I have a feeling we won't see flying mounts. It just doesn't make sense for VR to spend so much creative energy on building a world in which the environment is a fundamental entity which shapes the gaming experience and then include mounts which effectively remove a players from that environment.
But, to add to your interesting theorycraft, it would be neat if there were:
high pressure regions where the air is too thick for the mount to fly
Ozone depleted regions where mounts become overly sensitive to solar radiation
highly reflective regions where the mount is blinded by molecules amplifying and relfecting sun light
oxygen depleted pockets where the mount and player couldn't breath
There are a few!
I am also against flying mounts for Pantheon, for the reasons stated by Syntro.
However - if they were in game, they should be for the GM's only (or super raid bosses). Then when we see them fly overhead, we can all get a feeling of awe @ the 'overlords' making the rounds / dishing out sweet justice / mayhem!
Baldrith said:If there is no flying, then the world must be really small. I love flying in a game. Vanguard had a vast world, and even with flying it took a long time to get from one area to another. It was fun traveling thru a beautiful world on a flying mount.
Oh yes! It was a fun expereince to me. I still wnat my flying dragon I hatched from an egg and raised...LOL I will catch hell for that one again..
Ox
For the release I think and hope, that we will not see flying mounts in game.
Flying mounts affect alot of other design decission, so the question is how VR will decide to design the game.
Maybe we will see them later, if the will make sense at that point of time.
If there will be flying mounts in game, then I hope that special flying content will be designed for the game, e. g. fights during the flight.
The same I hope btw. for the aquatic area. I want to have ships in game and to have appropriate content when on / under the water.
why should only a bard/druid/shaman give a speed buff? a warriors encouragement seems just as viable, for example. or a ranger, that should be accustomed to moving quickly in the wilderness.
is it 'because EQ'?
Zahlhedren said:I disagree, Vanguard did flying mounts correctly, not only the best quest line i've done in a game but it made getting to raids and content easier at the higher levels. There were also areas where flying mounts did not work.
I never had the pleasure of playing Vanguard, how did they do flying mounts differently? Just the quest to get them was long is all I have heard, and that does nothing about the skipping over content problem. Any description to how Vanguard did it differently would be much appreciated.
I hate to use the "I" word but I'm going too, The idea of a mount working someplace and then just magically not working elsewhere else to me is Immersion breaking, that's part of the intent of this post... if VR doesn't want people flying in zones then I feel there should be an obvious reason why not to, for example the sky infested with predators so bad it would be suicide, or inside a building the ceiling is too low, etc.
As for getting to raids and content easier, I'm not so sure that a good reason, MOST of the problems I see in games today all started with "wouldn't it be easier if...?" I cringe every time I read the word "easier" I understand some things can be made easier, but I feel that's a very slippery slope and I hope the VR is very careful and sure of the long term ramifications anytime they do something to "make it easier".
werzul said:why should only a bard/druid/shaman give a speed buff? a warriors encouragement seems just as viable, for example. or a ranger, that should be accustomed to moving quickly in the wilderness.
is it 'because EQ'?
Well I played XI not EQ. But we cant be giving out those types of spells and abilities to every class. Remember that Pantheon is supposed to have a lot of interdependence between players. So no it doesnt have to be Bard/Druid/Shaman, but in context of classes that give utility buffs it could make more sense than Warrior who is a tank and maybe dps. I could maybe see Ranger too but only as a self buff.
werzul said:why should only a bard/druid/shaman give a speed buff? a warriors encouragement seems just as viable, for example. or a ranger, that should be accustomed to moving quickly in the wilderness.
is it 'because EQ'?
support/utility they dont want the classes to blend. I would assume the ranger/rogues would have trait speed buffs probably ranger faster then rogue cause his would be in stealth. Again just assuming but if your going to draw hard lines on segregating roles then you have to be strict with what buffs/debuffs/hp/armor/speed/regen all goes. A warrior with shouts could lay claim to all those. But why not go back to the basics a million weapon specializations and leave the buffs to the utility.
I was actually just having a conversation with a few friends about this a few days ago.
