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[Andiie]

I genuinely thought they would bring back flying due to the complaints and even before that because it seemed like a big part of the game.

I'll actually be impressed if they decide to follow through with it's "removal".

I've always found flying to be pretty annoying anyway and would favor flight points over it if I could. The constant having to watch over the flight to make sure i wasn't stuck on terrain or had overshot my destination was irritating to say the least.
My only reason for wanting it in is laziness tbh.

Flying mounts should have just been an Outland thing, I respect what they did with WOD although it's slightly meaningless given I can just stay parked in my garrison all the time, queueing for things.

I thought it worked well in Wrath.

 

[EmiPrime]

I thought it worked well in Wrath.

Yeah looking back Icecrown and Storm Peaks made good use of flying. Either of those two expansions would have been good times to draw the line under flying.

 

[Sax Russel]

What a load of crap. I fail to see how the outdoor content of Draenor can be better when there isn't any to begin with. Unless for some reason he is talking about those "treasures" all around the world. You know the ones that I got the first week of the expansion and then that was it. Most people don't care about the lack of flying in Draenor because there is nothing worth going to outside your Garrison anyhow.

That said I have no problem being stuck on the ground really, but only when the content is relevant. I think how it was handled in Mists was the perfect balance myself, have flying enabled on the leveling zones when you hit max level and then any new zones added (like Isle of Thunder, Giants, and Timeless) disable flying on those.

Also if they are hell bent on that path at least have the courtesy to turn flight points into outright teleports. There is nothing more boring in the game than sitting on a flight point for minutes at a time unable to do anything. Flight points are the literal opposite of immersive and exploration based gameplay.

Yeah pretty much everything you said.

Before I played WoD I was 100% anti-flying. After having played it though and actually experienced what it is, yeah, give me flying at max level. All this talk of a larger world with stuff to explore only works if there actually IS stuff to explore and treasures to find. That doesn't exist currently. It's just staying in your garrison with occasional excursions for a campaign quest or something.

But of course still fully in support of no flying during the leveling experience. I don't care how you have to hand-wave that into existence.

 

[Renekton]

Because the WoW team thinks people don't want customization player housing despite it being something people have been asking for since day one of year one. I love when they point out that player don't want it, then claim to be watching what other MMOs are doing, when the other major MMOs out there all have it.

It begs the question... how *many* people actually want housing?

 

[Data West]

It begs the question... how *many* people actually want housing?

Not I.

 

[ZenaxPure]

It begs the question... how *many* people actually want housing?

Is that a real question? It's such a staple of the genre at this point and is such a popular feature in so many other MMOs. If people didn't want it I highly doubt it would still be in games, especially newer ones.

 

[Entropia]

It begs the question... how *many* people actually want housing?

Not I.

I think if they added housing, it'd have the same effect as the garrisons. I mean, the garrisons are basically housing. You can put up the archaeology items in your Inn, you can customize it (in some, small minor ways).

One thing that has killed my motivation to play is that I stay in my garrison. I don't hang out and chill in a capital city. I log on, do my follower quests and then log off.

I'd rather there be dailies, that at least gave me something to do.... something to work towards.

 

[Renekton]

Is that a real question? It's such a staple of the genre at this point and is such a popular feature in so many other MMOs. If people didn't want it I highly doubt it would still be in games, especially newer ones.

Yes that is a real question and this doesn't answer it.

 

[Robin64]

See, XIV's housing doesn't close off the world like WoW's garrisons do.

For one thing, they are for guilds (or very very rich people), and the other thing is that you are in a district with hundreds of other players. The district my guild's house is in is as busy as Dalaran ever was.

But in reality, the Blizz team couldn't handle this sort of thing without sacrificing even more from other areas of the game.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Real housing in WoW would cost 3 raid tiers. So more than WoD is worth, kek.

Also I'm doing archaeology, somebody stop me. Already dropped 5k on Spirit of Harmony to trade in for crates. Still no closer to my bug.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Yes that is a real question and this doesn't answer it.

