2 points on lore: Firstly there are, limited, examples of flying mounts in TES already, like the Welkynars in Summerset (who ride griffons) and isolated examples of people riding dragons.

Secondly and maybe more importantly game lore isn't some immutable thing like the laws of physics created in full when the first game is conceived and impossible to ever change after that. It's the background details for the stories and continuously added to and changed as games are created or expanded and can always be changed to suite the stories the developers want to tell. This happens all the time with TES, and other games. For two recent examples until Skyrim was released there was no mention of the ancient dragon war and until ESO was in development there was no mention that the Interregnum in the Second Era included a 3-way war between provinces or a major coordinated attack by Molag Bal, just that it was a time of chaos with no real emperor on the throne and none of the people who claimed the title able to hold it for long enough to be remembered.

It's the same with other games. Someone mentioned that both Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft were able to have flying mounts because that was written into their lore from the start, but that's not actually true. Flying mounts do pre-date WoW, but they were invented for Warcraft 2 (note: yes this is a game that came before WoW, there was a whole series before they ever made an MMO) when the developers decided to add aerial (and naval) combat to the options available in the first game. Before that they were never mentioned.

Guild Wars actually had a tradition of no mounts at all until the latest expansion to Guild Wars 2, to the point where horses are mythical (or possibly extinct) creatures in that world (there is one horse in the game, but he lives in another dimension, and is also invisible). There was no mention of any of the playable races riding anything, except asura using mecha-suit golems, and certainly no mention of anyone riding griffons, until they decided to add mounts to the game. The second flying mount was even more problematic because it's a dragon and all dragons in that world are extremely powerful elemental beings who are at best indifferent and more likely extremely aggressive towards people. They got around it by saying these dragons are originally from another dimension. Other dimensions already existed in the lore, but there was no mention of one with friendly dragons until the developers wanted there to be.

If ZOS wanted to add flying mounts to the game the lore would not prevent them. They'd build on the existing examples or make up new ones. Maybe we go to Akavir and find they have a species of small, relatively safe dragon which can be ridden. Maybe the altmer are able to train and ride griffons again and agree to share them. Maybe some new creature appears and is tamed...there's all kinds of ways they could explain it, including, if necessary, writing in lore to explain that this is an old tradition that has always existed and we just didn't know until now.

Ei8htba11 wrote: »

Not a fan of flying mounts myself, but I also think it wouldn't work. The way the game is instanced, some interior areas are put in the 'empty' areas of the map. When you go into Solitude, the map marker shows as you would expect, but the actual Solitude interior is a separate instance way over in central Skyrim (where you can't get... officially). This is also a likely explanation for why Northern and Southern Elsweyr are separated as they are.

Flying mounts would necessitate the reworking of the whole map into a contiguous landmass, with enclosed city areas no longer instanced and actually placed where they are supposed to be. Sounds like a lot of work, and possibly something that with the current game would not improve performance.

This is an educated assumption on my part however, based on things I've seen, encountered or explored, including some OOB discoveries.

I don't think they'd need to turn the entire world into one continuous map. Guild Wars 2 has flying mounts and uses separate maps similar to the way ESO does, you just can't fly over the edge of a map border, you have to find the transition points and go through there like you would on foot. (Since ESO isn't as strict about map borders - I always fall out of Stormhaven into Glenumbra when I'm going down the coast past Evermore - they could have more transition points too.)

It's not an issue in that game because their flying mounts are quite different to the way I understand World of Warcraft does it (I've never played it, but I've heard them described enough). In GW2 they don't fly continuously and you don't have total free movement, there's a limit on how high they can get from their starting point and while they're moving forward they gradually lose height. There's ways to extend how long you can stay airborne, so if you start high enough it's entirely possible to go from one end of a map to the other without landing but it's not as jarring when you can't fly over a mountain or whatever that's at the border of the map. It makes flying more of an 'active' process where you have to think about your route and manage your mounts stamina but I've heard some people say it makes it more interesting to do, and it gets around problems like allowing players to totally skip quest 'check points' or enemies as well as making them work within map boundaries.

No, not needed in this game.

If you want flying mounts go play a game that has flying mounts or a flight sim game.

Stop trying to turn ESO into other games

If they caused 0 Lag and when flying to different places/places in tamriel it didn't have a 3 year loading screen then hell yeah.





But..... that's never gonna happen

I think if you had like a gliding mount it would work. Like a smaller gryphon mount. Don’t really understand people’s view on, its too laggy. Sounds like a personal connection problem.

What would you exactly do up there? ESO doesn't exactly have floating cities or any significant locals up in the sky. If anything it'd be more plausible for underwater content but we know that won't happen due to the game engine and the significant changes required to make that a possibility. Shame to since I loved exploring some of the underwater caves and such in Oblivion, and who knows what is submerged around Summerset!

I'd rather two seater mounts before flying mounts. Some of the existing mounts look big enough to already hold two people.

They've already introduced so many lore-breaking things in this game, hell, why not, they've proven most of them don't give a rat's **** about the lore anyway