Anyone ever wonder what would have World of Warcraft looked like if it was created 35 years ago?
Rkade Soup on YouTube released a video showing how the game would look like if it was created back in the NES era. Take a peek... It's really interesting, I must say.
Looks hideous, doesn't it? And when I say "hideous", I mean awesome. What? It's a fantasy universe... We are all attracted to all things weird and creepy and, THIS should be another one of those cases.
This is one of the hidden mounts introduced in Patch 7.2 and it was discovered only 2-3 days after the patch was released. Although I am in process of obtaining this mount myself, I did not write any part of this guide and I am posting it here for those that are following my nonsense on-and-off blogging attempt...
There is an active promotion that I didn't write about because I got it in the last minute (literally) and, well... Event just got extended.
"For Azeroth!" is an event that began on February 14, 2017 and concluded on March 14, 2017. For it, you need to download and play Heroes of the Storm. During the event, you had to be playing 15 games in a party, with at least one friend, and playing with Warcraft hero so you could get credit counted toward the quest.
Flames of Judgement Charger Mount and 10 Day Stimpack in Heroes of the Storm.
Because of the people like me, who were racing to get the mounts in the last minute, the event got extended and will end on Sunday, March 26. If you already started doing the quest but gave up at the last minute because you didn't think you will make it, your quest progress is saved.
So... All you need to do is dive back in. The easiest way to do it is to get your Battle.net friend in a party and queue for AI matches with AI teammates for fastest queue (Thanks to Wesker who pointed this out to me and Redub who pointed it out to Wesker) and you'll have your mounts in no time.
Once you have completed the 15 games, Charger will be available for you to use in HotS while Flamesaber will be waiting in your mailbox first time you log into WoW.
I know I haven't posted much lately and, to those interested in crap I am spewing on this blog, I apologize. All I can say is that the Game called "Real Life" has an awesome graphics, realistic physics, somewhat average story progression, shitty economic system and leveling is mind numbing. And from that point, into the story.
By the title of the article, you can guess what I am gonna write about... With the release of Legion all primary professions got a little bit of, lets name it flavor, where you get quests in Vanilla/TBC style in which you need to do something to learn or improve your crafting skills. I don't know about other secondary professions but Archaeology has gotten some sweet bi-weekly quests where you get some rather nice rewards ranging from Artifact Power, Pets, Toys... And a Mount... YES, A MOUNT. Specifically, [Spirit of Eche'ro].
Eche'ro was a powerful white moose who accompanied Huln as pet, mount, and battle companion.
After Eche'ro's death, his bones were scattered across the region of Highmountain. This week, you are sent to Lessah Moonwater, a Highmountain Tauren Archaeologist, who dedicated her life to preserving the legacy of Huln Highmountain.
After she tells you she uncovered a [Bone Fragment of Eche'ro], she sends you to find his remains so you can give him a proper burial Eche'ro deserved.
During the quest [Laying to Rest], you are sent to Highmountain Archeological Digsites to find 600 [Bone Fragments of Eche'ro] and bring them to Lessah. Each Dig gives from 1 to 9 fragments with [Angry Tauren Spirit] giving up to 20 Fragments when killed (assuming you annoy one of them to appear).
After the burial ceremony she binds Eche'ro's spirit to you so he can accompany you just like he once accompanied Huln during the War of the Ancients.
So... I switched realms from Sylvanas to Defias Brotherhood because my friend Bega plays there. Because I already played a paladin, although at a lower level, on Sylvanas I decided to use Character Boost on that class and just went along...
So far, I am playing Protection / Retribution, depending on the situation at hand, ignoring Holy as much as I could because I was never much of a healer. My last healing encounter was with a Resto Shaman during WotLK expansion...
So... Today I logged into the game deciding to continue last week's action, push forward and complete as much of the World Quests as possible because [World Quest Bonus Event] had started on 5th. Headed to Faronaar in Aszuna... After completing the World Quest [Not On My Watch], I went on to complete [WANTED: Inquisitor Tivos] and I just went around, killing everything in my way, killed Tivos and just when I was about to get to the portal and get back on the ground, an [Eredar Navigator] appeared and aggroed me. Killed him and... There it was...
