A vast quantity of World of Warcraft’s considerably large player base spend there time in the game blissfully unaware of the constant battles raging in the games forums and fan sites. The latest scandal is to do with Draenor flying. It was originally stated by Ion Hazzikostas, one of Blizzard’s lead game designers on Warcraft, that they were considering leaving flying out of the current expansion, Warlords of Draenor, and instantly the forums, message boards and social media outlets were ablaze with criticism and complaints in equal measure.
The plan to phase out flying in Draenor grew from the idea that too much of the core gameplay can be manipulated by using a flying mount. Players could simply fly into a mission objective, do what needed to be done and then mount up and fly away negating any challenge that the area, terrain or enemies gave. It was also a way for players to get to see the vast, varied and intricate world that the designers and artists at Blizzard had so painstakingly developed. But it was met with large scale disapproval. A great many players took to the forums to complain about the potential decision upset that all the time, and in some cases money, they had invested in getting their flying mounts to be made redundant in the current content.
Blizzard listened. They responded with a plan to include flying in Draenor later on after completing a set of achievements, see Michael’s post here for more on that, which seemed like a fair trade off. Initially you will have to master the terrain and enemies on foot before being allowed to take to the skies. Seems fair, but no. Again the fan sites and social media sites have been lit up with complaints from the other side now saying that Blizzard doesn’t design the game it wants, instead just let’s subscribers make all the decision. So it led me to the question, can Blizzard win? Can you please all of the people some of the time or are they bound by laws of the MMO to stay locked in a permanent battle to balance their game to make everyone else happy? I’m really interested to hear what you think so let me know in the comments section below!