Answers it pretty well, all you need to do is look at other MMOs and how popular it is in so many other games for your answer. There is no logical reason to think it would not be as popular in WoW if handled correctly.

Garrisons certainly are not that though, they have almost nothing in common with housing in other MMOs except for the fact it is a plot of land that belongs to you and no one else. It lacks the things people actually enjoy about housing, you know, like meaningful customization for starters.

 

[Valnen]

So no flying ever again?

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/22/8645293/world-of-warcraft-no-flying-tanaan-jungle-warlords-of-draenor-mmo-pc-blizzard

Lot of outrage happening over this, and rightfully so considering they sell flying mounts for real money. They shouldn't be allowed to do that if they never plan on letting us use them in relevant content. It'll be super interesting to see if people vote with their wallets and they lose a bunch more subs over this.

 

[Renekton]

Answers it pretty well, all you need to do is look at other MMOs and how popular it is in so many other games for your answer. There is no logical reason to think it would not be as popular in WoW if handled correctly.

I'm not sure. Other MMOs could be implementing for feature's sake, ie. hey guys Android supports Flash!

"Popular" is vague. It doesn't say how highly-consumed or highly-prioritized is this feature statistically ("lots of people love it I swear", I mean two dozens can be a lot of people..).

 

[Valnen]

I'm not sure. Other MMOs could be implementing for feature's sake, ie. hey guys Android supports Flash!

"Popular" is vague. It doesn't say how highly-consumed or highly-prioritized is this feature statistically ("lots of people love it I swear", I mean two dozens can be a lot of people..).

I imagine it would be just as popular as pet battles. People spend huuuuge amounts of in-game currency to own a home in FFXIV and furnish it.

 

[ZenaxPure]

"Popular" is vague. It doesn't say how highly-consumed or highly-prioritized is this feature statistically ("lots of people love it I swear", I mean two dozens can be a lot of people..).

Alright then, 2 things. First, how many people do you think need to be interested in it for it to be something blizzard adds? I ask this because blizzard will clearly cater to niche audiences. Mythic (formerly heroic) raiding is still a thing after all these years despite only a small portion of the player base caring about it. If there are enough people interested in player housing as there are mythic raiding despite that number being incredibly low is it worth adding?

Secondly and most importantly, blizzard touted garrisons as their version of player housing. Does that fact alone not tell us that at least blizzard thinks there are enough people interested in player housing to add it to the game? If they didn't think people were interested in it surely they wouldn't have bothered with garrisons, right?

 

[Won]

I'm not sure. Other MMOs could be implementing for feature's sake, ie. hey guys Android supports Flash!

"Popular" is vague. It doesn't say how highly-consumed or highly-prioritized is this feature statistically ("lots of people love it I swear", I mean two dozens can be a lot of people..).

It really doesn't matter how popular housing would be. It's a feature that offers something different than endlessly beating mobs and as such isn't tied to any expansion or progression. It comes at a, potential high, inital cost but is then, hopefully, easy to maintain no matter what other content you release. It's basically an MMOs dev wet dream.

Instead we got Garrisons, which is bascially the anti-housing in the way it's set up.

 

[Spiritwalker]

How come I never get treasure missions on my main? My garrison is maxed out and I have a level 3 inn

 

[lazygecko]

I wonder if it would be a good idea to hoard every Haunted Memento for sale to sell them years later at much higher prices. They're going for about 25k each on my server.

 

[Flakster99]

What a load of crap. I fail to see how the outdoor content of Draenor can be better when there isn't any to begin with. Unless for some reason he is talking about those "treasures" all around the world. You know the ones that I got the first week of the expansion and then that was it. Most people don't care about the lack of flying in Draenor because there is nothing worth going to outside your Garrison anyhow.

That said I have no problem being stuck on the ground really, but only when the content is relevant. I think how it was handled in Mists was the perfect balance myself, have flying enabled on the leveling zones when you hit max level and then any new zones added (like Isle of Thunder, Giants, and Timeless) disable flying on those.