I could not believe it as it was not expected and I didn't even know what was the criteria for obtaining it. So far, requirement for all Hidden Appearances was Artifact Knowledge LVL5 and after looting it, I went to WoWhead to check if someone has posted any info about how he Appearance was obtained. Strolling through the comments I found a passage of text written by the WoWhead user Confonix.
This post is no longer relevant, but I'm leaving it here cause I put
in some serious work trying to figure this out... only to find out it
was really a random drop that was gated behind level 5 Artifact
Research... sooo much wasted time...
Another interesting thing (noted by Reddit user Mastrcapn) is that, when you use [Divine Shield] with this Appearance, your "bubble" gets an upgrade...
Another year has passed... It's WoW's 11th Birthday and what better way to celebrate it than logging in during the Anniversary "event" that holds the place between November 16th and 30th.
Simply by logging into the game, you will be rewarded with a Feat of Strength Achievement, [WoW's 11th Anniversary]. Along with that, every character you log onto will receive [Anniversary Gift] through mailbox that contains a few vanity items.
[Celebration Package], re-usable buff that gives 11% Experience and Reputation Gain during the Anniversary;
Patch 6.2.3 is going live this week and with it, re-introduction of Valor Currency System, a re-worked system of the one removed in Patch 6.0.2. Similar to Garrosh Hellscream Heirlooms, there will be an introduction of Mythic Dungeon Heirloom Trinkets so, be sure to grab them with your characters.
Heroic and Mythic Archimonde will drop a Quest Starter Item, [Remnant of Chaos], which will reward you with long awaited [Moose] mount.
Another mount will be introduced. [Infinite Timereaver] will have a chance to drop from any Timewalking boss.
After Patch goes live, Cataclysm Timewalking will become available and we will be able to feel the nostalgia of:
Yeah, I know. It's been a while since we wrote anything. Redub is being lazy as always and he still didn't write some things he promised he would and I am tied up with work. Not that I didn't become lazy as of late but, meh... We are preparing to do a Podcast of sorts. I know we are still small fishes in a big pond but we are gonna get together and share our thoughts about the upcoming expansion and it's features so, anyone interested in our thoughts will have something to listen.
Blizzard announced November 10, 2015 as the release date for the final expansion of their StarCraft II, Legacy of the Void and released a cinematic trailer for it.
As it was expected, MMO-Champion poll showed that many people are planning to re-roll as Demon Hunters when Legion gets released. Along with that, Demon Hunter class art was released.
Patch 6.2.2 was released and, if you completed all required achievements, you can fly in Draenor. Mercenary Mode was, also, released in this patch.
Battle.net Mobile Authenticator got graphical updates so, fire up your mobile devices and update it.
Mount awarded to people who buy "Collector's Edition" of the Legion will receive [Illidari Felstalker] mount and it looks awesome.
In other, non-WoW related news: - WildStar is going Free-To-Play on September 29 (news article); - Guild Wars 2 base game became Free-To-Play on August 29 (news article); - Overwatch beta is planned for Fall 2015 (news article).
It all started nicely. 6PM, Blizzard's GamesCom stream started, I got lost into all the information that was in front of me that I forgot that I have a Blog and Facebook page where I could write down few words in order to, maybe, get more readers. I started spamming our Facebook page and then I realized what time it is... Time to go to work, so... With me being late, you could have already snatched all these news from MMO-Champion and WoWhead but, regardless, I will post a breakdown of things that are interesting to me.
Next expansion's name will be "Legion" and new continent will be The Broken Isles. You guessed it right, we will finally be battling against The Burning Legion. Gul'dan has survived the encounter against Archimonde in Hellfire Citadel and has sinister things on his mind.
First off, we all know that during The Burning Crusade expansion, we killed Illidan. After Adventurers (Players) dealt with him, it was not explained what happened to his body. When it was announced at BlizzCon 2013 that Illidan may return because, as Chris Metzen stated, he is a "sucker for good redemption story" there have been theories about Illidan's soul being stored in Reliquary of Souls and that that was the way he will be "resurrected" into the lore, however... As it turns out, legend holds that Warden Maiev Shadowsong took his broken body to the Vault of the Wardens so that Illidan's dark, lingering soul could suffer the rest of his eternal sentence, along with his followers, the feared Illidari. Justice to be forever served…
Level Cap is increased to 110 and this expansion introduces 2nd Hero Class: Demon Hunters. As my friend said "As a Warlock who enjoyed playing with a Hunter, that sounds really interesting..." (greetings to Tsuki). Back when all was in it's speculation phases about Demon Hunters being next Hero Class, my hope about their introduction was something similar to the story of Knights of the Ebon Blade and their separation from The Lich King. Story starts when you are a member of Illidari forces and then through quests you get to the point where Illidan is dead. Using in consideration that faction has no leader, player choses to align himself with Alliance or Horde. That was my speculation but we will see how will they make it because it was announced that Demon Hunters will have a unique starting experience and that they will start at a high level.
