When World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor expansion released last year, one longtime feature was made unavailable in the game's new region: flying. Since the game's second expansion, players had been able to take to the skies on a variety of dragons, gryphons and birds. But developer Blizzard felt that flying actually subtracted from the game, saying they'd included it more out of habit than for building meaningful gameplay around the feature.
"The world feels larger, feels more dangerous [without flight]," said lead designer Ion Hazzikostas to Polygon earlier this year. "There's more room for exploration, for secrets, for discovery and overall immersion in the world. At this point, we feel that outdoor gameplay in World of Warcraft is ultimately better without flying. We're not going to be reintroducing the ability to fly in Draenor, and that's kind of where we're at going forward."
Players have waited (and complained) for close to a year now, and Blizzard has finally given in. It is now possible to take flight in Draenor with the game's latest 6.2.2 patch. However, players are going to have to do a little work for it.
In most of the game's previous expansions, players would simply throw down money to unlock flying in a certain region. That's not going to be the case in Draenor. You'll need to have completed seven achievements in order to gain the flight ability. Most of these achievements aren't too hard, such as exploring the various regions of Draenor and completing all the various bonus objectives. One in particular may require some grinding, especially if you are a player just now returning to the game.
The Tanaan Diplomat achievement requires players to reach "revered" reputation with many of Draenor's factions. That's not super difficult, but it is time consuming. If you have more money than time, you can purchase the Medallion of the Legion item in the game's auction house to slowly but surely build your reputation with each group.
"We believe this strikes the right balance between ensuring ground-based content lives up to its full potential, while providing players who've already fully experienced Draenor's outdoor world extra freedom to ‘break the rules,'" Hazzikostas said.
"This also provides a general blueprint going forward for content to come. Players will explore new and undiscovered lands from the ground, and then once they've fully mastered those environments – a notion that continues to evolve with each new expansion – they can take to the skies and experience the world from a new vantage point."
Judging from Hazzikostas' words, it sounds like flight may be here to stay. Players in future expansions – like the upcoming Legion – will simply have to explore the new region on the ground first.
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