawa

I would argue that it never was a "large aspect of the game". It was a practicality. Lets think about what flight gives people, why they like it. It lets them move faster, sure, less downtime between interesting things means greater percentage of playtime spent doing those interesting things. But it also lets them skip stuff, avoid encounters and tricky terrain. Instead of having to move through hostile territory to your goal you just avoid it. You skip the "trash" mobs in between your quest objectives but you also miss out on everything else that designers have put there. On PvP realms you miss out on a lot of important interactions there too.

In game design the behaviour of players (not just in terms of good/bad behaviour but broadly the way they interact with everything in the game) is always led by designers through the use of rewards or incentives (and, much less often, disincentives). The trouble with flight is that the incentive is hard-wired into it, it's always more efficient, quicker and makes whatever your goal is happen more rapidly and with less interruption. If it's in the game then everyone will use it because to not do so means being less efficient and people hate that. But it's easy to see that the way people see the game world with flight is not the way a game designer would want them to.

This is the reason that the removal of flight isn't a libertarian issue. This isn't a case of "if me flying doesn't harm you then stop limiting my freedom to do so". This is a case of the game-design of flight incentivising players to skip content the designers put there to be experienced. Someone designing and playtesting a new portal level might notice that players quickly find a way to skip directly to the end of the level. You would expect every game designer to remove the thing that allows this and force players to play through the level as designed.

Now, I think that a good designer would also take note that people will skip that content if allowed to - this is valuable information on player attention levels and their interest in the content between quest hubs - and might adjust things based on that info, but leaving in the ability to skip isn't good design. Similarly, people might make level 100 characters if they could but that doesn't mean that that would be the best decision for the game. It wouldn't hurt me for you to do so but Blizzard has to think more broadly than that.

Also, as I said earlier, the loss in the short term is very easy to comprehend but the potential gain is much longer term and nebulous. The gain isn't on a player level but a game level. It's understandable that people aren't engaging the debate on that level but I do feel it's a bit short-sighted.(##RESPBREAK##)16##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##

Post by crsh1976

Count me among the disappointed, flying has become a reward/perk to look forward to at top level, and that went along well with all the flying mounts added to the game since flight was introduced in BC - not to mention mounts have been added to pretty much all play styles (rep rewards, dungeon/raid drops, PvP, etc).

Of course no player needs flying, it's a perk, Blizzard has always treated it as an optional time and gold sink, and I've always been fine with that. Level up the way it's intended (without flight), pay some fee at top level to be able to fly. So why drop it for good now?

Post by asakawa

That's precisely what I would have said prior to playing WoD. Having played without flight for this expansion I now really do feel that it makes the world smaller and less significant. All those treasures and rare elites I would tumble upon or go a little out of my way to encounter while levelling would have been things I would ignore and, instead, get in an afternoon at max level with a flying mount. I think Blizz does have some work to do to demonstrate that the game will be stronger for this decision but my experience in WoD has certainly made me receptive to them doing that.

Post by Rankkor

There was a quote from (iirc - and I may be wrong about who) Pardo way back in late tBC or perhaps early WotLK where they said outright that flight was a mistake. It was almost instant regret. They have been iterating and working on making it function for 5 expansions now. At what point is it okay for the iteration they try next to be no flying (WoD) and for them to learn from that iteration, "hey, this solves so many problems and makes our game better than before!".

Maybe this is true. MAYBE. But even so, its undeniable that it doesn't hurt their vision for the game, nor does it create any damage whatsoever to switch flight back on once a content is obsolete. Their main argument for keeping it off is that it creates a sense of danger, and they've given several times the same example of a high level quest where you have to infiltrate an enemy base, and assassinate their leader. Normally this would involve killing his army, bypassing his defenses, and climbing an uphill battle with a climmactic end with the boss. All of this would be ruined with flight because we can just swoop down from the sky, kill the bastard, then fly back up, ignoring all the danger along the way.

Up to this point, I agree with their decision to switch flight off.

