I hate aether currents with a passion

[Tayolynn]

I actually like the part where you hunt for the aether currents. What I don't like, is the quests that are attached to unlocking the aether currents as well. THAT bugs me like crazy.

I like the looking for currents part because it's like another tool for exploration. And at least they gave a compass that points to the exact direction of the current's location. If they truly be trolling, they'd give us nothing and say, "go find it lulz".

[Ayuhra]

I am actually quite pleased with aether currents. They force you to explore and they force you to progress your quests in an area. When you are done with an area you can then fly there for future quests, hunts, FATEs and (presumably) future content patches.

It may be tedious but it's an elegant enough solution to WoW's problem which has been flight granted at level cap and everyone just flies over everything. Blizzard has always regretted introducing flight because nobody explored anymore. They regretted it so much that they removed it completely in the latest expansion (though apparently they've gone back on that and you can get it ONLY after some thorough exploration achievements and a rep grind). According to Blizzard: “(Flight) completely removes the ability for us to pace or present content in any structured way, and in general removes our ability to determine how and when players approach a situation.”

I can perfectly understand the annoyance at aether currents but for now that's SE's way of managing content. I'm curious as to where they'll go from here and hope they don't eventually regret flight too.