Flying in Warcraft and Expectations

Welcome back friends!

I wanted to jump right in this week and add my thoughts to all of the controversy this week surrounding Blizzards announcement that flying will not be enabled on Draenor this expansion. This coupled with the fact that Blizzard is unsure if flying will return in future expansions, has led to a lot of outrage from the community unlike we have really seen in quite a while. While I don't like the decision personally, and I'll explain my thoughts behind that, I think this topic brings to the forefront some interesting thoughts surrounding gamer expectations and Blizzards responsibility to us regarding them. I'll touch on the specific flight issue first, then move on to the greater idea. This is something I spend a decent amount of time thinking about so I is nice to have a chance to bring it up while it's so relevant.

In an interview during Blizzcon 2013, former Game Developer Greg Street mentioned how Blizzard thought back negatively on flying in zones and the limitations placed on them because of it. There was a bit of negative feed back but at that point it wasn't for certain and a lot of players just took a wait and see stance. Then Warlords launched amidst server stability issues and queue times and people were just happy to play and the flight thing just wasn't a big deal. I've said here before that I think the leveling experience up until Nagrand is one of the best parts of Warlords, and I would be lying if I said that the lack of flying isn't part of the reason why. More than other expansions, where we couldn't fly while leveling either, there was a sense of immersion. Completing sections of a zone and being told when you did based on a story thread felt great. The difference this time around was that once we hit max level, we couldn't go learn flying, and we didn't gain access to anything new because of it. In Burning Crusade we got to go to Ogri'la and Skettis that we couldn't access before. Sure they were just daily quest hubs, but that was relevant then because it was the first time dailies were a part of the end game experience. In Wrath of the Lich King, Dalaran had a flight pad that you could take off from and go anywhere, and you began the campaign against the Lich King with the Argent Crusade dailies. It felt like a increase in power, and we couldn't even access Naxxramas without flying up to the entrance (yeah yeah summon stone but you get the point). I would guess that where the problem came for Blizzard was Cataclysm. They enabled flying in Azeroth as part of the expansion features. It was part of the announcement trailer! The possibility of flying made it possible for zones like Deepholm and Twilight Highlands to be as huge and epic as they were, but the problem from Blizzards perspective, was flying made the questing process trivial. And that in turn made the process feel tedious to the players. Playing from 80 to 85 multiple times you just mounted up and flew from quest objective to quest objective without even taking in what was actually going on. I have to say I agree with the problem. For all the good that the Cataclysm revamp did to the old world questing experience, the 80 to 85 grind was miserable. However, that doesn't mean the solution is to remove flying all together, and I'm not sure that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

As I said before, there is a certain feeling of power associated with being able to fly over a world that you have conquered. Isn't that all the leveling experience is? We travel across an area piece by piece and defeat the bad guys within, and we learn about the enemies on the way. Hell, it's called gaining experience for a reason. And after I've worked my way through all the zones and I've learned about this new world or continent, I am rewarded with learning to traverse it through the air. The fantasy of that feels fine to me. I think the leveling experience should be flight free. The work that goes into everything in the world should be seen, even if it feels forced by some people. But flight always felt like a reward for leveling and making it through all that content. And Warlords to a step initially to delay that reward to a later date. We didn't know if it would be 6.1, 6.2 or when, but we all sort of thought it would come. Where the issue comes in, is that Warlords of Draenor felt lacking in rewards at level 100. Mists of Pandaria gave us dailies (WAY too many of them) to continue the story in a way that doesn't exist in Warlords. Wrath of the Lich King gave us different quest hubs at level 80 to show us what's going on with Malygos and the Blue Dragonflight, or what Tirion Fordring has in mind to confront the Lich King. In Draenor, we finish the story quest chains in Nagrand, we see the in-game cinematic between Thrall and Garrosh, and then we have a quick conversation where one person says "We should attack the Foundry" and another says "We should confront the Ogres" but it doesn't lead to anything. Our character is left standing there waiting for raids to release and that's it. It is a dry and hollow ending to an otherwise enjoyable experience. We got left to just camp out in our Garrison while waiting for dungeons for gear. I don't mind not getting flying as a reward at the end of it all if I feel like I am rewarded with something. Every expansion has a new spell and new dungeons at max level, but they have also offered other experiences as well where Draenor did not.

On a less serious but still important note, removing flying long term effects mounts in game negatively as well. Ashes of Alar, Invincible, Mimirion's Head. All of these mounts lose their flair when they are relegated to running or hovering just above the ground. Warlords of Draenor has had a subpar offering of mounts, partly because a majority of them are ground mounts. With the exception of store bought mounts, we have a plethora of wolves, boars, elekks, river beasts, and clefthoofs all with slight recolors or re-skins for achievements or rewards. There are as many as 6 recolors for the same ground mount model. It seems like a waste to limit themselves going forward without flying. Are we not going to get new dragons or other flying mounts, or if we do will that functionality be relegated to outdated content? I look forward to hearing more about their reasoning and what they believe the other downsides are to enabling flying.

I also want to discuss this topic on a grander scale. What do we as players have the right to expect from a company? I believe we have a right for any game to be playable and mostly bug free from launch. We have a right to a certain level of communication from the developers. We have the right to have our feedback heard. It's important to note that our feedback should be heard and taken seriously, but it does not need to ultimately be acted upon. If Blizzard decides, even amidst the uproar, to leave flying out of the game in the future, we need to be given the confidence that the community feedback was taken into account. We should also be able to expect things we have earned in the game to not become obsolete. There is a certain amount of every expansion that does not carry over. Sure you can always go back and complete old dungeons and raids, but the zones themselves are basically left to rot. Profession materials all become auction house fodder every expansion. But these are all things we are accustomed to "losing" every couple of years. The difference comes when players spend time farming mounts years after it is current. Players don't want to feel like things that they care about aren't useful anymore, and they shouldn't have to. I'm not saying that the reason to keep flying around is so that the people lucky enough or committed enough to get Mimiron's Head and the like can keep feeling special. But I am saying that as the game ages more things become trivialized, and vanity items are one of the things keeping past expansions relevant outside of a section of levels. That's the reason transmog is such a popular feature. We don't have a right to demand features be included or not included. But we do have a right to let our stance as consumers speak for us.

Sorry if this post was a bit of a ramble. There is a lot tied into this particular issue and I'm sure others have thoughts out there that are worth checking out. Thanks as always for reading!

Chris