WoWDB

This achievement brought to you by many players* pressuring WoW designers into bringing player flight to Draenor and not shelving it forever.  It is also brought to you by WoW designers who decided that, in truly amazing display of passive-aggressiveness, gated it behind the very lackluster content which players have also been complaining about to them AND while not specifying any timeframe for when Draenor Flying will be patched in to the game.

And before you click that down-vote button:  This is not about being "forced to work for it" or "laziness."  This is about design, this is about losing trust and them not recognizing they actually do need that trust, this is about transparency in communication, this is about recognizing who the game is made for - players, not some nebulous "vision."

#NoFlyNoSub #BringBackFlying  -  these are the most prominent hashtags to my knowledge, if people want to check out the conversation on Twitter.

* http://us.battle.net/wow/en/search?q=Watcher says no flying in WoW's future.&f=post  Posting as non-embedded URL since WoWDB can't seem to parse it that way.

I commend Blizzard for trying to stick to their guns, because the arguments against flying are just as valid as those that want flying.

The real problem that, at this point, we can only hope will be implemented better next expansion, is that the world content is bare, so what do we really need flying on Draenor for? It should never have been about flying or no-flying at all, the argument should have been about the actual content that was on the ground to begin with, and whether flying would have fixed anything (answer: No, it wouldn't). But leave it to the WoW-playerbase to blow shit out of proportion and only putting their focus on the superficial rather than the actual problems.

It's a damn shame because if Blizzard actually does implement world content and exploration better in the next expansion, they'll have to deal with this pants-on-head-retarded "conversation" all over again should they decide to limit it to ground-only again.

Quote from TheMoonman »

It's a damn shame because if Blizzard actually does implement world content and exploration better in the next expansion, they'll have to deal with this pants-on-head-retarded "conversation" all over again should they decide to limit it to ground-only again.

That is a false dichotomy.  The Burning Crusade, The Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria - all the previous expansions to the game prove that Blizzard in the past was able to design meaningful ground content that combined with flying (either at max level or integrated into the leveling experience) or other z-axis mechanic (like Vashj'ir).  Blizzard has also shown that it's capable of successfully designing contained areas where flying is specifically disabled (Isle of Quel'danas and its successors).

Why must it be "either/or"?

Quote from aliok »

 this is about transparency in communication, this is about recognizing who the game is made for - players, not some nebulous "vision.

This is pretty much exactly what it is all about. Said "visions" work very well for a new game - and I would definitely encourage and commend the designers for putting such a vision to work there. A WoW spin-off, perhaps, but from what I've seen of this "vision" it probably should be single-player or co-op and not an MMO.

That vision really could've worked. But they chose the wrong canvas for it. They chose an established decade-old game that has a very loyal and fiercely passionate player base, causing abrupt and sudden change-ups that were more clashy and detrimental to the health of the game in the long run - this not only hurt said game but it also hurt their vision as a whole.

This whole thing could have gone so much better had they handled it differently - and, more properly at that.