World of Warcraft developer AMA highlights

Ion Hazzikostas: Overall, we're happy with how ground travel in Draenor has played out thus far, and we've heard a lot of feedback to that effect as well, though we of course recognize that there are players who feel differently. We'll have more to announce about our 6.1 patch plans in the very near future, but as the focus of our endgame outdoor content remains in the main Draenor zones, our reasons for disallowing flight in 6.0 continue to apply in 6.1. Whether you're navigating your way to Orumo the Observer in Shattrath Rise, trying to reach a treasure cache atop a column in Spires, or working your way around the ledges encircling The Pit, you're engaging in gameplay that simply would not exist in a world with unfettered flight. It was never our intent to make large-scale navigation of the world inconvenient, and in 6.1 we're going to be improving our flight path system to always take the most direct route between two points, even if you have not discovered some of the intermediate nodes. Please keep the feedback coming – if you're unhappy with the design, some of the most helpful feedback would be specific examples of situations or systems that feel frustrating without being able to fly in Draenor.

Tom Chilton: Super happy overall with how garrisons have worked out, at least for now. One of our goals for the expansion was to add a feature that felt like it gave players new gameplay that feels important and thematically tied to the expansion. We'll have to wait and see on future expansions. Certainly, we have a goal of providing awesome new gameplay that mixes up your experience for future expansions, but that can take many forms (be it "garrisons 2.0", elements of garrisons mixed in with other new stuff, other new stuff completely, etc). Regardless, new stuff that fits an expansion well and doesn't feel like an already-solved problem is definitely cool!

Josh Allen (Lore): Not likely. It's a really cool idea (one we've heard a lot), but as the Garrison is intended as a Warlords-only feature, there are several other potential improvements we could make to the mobile app that would have more long-term use, if we decided to expand its feature set.

I should clarify: it's intended as a feature that we don't have to bring along with us into the next expansion (like a new profession would be, for example). However, it's something we can bring along if we want to, or even repurpose a lot of the same tech to provide something else. Opens up a lot of options for future expansions.

Josh Allen (Lore): We are planning to make some additional updates and tweaks to the new character models, yes.