It was announced that DHs will have 2 specializations. Havok (DPS Spec) and Vengeance (Tank Spec), they will have horns (with no horns as an option) and variations of tattoos on our bodies. Main resource for fueling Demon Hunter's spells will be Fury with Double Jump feature and Spectral Sight that will allow you to see through walls.
Garrison and Followers are a feature that are being brought to The Broken Isles in a form of Class Orders. You will be the leader of your Class Order and it will work in a similar way to Death Knight's starting zone where only members of your Class can visit your Order. Shaman's Order will be in a cave near The Maelstrom (because, Elements), Paladin Order will be under Light's Hope Chapel (because, Light), Warlocks will be on a Legion Portal World (because, they are dark and twisted bastards)... You aren't gathering Followers but Champions and they won't be arsed to be your slaves and do everything for you. They will help you find things and then you will need to get your shit yourself.
It looks like, instead of The Park in Stormwind, Dalaran will be flown to The Broken Isles, it will serve as main hub of the expansion and we will FINALLY see Alleria and Turalyon.
It was said that "we will be shocked"... What did Jaina do this time? She lost it, didn't she? Using in consideration that Khadgar is presented as the leader of Kirin Tor and Jaina dropped of the face of the earth... It's quite possible.
As we all know, in present Lore, Emerald Dream and it's corruption has happened so... "We go to Val'Sharah, a forgotten Druid refuge. The place Malfurion became the first Druid. We face Xavius, who is trying to unleash the Emerald Nightmare into our world. We enter Black Rook Hold." Is Xavius attempting to corrupt the Emerald Dream again? They already told the story about it through books and this would make a lot of sense if it was connected to Alternate Universe because, according to AU timeline, that part of the story didn't happen yet.
Another introduction are 36 Artifacts, one for each Character Specialization. Retribution Paladins will seek [The Ashbringer], Enhancement Shamans will be looking for [Doomhammer], Mistweaver Monks will go to Pandaria and look for Emperor Shaohao's [Sheilun, Staff of the Mists], Fire Mages will be burning people for [Felo'melorn], Feral and Guardian druids will be set on a path to get [Fangs of the First Nightsaber] which will allow them to customize their form.
FrostDeath Knight will seek out [Frostmourne]'s shards in Icecrown Citadel and reforge them into a pair of Runeblades, [Icebringer] and [Soulreaper]. BloodDeath Knights will be sent on a path to obtain [Maw of the Damned], two handed axe that steals the life force of it's enemies, bleeding dry anything it touches. Unholy Death Knights get [Soulrend] (not much info about it so far).
This totally sucks because I had hoped (and still do) that Unholy Death Knights will get to reforge THE Frostmourne. Frost DKs go to Icecrown Citadel and look for Frostmourne's shards. They get them and out of those shards, they forge two Runeblades? Why? There has been several instances where shattered sword was reforged back to it's former glory, prime example being [Quel'Delar], a weapon of legendary fame.
In another news:
Overwatch was added to our Battle.Net launchers;
Patch 6.2.2 was flagged as "Release" on PTRs and we will get Mercenary Mode and Flying in Draenor really soon;
WoW is down to 5.6 Million Subscribers which is down 1.5 million from the Q1 2015 call that listed WoW at 7.1 million subscribers.
For now, this is what interests me the most... If you want a detailed breakdown of news, check out articles of MMO-Champion, WoWhead or simply watch the recording of the stream...
It looks like Blizzard is taking a different approach this year and, instead at BlizzCon, next World of WarCraft expansion will be unveiled at this year's Gamescom.
Event will be streamed live, August 6 at 9AM PDT (6PM for us living in GMT+1).
