There’s a lot to be speculated about there, frankly, and no way to be sure about whether no flight was always the plan, or flight was the plan but then the developers liked not having it, or what was going on there. The development team played it cagey for a long time about what the plan was for flight in Draenor, but it definitely wasn’t there at launch. Flight was one of the rewards for when you first reach the level cap, the beginning of your time at max level. Regardless, this particular stretch of time was resolutely fixated in the same basic model. This meant that all of the expansion zones were basically explored from the air first, and I suspect the people who were working on the expansion but not yet in control of decision making bristled at this fact.
At the level cap, you would earn a new skill allowing you to fly once more you could also buy a tome that was bind-on-account, allowing your alts to start flying right away instead of forcing you to wait on your second go-round.Ĭataclysm broke this format very slightly, but it started introducing a larger sense of discontent because it allowed players to start flying more or less right away. The next three expansions all found a good balance to strike with how flight worked by adding additional skills to be learned.
Of course, you can’t give people the ability to slip the surly bonds of gravity and then have people happy when it’s taken away. Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria It was a feature somewhat missed in the old world, of course, but that was old content and it also had the explanation of being an entirely different world. Epic flight was the one you wanted if you really wanted to go anywhere in Outland without bothering with flight masters. The slower speed allowed you to fly, but flight masters were still much more efficient. Of course, much as with ground mounts, flight was divided between faster and slower speeds. You got flight when you started your time at the level cap, and that made it all the more fun. Swooping in and out of zones you hadn’t yet finished all the quests in was a delight, and it was redoubled with the addition of more endgame stuff to be done for reputations and such. But who cares? Flight was still a fun reward, and it was a big landmark to reach level 70 and suddenly be able to take to the skies. Only a couple of map areas really even rewarded flying with access you would otherwise lack. Thus, we were told, one of the exciting ideas for the expansion was to have places you could navigate only via flight and how it was a natural response to the toppling landscape. They were a big deal, in no small part because Outland is a collection of islands floating in space. One of the big selling points for The Burning Crusade was the addition of flying mounts. So let’s start by looking back at the expansion that started it all. In fact, I think part of it is that the designers now working on the game have forgotten how flight used to work and how it works now – and yes, if you’re thinking it still works the same way, you’re not entirely right. You cannot debate, however, that ever since The Burning Crusade players have had an expectation of hopping on the back of something airborne and taking to the sky.įlight has changed a lot over the years, though, and I think the ways that flight has changed says more about why the announcement of a new flying achievement for Shadowlands was met with exasperation rather than relief. No, not just flying mounts, even though you could argue that has been, too flight masters dotting both continents meant that people have long associated the game with flying from place to place, but you can debate over whether flying on a bat counts as a proper “flying mount” or not. Flight has been a part of World of Warcraft as long as the game has existed.