HOWEVER.......... the world isn't dangerous anymore. The content isn't fresh anymore. It isn't new anymore. On foot, we've already done all the quests, explored every corner, done everything there is to be done. What possible harm could there be to let us fly now? this is why I keep insisting that both extremes are bad. Switching flight too early can ruin the immersion and danger of new content, but keeping it off permanently is not the solution either. Just switch it very late.

Have 50% of the expansion on the ground, and the latter 50% allowing us to fly, but only on the old zones, any zone released post-launch is exclusively no-flight, like Isle of Giants, Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle were in MoP.

THAT is a good compromise that pleases both sides of the fence when it comes to flying.

You talk about how you loved something that others greatly disliked. Of course there's a range of opinions on everything. You like Cata but dislike WoD, you like flying and dislike its removal - do me a favour and understand that others don't see things the same way and they're every bit as valid in that opinion as you.

You didn't enjoy the extra difficulty to reach treasures in WoD, that's fine. Some people loved them. You didn't appreciate having to battle through the game's content to get from point A to point B, you'd rather fly up and over things. That's fine but that's something Blizz have an issue with.

I'm trying to highlight that both sides of this problem (those who like flight gone, and those who want it back) are both players, and they both have the same rights. And it doesn't feel correct to punish one side to please the other. A good compromise is to simply have 50% of the expansion without flight, and 50% with it. There's no harm in switching it back on at a latter point I mean come on, what danger is there in draenor at this point?

I can pull half of talador and never go below 90%. Even Nagrand, the one zone that kicked my ass to the ground when I was leveling, I can now pull the entirety of the Ironfist Harbor mobs and kill them all in 15 seconds flat, without even fussing my hair. The zones are not dangerous anymore. We've outgrown them, we've done all there is to do in them. We experienced it the way they're meant to be experienced. There's absolutely no harm whatsoever to let us fly in them at this point. There was a lot of harm in letting us do that when they were new, but there's no harm in it now.

Hell, even their new zones aren't really a danger anymore. Once a player has geared up zones are just easy-cheesy. I tried Tanaan Jungle on the PTR. And on my toon, that doesn't have yet a single piece of Hellfire Citadel gear, I was able to chain-pull everything and kill it without ever going below 90%. The only subzone in tanaan that gave me some issue was the Throne of Kil'jaeden because everyone is an elite. And even then the problem wasn't that they were dangerous, they weren't, and never came close to kill me, the problem was that they had too much HP and took me forever to kill them myself. But I was perfectly capable of pulling 10 or 20 of them and not once go low on HP.

Post by asakawa

I refute your claim of undeniability by denying it! It literally does hurt their vision for the game and that's essentially what they've said as their reason for making the change.
Further, I don't think that a sense of danger is what it's all about. That's certainly an aspect but it's about the scale of the game too. I used to play Final Fantasy XI. That was a post-Everquest but pre-WoW MMO and as such used a lot of the then standard EQ model for what an MMO was. The game had long runs to get to anywhere but also had things like boats between continents that ran on relatively slow real-time timetables. This would mean that one could wait 30 minutes for the boat to arrive and then spend another 25 minutes as the boat travelled across the sea in real time (no loading screen to skip a large distance). This is clearly an outdated model for modern MMOs but what that did give that game was an amazing sense of scale.

At level 25 back in vanilla, having to run without a mount back and forth across Duskwood felt like an accomplishment (if a little bit of a chore), especially with Stitches on the road. Doing it with a mount these days feels like a slightly onerous task. Doing it at max level on a flying mount is just 20 seconds of your life. These increments do affect the sense of scale you have for the world and that is an integral part of playing an MMO. Again though, I'm not advocating a complete regression, just using these as examples where the game's scale is important and can be quickly diminished by making travel too easy.

I'd like to encourage moving away from words like "rights". This isn't that emotive, it's a game mechanic that is subject to the designer's decision over what best helps the game be experienced and flourish as it is intended to be. With this in mind a compromise is not a good idea as it still causes a ruckus without actually achieving the intended goal.

