Recently I watched a YouTube video about “old world” of World of Warcraft (Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms) and how it is about time that it gets an update. With time skip and potential Gilneas return, that iconic sword and the rest of the lovely stuff such as whatever the hell is going on in the Westfall.
And it really made me think (I do not do that usually) - flying destroyed WoW. I started playing back in Cata, and I had my episodes of leaving and returning but WoW Classic and IC traveling (RP related) showed me how big and beautiful this world actually is.
I do not know about you, but I had missed so much details of the zones simply because I flew through them. Every new expansion grounds us at first which is good but let’s talk about starting experience: it is pretty bad. If someone came to WoW during Shadowlands, he/she would be pushed into BfA and it would force them to miss out on WORLD of Warcraft.
Experienced players have heirlooms, Chromie and few others tips and trips but as a new player you miss out on 15+ years of great content.
Back to the flying, and now dragonriding - yeah we all love this new feature but it breaks the game. When you die on Dragon Isles you are forced to use regular flying and then, and only then you get to see how big Isles actually are. It makes me wonder how many details did we just fly above and miss out on?
Is anyone else feeling the same? Or am I the only crazy guy who still prefers ground mounts?
Yeah on that note - let’s give Druids button that let’s them use ground travel form instead of being forced into flight form?
Firstly new players cannot fly. They need to level to 30 and then buy flying and then grind out Pathfinder in BFA (new players must play BFA).
Secondly DF is the first expac since Cata that has allowed flying from the beginning of the expac.
MOP required Max level to buy flying so you experienced the world from the ground while leveling.
WOD tried to get rid of flying entirely but eventually added it via Pathfinder so you had quite a while grounded.
Legion had a Pathfinder introduced later, so you leveled and played endgame for a while on the ground.
BFA had a Pathfinder introduced later so as with Legion you leveled and played endgame grounded for a while.
SL was similar to Legion and BFA only the flying was unlocked when you completed a campaign section added later you again you leveled and played endgame grounded for a while.
Only Cata had tradional flying from the start. DF has dragonriding from the start. better than no-flying but not as good as traditional flying (for many players, myself included) considering the terrain on the Dragon Isles.
My preference would be old school zones like Wrath or MOP where a Pathfinder is done in the x.1 patch (so maybe 6 months in). So you play on the ground for the initial leveling and get a feel for it but flying comes in a reasonably short time.
If you limit flying in old content, chances are people will refrain from doing it. If you want to stay on the ground because you feel it’s more immersive no one is stopping you.
It’s called Mount Form. You can buy it in Moonglade or in the Dreamgrove. It also lets a party member ride you so it functions like a 2 seat mount.
You missed the details because you probably didn’t quest in those zones.
On my main, I did every campaign quest and optional site quest. Basically whenever I see an exclamation mark on the map, I go there and do the quests. I also do world quests regularly (Can’t say I did them all because may be there are some I didn’t do, but I did many). I don’t feel I missed anything.
If the game gives you reasons to land and interact with monsters, npcs, objects on the land, then you don’t miss anything.
Druids already have such button.
The issue here is that you can’t turn back time. They should have never introduced flying in WoW at all. If they had just improved the flight pathes and kept riding the #1 way to travel nobody would have had a problem with travelling.
But the same moment they introduced flying mounts the game changed drastically and you can’t take this change away anymore.
We’ve had flying from day 1 on every WoW release. That’s why they call them ‘flight paths’.
I am the complete oposite. Flying enhances my experience and make me notice the details. It gives me a better overview of the world, and feel pretty awesome(I main druid - I transform into a bird… !). Dragonriding enhanced this even more, and I enjoy it a lot.
Irl I also prefer heighs where I get a better view of the surroundings. I live in Norway(lots of mountains), and my house is nearby a cliffside. From the room I play WoW, I have a view across the fjord. I am sorry, but like in real life, being higher up just makes everything better, in my opinion. Difference is, irl I can’t really fly freely like in the game. Don’t take that option away from me ingame, please.
And in case someone remember another thread where I mentioned I am afraid of heights… yes I am, but that just means I don’t go to the edge of the cliff I live nearby, or take a trip on top of the highest mountain tops in WoW unless I really have to. There is a sweetspot on how high I fly in WoW before I feel nauseus. I also find great joy in flying between trees while even following paths. This is a thing dragonriding greatly enhanced, but that I already enjoyed with normal flying.
