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One of the things I liked the most about WoW when I first started playing it was how cool it was to venture out into unexplored territories and discover what was just over the next ridge... The difference between the various areas were so distinct and striking, it was so much fun to just explore...
But now, after 60 levels on one character, and a total of about 30 or 40 levels across various alts, the exploration factor just isn't quite the same.
I haven't used any auto travel mods, but I can see their appeal. I can't count the number of times I've travelled the same routes over and over...
As Blizzard defines them, auto travel mods provide automated gameplay, which in general can be a Bad Thing. However, trivial actions, such as moving from city to city on foot don't sound to me like they would have a detrimental effect on the overall mechanics of the game. If a player can still be attacked during his travels, I don't see why it would be so bad.
I'm not sure why auto-travel mod discussions almost always descend into the realm of auto-farm/auto-kill/auto-play mods.
There is a massive difference between the two categories, both in concept and in complexity of implementation.
Recording and playback of motion between coordinates is a very simple concept. There is no reaction or conditional actions taken.
The category of 'auto-play/auto-combat/auto-farming' is completely different. A mod that aquires targets, applies a strategy to defeat the target, loot the target, recover lost resources, and repeat the process... Handling all the possible conditions and reactions, for various classes, targets, areas...
I believe Blizzard could easily defeat a mod like this due to the complexity involved, without resorting to implementing a new game mechanisim like the fatigue concept.
Previously, Blizzard has taken ideas from the most popular user mods and incorporated them into their GUI. If auto-travel, or some other form of 'common path travel' is popular enough, I imagine Blizard could implement something in-game to provide this functionality and still prohibit user-created automation.
Taken alone, I really don't see the auto-travel mods as being that bad. I don't see how it would affect anyone other than the player, and it certainly wouldn't give them some kind of huge advantage...
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