Holey, Rusted Flightpaths iTZKooPA!
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iTZKooPA on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - 16 Comments Tags: flight paths, flightpaths, nodes, northrend, spoiler, wotlk, wrath, wrath of the lich king
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - 16 Comments Tags: flight paths, flightpaths, nodes, northrend, spoiler, wotlk, wrath, wrath of the lich king 
First things first, this post will contain some information that many players may consider spoilers. The information presented later in this post will only be discovered by most players once Wrath of the Lich King goes live. So that is your warning.I actually haven't managed to get myself into the beta, despite my best efforts. This is coming from someone who has been in the previous two closed-beta sessions, so I feel a bit left out now. Thankfully, my closest World of Warcraft buddy did manage to snake his way into the beta and has kept me up to date on things I need to know. Over the weekend he pointed me to the small image you see to the right. As any WoW player knows, those little foot icons are flightpaths.
The image only shows the horde friendly flightpaths, so you can safely assume that there are at least 50% more. At first glance I thought this was an incredible amount of nodes for the island of Northrend. That is until I compared the size of Northrend to Outland and the other major islands. The small picture does not do the new island justice since it is not to scale, but Northrend is probably two to three times the size of Outland. For a more appropriate picture check out the upcoming World Map.
But my original surprise at the amount of flightpaths still stands. There are more nodes crammed into Northrend than either of the original islands. What makes even less sense is that players will be able to us flying mounts in Northrend, so why the need for more nodes than before? I guess the one saving grace is that Blizzard will not allow players to use flying mounts on the island instantly. Therefore, players will still be forced to explore the island before taking to the skies.
Oh and as proof of the island's size. the route selected in the picture – Dalaran to Borean Tundra – takes about five minutes to complete. Just enough time to get some dual-gaming in. Does anyone else feel that Blizzard is eroding exploration by making it so easy to get around?
Reader Comments (16)
^ Thanks for the great reply dude ^_^
I wouldn't say iit takes away from the exploration of the game. Don't forget the human factor, no two people are the same. People who want to explore, simple put, will. The option to skip the FP and make your mount earn it's worth is always open. And given the new achivements implimented set FOR exploring, I'm sure many people will undoubtably do just that.
For players who want balls to the wall leveling the paths come as a bit of a blessing.
Just depends on the experience you as a player want.
It will make the transistion from flying everywhere to haveing to take a flight path a lot smoother. And you still have to discover the FP in order to use it in the first place so it won't really take away from exploration either.
i don't care about exploration i just wana fly around on my drake or in swift flight form looking 4 horde to own
But even current World of Warcraft has gained some flightpaths. Take for example the flightpath in Ashenvale, it has one at Astranaar, but now also at Forest Song.
before reading the thing i was thinking the picture must have been some joke =/ thats incredible.. I mean, i thought there were quite a few in outland, with around 2 per region, but Northrend, were talking like 5 per region, which, yes, would make exploring a bit different. Remember though, that
*continue* you can still see the world while flying, and enjoy the surroundings.
i love to explore, bc blizz throws in stuff you might be suprised to see (not so much with outland though). i had the chance to mess around on the beta for a couple of hours, and even with an epic flyer, its very easy to explore northrend, and its fun to do so. and its not so cool because its new, but the complete beauty of northrend, and sheer size was amazing. i spent at least 1hr/2hrs just exploring all of northrend on a epic flyer with a lvl 80 dk sitting on top. my advice, explore when you get your flyer, the places that are closer to lvl 80 are pretty epic.
Also remeber that WOTLK's Northrend is for themost part a mountain range with platues and valleys in it. Maybe Blizzard put so many flight paths in becuase otherwise it would take an insane amount of time to get places.
for the love of gaming,speed up the flightpaths! ok,it's fun to see at start,but after a few times the flightpaths are just plain annoying,if not in northrend(to encourage people to buy the cold weather flying and/or epic flyer) atleast do it in kalimdor/eastern kingdoms to lower the downtime there
I think the "50% more" estimate is probably off by quite a bit since horde accessible would include neutral.
whats gonna drive me crazy with all these nodes is when you circle a node during a flgiht path to go around it. I hate flight time, and it adds too much time, For example (quick example) going from Orgrimmar to ratchet, for some reason, you have to do a flyby in crossroads for absolutely no reason, yet you can fly right past ratchet when going from Gadgetzan to Orgrimmar
@ Sandy
100% more would have been double. The neutral stuff is exactly why I said about 50%.
Incoming math:
75 flight paths + 75 * .50 = 112.5
75 + 75 * 1.00 = 150.
yes that is fairly annoying. like from refugee point to ironforge you have to circle all over the place around wetlands just to get there instead of going right to it
Even in outlands I like to use FPs just cause I don't want to have do anything while in flight, and just watch TV.
I think the quicker we can get around the better, instead of MORE nodes I would like to see faster flight speeds, we should be charged more for "epic" flight paths!
lol epic flight path: 400 % flight speed
Dark Portal to Shattrath- 200 gold
Booty Bay to Badlands- 300 gold
watching people spend tons of money in a video game- priceless