It needs to be acknowledged that the main contention here is between one form of travel and another form of travel that is perceived as restrictive and boring.
I’ve been playing death stranding recently and I have not witnessed a single person saying “this game needs flying”. There are countless other games that dont have flying and nobody asks for it.
The issue is the connection to the environment and the value that is placed upon that. If the gameplay on the ground or on flight paths was fun gameplay, then nobody would be looking to avoid that.
I dont even think ishayoe ever said they wanted flight paths. The entire reason this was brought up, was the town effect. The incidences of running along on your merry way and spotting someone you recognise.
How often do you think you run from the flight path to rage fire chasm these days?
In the past, you might have made that run and saw many names you recognise on the way. That simple feedback works on our underlying feeling of belonging. It’s part of our instincts.
I see a load of players in boralus every time I hearth, but I don’t recognise a single one of them. As a result o no longer even look at player names. Also, if I say anything, I go ignored. So for all intents and purposes, they aren’t there. The game feels empty due to things like this.
When I talk annobosy responds, I feel just that little bit more lonely. I felt that way when the community I was in stopped responding. I felt that way when i was posting in their discord and my posts would go completely ignored and they would start a whole other conversation. It feels even worse on discord because those posts stay there. I cant just assume everyone missed it.
Classic wasnt perfect. Tagging was bad back then. It was certainly anti social. Blizzard have improved a lot of things. But some things have been badly diminished.
It feels very cruel and mean and dismissive when someone says “you have classic, go there”.
I dont think that is what people want.
I think if I was on draenor, I would feel elated if I was running along questing annual spotted a blood elf named “punyelf”. Either in general chat or in the world.
But that would probably never happen.
Blizzard have to cross realm or shard or phase or whatever because people are running around and dont see anyone. They feel the world is empty. Theres nobody running around. Because they are all flying or using portals and because the world is huge. Do we really think bfa zones will be more lively when it’s the main levelling path?, no, there will be hardly anyone running around because the fastest way to level is to fly.
I know full well, I am levelling a on alt through pandaria and I cant imagine taking it the slow way.
Once flying is opened up in draenor and legion, etc. I worry that i will feel like i want to speed it up and will fly in those places too and that incidental journey on the ground will be lost. Because i will want to fly to make levelling quicker.
But that raises the question… how many people are levelling through those zones because they want to be in those zones? Or how many are actually just trying to rush through?
How do blizzard get people to actually spend time in the world? They make the world something that people want to do. Not something they have to do.
I think… the level squish is good. The bringing all players into the same starting zone and for levelling is good. Having more players to get into the current zones more quickly is good. Having no flying to start with is good. Dont know what happens when flying comes… but maybe they can find a way to make staying.on the ground engaging and fun? Reducing cross realm thing is good. It would certainly.be good if they reduced the NEED for grouping up, and at the same time make it easier for people to make a group if they want to. Communication should be key, so I think an automated system is bad. People need to be able to pay attention and respond to each other. Here also needs to be more responsibility. It should not be so easy to just kick someone from a dungeon group. But also, not so easy to afk.
This reply became much longer than I intended.