Also if they are hell bent on that path at least have the courtesy to turn flight points into outright teleports. There is nothing more boring in the game than sitting on a flight point for minutes at a time unable to do anything. Flight points are the literal opposite of immersive and exploration based gameplay.

I agree 100%. Mists had a perfect balance and once again Blizzard hasn't realized it and are fucking it all up.

 

[Robin64]

Mists was the perfect scenario for flying. You got to see the lands on foot as you leveled and you appreciated the zones a lot this way. And then at top level, a lot of those zones had areas you couldn't even access before you could fly, where dailies would take place. And then new zones, no flying. Was perfect.

 

[Renekton]

Alright then, 2 things. First, how many people do you think need to be interested in it for it to be something blizzard adds? I ask this because blizzard will clearly cater to niche audiences. Mythic (formerly heroic) raiding is still a thing after all these years despite only a small portion of the player base caring about it. If there are enough people interested in player housing as there are mythic raiding despite that number being incredibly low is it worth adding?

Secondly and most importantly, blizzard touted garrisons as their version of player housing. Does that fact alone not tell us that at least blizzard thinks there are enough people interested in player housing to add it to the game? If they didn't think people were interested in it surely they wouldn't have bothered with garrisons, right?

It really doesn't matter how popular housing would be. It's a feature that offers something different than endlessly beating mobs and as such isn't tied to any expansion or progression.

Yeah I guess that's a very good point.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I definitely agree that garrisons are like the anti-housing. Take everything that garrisons are, inverse it, and you might have something palatable.

 

[Robin64]

They don't even really have an elegant ingame way of visiting other garrisons at this point. They expect us to do it, but the method is just so janky. Really feels at odds with how much effort they used to put into having systems as part of the world too.

 

[Shahadan]

There is also no point since every garrison looks the same.

A few shitty quests are not enough.

Also, World of Warcraft |OT7| A title will cost you a raid tier

 

[Lomax]

I just don't get the no flying thing at all. Arguably the biggest selling point of BC was flying. The biggest demand for the old world was flying, to the point that we got Cata. Now I've been out of the game for years now, but I can't imagine people's perspectives on that have changed that much. No flying during leveling is fine, but just doing away with flying entirely in all new content is insane. I miss flying more than almost anything when I play other MMOs, and they all have vastly better fast travel systems than WoW does.

 

[Valnen]

I just don't get the no flying thing at all. Arguably the biggest selling point of BC was flying. The biggest demand for the old world was flying, to the point that we got Cata. Now I've been out of the game for years now, but I can't imagine people's perspectives on that have changed that much. No flying during leveling is fine, but just doing away with flying entirely in all new content is insane. I miss flying more than almost anything when I play other MMOs, and they all have vastly better fast travel systems than WoW does.

It seems like most people don't agree with no flying and are either quitting or threatening to quit over it.

 

[B-Dubs]

It seems like most people don't agree with no flying and are either quitting or threatening to quit over it.

Flying make that high level grind a whole lot easier. Farming mats, getting to raids and world bosses/events, dailies and so on are made a whole lot less annoying by flying. I totally get disabling flying for leveling, they absolutely should because it sucks there, but there is no amount of ground content they could add that makes up for taking flying away at max level.

 

[Won]

I just don't get the no flying thing at all. Arguably the biggest selling point of BC was flying. The biggest demand for the old world was flying, to the point that we got Cata. Now I've been out of the game for years now, but I can't imagine people's perspectives on that have changed that much. No flying during leveling is fine, but just doing away with flying entirely in all new content is insane. I miss flying more than almost anything when I play other MMOs, and they all have vastly better fast travel systems than WoW does.

Seeing how long it takes for them to ship Tanaan and how we are probably not getting Farahlon at all in the end, I can kinda buy into the somewhat "conspiracy" theory that they do it, so they just can ship future expansions with less landmass. Cutting costs and all that.

