The Flying Purple People Eater

Yesterday, I wrote about flying. Well, no, I wrote about Warlords of Draenor's lack of interesting and engaging content. I am a person with various opinions that require many words to reveal their true nature, and in my previous post I precariously left unspoken the matter of my actual opinion on the flying debate. It sparked some feedback, where it seemed to me that I may have implied I think the flying debate is unimportant.

not working as intended

While there may have been parts that alluded to my beliefs, the reality was shrouded. Here is the thing, though: my opinion doesn't matter.

What am I trying to say? That, as one singular individual within the vast Warcraft playerbase, my opinion isn't important? Am I implying, in this statement, that all of your opinions don't matter?

No, no. Here's the situation at hand: the voices of those so opposed to the flying restriction that they have continued to voice their concerns for more than a year are more important than my opinion.

After experiencing my own personal fastest falling out of an expansion to date, and witnessing the dramatic, sudden increase and subsequent dramatic, sudden decrease of subscriptions with Warlords' release, and through it all seeing the nonstop pro-flyers voice their concerns about the restriction, my opinion on the flying debate has changed. Now, my opinion is simply, "why isn't Blizzard just reverting their decision at this point?"

I mean just look at all the angry people

As stated in my previous post, the lack or inclusion of flying does not and would not fix what is wrong with Warlords of Draenor. The thing is, though, at this point, the expansion is so lackluster and boring that one of the easiest things they could do to retain subs and keep people mildly interested in this expansion would be to reintroduce flying.

This post may seem to contradict my previous post where I appear to cast the flying issue to the side as entirely unimportant, but I deliberately omitted these talking points previously to keep that post more focused on one subject.

For example, there was a significant point of my Nagrand Frostwolf War Wolf story in my last post that I removed for the sake of not having to dive into this particular branch of this topic. I enjoyed exploring Nagrand because the wolf allowed me to cast while moving, which was just entertaining enough of a feature to kept me engaged for just awhile longer. In this same way, flying would be just entertaining enough of a feature to keep more people engaged for just awhile longer.

I regularly flew to the tops of tall things just to look around in previous expansions
I could do that again

My original intention was not to insist that we should ignore flying as its own issue, but as a reminder that the game is kinda awful regardless. While it's clear that re-instituting flying would not fix Warlords, not being able to fly is certainly something that makes the lackluster experience even less worth the effort.

I would not hastily return to the game with reignited, high hopes of a super fantastic fun Draenor adventure if flying were reintroduced. When I did log in, though, I would be able to re-experience the content that I already experienced with a new perspective. That would be enough to keep me engaged for just awhile longer. I might even do archaeology.

At this point, it is absolutely confounding why they have chosen to stick by their flying restriction decision, even so much as to announce that they will likely stick with it in all future expansions

I was originally for the flying restriction, perhaps because of nostalgia. I thoroughly enjoyed wall jumping, finding and exploring places, and general life on the ground back during classic. Especially with the insistence that Warlords of Draenor would be a magical journey through nostalgialand, I was all for it. At the same time, they could have kept flying in and it probably wouldn't have affected me.

why would seeing this gorgeous soaring creature make me upset

I can play either way - my issue at the moment is of course that the game itself isn't interesting enough, regardless. But it's clear that there is a passionate, significant part of the playerbase that wants flying back. Even moreso, I haven't seen an actual reason from Blizzard as to why they have chosen to continue to restrict flying from all future incarnations of the game other than "because we said so."

I don't see a vocal portion of the playerbase pushing back against the pro-flyers, begging Blizzard not to give in to their demands, proclaiming how fun and interesting the game is without flying. I see people who are just tired of the flying debate, people who don't care either way, and people who are fervently, strongly, and intensely pro-flying. With such a one-sided situation going on, why have they chosen to ignore these people, let alone barely give them any information as to the reasons for their decisions?

"we wanted to give you ample time to admire the kor'kron wolves we gave you"
look he matches my garrison

It's seriously just bewildering. I'm not sure which direction Blizzard is attempting to head with this steadfast design change, but if you're sick of hearing about it, I'm afraid it's clear at this point that it's going to continue to be a lively issue for quite awhile.

This will either end with Blizzard putting flying back in or defending their decision for the rest of the game's life.