Tol Barad tabard.
I don’t understand how forcing us to use our hearthstones to return to Valdrakken accomplishes that at all.
Using your hearthstone is functionally the same as using a portal to get back. It doesn’t somehow magically liven up the world or get you out exploring.
Getting people out in the world more is a commendable goal, but this ain’t the way to achieve it, it simply inconveniences the players.
Welcome! You’re not nuts, my guess is from what you’ve seen thus far, it’s always been 1:1. (Port in/port out). This, as you’ve read by now,isn’t always the case. There’s no hard and fast pattern, but generally the new zone added at the latter point of an expansion has one way portals, with the expectation you’ll set your hearth to the new expansion capital. There are always ways off the zone, but they’ll be slow/inefficient.
But to your point, the lack of a portal back got a lot of negative attention back when Emerald Dream released. The lore reasons make sense, but it feels more annoying than usual for reasons I can’t nail down. 
But it obviously does, or everyone would be using their hearthstone and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
The hearthstone has a cost that folks aren’t willing to pay.
Mind, you can use your hearthstone, your garrison hearthstone, your Kirin Tor Ring, or any of the, what, 5? 7? different “hearths to somewhere” that available to everyone, plus the class specific ones.
Or, you can walk/run/ride/fly out of the ED portal, and make your way across The Land to head back to the city.
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This is a weird hill for so many people to be collapsing on so vehemently and dramatically.
It is weird that there isn’t a portal back to Valdrakken from any of the three patch zones - that one island, that one underground place (too lazy to look up the names of either one) or the Emerald Dream. At least there’s a portal TO the Emerald Dream, though, unlike the others that only have very very long flight paths to get to them.
Spending time on a flight path or flying with nothing else to do for long periods of time isn’t content, and in my opinion “making the world feel bigger” has no value. That’s my hill.
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I wonder the same thing, at least let their be a flight path connection to and from emerald dream if they are going to be lazy and not make a two way portal back and forth to Valdrakken and Emerald Dream.
It’s almost as if they introduced this brand new method of travelling, while also making a mini game out of it, and they want people to utilize it.
insert shocked Pikachu
The formal races are a minigame.
Dynamic flying, much as I enjoy it, isn’t a minigame. It’s travel with more keypresses.
Travel isn’t content.
But, were talking about PORTALS. The is a portal from Shadowlands (Oribos) to SW/Org and back… so the lore doesn’t support NOT having one from ED to Val.
Weird considering the original poster asked about flight paths so I responded accordingly, but also talked about portals and again I responded accordingly.
There’s also portals from the Dragon Isles (Valdrakken) to Stormwind and Orgrimmar and back. What’s your point?
h u h
Where did you get lore from? I already stated there’s a two-way portal from Ohn’ahran Plains to the Emerald Dream and back… Seems like you’re just wildly flailing around here.
I don’t think the lore would support many of the portals in game.
But it is.
Dragonriding was a feature of dragonflight - new content.
Changed to dynamic flying to include mounts outside dragonriding mounts - new content.
Pretty much anything added to the game is considered “content”. 
Exactly my point. The lack of a portal does, in fact, NOT get you out in the world exploring. It makes you use your hearth, or one of the things you mentioned here to portal to somewhere that will let you portal back to Val.
Nobody got coerced into “exploring” the world and livening it up because of the inconvenience of needing to use an item in your bags.
What extra “exploring” or World Enriching Activities are actually caused by this lack of a portal?
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So then use your stone. Problem solved. What’s the issue?
My issue is the “logic” people come in here with in an attempt to oppose the OP. A bunch of posters came in here stating the “reason” is exploration and world enrichment. This is, clearly, not the case.
I personally just hearth, or use my garrison hearth if it is on cooldown.
I’m simply rejecting the bogus “reason” people are giving as if it is fact.
The fact that I have to save my hearthstone for leaving ED is a really poor design decision.
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Man why do the forums make EVERYTHING into a controversy?
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I think because this is such a trivial thing.
Yes they should have added a portal back.
Yes hearth cds are so short these days and DR is so fast. It’s really a non issue.