Flying Returns To ‘World Of Warcraft’ Players On September 1

When the latest expansion to World of Warcraft released, like the expansion before it, players were grounded during the climb to the new level cap. Unlike Mists of Pandaria, though, there was no way for a max level player to begin flying again on the new continent of Draenor. Many players missed this important feature and immediately wanted to know when they would be able to purchase the ability to fly again. Luckily, players will be able to fly in the current content in just two weeks.

Blizzard Entertainment and its developers opted to keep flying out of the expansion for quite some time for this expansion. In May, the lead designer for the game said, “We’re not going to be reintroducing the ability to fly in Draenor, and that’s kind of where we’re at going forward.” The statement alarmed many considering this is a feature many enjoy. Not to mention, several of the points made by the developer directly contradict how some players feel about flying.

In June, a World of Warcraft developer post revealed that players will be able to fly after much internal discussion. However, players will not be able to simply pay a sum of gold per character to unlock the privilege. Alternatively, players must complete a meta-achievement that proves that they have been all over Draenor and experience much of its content. The achievement is called Draenor Pathfinder and requires exploration, quest completion, treasure finding, bonus objectives completion, and three reputation grinds.

The Draenor Pathfinder achievement has been obtainable and achievable for quite some time now; however, the achievement currently activates nothing. When World of Warcraft developers announced that flying would return to the game, they added that the meta-achievement would be available long before players would actually be able to fly. The achievement was added with 6.2 but flying was stated to not unlock until a post-6.2 patch.

With another week of maintenance behind them, plenty of players were wondering if that post-6.2 patch was ever going to happen. Blizzard developers finally announced today that the post-6.2 patch to add flying back to the World of Warcraft will occur on September 1. Patch notes for patch 6.2.2 are currently accessible at the official website and include the return of flying, a PvP Mercenary Mode, and a new currency for Timewalking dungeons.

Players with Draenor Pathfinder completed will be rewarded with a new mount and the ability to fly on all their characters, level 90 or higher, in Draenor on this date. Instead of having to spend thousands of gold across a number of characters, the Draenor Pathfinder achievement circumvents a gold cost altogether by granting access across an account. Unfortunately, Warlords of Draenor is over for many at this point since there will be no more content patches before the release of the next expansion, Legion.

Have you completed the achievement for flight in Warlords of Draenor?

[Images via Blizzard Entertainment]