There have been several instances where Blizzard developers have posted Tweets and replies on forums that flying will not be introduced in Draenor. The initial plan was to introduce flying in some later patch has changed
and, as it seems, there are plans not to include this feature in future
expansions as well. Latest news came from
interview given by lead WoW designer Ion Hazzikostas (
@WatcherDev) to Polygon that said:
"Having looked at how flying has played out in the old world in the last
couple of expansions, we realized that while we were doing it out of
this ingrained habit after we introduced flying in The Burning Crusade,
it actually detracted from gameplay in a whole lot of ways. While there was certainly convenience in being
able to completely explore the world in three dimensions, that also came
at the expense of gameplay like targeted exploration, like trying to
figure out what's in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up
there."
Although I agree that by not introducing flying into the expansion at it's start gameplay brought us to the nostalgic times of Vanilla, this does not mean that it will work all the time. To address one particular line in the quote, what happens when people get bored of "figuring out what's in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up there"?
With release of Warlords, another feature was implemented into the game:
Character Boost. You get one charge of it when you buy Warlords license key and you need to pay for every subsequent Boost. With it, you get a pre-set, pre-equipped LVL90 character with whom you can skip menial leveling and start bashing Iron Horde skulls. With changes done to Heirloom System in Patch 6.1, that menial leveling got even easier and faster than before. I don't know the exact statistic but, I can say with certainty that with these 2 features alone majority of WoW player base became "
Altoholics". The amount of people that would have used the boost on a Banker Character and then never used it for anything else than Banking is very low so, I can say safely that number of characters created is closer to 1 Billion compared 500 Million (
revealed in Infographic released by Blizzard last year).
I, myself, have two Max Level Characters (DK and Hunter), LVL93 Warlock, LVL90 Druid, LVL73 Hunter and Warrior that I am currently leveling (together with Redub, co-author on the Blog) and, although I am a small fish in a big pond when compared to people who by now have dozens of Max Level Alts, I can say that I am bored of exploring same zones over and over and over again.
Don't get me wrong, it feels amazing when you dwell into a new zone (or a continent) for the first time and you don't can't fly. You are constantly on alert and you need to chose your path wisely not to attract 1 creature too many that can dismount you and get you killed. It's even suspenseful on a PvP realms where you need to factor in that there could be an enemy nearby, waiting for you to fully focus on a quest so he can exploit the weakness and steamroll through you.
I am grateful that Flying wasn't removed when Cataclysm was released. All that old, yet new, content that needed to be explored, quests completed, rare creatures killed. It would have been pain in the ass if Flying was not present. It felt awesome to quest in Pandaria without flying and skipping content but it was relieving that you could learn to fly at some point because, lets face it, Pandaria is one big-ass continent. I also loved the fact that you could not fly on Isle of Thunder because of weather and Timeless Isle because of Time anomalies.
Leveling and Exploration of Draenor is, also, rewarding in its own way. When I leveled my Death Knight (Main Character) I explored every corner of the land. Completed all quests in every Zone, read through all the quest lines, finished every Bonus Objective, Explored every Zone, collected all Followers, killed ALL Rare creatures and gathered all Treasures and feeling was epic. I spent most of my time breaking back of my
[Raven Lord] and I used Flight Paths only to bridge huge gaps on my path. When my Guildies were bragging how it took them less than one day to level up, I was proud that it took me six days.
However, when I started leveling my first Alt (Hunter) I became bored of repetition that will follow with his and with leveling of all other alts. I didn't explore all zones to their full extent, I didn't finish every Bonus Objective, I completed just enough quests in the zone to reach level requirement for next one, killed Rare creatures and gathered Treasures only that gave items related to my class totally avoiding everything else and when I hit 100 I joined the band wagon of endless Dungeon & Raid grind. Why? Because, we get easily bored of repetition and by being forced to do the same things all over again, we always look for an easy way out. It's in our nature to do so.
As I wrote, I am a small fish in a big pond of players and if I am bored of "figuring out what's in that cave on top of a hill and how do I get up there" after leveling two Characters I can only imagine how other people, that have five, six, ten Alts, feel.
And, then, there is the case of Flying Mounts being added to Achievement Rewards and Vendors (such as
[Reins of the Corrupted Dreadwing]) or Blizzard Store with all of them, but especially last three Draenor Inspired, being Flying Mounts (
[Iron Skyreaver],
[Warforged Nightmare],
[Grinning Reaver]). Even next mount from the Store,
[Mystic Runesaber], is a Flying Mount. Or what about "
Warlords of Draenor: Collector's Edition Mount",
[Dread Raven]? We spend most of our In-Game time in Draenor and I understand that whole batch of Ground Mounts were added, be it from Vendors, Garrison, Achievements, but... What's the point of adding all those Flying Mounts into the game if we will be able to use them only when we visit old content?
What I am trying to say is, I feel they shouldn't exclude the idea of "Flying in Draenor" altogether. It should be kept on the table for release at some point. Maybe release it in final Patch of expansion and make our lives a bit easier. Not being able to fly right-of-the-bat when you enter new expansion is a nice perk but, removing it altogether is not a very pleasant idea.
