Just curious, how are new mages, especially when also new players, supposed to know about portal trainers that unlock portals to all locations? I didnt see any quest or tip informing me about it on my new mage.
also, holysh*t, i had no idea you guys had so many portals, the pop out extends across my whole screen, lol
Sadly, in this day and age, probably the same way new players are expected to know about anything - google it and/or go to a 3rd party website with paid advertising, or watch a youtube clip. I mean, a lot of games rely on that as well so it’s not just a Blizzard thing.
I know the ‘cool’ thing back in Vanilla was to wander around aimlessly and have no real idea of how anything worked, but these with how fast levelling is, how many currencies and systems there are, and how all players at max level regardless of /played are expected to know their class in and out…
I can’t even imagine trying to pick up this game as a newbie, but that doesn’t really seem to be the aim of WoW. The devs know it’s an old game, and the impression is that they’re more concerned with keeping some subs renewed than attracting new people to the game. When new people do join, I’d imagine it’s almost exclusively through word of mouth to play with friends/partners/family, so it’s almost assumed that they’ll have someone guiding them.
Of course don’t forget the most important portal of all: Ancient Dalaran. Other players, especially those without fall mitigation, love it. You won’t learn it from any trainer until you have obtained the corresponding teleport spell from Scarlet Monastery. Wowhead will show you.
This is the way.
A YouTube video went viral a while ago of a long time WoW player who had an encounter with a brand new player who didn’t understand some of the most basic concepts of the game and it was really eye opening to see just how much the game assumes you will intuit without actually explaining anything. I imagine this has only gotten worse in recent years with how much more difficult the game has become and how incredibly convoluted and counterintuitive the talent trees are.
Even for veteran players picking up a new class or sometimes even a new spec requires hours of online research, pouring over guides, and smacking a target dummy until you aggravate your wrist from all the repetitive motion. It’s really a huge barrier to the game and I don’t think most people even realize it, the devs included. That certainly wasn’t the case back in the Vanilla days.