If we compare the changes that Blizzard has introduced throughout the expansions of World of Warcraft, we can say that they have always been advantages for the player, and one of the great advantages that was introduced in Cataclysm was the possibility of flying in Azeroth , something that many had been waiting for a long time. But it seems that the game developers are somewhat sorry for this decision, and in the new expansion, also known as patch 6.0, they will not allow flying mounts in Draenor even if you are level 100, or at least until patch 6.1.
Bashiok, . of the American forums of World of Warcraft explains this decision to us. We cite the most important points:
- Previous expansions did not allow players to fly while leveling up. Warlords of Draenor will work the same way.
- Blizzard is pleased with how the Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle, which are top tier zones with only ground mounts, and he thinks it will be just as successful for tier 100 players in Warlords of Draenor.
- Flying trivializes combat - you can abandon combat at will. Imagine if in dungeons or on battlefields you could fly - you would lose the grace.
- The rhythm of the outer zones is interrupted when fighting flying. The zones suddenly seem much smaller since the transfers are done very quickly. Mountains and amazing landscapes are diminished when you can simply fly up to them, and the feeling of exploring the area is mitigated.
I leave you the translation of the official statement on the subject.
[blue author = »Bashiok» source = »http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10571977123?page=1#6 ″]
There is a lot of discussion about flying / not flying and I would like to sum things up and try to steer the discussion a bit. Some of the other threads are near the top of posts, some have totally drifted off topic, so I'm going to use this one to reply to all of them. Sorry for the other threads.
We intend to disallow flying when leveling up from level 90 to 100, and will allow it again in the first major patch of Warlords of Draenor. There has already been a case of being unable to fly while leveling up during The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Mists of Pandaria expansions. We have allowed flying during Cataclysm because these zones were mixed with the level 1-60 world, it would have been a pain to have to continually dismount and reassemble as you change zones, like in Hyjal etc. but we would not have allowed flying in the Cataclysm areas if we had found a solution to the problem.
Flying trivializes combat. A lot of people like to say that we are trying to force PvP around the world, or that we really want people to admire the beautiful trees we have created, but those are not really the reasons we make these kinds of decisions in every expansion. . Flying allows you to escape or enter combat at will. There is a reason why flying is not allowed in dungeons and raids, or on battlefields and arenas, and that is because it would trivialize the basic mechanics of the game in these types of zones - combat. For the same reason that how the world is perceived from the air is trivialized, with the simple fact of being able to land and take off wherever you want.
Therefore this is the main reason. But surely there are many other problems that can affect the design of the content, such as having to design larger areas because flying mounts can travel very fast (and therefore travel on land takes much more time), reduces the impact of the elevated areas, the possibility of presenting structured content is eliminated, and in general it eliminates our ability to decide how and when players face a situation, how they view a location, or when they enter and exit combat. And for this same reason, the way of approaching the content of the outdoor world is trivialized based on the simple fact of being able to take off and land wherever you want.
I fully understand the desire of people to want to be more efficient in making their own decisions, but we have to balance our intention to create a game where anything goes. There is a middle ground at some point, but flying mounts most of the time all they do is undermine our intentions to continue with the base of the game: combat, or guide players through a playable experience, and for that matter. For these reasons we have continually made decisions (where possible) not to allow the use of flying mounts in outdoor content. Previously it only lasted while leveling up, but based on our experiences with the Isle of Thunder and the Timeless Isle we think we can extend it a bit longer in the new content, reintroducing flying mounts in the next big content patch, achieving so making flying again something very special, while at the same time paying more attention to flight paths and creating more interesting travel options for players to use.[/blue]