Guild Wars 2

Dear ArenaNet

since Bloodstone Fen is out and you can kinda “fly” there, I am so happy, I have no words.

Thank you ArenaNet for doing flying right.

I can’t even begin how sick I was of all the games that allow “flying” and instead give the ability to float through mount or wings or something.

Here is a fact, being able to move freely in the 3D space, being able to move backward, forward, up down, left and right, is NOT flying, it’s floating, hovering.
WoW with it’s “flying” mounts, Aeon with it’s wings and now Riders of Icarus (heck those guy all screwed riding up too but that is another story).
And there are just a view things that are actually able to do that anyway. For one a Chopper (with certain limitations), a Hummingbird and a lot of Insects (The idea of all those flying creatures actually being big dragonflies in disguise is hilarious though).

Actual flying is really complex, but the experience from gliding in GW2 is pretty close,
you are forced to go forward, you need “help” to get up (upstreams, naturally pushing you up, wings or turbines to use/cause the necessary up drift). And when you turn left or right it is not turning on the spot but flying a curve.

By now I doubt that many people actually care about those details (seeing that games like Riders of Icarus are made), but for me, a detail like that is really important.

So again,
Thank you ArenaNet

For all who read that, please feel free to add your comments. Are there other who have similar thoughts? Do you disagree and don’t care about an actual feeling of flying in a game, or something close to it?

PS:
If you ever include Mounts, hopefully you do that right too.

Uhm, Gliding isn’t close to flying at all, and doesn’t offer the same freedom, not even near.

Movement while gliding is so limited, i don’t even see how you compare Aion’s free flying that allows aerial combat to this rusty gliding.

I much rather had the option to freely fry around and save countless of frustrating minutes trying to capture a updraft.

i’m saying that real flying does not have this “freedom” you get in Aion’s 3D movement, that is not flying, that just moving your character trough the 3D space.

Flying like a bird, or for humans, flying with a plane is restricted, you can’t move freely you have limits like you are forced to move forward with a certain speed. Most birds can not stand in the air or fly backwards since that is not “flying” at all.

The gliding in GW2 is far closer to real, physical flying than all the other games where you have a magical/fantasy flight like a superhero.

I don’t meant “flying” like that is bad, I just say it is stupid to include it when it is just not the right thing and totally not immersive.
In Aeon you could argue that they don’t fly with there wings but through magic and the wings just move nice, as long as they don’t try to sell it as “real fly experience”

Gliding, you say?

well yes it is, until you add some kind of propulsion (like turbins, propeller, wings)

“Birds don’t just fly, they fall down and get up” Try Everything by Shakira