Guild Wars 2

I am not a “mounts fanboy”, and could care less if this idea is ever implemented or not. I just thought it seemed like a good compromise. So with that said, I hope everyone can read on with an open mind.

I am talking specifically about FLYING mounts. They would be pure sightseeing fun, with no influence whatsoever upon the “real” world below, and provide no game advancement advantages to riders.

Consider:

1) Flying Mounts can only be used in zones in which the character has 100% map completion. This prevents mounts being used for speed-mapping. They are limited to PvE, since they could be unfair scouting advantages in WvW.

2) The player can only mount and dismount at waypoints. This prevents using the mount to get Vistas etc. (Perhaps towers could be erected next to all the waypoints where people can land and take off.)

3) While on a flying mount, the player cannot affect or be affected by other players. There would be a minimum altitude to prevent griefing by those sad individuals who might think it enjoyable to block the view of players in a pitched ground battle. The player would have no skill bar, with the possible exception of special maneuvers or skills specific to the mount. Nothing that would affect people below.

That’s it! Sweet and simple. Flying mounts would be purely for pleasure rides and would not interfere with gameplay on the ground. Allow players full reign on where they want to go, but they can’t fly below a certain height except when they come in for a landing at a waypoint. They need to cross to new regions on foot, through the portals. And of course on some maps, and near Vistas, “A strong wind will blow you back if you continue in this direction”.

This would open up freedom for all sorts of mounts, from fast griffins to ponderous air balloon party barges. And none of it would affect people adventuring on the ground. Collecting different mounts would of course be status driven. Quest rewards, Gem Store purchased, Mount Vendors charging various fees in Gold or Karma. Whatever. Fun in the skies, but no interaction with the world below. Just seeing the sights and being seen.

Did I miss anything?

One problem: The maps are not designed to be viewed from the air. Each area ends abruptly in a giant void just behind the mountains that you see. Many game assets float in mid air, which looks fine from the ground, but terrible from the air.

Also, the collision walls for every single zone would have to be completely redone, to prevent players from flying to places they shouldn’t be. And what happens when you log out while flying?

So many possible issues. Frankly, normal riding mounts are a lot more feasible.

Why are people constantly trying to make gw2 their second WoW?

@Mad queen

That looks a lot like the spot in Mount Maelstrom where you get by getting out of the map and running behind the Infinity Coil Reactor.

Did you know you can get on the little ridge behind you? Unfortunately, you can’t get on the big mountain at the jumping puzzle though… I tried countless hours to get on there, unfortunately you just fall down and die, you can’t close the gap…

Never flying mounts.

First: The maps arn’t made for this.
Secound: Who need them, we can teleport.
And third: If you fly, you cant see the beautiful map

I would not mind flying mounts as it would give beautifully look over the world and it would fit the lore with all the flying ships ans dragons, but because maps are instance based (bad choice imho) prevents it from ever happening as long is it are instance based maps. And most likely thats the only way the core works so changing that requires a lot of work.

But it would be very beautiful to fly over the whole world. dismounting at only way-points would not be necessary but only to maps with 100% map-completion would.

“Also, the collision walls for every single zone would have to be completely redone, to prevent players from flying to places they shouldn’t be. " Many mmo’s don;t have invisible walls at all so removing them should not be the problem. But indeed the maps are not designed for it.

Black Teagan.9215:

Never flying mounts.

First: The maps arn’t made for this.
Secound: Who need them, we can teleport.
And third: If you fly, you cant see the beautiful map

1st correct, and changing it would be a lot of work. Even tho it would bot be bad to change it as it is a limiting factor for many things (events over multiple maps for example).

2st Needing and wanting is something else. Why do we need multiple skins for armor? Don’t need that. That is not really a good reason.

3th. Lol.. no if you teleport you can’t see the beautiful map. Mounts (flying and ground ones) are be the best way to see the map. From the ground and from top. It would be very beautiful to fly over those maps, seeing the land below you.

Stop trying to turn this game into something it shouldn’t be, what the heck do you need a mount for? The 5000 waypoints littered about the game isn’t enough?

Back to world of warcraft demon back!

Happysack.7132:

Stop trying to turn this game into something it shouldn’t be, what the heck do you need a mount for? The 5000 waypoints littered about the game isn’t enough?

Back to world of warcraft demon back!

512 waypoints (by my last count)

Step One: Cancel your Guild Wars 2 account.
Step Two: Create a World of Warcraft account.
Step Three: Enjoy your flying mount…and don’t come back.

I can do it in one step.

Step One: Don’t make them ever.

Done.

While I am for mounts, I’m against flying ones. I want mounts because waypoints can get expensive and there’s a LOT of the game we miss by going from waypoint to waypoint. Flying mounts would take away from “sight-seeing” as the game isn’t built to accommodate flying and it encourages going over natural barriers (like cliffs and fortified walls) instead of around them. That’s going to require months of debugging.

On the flipside, ignore the ignorant idiots that think WoW is the only game with mounts. It wasn’t even the first to introduce such a feature. In fact, there’s an MMO out there completely built around flying mounts and it came out before vanilla WoW.

Devata.6589:

“Also, the collision walls for every single zone would have to be completely redone, to prevent players from flying to places they shouldn’t be. " Many mmo’s don;t have invisible walls at all so removing them should not be the problem. But indeed the maps are not designed for it.

Many MMO’s do not have instanced zones, which is why they can do away with many of the invisible walls that GW2 has. But you cannot simply remove them. Some of the mountains in the distance are decorative only. They don’t have collision for performance reasons, and you would fall through them if you touched them. Many of the invisible walls in GW2 prevent players from getting stuck, or seeing outside the map…. like in that screenshot I posted. So no, you can’t just remove them all. You’d have to completely redo the collision for every explorable in the game.

