Have Group, Will Travel replaced with faster flight paths, flask "Chug-A-Lug" perk removed
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 22nd 2012 at 11:15AM
Take it for what you will; I'm sure the reaction is going to be pretty strong. Blizzard has said that it wants people to get out into the world more and not have WoW just be a game where you sit in a city waiting for things to happen. This will certainly do that in terms of raiding.
The flask perk has also been removed, according to the list at Wowhead. It could appear as a perk in a later guild level (if that happens), but as it stands now, Chug-A-Lug isn't in the beta. It's been replaced with ... wait for it ... increased health from bandages with The Doctor is In.
Of course, this is the beta, so it all could change. Time will tell if this sticks or not.
[Thanks to Cutaia for the tip and our friends at Wowhead for the awesome datamining!]
Filed under: News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
Jack Kelly Mar 22nd 2012 11:22AM
Cloth just went through the roof!
Gorgon Mar 22nd 2012 11:22AM
Out in the world more?
People will still sit in their respective lobbies, Org or SW. However, there may be a boost in Warlocks being played and created.
Adam Holisky Mar 22nd 2012 11:25AM
Good.
Jamie Mar 22nd 2012 11:54AM
Warlock Expansion!!! *cuts self* Oh man... it's spreading.
I need a Mage STAT!!! Remove Curse NAO!!!!
DarkWalker Mar 22nd 2012 12:16PM
Want to know why people don't go out in the world, specially max level players that have already at least some heroic gear? Lack of incentive, plus huge amount of inconvenience due to the travel time.
Blizzard has since launch made the rewards for instanced content just plain better than anything that can be gotten from the world. As a consequence, players go where the rewards are. Why even go into the world if anything instanced provides better rewards?
Also, open world content is tuned for players in quest greens. Players in Heroic gear already faceroll it, and players in raid gear - even first tier raid gear - have absolutely no challenge in the open world.
There is also the issue of the trade chat and how it's used to form groups. If the player wants to do any group content without using LFD/LFR, he usually has to sit tight in the city, monitoring the trade channel for groups being assembled or spamming trade in order to form his own group.
Lastly, it takes just too long to do anything out in the open world, thanks to all the travel time. Also, travel in WoW is perhaps the single most boring thing I've ever seen in a game. For my part, if I'm faced with a 5-minutes flight, I close WoW and fire up some other game; it's usually more rewarding.
In the end, WoW strikes me as a game where all the design elements serve as incentives for the players to not leave the cities, even if this was unwittingly done.
Jorges Mar 22nd 2012 12:33PM
I also see mages making a killing with portals, not to mention warlocks standing in front of raid entrances to sell their summon services lol.
Aitron Mar 22nd 2012 12:37PM
What I can't figure out is, how is using flight paths going to get us out in the world more? Are we suddenly going to have ejector seats so that we can get off early?
spectres Mar 22nd 2012 12:40PM
LOL, WTB ejector seat!
Twill Mar 22nd 2012 12:45PM
Good thing I got loremaster and a bunch of flight paths were deleted!
Oh wait, that's a BAD thing. Blizzard, in the words of XT: "Why you big poop-poop?"
SR Mar 22nd 2012 12:46PM
I second this.
WTB Flight Path Ejector Seats.
Jordan Mar 22nd 2012 12:56PM
"Also, open world content is tuned for players in quest greens. Players in Heroic gear already faceroll it, and players in raid gear - even first tier raid gear - have absolutely no challenge in the open world."
This is why I *REALLY* liked the all-elite regions that old Vanilla had, that essentially functioned like an outdoor dungeon. Remember Tyr's Hand, or the insanely overpowered Fel Guards that roamed the southwest part of Blasted Lands?
More outdoor elite areas, maybe with crazy hard roaming outdoor world bosses, that involve quests which give awesome vanity rewards (so that participation isn't mandatory for raid-gearing, but it's just for fun and showing off).
Pyromelter Mar 22nd 2012 12:56PM
"WTB ejector seat!"
No, but I know a guy.
