Quote Originally Posted by linayar View Post
On a side note, since you mentioned GW2, I think not having flight at all would actually be preferable for me rather than the current system of flight unlock. I think if you don't want people to fly, then just stick with it and design a flightless world. But if you want people to fly, then design a world that you won't feel "underappreciated" with flight. (And I disagree with that, by the way, as I appreciated the world of WoW with flight, even if it may not be the in the same way that others want me to appreciate it.)
I think I've missed the clue somewhere here. Which part are you disagreeing with?

GW2 did exactly that, at first, and only moved away from that in the new expansion's zones and only with the conviction to do mounts, as a concept, better than any other MMO.

Or, as we've said earlier, just have no flying in warmode
That, so long as rewards get increased once flight in unlocked for most, would be my preference. I'm probably in the minority on that, though.

If you make quests that you can't "cheese" with flight and/or make quests that make use of flight, then flying wouldn't be an issue.
That's... so much easier said than done. You'd need mobs to suddenly have hugely increased threat acquisition areas, to be able to see through objects, being able to move at target mount speed (instead of just at normal sprint speed), etc., as to avoid their being bypassed by flight -- and those lasting dangers, then, aren't going to be worth the sudden gimmickiness of making those dangers last despite flight.

To pull off something like that, it needs to be a deliberate and thematic world design, like having separate and much more dangerous creatures already make use of the various air/aether currents such that trying to slip in among them by using those same means of transport risks getting their attention, much like risking the attention of giant crocodiles or the like when taking a canoe down a speeding river to get back to a quest hub more quickly. It then becomes a matter of comparative risk and reward, where sometimes you crank that risk up to basically ground players across set pieces or key areas and at other times you greatly loosen it in order to let player better milk (their knowledge regarding) those means of quick travel.

Ok, so you're fixating on the time save effect of flying, but that only highlights the difference between open world and raid for me.
It's not a matter fixating on this or that. Unless you want to say that exploration and travel are not and cannot be an intended element beyond purposely wasting player time, then they will be part of the open world content. As a part of said content that changes the way you said content, both ground mounts and later flying mounts reshape that experience.

So, yes, flying does save time, but that's a good thing, because it's saving time from the part that is not related to the content that you are trying to do.
If I don't want to kill the boss, but merely want the loot, is overgearing content to the point that it poses no challenge a good thing? It isn't -- loot aside -- content that I am trying to do, after all, so surely it must be, no?

There's always going to be some split between design intent and the far narrower matter of what a specific player wants from that content. To say, though, that exploration can only be a time-waste, so long as it increases the time until rewards received, but the same cannot be true for combat alone... is disingenuous.

And at the end of the day, WoW still has non-flying mounts, which means people who want to experience everything on the ground can still do so.
You and I both know this has no bearing.

For one, you switch flight to not automatically trigger even on flying mounts, and that ground mounts aren't outright removed from your mounts collection upon acquiring flight does not mean that they are intended to be of use thereafter in zones in which you've unlocked flight. It's just not a world that suddenly allows every non-winged creature to float through the air or propel itself along on flatulence.

Consider also, say, what portion of Party Finder groups will accept minimum ilvl fresh runs in week 7+ after a tier's release. It matters little to most players that it was doable at release at min ilvl and with a blind party because there is comparative loss for doing so at that point. That a player enjoys the open world doesn't mean they won't feel obliged to simply directly teleport to the dungeon's stone to more quickly summon their friends, etc., because it's still, in the end, a multiplayer, treadmill-centric game. We do feel obliged to play not only around our own preferences but also around those we play with and even to occasionally sacrifice our preferences outside of group contexts alone so that we can increase the range of content and players we can engage with.