This is largely going to be in response to “The Third Dimension” over at Blessing of Kings.
Consider a puzzle with chopsticks for a second here.
You are given three chopsticks. Make a triangle, one chopstick for each side. Trivial, right?
You are given five chopsticks. Make two triangles, again with one chopstick for each side. Still trivial!
Alright, try this one. You are given six chopsticks, now make four triangles, once again with one chopstick per side.
Uh oh. Anyone run into trouble here?
Go on, I’ll give you some time to try and make four triangles using six chopsticks (or toothpicks or pens or whatever you have).
How many if you got stuck?
How many of you realized this puzzle was also trivial, if you but think in three dimensions?
Making four triangles with six chopsticks is easy. Three resting on the ground, one triangle. The other three then form a tetrahedron. Voila, six chopsticks, four triangles.
The human mind is more than capable of thinking in multiple dimensions, and is in fact significantly better at thinking in more complicated dimensions. You might think making the leap from thinking in 2d to thinking in 3d is a hard one to make, but actually it’s rather easy.
It’s awkward at first, but making the jump from thinking in [x,y] to [x,y,z] is extremely easy, at which point trying to remove the z dimension and think back in 2d becomes the far more difficult task.
We, as humans after all, live in a three dimensional world. We may not be able to ordinarily move freely in three dimensions, without the aid of things like elevators and stairs we’re pretty much restricted to the x and y coordinates.
But try this. Hold your hand in front of your face. You know where it is, right? You know its x, its y, its z coordinates intrinsically. You can expertly move your hand about in three dimensions without any difficulty.
The question, then, is why do people have so much trouble maneuvering in three dimensions? It isn’t because we’re not good at it, or that there’s some sort of mental blockage or anything.
As with the triangle/chopstick puzzle above, the answer is ridiculously simple. I’m betting at least some of you already know.
Alright, look at the computer screen in front of you.
Notice anything?
The laptop I’m typing this one measures in at 1280×800 pixels.
1280 by 800 by… huh. Nothing.
The problem with trying to simulate three dimensional movement is simply that our interface is two dimensional. Representing 3D is difficult on a 2D surface, actually being 3D is impossible. So we’re stuck playing the illusion of three dimensions.
And to top that of, the current WoW engine is pretty awful at representing three dimensions anyway. You might remember that flying combat was to be a part of Wintergrasp, but it was scrapped for largely this reason.
It’s not that we, as people, are inherently bad at moving or thinking in three dimensions. It is simply that our current methods of gaming are extremely limited in their capacity to emulate any extra dimensions.
Malygos.
Phase 3.
Cursing, everywhere.
Funny, I made four triangles while still in two dimensions with six chopsticks.
I put one in the midde of one of the original triangles (two make two “internal” smaller triangles and then the ouside being the third. Sure, I had to break a chopstick so there wasn’t a point.
But that’s how my problem solving works. I just need to break something.
I did the same thing, except I overlapped them in the Star of David pattern making 6 small triangles with a hexagon.
I am not sure I agree with you–because I have flown plenty of flight sims (including air warrior back in the dial-up, GEnie age) without the problems 3d flight that WoW gives.
And, additionally, pilots are often fooled by their own senses when flying. That is why the instruments are so important.
Flying in WoW gives you none of the feedback that a basic fight sim has: a heading, a roll indicator, a horizon.
Malygos.
Started on Monday, killed him on Saturday.
More people killed Marrowgar.
This reminds me of one of the final quests in the DK starting area, wherein you fly around on a frost drake and blow the sh!t out of the Scarlet Crusade and their pathetic Ballistas.
I did not enjoy that. Partly because I had to use my laptops touch pad at the time, ever since getting a mouse proper however, I’ve found that it’s actually pretty easy.
Despite their lower-tech nature, 2d games still have some advantages we can’t overcome, especially when it comes to estimating distance accurately. 2d offers pixel-perfect precision that we just can’t convey in 3d exactly because of the reasons you explained.
I wonder if a stereo vision scheme will eventually help bring some depth-of-field feedback into 3d games. We only have two eyes to perceive 3 dimensions, but a lot of the how we perceive our world is based on the difference of the feedback from each eye.
Come to think of it, I thought I read somewhere of an (expensive) 3d card that can make a IMAX 3d-like experience using the renderer’s engine and the xyz coordinates. I believe 3d goggles were required. I’m curious if it helps any.
something about wow 3d engine makes it very difficult to orient yourself properly. have you ever though you were right next to some other drake and then you rotate your camera and realize that you are several feet away and not even on the same plane? its worst with Malygos because other then the rest of the drakes and him its just swirling nothing.
maybe its the way models are not re-sized that well, maybe its shadowing, or coloring, or a more cartoonish rendering of WoW that I adore otherwise. but there’s just something about it that I cannot conquer.
or maybe its just me
when solving your 6 chopstick riddle, I basically did what you described, except in 2 dimensions 
I just had excess length of my three chopsticks in the middle stick out from outer triangle’s corners (nowhere did you say that it had to be perfect triangles with no excess spikes, so there 
)
I got the four triangles thing almost instantly (the name of the post was a pretty obvious hint), but it took me a bit to figure out the second answer. I wasn’t dead on, either, but I guess that’s what you get with non-puzzle questions.
I would also add in something about a frame of reference. In WoW (and real life), when running around normally in 2D, we have a pretty good frame of reference. We can use the landscape and features to determine how far away something is, and where they are relative to us. When you move, you can see objects and the scenery moving around you.
What makes the Malygos encounter so tricky, is that there is no frame of reference at all. Everyone is floating around in a giant black void. When you move, you have no frame of reference to indicate movement. There are no static features that your movement is relative to. Take away any reference points, and humans quickly become confused about which way is up, down, left or right. Which is why pilots rely on their instruments so much.
Having played WoW for 4 years, and now playing Aion (from NCSoft), which has quite a bit of flight in it, I have to say that imo a lot of it stems from the graphics engine in Warcraft. Lets face it – the game has been out for going on 6 years now, and (unless I’m mistaken – please correct me) still running on the same engine, with the same graphics, since release.
NCSoft is perfect by no stretch, but in Aion, combat in-combat and otherwise is quite well done. I’m not sure what Blizz can do to improve the situation, other than start from the ground up again. Doubtful they’d entertain that.
You are right about the problem, except it was not representing things in 3D on a 2D Interface. That is being done already (in WoW and other so called ’3D’ Engines)
Problem must have been the lag and client resources, WoW can still run on slower machines and unlike other games does not require a giant 3D graphics card.