In other news, Character names on accounts inactive since Cataclysm will be released so, if you want to make sure you keep your character names, be sure to re-activate your accounts. If not, you will receive a "free" character rename.
The time has come, the battle's on, oh friends of mine...
It's that time of the year. Winter... I mean, BlizzCon is coming and with it, shitload of "leaks" are appearing all over the internet in regards to next World of WarCraft expansion. Although, Blizzard's guys released a major content patch few weeks ago, fans are merciless and can't wait to see / hear what Blizzard has in store for them next.
Most of the currently available leaks posted throughout the internets is pure speculation and rubbish because of one single thing: All of them are unsubstantiated and everything that you can "learn" from them is a pure fan fiction. We still need to wait for Blizzard to submit a patent trademark request for next expansion so, wait for something like this to appear on MMO-Champion. They are usually the fastest to post the information... That, however, does not mean that provided fan fiction does not make a fine reading material. It gives us insight about what people expect to see in the upcoming expansion.
Here are my 3 favorite Expansion theories: (Note: These are just a speculation about potential expansions.)
First off, if you want your own [Corrupted Dreadwing] then go and farm Apexis. This week (July 3-6) is Apexis Crystal Bonus Weekend where creatures eligible for dropping it give increased amounts of it. This rule does not apply to Quest/Event Rewards. You don't need much, only 150.000 [Apexis Crystals] (he said sarcastically). Another interesting thing that you can buy is [Rukhmar's Sacred Memory] which along with [Cursed Feather of Ikzan] and [Time-Lost Figurine] makes a nice trio of Arakkoa Transformation toys.
Cory Stockton (@mumper) gave an interview earlier this week and he said that "Hellfire Citadel is currently planned to be the last raid of the expansion" which is, kinda, a let down. Using in consideration all previous expansions had 3-4 major Content Patches and Draenor had only 2, with shitload of negative feedback received from players makes me think they are trying to abandon Draenor as soon as possible and start their focus on new storyline. What will be a new Storyline? We'll probably find that out on this year's BlizzCon that will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center on November 6-7, 2015.
Hellfire Citadel Loading Screen
If 6.2 is the final (major) Patch for WoD, we'll be stuck with it for 5 months, plus the time since announcement 'till release of the new expansion, which seams highly unlikely given that they have been constantly flamed when ever there was a time-gap where nothing is released (example being gap between end of Orgrimmar Siege and our venture into Draenor) and it is supported with his Cory's response:
There isn't anything to announce about future patches, but part of that
comes down to how Patch 6.2 plays out. How far players progress in
Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle will give the team an idea of how
long the content will last.
Which means, if Citadel is received with positive feedback, we may see at least 1 more Raid but, that's just my speculation.
It is sad that Plains of Farahlon weren't implemented into the game as it was intended originally. It would have be nice to see what Netherstorm looked like before Ner'zhul's portals ripped Draenor apart (in Main Universe).
I honestly don't know what was I expecting. I mean, I was expecting something but I didn't know what. So far, situation is so hectic that it is pretty close to impossible to kill a Rare Creature unless you accidentally aggro it while walking along it's spawn point or you join a group of "Rare Hunters" that are camping them and announcing themselves on General Channel.
In correlation with the release of the Patch, price of [WoW Token] jumped by about 10.000 gold over night and it's current price is ~53.000 gold per Token on EU realms while price on US realms stands steady at ~25.000 gold pieces per Token. (Source: WoWTokenInfo, 27.06.2015.)
Overall, Tanaan Jungle has the same vibe that Timeless Isle had only bigger. Vast area with lots of Achievements, Treasures, Rare Creatures that drop ILVL650 Baleful Tokens which are useless if you are seasoned Raider that's a member of the Guild with a Raid Progression... But very useful thing if you are gearing up an Alt Character as iLVL650 is minimum requirement (announced by Blizzard Devs) in order to even be considered for Normal version of Hellfire Citadel.
Timewalking event was finally implemented and it brought a bit of Nostalgic feel to the game. You can queue through RDF for it and band up with 4 other players to re-live old dungeons as it was meant to be played rather than going back as High Level player and facerolling through. Currently available dungeons are from TBC era: The Arcatraz, The Black Morass, Mana-Tombs, The Shattered Halls and The Slave Pens. Timewalking is a Weekend event that lasts for 3 days and will end on Monday. Next Weekend event will be Apexis Bonus event where drop of Apexis Crystals will be multiplied and they will be found more often while looting. Next Timewalking event will happen on July 17th when we will have the chance to tackle down WotLK dungeons in same manner.
