Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsForum post of the day: Flying mounts in the old world
by Amanda Dean 
Mar 22nd 2008 at 8:00PM
I was thrilled when Blizzard announce that the Burning Crusade would usher in flying mounts. Then we found out that we would only be able to use flying mounts in Outland, since Blizzard had not rendered some areas of the game. Lalia of Icecrown suggested that flying mounts should be allowed in the old world, just with a lowered ceiling.
The biggest objection to this idea was the possibility of sky-ganking. Ganking however is a fact of life on a PvP server. I try to avoid going to Azeroth whenever possible, partly because it takes so long to get from place to place. Sure it would take a great deal of coding, but I would love to see this explored further.
If nowhere else, flying should be an option in Moonglade. That way Druids could try out their fantastic flying skills as soon as they get them.
Do you think we should be able to fly in Azeroth?
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
George Mar 22nd 2008 10:16PM
Right, because you can't fly around Ramparts. O_o
Simon Mar 22nd 2008 11:38PM
Crap, don't tell your "crazy ideas" like you know it for fact. You can jump from Winterspring to Azshara without a loading screen. And there are lots of other examples that prove you wrong. There is no "loading at choke points" because it wouldn't make a difference if you load a whole zone there or anywhere else, you would always notice if it was loading a whole zone at once. Just like when you port somewhere. It's constantly loading small cells of the world while you go. Couldn't do it any other way.
And there are "glass walls" in the Outlands. Just try to fly over the Black Temple. Or between Shadowmoon Valley and Hellfire Pen. at the eastern end. There are few, but they are there.
They could easily hide them by putting up a realy strong air defense around them. Like the ones at the bombing runs at Orgrila, just way more futile. That way no one would get close enough to actually "feel" them, unless you were cheating anyway.
Making Azeroth ready for free flying would be a major piece of redesign and fixing flaws, but I for one would love them to do it. Even if it means a few months more till the next expansion hits.
Ametrine Mar 22nd 2008 9:17PM
I like the notion of being able to fly in Moonglade (one of the few fully-rendered non-Outland areas in-game), so druids could "test out" their flightform.
Green Armadillo Mar 22nd 2008 10:21PM
Ironically, Moonglade is a key argument AGAINST flight in Azeroth. Try the non-Druid flightpath from Darkshore to Moonglade sometime. You can clearly see that there are branches hanging from empty sky. The effect looks fine from the ground, because the sky is green so when you look up, you see a canopy, but even on the rent-a-bird it looks like garbage up close. Even if you threw up invisible walls all over the place to keep people from flying over Mt. Hyjal etc, it would still take a lot of time to make these areas presentable. I'd rather have new content.
I am very curious about how they are going to deal with Wrath quest design though. As cool as flying mounts are, the ability to drop out of the sky on top of a quest target really short-circuits some quests, even in Outland where they designed things with flight in mind. There was a legitimate argument that the game would have been better off without them, but now there's no taking them back now that they're live. And I will admit that the lore argument gets less impressive - okay, so the item in your bag is a set of reins, not the actual mount, and you can't fly in Azeroth cause your actual mount is flying around Outland waiting to be called.... only now it's in Outland and also Northrend.
Super Guest Man 9000 Mar 23rd 2008 2:28AM
Green Armadillo,
Did you miss the part where they said you wont be able to fly in northrend till close to 80 so you dont skip content?
Daruhn Mar 22nd 2008 9:34PM
I don't even care if we can fly. I just really want to see my dragon running around ironforge. Why can't we just clip their wings and use them as epic land mounts in old world.
Ametrine Mar 22nd 2008 10:29PM
From what I've seen of them, the flying mounts have really awful walking animations.
Daruhn Mar 22nd 2008 9:46PM
The lowered cealing or wing clipping could be explained lorewise by saying that Azeroth's gravity is higher since it's a much larger planet while outland is just a few floating rocks. There are examples of the messed up gravity all over netherstorm.
Memzer Mar 22nd 2008 9:54PM
"You will be able to use your flying mounts in Northrend. Much like the Burning Crusade and Oultand, it is being designed with that idea and technology in place. Players (at this point in time) won't be able to use their flying mounts right away, however. We haven't decided on the exact level you'll be able to use them again, but you may need to learn how to defrost their wings in order to fly. It's not exactly a warm tropic up that way. ;)" - Nethaera
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778510014&pageNo=1&sid=1#3
As to the topic at hand, I don't really care too much about flying mounts in the old zones, realistically once you're 70 it's not like you stray to far from a major city anyway :)
Memzer Mar 22nd 2008 9:56PM
Must have mucked something up, that was in response to Post #3 from Wolfwings
Rydolomo Mar 22nd 2008 10:08PM
I know that Azeroth would need a lot of reworking and would take up a lot of resources which Blizz would rather use on new content.
I like Rommon's explanation of separate zones which need a loading screen.
Examples I've seen are when you fly from EPL to Ghostlands on the taxi. You get a loading screen. Also when you fly from Elwynn Forest to Burning Steppes, there's a sort of jump in the image which could be an invisible loading screen.
Rydo
Pucechan Mar 23rd 2008 12:13AM
"Examples I've seen are when you fly from EPL to Ghostlands on the taxi."
That is nothing to do with old world (pre-BC) zone loading. That is simply to prevent people without the expansion getting to Ghostlands. The only loading screens you get in Azeroth are when using boats/zeppelins or entering an instance.
The Pre-BC/Post-BC zone situation (for example, nothing existing where Ghostlands is without the expansion except for a Quel'Thalas message and a pretty tower) would be interesting to see how Blizzard would overcome if they ever did add the ability to fly in Azeroth.
Honestly the "stick every area new with BC on a seperate server cluster" idea might have sounded good originally but it's left them an... interesting conundrum if they ever wanted to allow Azerothian flight.
Tooblekane Mar 22nd 2008 10:14PM
I get why it'd be problematic to have people flying around in old world, but I wish we could ride our flying mounts on the ground. Imagine running around Org on Al'ar :)
Ametrine Mar 23rd 2008 2:35AM
Al'ar has no feet.
In fact, pretty-much all the flying mounts have awful ground-motion animations, feet or not.
Hotsauce Mar 22nd 2008 10:57PM
I do not think we should be able to use flying mounts in Azeroth. There would be so much more ganking of lowbies on pvp servers to the point of it really interfering with the leveling process. Things are fine the way they are now.
prudychick Mar 22nd 2008 11:28PM
My main desire to fly in Azeroth is to help get ore, herbs, etc. that are in impossible to get to areas.
Ametrine Mar 23rd 2008 2:38AM
There aren't any. The node-objects simply don't spawn (except for the occasional glitched ones appearing underground or in a tree) in places that normal travel methods can't access.
shifter146 Mar 22nd 2008 11:53PM
I think they should make a patch called "Skies of Azeroth" or something to that effect. Then they could redo the whole old world and then introduce some brand new race that has been living in the skies since the beginning of time and they aqre having problems of their own. That way Blizz could add new content as well as redo old content. A sky themed instance would be pretty cool IMO.
nospam4chris Mar 23rd 2008 12:06AM
While it would be great to fly in the old world, I just wish I could use my flying mount as a ground mount there. Having 2 mounts, taking up bag space, mounting up in different ways for different areas....Just my wish but I doubt we will ever see it.
jbodar Jun 6th 2008 6:43PM
WotLK will have a new fast ground mount, usable in "Old Azeroth" that can take a passenger.