Bright.9160:

@Mad queen

That looks a lot like the spot in Mount Maelstrom where you get by getting out of the map and running behind the Infinity Coil Reactor.

Did you know you can get on the little ridge behind you? Unfortunately, you can’t get on the big mountain at the jumping puzzle though… I tried countless hours to get on there, unfortunately you just fall down and die, you can’t close the gap…

Yes you are correct. We did a lot of jumping around there. And eventually got horribly stuck near the jumping puzzle. We tried getting around the south east part of the zone, but eventually ran into this wall that we couldn’t possible climb.

I think a lot of players don’t realize what the zones are like outside what you see when you walk around. Technical limitations make flying mounts nearly impossible.

Devata.6589:

Mounts (flying and ground ones) are be the best way to see the map. From the ground and from top. It would be very beautiful to fly over those maps, seeing the land below you.

Theoretically. But practically the maps would look like they do in the screenshot I posted above, and it would be very ugly. Unless every single explorable was given a vast distant background landscape to match the adjacent zones (which would probably make the zone graphically at least twice as heavy), you’d just see a giant void. And a giant void is not pretty at all.

Guild Wars 2 like Guild Wars does not need mounts of any kind. I find that travel is fair enough with the use of the waypoints. Even for vanity reasons, mounts would just be a waste.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Devata.6589:

“Also, the collision walls for every single zone would have to be completely redone, to prevent players from flying to places they shouldn’t be. " Many mmo’s don;t have invisible walls at all so removing them should not be the problem. But indeed the maps are not designed for it.

Many MMO’s do not have instanced zones, which is why they can do away with many of the invisible walls that GW2 has. But you cannot simply remove them. Some of the mountains in the distance are decorative only. They don’t have collision for performance reasons, and you would fall through them if you touched them. Many of the invisible walls in GW2 prevent players from getting stuck, or seeing outside the map…. like in that screenshot I posted. So no, you can’t just remove them all. You’d have to completely redo the collision for every explorable in the game.

Devata.6589:

Mounts (flying and ground ones) are be the best way to see the map. From the ground and from top. It would be very beautiful to fly over those maps, seeing the land below you.

Theoretically. But practically the maps would look like they do in the screenshot I posted above, and it would be very ugly. Unless every single explorable was given a vast distant background landscape to match the adjacent zones (which would probably make the zone graphically at least twice as heavy), you’d just see a giant void. And a giant void is not pretty at all.

You base your comment on one sentence while in my whole comment I do say they maps are instance based and for flying mounts that would need to be changed. And then you basically start telling me exactly that based on the once sentence you quote
I know they have to change all those things. I did not say it was easy. They would have to redo all edges of the map, put them all together and make big changes in the core (so maps would totally differed. I think it’s called streaming maps while they not have instance based maps) . I only said that just because it is not possible with the current maps it is not impossible at all. Thats why I referred to other MMO’s. It is possible but to change that would be a lot of work (and “a lot” is really an understatement).

But beside the technical difficulties I don’t understand why people complain so much about it. It’s mainly the player-base coming from GW1 and if I read between the lines the only reason they seem to be against it, is because WoW has it.

What I see as the most stupid reason to be against something. Just some sort of blind unsubstantiated hate. Not a good thing to base your idea’s on.

Well I did see some trying to come up with reasons, but they all failed as being bad excuses… Not necessary because we have way-points.. multiple skins are not necessary but we also have those, Does not fit the lore.. in a game that is helicopters, zeppelins, cars, horse carriages and so on, scale down the world in a world where you can teleport from one place of the world to the other.

BTW I don’t say they need to implement flying mounts. They fit in a modern MMO (just as modern MMO’s should not have instance based maps) but oke, they should imho implement normal mounts. My reaction was more about the technical aspect and that it would mean they have to do a lot of work on the core to make it happen.

So….. disregard that we have Teleports everywhere & just add a silly creature to ‘speed things up’

Keep that mount crap in WoW & out of GW2 – if you want it so bad, then go back to playing WoW

No mounts please!!

I never played WoW in my life. I watched my brother playing, and it’s just too “cartoony” for my tastes.

I see what you mean with your screenshot. That would indeed put an end to my suggestion if the edge of all zones look like that. Never knew that. I can live with it. Case closed for me unless the game designers want to put in a lot of extra work. (See? I told you I wasn’t a mounts fanboy. I just thought I saw a pretty good compromise to get the mounts people some satisfaction without affecting gameplay).

And a couple of you still gave me the old “we have waypoints so we don’t need mounts” argument. So sad. I never said we NEED anything. Flying by my suggested limitations would be purely for fun. FUN. Not necessity. I never said it “speeds things up”. It is merely another form of recreation. I feel so sorry for you if you can’t see that in a game fun is more important than convenience. Or maybe some of you just read the subject line and spoke up totally ignorant of what I said in the body of my post.

Chasind.3128:

So….. disregard that we have Teleports everywhere & just add a silly creature to ‘speed things up’

Keep that mount crap in WoW & out of GW2 – if you want it so bad, then go back to playing WoW

Keep the “not WoW crap, not any other MMO, better not an MMO at all” in GW1. If you want it so bad, then go back to playing GW1.

This is what I was talking about in my previous post.

There is nothing wrong with suggesting mounts though, let that be clear. I’m not against mounts. In fact, I think they would be a lot of fun. And I don’t think anyone should be against something that is in essence a lot of fun extra content. The argument “go back to WoW” is a very narrow minded response, from people that clearly don’t realize how much fun the mounts in GW1 were.

I just don’t see flying mounts working from a technical point of view. But walking mounts? Sure. Sign me up for that.