To engage your point Rank, I wouldn't personally mind if flight was off for levelling and on for other stuff but I can totally understand why Blizz haven't seen this solution (as used in previous expansions) as an effective one. As such I'm generally supportive of their decision to make the hard choice and do what they feel needs to be done for the game, even in light of the predictable backlash.

Post by jarycu

I refute your claim of undeniability by denying it! It literally does hurt their vision for the game and that's essentially what they've said as their reason for making the change.

Alright Asa, I'll give you that my terrorism example was reaching pretty far, so let me use this quote from your last post to make a more coherent point. (The 2 cups of coffee I've had since then won't hurt me either.)

I just went and Googled "paintings people hate" so that I can get an example. I came across this painting, which I actually think is awesome. When I looked at it, my first thought was of a book I read when I was 11 or 12, The Dark Is Rising (by Susan Cooper). The imagery I got from reading that book was almost perfectly reflected in the painting I linked above, even though they have nothing to do with each other as far as I know.

Was it the intent of the artist who painted that picture to cause every single person who saw his painting to think of that book like I did? Is it the fault of the painter that my recollection of that book that I read 25 years ago was the first thing I thought of when I saw the painting?

Probably not. The painting was done in 1883 and the book was published in 1965. Do you think that the artist, if he was still alive today, would be pissed off that I didn't enjoy his painting as he envisioned it? Do you think that Susan Cooper would be mad that I saw her work in John Atkinson Grimshaw's work from 80 years before hers?

Blizzard has created a game as well as a piece of art with World of Warcraft. Once they release the finished product to the public, it is no longer up to them to decide how we, the paying customers, consume it. Life doesn't work like that. If I go buy a picture from Wal-Mart or even a private photographer, it's no longer up to that person or that business to dictate how I enjoy what I've paid for.

Blizzard is doing that here. In essence, from my point of view, they're saying that "we don't enjoy their product correctly and therefore we're going to change it so that you have to enjoy it the way we want you to enjoy it."

I do understand that there are people who hate flying. Good for them. They still don't have to click the button. They don't have to buy the flying mounts or do the achievements that reward them. There are people who play WoW who hate current content and twink their toons at 20, 50, 70, 85, whatever level makes them happy. Have you seen Blizzard tell them that they're playing the game wrong? I don't understand why anyone would do it, and it doesn't appeal to me, so I don't go and hit the button. Problem solved. It doesn't effect my gameplay, except that it lets me sell them lower-level gear on the AH for a decent profit.

edited for grammar

Post by Rankkor

I refute your claim of undeniability by denying it! It literally does hurt their vision for the game and that's essentially what they've said as their reason for making the change.
Further, I don't think that a sense of danger is what it's all about. That's certainly an aspect but it's about the scale of the game too. I used to play Final Fantasy XI. That was a post-Everquest but pre-WoW MMO and as such used a lot of the then standard EQ model for what an MMO was. The game had long runs to get to anywhere but also had things like boats between continents that ran on relatively slow real-time timetables. This would mean that one could wait 30 minutes for the boat to arrive and then spend another 25 minutes as the boat travelled across the sea in real time (no loading screen to skip a large distance). This is clearly an outdated model for modern MMOs but what that did give that game was an amazing sense of scale.

At level 25 back in vanilla, having to run without a mount back and forth across Duskwood felt like an accomplishment (if a little bit of a chore), especially with Stitches on the road. Doing it with a mount these days feels like a slightly onerous task. Doing it at max level on a flying mount is just 20 seconds of your life. These increments do affect the sense of scale you have for the world and that is an integral part of playing an MMO. Again though, I'm not advocating a complete regression, just using these as examples where the game's scale is important and can be quickly diminished by making travel too easy.

This is all well and good, but you didn't addressed my main point: If the content is obsolete already, what's the harm in letting us fly over it? We already experienced it the way it was meant to be experienced, we enjoyed, and suffered, and lived, and killed, and died. Now that its obsolete stuff, what harm could there be to let us fly over it? ITS OLD.

The Carrot Has Been Removed, Thoughts On Flying. + Second Quarter Predictions?

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