Northrend-flying quest removed in favor of cash payout
by Michael Gray 
Oct 9th 2008 at 10:30AM
Drkshadow posted in the official forums with what he considers a slap in the face for folks looking to use their flying mounts in Northrend. (It's always a slap in the face, isn't it?) The quest to "attune" your mount to Northrend has been removed, and replaced with a simple 1000 gold payout. If you don't pay, you don't fly.
Bornakk confirms the change only a few posts later. He says turning the attunement into a cash payment makes it easier for more players to get. It might suck to pay the 1000G for each hungry alt. But, really, if you consider it -- how hard is it to farm up 1000G on your main? I think Bornakk makes a fair point -- it's probably easier to just grab cash on your main than take a relatively undergeared alt through a quest over and over.
Of course, we already knew that flying wasn't going to be very expensive. I guess someone might argue that 1000 gold can be a lot of cash, but that's really only a few days of dailies, or maybe a quick trip to sell loot at the auction house. At level 80, I'm just not going to get intimidated by a single grand.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, News items, Expansions, Mounts, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
PietSous Oct 9th 2008 10:35AM
Bah
Was really looking forward to this quest :-/
iwog Oct 9th 2008 10:42AM
as was I, especially as I'm new to the game and currently 40 gold seems like a lot of money even though I have a generous benefactor whom I'm triple XP levelling with.
lazarel Oct 9th 2008 11:18AM
Yeah, at least a quest is interesting. I've already done the dailies and done the grind... now I get to do it some more.
As for the 1000g, that is just a Blizzard money grab. If it was really just about slowing down progression, they wouldn't have to make it cost anything. Just buy it when you hit 77 for 10 gold.
But it's wait until 77 *AND* give us 1000g. How long can the Flying Quest take? Make it shorter and easier if that is your REAL reason.
Nope, give us more gold. Thanks
Jason Oct 10th 2008 10:16AM
Same here. I liked having a quest to 'unlock' this ability...it made it seem less arbitrary.
I guess the only question I have on this is will I be able to get to the person I have to pay this 1000g @ level 70 or will I still have to wait until 77?
Oomfoofoo Oct 9th 2008 12:54PM
aye, me to.
I was looking for something interactive and different. Now, its just more of the same.
Kakistocracy Oct 9th 2008 12:03PM
That must have been one serious quest line if they feel it's easier to do ~30 dailies at level 80 for the 1,000 than it would have been to do the quest line.
Adam G Oct 9th 2008 12:38PM
It's better then having to pay 5k for each alt again.
William Oct 9th 2008 12:42PM
Seems to me like it cheapens the experience somehow... especially storyline-wise... i mean, a quest means you did something.. paying money gets what? some mittens and goggles for your mount? Where's the storyline in that?
Damntheman Oct 9th 2008 12:58PM
I think we all assumed cold-flying would just be some dumb-ass money sink. When I heard about the quest I thought "omg maybe blizz cares a tiny bit about storyline". Thank you for re-affirming my belief that they can't come up with any more creative ways to balance the economy than add stupid mandatory expenses. Why not just add banking fees while you're at it?
grravie Oct 9th 2008 2:37PM
THATS NOT CHANGE!
ITS MORE OF THE SAME!
lol jk.....much easier to pay for flight.....i like
Luinel Oct 9th 2008 2:15PM
i was really looking forward to the quest as well. Having to pay a lot of gold for something is not fun, it's why i still don't have epic flight training. i started saving for it on my one 70, but the most i ever got was about 700g which i gradually spent on enchants, lvling professions, and leveling lowbies. It's true that it will be easier to get gold once you ding 80, with dailies, but how am i supposed to get to 80 w/0 a flying mount?!? i don't have time to farm gold all day with my current class load. It was my understanding that there are quests that are impossible to do w/o being able to fly (such as the ones where the quest center is in the air). How is this fair?
mhorabik Oct 9th 2008 5:57PM
keep the quest and add the 1000g fee IMO.
meatgun Oct 9th 2008 10:41AM
Make the quest or reward or something Bind to Account so your alts don't have to do it, but your main gets to experience it.
