Removing flying mounts in Azeroth.

#1 - Jan. 13, 2013, 9:35 p.m.

from mmo champion

While removing flying would be the best thing for the game overall, I recognise that there's almost no way to remove them without damaging the game and community. The convenience is too great, and the emotional attachment too high at this point.

The truth is that flying mounts are a parasite on the game, burrowed too deep to simply be removed without killing the host. So Blizzard do what they can to contain it: they remove flying mounts from us for as long as they are able. With every new expansion we lose the ability to fly for as long as possible, and even in the single expansion which did have flying for the levelling content, we still lost them in the two areas Blizzard expected us to spend the majority of our level capped time in (Tol Barad and the Molten Front).

Flying mounts are terrible. Awful. One of the worst design decisions Blizzard could ever have made. And yet, they cannot be removed. A real shame, because we are missing out on so much due to their existence. So sorry, this petition won't work. If this petition somehow forced Blizzard to remove flying mounts, then they'd do it before they were ready to make the change. It would severely harm the game.

Maybe Blizzard have a solution waiting in the wings. I hope that maybe one day we can lose our flying mounts entirely. The game can only be improved if it happened in the right way.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#142 - Jan. 15, 2013, 6:12 p.m.

We pretty firmly believe the questing experience is just wholly better when you can't lift off and set down wherever you like, frog leaping from quest objective to quest objective. Certainly we've supported that with no flying for the leveling content of Wrath and Mists, and only after you hit level cap can you obtain the ability to fly. The new zone coming in 5.2 is not unlike the Isle of Quel'Danas in a few ways, and one of them is that there's no flying. That helps us achieve that desire for progressive questing, it's good for supporting world PvP, as well as lets us make really difficult outdoor encounters, like Oondasta - who is OG Kazzak in difficulty - that you can't just drop on top of from the sky.

I can't imagine flying mounts ever going away, they're a big part of the game at this point, but certainly they can take a break when it makes sense and we can present content in a more intimate way from time to time.