I think the most beautiful solution that we came up with for flying mounts and limiting them was... mounts have stamina. Nothing can fly or run forever, and it would be able to sustain even less with a rider. So give the mounts an actual stamina bar, and it depletes as you fly, and certain things (ascending, descending, speeding up, fog, too high (less oxygen), too hot, too cold) effected the loss of your flying mount's stamina. In addition, zones that weren't designed to be flown around in could have whatever mechanic (creatures that attacked your mount, some toxic gas that was thinner and therefore floated X miles above the ground) to prevent it.
I think ideally (personally), flying mounts would be incredibly temporary, almost used as a last resort when you got really frustrated because you couldn't find the cave to go through the mountain, so that you could fly over the mountain. But then your mount would need a rest. So included in this system would be a moderately high cooldown for even summoning the flying mount.
Just my thoughts. I can see it being done in a way to add convenience or to bypass REALLY tricky things, but not enough to trivialize the game.
In some games flying mounts were used in some quests...like an obstacle course. Flying thru rings, finding check points in the air etc. Also, there was content that was high in the air and you had to fly up to it to get to it.
I remember in Aion, you had the ability to fly with your character and it was quite limited on how long you could stay in the air. There was gear and practice that could make you stay longer in the air, but that was also quite fun.
This is my opinion on Flying Mounts Never! Simply becuase i saw what it did to WoW when i came back to playing it and left like 2 weeks later there is litterally no one anywhere, and if they are in your zone it seems like they are only there to pick herbs/mine stone for there profession or sell it on the AH, the world VR is creating or any world for that matter takes so much time and energy to build i would hate to ever pass it up by just flying above the tree tops and missed that bandit camp i used to exp at without a second thought. Flying mounts ruined so many things about WoW in the long run. We need to keep are feet on the ground and explore every nook and cranny the enviroment gives us we just might find a hidden cave you never know.
Temmi said:.
Just my thoughts. I can see it being done in a way to add convenience or to bypass REALLY tricky things, but not enough to trivialize the game.
Bypassing Content is almost the definition of Trivializing part of the game, I understand people want to get on there Werebat or something and bypass a camp cuase it a pain to get there but thats why they're were Wizards/Druids created and they could Succor people across zones, it created a form of socializing within a raid anyway if you didn't have a wizard/druid in your group than you simply just had to do it the hard way and move forward slowly, plus in EQ flying mounts would of meant little to nothing simply becuase you could Levatate with increase run speed so i see flying mounts being obsolete and just a waste on time to create if they go the same route of Succor/Levi/runspeed like they did in EQ which i see them doing simply becuase These in total are small abilities and aren't completely game changing, and it also didn't cuase you to skip content.
Flying mounts would be one way of bypassing content. So is porting. and summoning. The only way to get to an area should be on foot. First. then porting there or any other form of fast travel should be adaptable. Maybe if the made flying mounts only available at higher levels it would not be so bad. By them you should have experienced most of the lower content that you would be bypassing. After all it really drags to run through 5 zones to get back to your hunting spot after you went to the bank or a guild meeting. And I also would not miss the flying mounts if they were left out of the game. Horses are another form of bypassing the content except when they make it possible to get attacked while on horseback. If you have a chance of getting knocked off your horse in a higher level zone it gives one a reason to stop and think. Traveling by horse or any other land animal from a rented stable can help keep you safe and you will not need to worry about missing content if you have visited the destination area already.
I must admit I do like flying mounts, however they do bypass content. Content shouldn’t be bypassed except for a limited number of reasons.
I would like to see flying mounts for specific realms, zones or situations. How about restricting them to zones that were made with mounts in mind such as a sky zone. Then players could explore on a mount, but could not use it on standard zones?
I do love flying around, but I don’t want to circumvent content in the mean time.
Zorkon said: I'm against flying mounts for the main reason (like many) of bypassing content. If VR was to implement flying mounts in the game I would hope they would add hazards to it where it would have risk and might not be everybody's goto to bypass content. Some I'm thinking of Lightning Pterodactyl's Thick Clouds What other deterrent could be used to balance travel between land and air?
Let me try to pull this back on topic. It's turned into a "flying mounts yea or nea" thread. What can be done to change flying mounts to solve the problems people point out.
Ways to make flying MORE of a risk... what content can be put in the air, the result being no way past the content... just differant content.
There have been a few great suggestions so far