One of the many “small” changes that came out with patch 2.1 of World of Warcraft a couple of weeks ago was surrounding the topic of Flight Paths. (I put “small” in quotes because I’m sure it required a heck of a lot of work, but wasn’t a whole new big raid instance or anything)

Namely, many of the flight paths were optimized, a lot of new connections were formed between points, and a few new flight points were introduced, as well.

Addon To Record Flight Path Times

Flight paths are something I really didn’t pay much attention to in the past, but at some point about a month ago (likely while wanting to do housework during down-times in play) I wanted to know how long the flights were going to take, so I picked up the addon FlightTime.

The addon records your flights between places, and builds a database so, over time, you can see exactly how long it will take to fly from where you are to where you want to go, and you can then do things like dishes, laundry, vacuuming and the likes while knowing exactly how much time your toon is tied up in the process of flying.

Changes In 2.1 Noted By FlightTime

The first thing I noticed right after the patch came out was that many of my flight path time records were now outdated and every time I flew, FlightTime was saving new data on the route. Some routes I paid attention to were shortening by 50 seconds and all that adjusted were shorter, but not all routes were getting adjusted.

A couple of nights ago I noticed on one of my well-travelled toons that there were a lot of routes that FlightTime was reporting an “Unknown” for, meaning that even though I hadn’t added any of the new flight points yet, I hadn’t actually ever flown from Point A to Point B before, likely because that particular path, passing through intermediary flight points, didn’t exist before 2.1 came out.

So, I’ve spent some time over the past few days just flying the skies of Kalimdor, feeding FlightTime information about how long it takes to fly from Point A to Point B all over the map. There are enough changes that right now I’m able to find a new “Unknown” route to fly from every flight point I land at, so I’m just hopping from one place to another, reading forums or blogs or posting in my own blog in the mean time.

Adding New Flight Points

As a Horde, the only new Flight Point that came out with 2.1 was in Felwood, at the Emerald Sanctuary which is a flight point Alliance can pick up, too. However, if you’re Alliance, there’s a new one in Ashenvale, in Forest Song as well.

Having added this one Flight Point, I have a LOT of flying to do to fully populate FlightTime. Kalimdor has what, about 20 Flight Points around the map? That’s a lot of to-and-from time to commit.

I’m thinking it’ll be a while before I get rid of all those “Unknown” records in terms of flight path flying time, but as I’m often only half paying attention to my gaming screen, this is yet another mindless activity I can do and still feel like I’m accomplishing something.

Upcoming Blog Entry

Accomplishment is a whole different topic to cover, however. I’ll write about it soon, as I’m interested in what readers have to say about their own play style in terms of feeling like they’ve made advances or accomplishments with their toons.

I had a couple of hours last night to practice my Frost Mage AOE Grinding, so I continued on in Ferelas, starting with the 41-42 Wolves and Bears west of Camp Mojache and south of the main road.

Then, I saw some Hippogryphs and rounded up a few of them and AOE’d them down with minimal problem for a couple of rounds. At some point I noticed they were level 44 and 45s, just like the Pirates near Steamwheedle Port.

Sooo…. I headed over to Tanaris, planning to give the Pirate Cove a try with my still-very-rusty new strategy of group mow-downs.

The first two pulls worked wonderfully, and I downed 5-7 Pirates in each attempt.

Then things started to not go so well. I’d aggro too many mobs to handle their occasional beats, or I’d run/blink too close to another mob and aggro it while I was trying to Blizzard the group of guys far off, or I’d get snagged up on the terrain when trying to increase my distance for that 3rd Blizzard from afar.

One thing I’ll say for the area is that it’s CHOCK full of mobs in general and the respawn time seems to be pretty reasonable, so there’s generally no worry about competition since there’s enough to support up to 5 or so players in the area.

Especially when most of the players in the area AREN’T Frost Mage AOE grinding and instead are taking out two or three mobs at a time.

Now, if I could just get this working so I don’t DIE so often, I could have those non-mages drooling in envy and maybe even sending me entertaining tells that I could talk about here!

But as it stands, I end up in a pile on the ground while my targets run back to their spots and heal up in a flash, and the folks around me are probably showing their envy by snickering instead of drooling.

I’ll be sure to post when that has changed.