 

[JORMBO]

There's not much reason to leave the garrison. If they add flying to Draenor what would it really even add?

 

[Robin64]

RIP in peace, Farahlon.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

RIP in peace, Farahlon.

lol look at how small Ashran is, clearly never intended to be the "capital city".

 

[ZenaxPure]

There's not much reason to leave the garrison. If they add flying to Draenor what would it really even add?

Nothing pretty much, I think most people realize that. The problem is what it means in future expansions.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

Nothing pretty much, I think most people realize that. The problem is what it means in future expansions.

If they don't design zones with flying in mind, then who gives a shit? If I had to quest through Icecrown or Stormpeaks or netherstorm without a flying mount that'd be one thing.

 

[King Gilga]

Dunno if anyone cares but the winner of the MCM comicon regionals cosplay thing was an Arthas, had cool LEDs and shit, slynavus had some cool green LEDs too.

So no flying ever again?

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/22/8645293/world-of-warcraft-no-flying-tanaan-jungle-warlords-of-draenor-mmo-pc-blizzard

No flying was one of the best things about WoD, the world still felt like a world even after I hit max level, shame it really didn't matter since you just sit in your garrison 24/7.

 

[Robin64]

It's fun to look at one of the first minimaps from the WoD Alpha and spot all the differences. This is even older than the image above.

 

[Granadier]

What happened to Farahlon?

 

[ampere]

u kids are noob, Faralon is in WoD!!! http://www.wowhead.com/mission=330/finding-farahlon

/s

Yeah rip faralon

 

[dimb]

What happened to Farahlon?

Time/budget constraints. I mean we couldn't even get Tanaan until over half a year later, and that's a major chunk of the continent and the entry zone for the expansion.

 

[ZenaxPure]

Time/budget constraints. I mean we couldn't even get Tanaan until over half a year later, and that's a major chunk of the continent and the entry zone for the expansion.

That's not even bringing up other minor stuff. A lot of the original announced features for WoD didn't even make it for launch. Heirloom tab, adventure guide, and blood elf models. There was also supposed to be class cosmetic items (such as quivers for hunters, librams for paladins, etc) but these have been completely MIA. I think there has been maybe 1 blue post about them since WoD started.

Granted I don't even think the above is what the final nail in the coffin is - that would be blizzard still possibly wanting this expansion to be ~1 year long with 2 raid tiers. That goal is a bigger potential deathblow to Farahlon than anything else. Can't really be roaming the plains of Farahlon 6 months from now if we are instead leveling up in a new expansion.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

New expansion won't be announced until Blizzcon, and then you have at least 4-5 months minimum turnaround at the very best to accommodate for beta and promotion. Unless something has drastically changed, which seems unlikely.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

Time/budget constraints. I mean we couldn't even get Tanaan until over half a year later, and that's a major chunk of the continent and the entry zone for the expansion.

I don't want to do anything remotely close to defending this shitty expansion, but I don't remember them ever saying that the entirety of Tanaan would be released at launch, specifically.

Not that they said they wouldn't or anything, it just seems weird people keep bringing up as cut content.

 

[ZenaxPure]

New expansion won't be announced until Blizzcon, and then you have at least 4-5 months minimum turnaround at the very best to accommodate for beta and promotion. Unless something has drastically changed, which seems unlikely.

Oh sure, not saying that will be the case. I'm more just saying that Farahlon might not make it in because blizzard may be comfortable with 6.2 being the last content patch of the expansion.

As for a realistic time frame who the fuck knows anymore. 6.2 could be the last content patch until June 2016 and I don't think a single person in this thread would actually be surprised.

 

[Data West]

TERA has more viewers on twitch right now than WoW.

Jussayin

 

[Einchy]

TERA has more viewers on twitch right now than WoW.

Jussayin

And it's because of one big CS:GO streamer.