But no, ground mounts do not make the game better for me. Lack of flying takes away some of the magic.
You mean the flight paths that are an excuse to go afk?
It’s hard to find less engaging gameplay.
Fly if you want to
Don’t if you don’t
That hasn’t to be engaging. When you fly from SW to Eastern Plaguelands on your flying mount it isn’t engaging to.
The game gives you the option to travel by ground. If you want to enjoy the scenery, by all means enjoy it.
The problem is that whenever they removed flying (like at launch in the last 4 expansions), they deliberately make the zones harder to navigate. They add trees, mountains that serve no other purpose than you have to travel longer distance to go from one point to another.
Take for example Ohn’aran plains in Dragon flight. It’s easy to navigate on ground mount (hence the name plains) but it’s huge and would take sometime to navigate. The last 4 expansions didn’t have a similar zone. Now tell the designers to make the same zone but without flying, and for some unknown reason they will find it necessary to add 1000 more trees, and 10 mountains, force you to navigate with the map open at all times and make it impossible to move in a straight line.
I prefer flying.
There’s no point trying Laegon. The people on this forum have been hit by a severe case of Ubisoftophilia. More severe even than Ubisoft themselves, which is impressive.
They no longer care about discovery and character growth. What they want is a marker that points at what they have to do, and then they want the most convenient way there, which is obviously fly up high, point camera to align with arrow, then press autorun and AFK for 3 minutes as they make a sandwich.
All things shall be presented as a checklist, all challenges shall be completed in any order, almost nothing shall be hidden - and if you can make this checklist vomit itself over the map so you can see where to go for each element of the chestlist, so much the better.
There’s nothing you can say or do that will remind them of why they got gripped in the first place. The only cure that I can think of is if someone were to make Elden Ring with less hardcore combat so they could see for themselves.
Alas. In the meantime I recommend you use boosts on retail and level on Classic Era where it’s actually fun. That’s what everyone else does.
In TBC?
Wrath was the height of WoW’s popularity and here you got flying at level 77 (and could buy it for leveling alts at 80 and send to your 70s).
But in Wrath they designed zones like Icecrown and Storm Peaks with Flying in mind.
Had they removed flying when the terrain was still like Wrath or even MOP they might have gotten away with it. But current terrain is horrible and I always look forward to flying coming. If I knew there’d never be flying Revendreth would have caused me to cancel my sub during leveling.
It’s so strange hearing that from a Dracthyr.
But yes, flying removes a lot of the social aspect to the game. Well, that and the fact players can train down even world bosses solo. Shared looting is another thing too. All you need to do is breath on an enemy and you get the ability to loot it.
I remember my first day back on Classic there was a huuuuuuge line in a cave where everyone took turns killing the boss for its quest drop. People would chat while waiting their turn. On retail everyone just swarms it, taps it a few times, takes their loot and flies off.
So it’s not just flying that ruins the game, but whole amalgamation of things (IMHO). You don’t just miss out on zone content, but you miss out on one of the most important aspects of a MMO, which is the social side of it. Not to sound corny, but that’s how memories are created.
Flying through some rings on a dragon is not something you will look back on fondly, but standing in the biggest line I’ve ever seen in a MMO while we cracked jokes waiting for our turn at the boss, that’s something I won’t forget. Or grouping up with a friendly troll while we killed crabs together, then decided to set out on other adventures in Durotar. Laughing our lungs out because we were running for our life from plainstriders, only to accidentally head straight into another pack of mobs - that’s also something I’ll remember. In retail you would just AOE them down in 2 button presses.
This character is level 70 and has never trained any mount , flying or otherwise. I made a point of travelling everywhere by foot. With other characters I have challenged myself to travel as far as possible without a mount. Amazingly you can climb Storm Peaks to the highest platforms if you know how.
The point is there are no restrictions in the game that make you do anything in truth. I know cus I’ve spent over a decade totally ignoring what the game was saying I had to do. If you don’t want to fly, don’t fly. I just levelled two chars to 70 in Dragonflight and used the dragon only a couple of times. When I do the first dragon quest I simply slow fall off the platform and take a walk over to the ferry to hand the quest in. There is always a way.
The environment in WoW is a glorious challenge, but only you can make it that way. If you want to see it go take a walk. Nobody, but nobody is stopping you.
Making changes in old system is very unlikely to happen since it require hefty time to change. It is a very old system , and whenever we get new exp it will not be in old content anymore. The system is not build for the demand today.
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