If you were disappointed to learn that you wouldn't be able to take
your flying mount for a ride in the new World of Warcraft zones introduced in the Warlords of Draenor expansion,Polygon's recent interview with lead designer Ion
Hazzikostas will do nothing to improve your mood. He said Blizzard had
initially planned to enable flying in the expansion, but eventually decided
that it played better without it.
"Having looked at how flying has played out in the old
world in the last couple of expansions, we realized that while we were doing it
out of this ingrained habit after we introduced flying in The Burning Crusade,
it actually detracted from gameplay in a whole lot of ways," Hazzikostas said.
"While there was certainly convenience in being able to completely explore
the world in three dimensions, that also came at the expense of gameplay like
targeted exploration, like trying to figure out what's in that cave on top of a
hill and how do I get up there."
He cited the example of a quest to break a prisoner out of an
enemy camp. Normally, players would have to fight their way through it, but
with flight they could simply drop in, grab their guy, and split. Hazzikostas
said it made the world feel "much smaller" in many ways, which is
obviously the opposite of what Blizzard is trying to accomplish. And while it's
possible that flight could return in future expansions, it doesn't sound
likely.
"At this point, we feel that outdoor gameplay in World
of Warcraft is ultimately better without flying," Hazzikostas said.
"We're not going to be reintroducing the ability to fly in Draenor, and
that's kind of where we're at going forward."
It's an unfortunate decision—flying is cool—but
understandable from a design point of view. Bethesda elected to do the same
thing with its Elder Scrolls RPG series followingMorrowind, which contained a levitation spell
that let players fly unaided. "[Levitate] was removed so we could design
better gameplay spaces and scenarios," Game Director Todd Howard explained
in a 2011 Skyrim fan interview.
"We were really limited in Morrowind because the player could recall or
levitate out of many situations and break them. There was a lot of good
gameplay and level design work that we just couldn’t do and now we can. Back
then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer
would say, 'Oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.' So we got rid of
them."
Source : PC Gamer
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