Flying does still allow for large maps, but I get what OP is saying regarding never being able to have another massive continent like the first two.
To get so many zones ready would be on the same level as a brand-new game, not an expansion. To make everyone go through it all would lead to many people getting annoyed. Imagine an expansion with 30 more levels! End-game purists would be livid. PvP players would be malding for sure!
That all said, they could just put up arbitrary barriers preventing players from crossing out of, say, the 4 main maps of the expansion. Over the course of 3 to 4 expansions after that, you could unlock more and more of the continent.
Just add weird magic that throws you back, or a barrier that reaches to the sky. Could be some strange local creatures that send up a hail of death that inevitably kills you. There could even be one or two cheeky floating head messages saying, “we’ll get there eventually, but not right now” before forcing your character to turn around.
You don’t need new levels to make an expansion.
GW2 adds new zones and continents all the time without raising the max level.
Of course WoW players want to keep gaining power and that’s okay.
Unlike GW2, you can still increase the ilvl of new content in WoW. Power progression therefore still exists without the game become an alt-unfriendly mess.
A whole continent of Mountains and similar obstructions wouldn’t be great anyhow.
You gave two examples, and there is also Twillight Highlands, but that is only a couple of zones. They couldn’t have had a whole continent of hidden zones as it would just be a mess.
Northrend was a pretty big continent to add. Pandaria slightly less so. Those were plenty big for new expansions and they were built with Flying in mind. Since then they’ve starting making little maze zones as they’ve been using all their resources on mega-systems to fill our time. I don’t think they have the skills needed to make these land masses any more. Dragon Isles is roughtly the size of Northrend (according to Ion) but doesn’t feel like it is just all mountains, hills and weird topography.
If they can’t do Northrend anymore how do you expect them to do EK again? And Northrend had flying so that’s not an excuse.
I don’t start exploring until I can fly. Then it is actually possible to see how the world is put together, and notice the details of it because I stop skipping things because it’s not accessible.
Yeah, but GW2 has focused less on gear/character progression and more on actual content to do. Yeah, sure, Masteries are a thing and you have to unlock each new Elite spec bit by bit, but in the end, you’re pushing the story, world activities, or instanced play.
WoW, sadly, can’t match that because the character progression system is so ingrained. The leveling in each expansion is technically there to ensure people actually push the story at least a bit. Otherwise, everyone would be bum-rushing the dungeons for gearing from day one.
I’d say that leveling is definitely still needed in WoW. People have forgotten how it was when going from lvl 30 to 40 was an adventure in and of itself. Even if we’re only going up 5 levels, it still allows people to go through mandatory story in the least “forced” way possible.
I know that sounds weird, but if you’re leveling bit by bit, it’s easier on the mindset than being max level and having to do the same thing over and over and over and over. Especially when the only visible reward is at the end.
It’s super negative, but it’s fine if you find it otherwise. Thing is, I am not voting for removing your ability to move by ground, but you are voting for taking away flying from those of us who connect better with the world when flying, because YOU feel it ruins YOUR experience. It’s YOUR feeling that the game is worse with flying. I like to be in a fantasy world where I can actually fly, because it overall makes the game feel way more immersive and interesting.
Dragonflying also boosted this awesomeness to new levels. Best part, it was available from the start.
flying was what made wow way more interesting than other mmos. it’s a blessing . wow doesn’t have interesting details in every zone so when you don’t fly it’s just empty roads to travel with ground mount. removing flying is the worst thing they can do
and comapre, most zone pre cata were rather flat, with cata and flying in mind they add more moutains and rough terrain, which make sense.
flying gave them the opputunity to shape zone oterhwise, not bare flat like vanilia, more dethps andd gorges, more mountains ans hills to climb, move narrow paths ect.
For current content, sure. The more the ilvl rises though, the more you delete old content.
People enjoy farming their old raids for transmog & mounts. Raising the ilvl allows them to do that.
Although I understand the sentiment OP is conveying, I firmly believe that it doesn’t have to be an “either or” subject. We can very much have flying maps and very interesting and mysterious maps to explore.
First of all like Punyelf pointed out further up, the zones themselves have massively increased in size.
Now although this is good, I do believe it’s not enough. They do need to add more interesting things to explore. Having a larger maps help, but what’s the point if it’s just a larger forest or slightly bigger villages?
There needs to be more detailed environments that call us to be on foot. Interesting caves, lairs. Detailed hideouts, with multiple secrets and puzzles to solve. Larger buildings to explore for that open world dungeon feel.
Now as for inaccessible “secret lands” like how Mt Hyjal and Uldum was… It can still be done. Not every solution needs to be an elegantly implemented lore friendly action. Just add impenetrable fog come up with some basic reason as to why our dragons/mounts wont want to fly there, job done. Hell if people really want a more “immersive” or “in world explanation” as to why we can’t get there, just have some random powerful creatures, or some sort of spell that one shot us, then when the time comes in the patch or expansion we actually discover what that power was and defeat it.
This way, we get to keep flying mounts, which are genuinely useful, but also have tons of reasons to traverse by foot. Maybe they could add some sort of thing that whilst you’re on foot, you discover more ore and herbs or whatnot.
Again don’t nerf flying, just make it more exciting and rewarding to engage in open world related content.
Wasn’t better before with no flying mount, the half afk running on your mount was extremely boring.
Flying provide more opportunity for map design, otherwise you have to stick to mostly flat maps. Pandaria for example was a nightmare before getting the flying mount (which was right away fortunately).
Pandaria is by default a nice island, with diversities & interesting ideas. But at the end of the day, most people are interested in rushing from point A to B. Forcing them to do it with a non flying mount won’t change the fact that they won’t care at all for the map design.
The truth is that if the game was to actually take advantage of the three dimensional aspect of the world we could have many layers of activity with worlds and zones one above each other and actually benefit from flying. Dragonflight was the perfect place to foster this concept but cus the developers are so fixed on the x and y axis they ignore the more complex third dimension that would have given validity to those dreadful dragons… None play three dimensional chess it would seem.
I was doing some random stuff in the old world that prevented me from flying and it really made me appreciate how cool the world actually is, when you have time to take it in and navigate on ground, you find a lot of interesting stuff. But at the same time, it was extremely slow and i always wanted to just take off flying…I don’t know, it definitely does make the world feel small when you can fly and I’d probably prefer if flying wasn’t in the game, but at this point, it’s impossible.