Over the River & Through the Woods, and Flight Paths Take the Long Way Home...

I know that filght paths are now "better" than they used to be; you can pick a start & end point of your flying, and not have to land/re-mount at each middle point.

And yes, it WOULD be nice to be able to change your mind mid-flight, or jump off. But that's not what irks me at the moment...

I'm annoyed to no end because of the long, back tracking, circuitous, SLOW routes we have to take to and from many destinations. While my hand edited map may be a *bit* overstated, the fact is that many routes make you loop around, backtrack, or simply take trips across the backside of beyond for no good reason. I realize there's a "realism" to making things take time, and to a point, I can agree. But making the routes take 30, 40 or 50% longer than necessary just seems dumb.

I think someone at Blizzard must be a frustrated ex-employee from Eastern Airlines or any other defunct "hub and spoke" proponent.

The question of "why is it this way?" seems even more apropos since Blizzard has made all the recent changes (patch 3.2 for instance) in an attempt to speed things up. (you know, faster leveling, earlier access to mounts) And yet the one GLARING item they overlook is flying time.

Yes, I need the occasional potty break, or snack trip, but sitting AFK at the flight path of my destination is not THAT big of a deal, and is more of an exception, not a rule. Barring "emergencies", I am usually ready to play in a mnute or so... two at the most. The rest of the minutes tick by in doze inducing tedium.

Hasn't anyone in Azeroth ever heard of a direct flight?