A WoW add-on without proper flying? With Dragonflight, that could be the case again – because a new feature replaces it.
Flying mounts have long been standard in World of Warcraft. Players expect that – sooner or later – flying will also be unlocked in new areas, allowing them to travel again with their own flying mount, or simply hover safely in the sky, away from enemies on the ground.
However, with the new add-on Dragonflight, that is likely to change. There will be no normal flying in Dragonflight – instead, you will have to rely on your dragon riding.
What is dragon riding? Dragon riding is one of the new core features of Dragonflight and is intended to be available from the start. Essentially, in the first quest lines on the Dragon Isles, you will be introduced to the feature and assigned your own dragon.
The dragon works a bit like a flying mount, but has several limitations and advantages. The duration of dragon riding is limited and then (presumably) has a cooldown.
Dragon riding also has some special characteristics. Gravity plays a role, as do movement speed and gliding ability. After an initial jump into the air, your dragon will automatically be pulled back down to the ground. It’s up to your riding skills to steer the dragon in such a way that it gains speed during its descent to regain lift or glide as far as possible.
The abilities of the dragon, which can be extensively customized visually, will improve over time. You will unlock new flying maneuvers and passive bonuses that will allow you to stay in the air longer and easier.
In general, dragon riding is supposed to be significantly more dynamic and faster than previous flying. At the same time, it also requires a bit more interaction and consideration. Particularly high points in the world suddenly become more attractive because you can start from them and continue flying. Special updrafts can provide nice boosts to catapult your dragon to unexpected heights.
What do the developers say about it? Jeremy Feasel said in a interview with AusGamers that dragon riding will replace flying in Dragonflight. He further explained:
[Dragon riding] is very fast and fluid, a bit arcade-like. You press the spacebar, and then you take off with a big jump. And then it becomes this kind of mini-game where you focus on your height and speed and try to get as fast as you can before you land again. It should feel like you’re zooming over the landscape. With gigantic areas – these two things work really well together. You will also be very fast with dragon riding, much faster than existing mount speeds.
When you take off, there’s a big gust of wind and a strong flap of wings. Our landscape team has done a great job incorporating different features, like various layers of clouds, so you can fly through them and feel really fast. And then, as you accelerate and get faster and faster, you’ll see the first particle effects on the wings that ultimately turn into contrails.
Great efforts have been made to ensure that the experience of movement in the world feels three-dimensional. The idea of having to use momentum, thinking about when to stop – because you don’t want to stop, you want to stay as fast as possible. How can I get from A to B as quickly as possible? Finding different heights from which you can dive with the dragon suddenly becomes an interesting factor while moving through the world.
What about flying mounts? As far as we currently know, flying mounts in Dragonflight cannot be used for flying – and there will probably not be a flying unlock. However, these mounts are not useless, as you will still be able to use them on the ground to get from one place to another when you cannot access dragon riding for whatever reason.
Of course, it would be possible that one of the last unlocks will be that the dragon can stay in the air indefinitely and behave like a normal flying mount after the “dragon riding” time has run out. However, we will probably not have certainty about this until the alpha of Dragonflight starts – you can sign up for the WoW: Dragonflight beta here.
Can you live with a WoW expansion without proper flying? Or must that definitely come, no matter how good or bad dragon riding turns out to be?