Minnow Oct 9th 2008 12:09PM
What he said.
Krick Oct 9th 2008 1:16PM
The last thing I need is another mount expense. I'm working on my third 70 and I still only have a flying mount on one, and it's NOT epic. I don't have the time to farm 1000g per toon, let alone another 5000g for an epic, and an additional 1000g for Northrend flying. I'm sure I'm not an isolated case. And Blizzard wonders why there is such a problem with gold sellers. Sigh...
Krick
http://www.tankadin.com/forum/
Clegane Oct 9th 2008 10:43AM
Gimme a break. Blizzard is making you pay for the same skill twice. Would it be fair to make you pay a second time for epic land riding? What if they forced you to get a set of snow tires for your ground mounts? This is a gold sink pure and simple and I -- personally -- liked the idea of a quest chain far better than a big cash payout.
I ground the money for three epic flyers on three different toons. Now I have to grind another 3000 gold for them to fly in Northrend? I know Blizzard doesn't want people to skip the early content by flying past it. I'm fine with that. So keep the attunement and drop the price tag. I've already paid for this ability.
Why is it that whenever Blizzard does something like this, Wowinsider always says something like "I'm okay with this" or "I think this is a fair idea?" Would it hurt for some proper critical analysis of Blizzard to appear on the site from time to time? I know this is a fan blog. But there is a fine line between fan and fanboy that wowinsider crosses a lot.
Blizzard is making us grind twice for the same ability. How is that good game design?
MDC Oct 9th 2008 10:46AM
^ This ^
Juliah Oct 9th 2008 10:52AM
I agree with Clegane's point that Blizzard is making you pay twice. Frankly, I'm very unhappy with the way they've handled the whole fliers-in-Northrend situation. I do not feel they should be grounding players, first of all. If people want to fly over content, I just don't see how that hurts anyone. I mean, they're going to have to land and quest at some point if they want to make it to 80, so the "no fly until 77" rule seems artificial and arbitrary.
With the quest, at least you had some content ... some in-game-justification to try to sugar-coat the stupidity of the aforementioned, but now they're just going to make it another gold sink after you've already paid a lot of coin for it? That's just asinine. Why can't we have a quest? What was wrong with that?
Rhyn Oct 9th 2008 11:01AM
"If people want to fly over content, I just don't see how that hurts anyone. I mean, they're going to have to land and quest at some point if they want to make it to 80, so the "no fly until 77" rule seems artificial and arbitrary."
Sigh.
Look, the /real/ reason Blizzard is grounding players until 77 is because they want to slow the leveling process. If people could use their epic fliers from day one of release, people would level faster because they could travel more quickly between quest hubs, destinations, mob spawn points, and so forth.
Blizzard does not want people to level /too/ quickly because WotLK won't be complete at launch. As with Burning Crade, all the end-game raids most likely will not be implemented, and other content may be missing as well, because the thought process is, "Well, from release until at least half our player base dings 80, we have X number of weeks (or months), so we can implement X Raid Dungeon or Y Daily Quest Hub at that point."
So the 77 fly cap is a way of ensuring that most players do not reach 80 too quickly, thereby requiring Blizzard to speed up its timetable to release end-game content.
Sorry to be so flippant with this reply, it just drives me crazy that people genuinely think that Blizzard is concerned about us "skipping content" or "not experience their hard work." While some game designers at Blizzard may be concerned about players skipping content, I can damn well guarantee that the overriding reason for the 77 sky cap is to preserve their content implementation timetable.
JohnC Oct 9th 2008 11:02AM
I agree especially because i am a relatively new player. Blizzard seems to forget about us in all this(the new player). I'm currently 68 so with any luck will hit 70 in time for wotlk, but they forgot that there are new players coming into this game that dont have 4 different 70 characters that they can spend an hour doing dailies on each to get that 1kg.
Its a complete shoot in the foot, sure the money for a flyer isn't cheap but its not supposed to be but and thats my goal, now its not my goal its my goal +1k and thats just not right. its my first character and i dont want to constantly be left behind in content/features because i joined the game late, and havent hit 70 as quick as others so i can go grind masses of gold.