 

[RoninChaos]

I'm really surprised at how many people are turning on blizz. They're going to keep plowing forward, but this is the first time I've ever felt like "You know, this might just be a good time to finally hang it up".

 

[Einchy]

I'm really surprised at how many people are turning on blizz. They're going to keep plowing forward, but this is the first time I've ever felt like "You know, this might just be a good time to finally hang it up".

First time in 5 years that I've stopped playing.

There's just nothing worthy of paying 15 dollars a month in WoD.

 

[Data West]

I'm really surprised at how many people are turning on blizz. They're going to keep plowing forward, but this is the first time I've ever felt like "You know, this might just be a good time to finally hang it up".

I've taken breaks from WoW, long ones, before but it's always been a 'WoW isn't for me right now.' Like I just needed some time off. I skipped a lot of WOTLK, all of cata, and most of MoP(Well if you count by content and not by actual months...) but this hiatus has been different because it's been me directly thinking, 'I'll wait til the next expansion. Maybe. I hope they turn it around.' Rather than just not feeling like playing. It's been the first time I've seriously looked at other MMOs as well. Beyond just trials. This hasn't been 'I need a break' and more 'I don't think they make this game for me anymore.'

 

[dimb]

I don't want to do anything remotely close to defending this shitty expansion, but I don't remember them ever saying that the entirety of Tanaan would be released at launch, specifically.

Not that they said they wouldn't or anything, it just seems weird people keep bringing up as cut content.

On the reveal/splash page for Warlords of Draenor the first documented feature is:

• New continent of Draenor (7 zones, 1 PvP zone)

The map also portrays Tanaan as being similar to the other zones in the game, with greyed out islands for Farahlon and what would presumably be ogre territory on an island off to the far southwest.

Like, this is pretty disingenuous:

When they were talking about the zones at Blizzcon they only specified Farahlon as an incomplete zone that players would eventually visit after a patch. As a content Draenor feels pretty broken without Tanaan, and flight paths are extremely awkward without it being a piece of the game. It's the only instance in all of WoW's history where an essential piece of the world feels like it is missing in a way that hinders exploration.

 

[Einchy]

They made a point to say that even though Farahlon was shown in the map, it wouldn't be there at launch and would be added in a later patch.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

On the reveal/splash page for Warlords of Draenor the first documented feature is:

• New continent of Draenor (7 zones, 1 PvP zone)

The map also portrays Tanaan as being similar to the other zones in the game, with greyed out islands for Farahlon and what would presumably be ogre territory on an island off to the far southwest.

Like, this is pretty disingenuous:

When they were talking about the zones at Blizzcon they only specified Farahlon as an incomplete zone that players would eventually visit after a patch. As a content Draenor feels pretty broken without Tanaan, and flight paths are extremely awkward without it being a piece of the game. It's the only instance in all of WoW's history where an essential piece of the world feels like it is missing in a way that hinders exploration.

I feel like I can forgive them for not including Tanaan as a whole since they needed SOMETHING to add, and putting HFC on Farahlon wouldn't make sense... Especially by then I guess they would've known Farahlon was never making it in, they had to hold something back to release as a zone after the Thunder isle/Timeless isle precedent.

And the intro questline is really cool, even if it is super-on rails. It's definitely better than just showing up on the boat at Northrend was. it sort of makes up for Tanaan not being a "full" zone, but still unique and fun to play in.

Looking at that minimap is really telling. Shattrath is in a magic bubble, Karabor is still being attacked and planned to be the Alliance capital, Highmaul looks totally weird and Gorgrond is completely different.


They basically spent too much time remaking WoD, clearing it and starting over basically from scratch it seems like. IIRC It was...Shadowmoon or gorgrond that got almost 95% scrapped like 5-6 months out from launch like Jade forest did in MoP.

Fuckers need to get their act together already, or at least stop rushing shit out the door if they can't make stuff in a timely manner. SoO was going on for too long, but the cost was not worth it if it means WoD will be even worse.