Cos Mar 22nd 2012 1:04PM
I still don't get this. HGWT is mostly(? ballparking here) used for raid groups to get everybody together quickly so you can start the run. Sure, there are some odds and ends uses for it (like when my wife or I would summon the other to do MF dailies, etc), but I'd hazard to guess it's most used for raiders.
So with that in mind, we're going from one person doing a ~10sec cast and having everyone on-site to two people standing at a summoning stone (or lock TV) and one-by-one summoning the other 8 or 23 raiders? Ugh.
I bet we'll see a lot of groups have a few people flying/FP'ing to the destination and summoning the rest (which gets 1 or 2 extra people "out into the world" compared to now). Unless Blizz isn't putting summoning stones outside the new dungeons/raids, which will throw a ringer in that. Considering our raid doesn't have a lock, I can only imagine the frustration of waiting on those 1-2 people that always drag their feet to wait for a summon... Or hearthing back to SW to pug, only to have to travel the whole way back to the raid... ugh again...
Why not just make HGWT create a portal that requires one or two extra people to activate? Kinda like a mobile summoning stone that will pull your whole group at once?
Just a thought, I dunno...
Esau Mar 22nd 2012 1:48PM
Forcing me to waste time taking flight points just means that I won't have time to do anything "out in the world". Seriously, this feature is only used by grouped players with a specific objective (raid, dungeon, etc ) in mind. If that objective isn't "out in the world" to begin with this change nets nothing.
If they feel this spell is being exploited some way, then just restrict when and how it's used.
followthategg Mar 22nd 2012 2:03PM
I think they should partly remove the instant port to instances. Make people fly to those instances to queue up for them and if they want to do a random then they just venture to the closest relevant summoning stone, once they've queued then they are free to fly back off to anyway else and get ported inside once the group is ready.
Noyou Mar 22nd 2012 2:06PM
HGWT is not only used by raiders and dungeoners. I used it almost every day to summon friends or guildies. It is, in my opinion the best guild perk. Hopefully there will be some talk on the forums about taking it away. Replacing it with- faster FP's? Really? I do take a lot of flightpaths but it was my understanding that they already sped them up with cata. What they need to do is stop them from circling around dalaran for 2 min (ok maybe not 2 min but still) or many other spots. And yeah- the ejector button is not bad. Especially when you need to get off the ride half way. Ah well.
leonardocelso Mar 22nd 2012 4:12PM
Not to mention the (still recurring) "tabbed out bug", which disconnects you if you arrive at your destination and happen to be tabbed out (at least in Vista and Win7) while running the game full-screen.
Of course, a lot of people play on their Macs, and there's the windowed mode crowd, but I still believe the vast majority of wow players view Azeroth through a windows-based PC in full screen mode. It's been too long to still be getting tabbed-out dc's on flightpaths, and if we're suddenly forced to use them more often than ever, might as well get a Pebble addon to enjoy your travel time.
vocenoctum Mar 22nd 2012 5:53PM
Unless they also ditch Summoning Stones, this just means that now instead of 1 person getting there, 2 must. (and of course the warlock)
It's just reversing a quality of life thing. The only thing I can see it avoiding is the "one rogue gets into a capital city and summons the raid" thing, but who cares?
How this gets people out into the world, I don't know.
ZodiacDragons Mar 22nd 2012 7:18PM
Unless they plan to remove summoning stones, I think completely removing HGWT to "get people out into the world" is a bad idea. All HGWT was is a faster summoning that instead of taking 2 people summoning a person 1 at a time, took 1 person to summon everyone together. It'll just go back to Wrath where the whole raid sits in dalaran while they wait for not 1 but 2 people to go the raid now.
nieboh Mar 22nd 2012 10:41PM
You know what I'd like to see? I'd like Blizzard to give mages a "variable" portal spell. A mage goes to some location in the world and "learns" the location. Then the mage can open a portal to that location just like to all the major cities. Only one variable location can be known at a time, learning a new one overwrites the last one. Then your raid could gather in some convenient spot and all port over to your raid destination together.
Beats the hell out of faster gryphon riding. I can't remember the last time I paid for a bird ride. Their flight paths are always so lame, and the constant circling they do seemed specifically designed to ensure that no flight path took less than 1 minute to arrive at your destination.