World Of Warcraft

I don't like the no flight thing but it's still a better game than any other MMO, so.

Yeah, that it is.

The winning move is of course, not to play.

I'm at the point where my gold income is more than sufficient to play the game for free by buying tokens from other players, so I don't see a conflict. I'll play the game as much as I enjoy doing so, and log in periodically to collect my treasure mission income.

I will say that the blog about "no flying = the end of WoW" is engaging in so much of the typical Blizz-hate whinefest that I can't take the author seriously.

edited 25th May '15 12:52:50 PM by Fighteer

Hey, count me in for hating Blizzard mindlessly, but if one analyzes their product it is still the best in the market.

I see more points pointing straight at how the garrison was designed more than flying.

Which brings up a fair point. The garrison has fostered some horrible habits and I thought blizzard didn't want all their players staying in one spot?

edit: The comment on gearing brings up a valid issue: What happens if your gear of choice comes from the wrong tier? Will you be stuck without an upgrade because only Archimonde drops your specs weapon, whilst you are stuck with a lower tier item because the end bosses only drop certain weapons?

edited 25th May '15 2:49:26 PM by stevebat

I have come to accept no flying, but it has slowed down my questing (more significantly, getting to Highmaul when the group can't summon). But they could add more temporary flying options like the Skyterror (from Gearworks), or stealth options (like a menu of summonable bodyguards, each giving you a specific aid).

And that blog post is way off. Subscription numbers are too complex to be reduced to someone's pet issue, and he thinks it's about some kind of echo chamber with specific players when it is very clearly a decision the devs made on their own. "Blizzard doesn't listen to the players" usually means "Blizzard doesn't do as I say".

The differing ilvls need not be a problem if they spread the gear out carefully. Besides, how many players achieve full best-in-slot where this would be relevant?

Blizzard have never lost so many subscribers so quickly over the course of an expansion and they can't keep on blaming the collapse in numbers on the Chinese and Asian market players quitting - that's manifestly bullshit. If it wasn't, there would be no players of the game left in Asia at all by now. People are leaving, or not coming back in, all over the globe.

Flying, or indeed the LACK of it isn't the sole or indeed main reason for the plummeting numbers, but it is a big, obvious, flagpole issue for some discontented long-term players to rally around and tell Blizzard exactly what they feel. And the more that people who are currently staying in the game notice that their loyalty is being repaid by ever growing subscription fees to compensate for the people who are unsubscribing, the more likelihood is that more of those loyal people will leave.

The game isn't doomed, per se. Anyone who says otherwise is a bit of an idiot. But on current trends it is not destined to be above seven million by the end of this expansion.

Graphs don't lie. Much.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/

Look at the figures before Wo D was released, when it was released, and where things are now. Four hundred thousand LESS subscribers than before it came out, and the overall trend for active subscribers is still on the downward path it began in Q4 2010.

If I worked for Blizzard's money side, I'd be a tad rattled at the moment.

WOD had a skyrocket effect of subscriptions. Absolutely huge. People were happy with Pandaria and were happy to see what WOD had to offer.

Even for warcraft, a 25% subscriber loss indicates a strong loss of interest.

Blizzard also released different enough games and other sources for cash in that time to make the loss absolutely irrelevant, when at the time of Wot LK, DIII wasn't even a thing.

The arguments have no ground to stand on. Financially, the loss of subsribers means nothing to Blizzard.

I wouldn't say nothing; obviously it's money they could have earned, but World Of Warcraft is no longer the anchor of their finances to the point where its failure would break the company.

In a way, this frees them to make less popular design choices that might alienate some subscribers, in order to push for their vision of how the game should be.

Blizz should add a Flying keyword to Hearthstone just to rub it in afterwards.

It could ignore all non-flying taunts.

But really IMO the whole flying thing is stupid, the game is so much better grounded.

The original purposes of flying were twofold: to provide a mechanism for content gating (areas inaccessible via walking) and to provide a desirable reward for players upon reaching max level. It came to dominate players' expectations and make most forms of content gating not involving flying restrictions trivial.

edited 26th May '15 9:13:26 AM by Fighteer

It's maintenance day and my latency is still inconceivable.

Sounds like an ISP issue. Try doing a speed test to something in the area of your server and see if that is high.

Also unplug your modem for 5 minutes then plug it back in and see if that fixes it.

edited 26th May '15 12:15:05 PM by Memers

I have major ISP-related latency at unpredictable times throughout the day. It's nothing to do with Blizzard's system.

Isn't the part where somebody says "You Keep Using That Word. I don't think it means what you think it does."? ;)

You know I am actually liking all the salt that people have over flying but man if they actually add flying back its really going to ruin draenor and pretty much screw over most design work for future xpacs.

That'll never start being true for good old BC model.

If something can be ruined by flying over already done content, it's bad from the get go.

edited 26th May '15 11:08:14 PM by Adannor

IF content can be "ruined" by allowing flying, it was that way from the start and needed to be built better in the first place, instead of being yet more "emperor's new clothes" that falls to bits as soon as you actually look at it properly.

It's not the fact it doesn't look good from above.

As such, my hope is that Blizzard at least allows flying in Draenor after the next expansion comes out for level 100+ players.

Why does that one part of Draenor look like modern-day Shadowmoon Valley already?

In other news, you guys were right. I reset my modem and router and gave them a five-minute break, and it brought the game back to normal. Thanks for your tip. :)

TBC's world was actually really shitty once you got flying. You never actually saw the world itself its just flying to the mob you need to kill and that is it. They actually removed flying when they added more max level content with the Sunwell because flying would have ruined it.

And all the improvements they have done to Draenor will be wasted.

• Meaningful and repeatable rares in areas will just be permafarmed by people who can reach them as soon as they spawn thanks to 310+% speed and no need to actually clear to the mob itself.
• having the Treasure hunts for resources and loot would be pointless as the puzzle element will be removed because 'oh hey I can just fly there and pick it up'.
• Events and objective changes at points in missions have to be removed as you might not travel the intended road for the mission since you can fly OVER the road.

The only way they could add flying is to make it so you die the instant you try to land in any zone but towns.

edited 27th May '15 12:18:40 AM by Memers

Those points only work if flying is enabled from the get go, not unlocked and purchased like it was in the past expansions. It doesn't really matter how flying affects the quests if you've already completed the quests before being allowed to fly. And the only repeatable rares are the ones in the Apexis Daily areas, and if you just want to hit the rare it's not really that much of an effort to blast through the little mobs unless you're a fresh Lv100 with only quest gear.

Those treasures and rares drop Garrison Resources and Apexis Crystals which are still very valuable.

The only way that might work is if you get flying after doing every quest, every treasure and every rare in the game and they remove all level 100 repeatable rares.

Even then it still ruins those group rares that drop pets, those are designed to actually take some serious effort to get to and are quite rewarding.

edited 27th May '15 12:33:07 AM by Memers