Mythic Dungeons are finally opened. Same Dungeons only a bit more challenging. They are on a weekly lockout, drop item level 685 gear, and allow you to use [Seal of Inevitable Fate] for bonus rolls. Speaking of Seals, cap for [Seals of Tempered Fate] was increased to 20 and you can buy them at your Tanaan faction hub vendors for 300 gold pieces per Seal.
In "Garrison Related" news, I created The Shipyard and for a moment everything looked awesome. Then I found out that I
need to grind reputations so I can obtain more ships and I got easily
bored by it. As every ship has a chance to be destroyed if mission fails
(win chance less than 100%) and because I am Resource Efficient, The
Shipyard won't see my foot setting onto it's soil for a while now
because all current available missions has a chance of success around
50%, which are odds that I don't like at all. Especially if Rare ship is
in question.
Drop chance of Salvage Crates was nerfed and you will see them in less quantities than you could. High-value Gold follower missions are nerfed and you will see less of them, especially on your alts. (Since it is semi-related to the Garrison) Ashran's grouping system was nerfed and you can't queue for it while in Raid group so, goodbye Nemesis pre-made groups... Profession cooldowns and Buildings yield double amounts of materials now and you get twice as much as before. Profession Upgrade Tokens underwent a change so it could be easier to create them and amount of materials needed to create them has been normalized. And for some god damn reason, we are getting dismounted AGAIN while interacting with finished Work Orders.
I was goofing around YouTube last night and I stumbled upon this video on "How to Farm [Time-Lost Proto-Drake]" and thought it would be nice to be shared as it explains everything. Thanks to SerroDan for making the guide.
Spawn coordinates shown in the video are (31,69) (35,76) (51,71) (52,35) in Storm Peaks.
_NPCScan & _NPCScan.Overlay (download Overlay.Broker as well for easier configuration) are used in this video (War Drums & Horn and Map Path overlays) and it would be best to download them so you can have better understanding of the TLPD Pathing in-game.
Here are the Macros that he uses:
If you are on your own (no one else farming it):
/target Vyra /target Time-Los /focus /run if UnitName("Target") then PlaySoundFile([[Sound\Interface\PVPFlagT
akenMono.ogg]], "Master"); print(date(), UnitName("Target"), "Found"); SetRaidTarget("target",8); end
Easy Sniping if you have competition (there is someone else farming it):
(replace the "XXXXX" with the name of your INSTANT cast spell): /target Vyra /target Time-Los /focus /run if UnitName("Target") then PlaySoundFile([[Sound\Interface\PVPFlagT
akenMono.ogg]], "Master"); print(date(), UnitName("Target"), "Found"); SetRaidTarget("target",8); Dismount(); end /cast XXXXX
Release date for Patch 6.2 is June 23. The day we venture into Tanaan Jungle to face Gul’dan and the twisted remnants of the Iron Horde.
If you are a member of the guild with serious raid progression, take this week as a last chance to get few more gear upgrades from Blackrock Foundry by spending all remained [Seals of Tempered Fate] because you won't be needing them that much after 6.2 goes live.
This is also your last chance to obtain Ahead of the Curve / Cutting Edge achievements from Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry.
To accommodate the achievement requirements, [Master Treasure Hunter] will be renamed to [Expert Treasure Hunter] with old name being used for new achievement awarded to people when they gather 100 Treasures. All other Treasure Hunter achievements are being updated not to include/count treasures found in Tanaan Jungle.
Along with that, [Tanaan Diplomat] (A) / [Tanaan Diplomat] (H) are making an entry, being awarded when players reach Revered status with new Reputation Factions. So far, estimates are that Revered status for these factions can be obtained in different time spans with the longest one being reachable within 2.5/3 weeks from the launch, if Daily Quests are completed every day.
Models for next Tier of Armor Sets are released and, to avoid cluttering the post, you can check all of them on WoWhead. Personally, I like Rogue set the most. Shoulders and Helm look really nice and those daggers on the belt... Awesome...
