Dear Blizzard:
I've been on these forums for a good number of years now (you and I both know how long exactly) and I have never outright attempted to get your attention (outside of the Happy Birthday post). Now I am not saying this to say "Hey, my opinion holds more weight than other posters" (it doesn't), but I would like to point out that I have never been banned from the forums due to misconduct.
At work tonight, I was thinking on this whole no flying fiasco and one thing occurred to me: you have managed to somewhat lose my trust. I'm guessing there are a lot of people that feel betrayed also.
At work, I was discussing the word "intend" with other people and their opinion is this:
When someone says they intend to do something, that means it's in the plan. So when I hear the phrase "We intend to bring back flying in patch 6.1" I say to myself "I may not like this, but I'm willing to wait it out."
One year, Blizzard- one year. In that year, you have changed your stance at least 4 times: not even on the official website at that.
In that time period, you have been a myriad of reasons for and a myriad of counter reasons against the change. Heck, you are STILL getting feedback on the subject (if you can call arguing with each other actual productive feedback).
Well, I read on reddit last night that: "We have no plans to bring flying back in 6.1" with no actual reason on why that is.
I have this to say:
Eight years ago, you opened Pandora's Box. If you didn't like the design of flight back then, then maybe you should have just left it Outlands exclusive. You had your chance 8 years ago to "rectify your mistake" but you choose not to.
These folks that are claiming to have "hated flying from the start", where have they been the last 8 years? Outside of maybe one post about it, I have never seen one person complain that flying ruined the game. I've heard of many other things ruining the game, however flight was not one of them.
You also have the other side of the story: those of us that have loved flight from the start that feel it added onto not only OUR immersion, but also to our game play experience. I've almost never had an issue with anything this company has done (except what you did to my hunter in Cata), I've actively defended a lot of your decisions over the years (LFR, catering to all play styles, etc), but this one is one I cannot defend.
You see it's like this: you have single handly managed to cause the forum regulars to want to throttle each other. You've made several of them decide that they were just done all together with the company.
Why? Because of integrity. This whole flying thing- the whole ignoring/side stepping the subject all together- has made you lose a lot of integrity with people. How are we supposed to trust you if you just lie to us for a year? Sure, you would have lost some customers even if you said outright, "Flying will not be back ever" or "We will bring flying back in 6.1, as intended" but at least you would have been honest with us.
The last OFFICIAL post on the forums on the subject was 6.1. That was the "intended" date flying would be in Draenor.
The bait and switch act? It makes me reconsider convincing people to come back.
Anyways, I'm done with this really long post.
I just wanted to state this.