Flight and "Mercenary Mode" on the PTR

6.2.1 is on the PTR, and while usually an x.y.z patch isn't all that interesting, this one will add two fairly big features.

The first is of course flight in Draenor. By now if you've been working hard on it, you should probably have the Draenor Pathfinder achievement, which awards a Rylak mount and the ability to fly once it gets implemented. The addition of flight and the compromise on how to unlock it was a rather late decision in 6.2 development, which is why we got the achievement and not the ability with 6.2.0.

I'm eager to soar above the heights of Draenor and see what it all looks like from up there.

The far more surprising change is "Mercenary Mode" in Ashran.

NPCs from the opposite faction will be hiding out in the Ashran bases. If the queue to enter is too long because of faction imbalance, you'll be able to talk to these guys and become a turncoat, disguising yourself as a member of the other faction and fighting for them.

This is a hell of a take on faction cooperation - though it's really not so much cooperation as treason. But Ashran is barely in the "lore" of Draenor anyway.

Still, I think this sets an interesting precedent - one that I'm sure many will decry as messing with one of the central mechanics of the game, though I find it fairly exciting. Of course, this particular implementation is, lore-wise, a fairly despicable act of treason, I've always thought that cross-faction grouping could be quite good for the game - and could easily be justified in lore.

After all, the factions have a history of working together to face larger threats - why has this never spilled into cross-faction grouping?

While doing this would be pretty out of character for most of my characters, one of the ones I occasionally PvP with, the Undead Rogue, would have no qualms whatsoever (being apathetic to the faction conflict and really just interested in money and the fine things money can buy.)

Anyway, if players are willing to do this (and I'm sure some will object on principle) it could help fix the balance issues in Ashran