In order to spare you from sifting through achievements and check everything by yourself, WoWhead launched a new app on their website to allow players to easily check if we are ready to be attuned for Draenor Flying so, check it out on http://wowhead.com/flying
Apparently, Redub and Myself are 100% ready to grind some reps in Tanaan upon release.
If YOU ARE NOT PREPARED! (sorry, I just had to) then check out WoWhead's guide on Draenor Pathfinding so you can be ready as fast as possible.
Another new thing is 6.2 are [The Shipyards] and I am looking forward to construct it. I just hope it does not turn out to be a total trainw... I mean, shipwreck.
Looks like we will be flying in Draenor after all... Blizzard "caved".
Patch 6.2 was marked as a "Release" on PTR and we can expect the launch announcement any time now.
Be prepared to spread the wings of your flying mounts but, you will need to meet a few conditions. Patch 6.2 brings new meta-achievement called [Draenor Pathfinder] and in order to obtain it, you will need to complete following:
Achievement [Explore Draenor]: Head to every corner of Draenor and reveal every obscured section of the map.
Achievement [Treasure Hunter]: Only 100 are required. If you don't have 100, download HandyNotes_DraenorTreasures addon (HandyNotes is required for it to work) and collect them. If you don't want to bother with addons, you can buy Treasure Maps from Grakis (Stormshield) and Srikka (Warspear) at a price of 100 gold pieces per Map.
Achievement [Loremaster of Draenor]: Only main Quest Chains need to be completed. If you didn't do them... What are you waiting for?
Initially, this new meta-achievement will give a new mount as a reward, The Soaring Skyterror. There are no images related to this mount for now but, using in consideration the name we may be looking at a re-color of either a [Dread Raven] or [Iron Skyreaver]. You never know, though... We may be looking at something new as well.
Players will remain ground-bound on Draenor until a small follow-up
patch (6.2.x), when all players who have earned Draenor Pathfinder on at
least one character will unlock the ability to fly in Draenor on all their level 90+ characters.
A new Mount is introduced as a Garrison Mission reward as well. If you are annoyed with camping [Poundfist] for hours only to find out he spawned some time after you left the party, like it happened with me a few times because I got tired of waiting, you will have a chance to obtain your own [Coalfist Gronnling] by sending your Followers to do the camping for you :)
Mission is called [Breaker Two] (our fans for sure), it will cost you a 100 Resources and will be 12 hours long.
New rewards from Garrison Missions, introduced in Patch 6.2 include following:
Another zone bites the dust, another selfie is forgotten....
Starting the day off with a dungeon, we end up in Maraudon, a dungeon I personally really like, but Exodiä clearly hates. Luckily, it's a dungeon that's seperated into 3 different areas now, which means it takes no time at all. I do not like that direction, but I am not one to argue quickly.
Afterwards we entered the Hinterlands through a secret Dwarven tunnel, and cleared some quests at Revantusk, where the innkeep keeps losing his lunch... But good god, the Jintha'Alor quests were quite a pain. Up and down the same damn pyramid-style hill.... not something we enjoyed... though still better than Ghostlands.
We even made our first honor kill here when we were attack by a Druid. Overall there was a lot of alliance activity, but not much conflict. Eventually we summoned and murdered a spider... all in a day's work.
Arathi Highlands used to be a zone I didn't mind that much back in the days... that has changed. There were roughly 30ish quests, but there was such a massive run around to get from one side to the other, only to walk back again... and again... and again. Last few quests weren't too bad at Faldir's Cove, but that didn't make up for the entire hassle.
At least the quests were limited in number, which another zone could learn something from.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Redub never posts anything unless it's about the questing. Yes, we once again finished a zone, this time being Hillsbrad Foothills.
First of all, we had a special overleveled "guest" with us, Illinä, a blood elf mage. He's an old buddy of ours (and a massive wanker), and wanted to tag along from now, so we let him.
Starting off strong with one of the best quests so far... Being a quest giver. We met some... interesting characters along the way, some Dumasses, some Kingslayers, all idiots. All cumulating with the 'blowing up' of the "fingers" of Hillsbrad and the slaying of the D-1000... We'll be back to this zone, but not before we head on to Arathi Highlands and beyond.
As always, in case you missed our stream and want to catch up, here is a video of the session.
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.
