Portal Rooms

[Whitecrow-khaz-modan (Whitecrow)]

Been saying since Cata, when we ended up with both the Northrend Dalaran collection of portals and the main city collection of portals to Cata zones that we were in need of a generic portal we can place in any main hub that takes us to a room designed to house an ever growing mass of portals.
Portal nexus.

Removal of old portals prior to the introduction of the new portal rooms and their included portals was a poor choice.

Ultimately, I think this solution (An area designed expressly to house an ever growing number of portals) is very good and long overdue.

[Vercalis-wyrmrest-accord (Vercalis)]

Is this really so complicated of a feature that they need 8 months to implement it? Why is this taking actual months to put in the game?

[Phaylanxx-dalaran (Phaylanxx)]

Is this really so complicated of a feature that they need 8 months to implement it? Why is this taking actual months to put in the game?

Because its work, which is something they are allergic too.

[Solarwynds-earthen-ring (Solarwynds)]

I know. I try to avoid the ptr forums. They make GD look like the Magic Garden.

Holy crap is that a scary thought!

[Solarwynds-earthen-ring (Solarwynds)]

Is this really so complicated of a feature that they need 8 months to implement it? Why is this taking actual months to put in the game?

They have to insert big rooms in areas where there is not currently a place for them yet make it seem natural for them to be there. How easy would you expect that to be?

[Albricksen-zangarmarsh (Albricksen)]

The problem for me is that we’re losing more portals than we’re getting in the new portal rooms. We’ve already lost all of the ones in Pandaria. With the next update, we’re getting portal rooms but losing all of the portals in Legion Dalaran.

I don’t necessarily mind the concept of portal rooms. What I mind is losing features and functionality that I currently use and enjoy.

We’re not just losing most of the portals in Legion Dalaran either. They’re also deleting the Caverns of Time portal in Northrend Dalaran too.

When 8.1.5 hits live, there won’t be any portals to Caverns of Time anymore AFAIK, and there also won’t be portals to Karazhan anymore either, which is a big deal since Mages can’t even cast portals to Caverns of Time and Karazhan IIRC.

Also, all of the portals in Boralus except Stormwind’s and Silithus’ are being removed as well, in stark contrast to Dazar’alor where all the portals are still available.

Furthermore, it looks like Horde players will no longer have a quick way to get to the Dark Portal either, while the Alliance will still be able to be teleported there by talking to an NPC.

The faction discrepancies regarding portals is especially stupid, and should really be fixed, but everything relating to the Portal Rooms in 8.1.5 is apparently set in stone as the devs are seemingly ignoring all feedback regarding Portal Rooms and removal of portals on the PTR at the moment. I guess 8.2 is the earliest we can expect improvements made to the Portal Rooms.

[Blays-bloodhoof]

Yay more top down heavy-handed changes because of reasons. Let me guess: The room will be phased in a way so that you can’t use certain portals at certain levels. This way, in keeping with the Great Ion’s Vision of Micromanaging, pesky suscribers won’t be able to easily get around like they did when leveling alts was fun.

Before the dark times. Before scaling.

[Chroesire-bleeding-hollow (Chroesire)]

I’d much prefer a simple waypoint system (ala diablo/argus) or just a teleports tab added to the spellbook.

That’d be a pretty hard hit for mages. Blizz would need to do something like give mages the ability to teleport and make portals to arbitrary points on the map to make up for the loss of class utility.

[Wuzeh-wyrmrest-accord]

They have also removed quite a few portals from older expansions. For example you can only go to Org , Shat and the old Dal from the Pandaria temple now. Seems petty to me and just another time gate that we didn’t ask for.

Leave it to Blizzard to fix something that wasn’t broken. How dare people set their hearth to such an extremely useful area when no real alternatives existed?

Feels like a lot of these changes just need one guy in the room to be there just to ask "WHY?" whenever they propose something like this.

[Audrena-dathremar (Audrena)]

When 8.1.5 hits live, there won’t be any portals to Caverns of Time anymore

But don’t worry! The Caverns are just a 15 minute flight path away! Click, tab out, watch some Netflix and enjoy the comfy knowledge that you’re helping with that “engagement” metric that makes the shareholders all warm and fuzzy!

And they KNOW people go there regularly, too. How the hell else are people going to farm for the “Awake the Drakes” meta achievement, for one thing?

Feels like a lot of these changes just need one guy in the room to be there just to ask " WHY?" whenever they propose something like this.

That guy appears every couple of expansions to lavish us with portals again, but appears to have been beaten about the head, knocked unconscious, tied up and shoved in a cupboard right now so these changes that nobody asked for can be imposed.

With the portals staying at the Shrine for TWO FULL EXPANSIONS and change, and the useful portals in Legion Dalaran, I honestly thought that whoever the Portal Police is must have left the company. Sadly, it appears they were only on holiday.

[Wuzeh-wyrmrest-accord]

With the portals staying at the Shrine for TWO FULL EXPANSIONS

Weren’t the portals there for most of MoP? That’d make it about three.

So the portals are there for a third of the game’s lifespan, and it’s now suddenly a problem - but we’re going to add them back via portal room in a future patch.

I mean, we could just oh I don’t know HAVE A PORTAL ROOM IN THE CAPITAL AND THE VALE but I mean, I’m not a game designer yet, I’m just a college boy with silly and totally unreasonable lines of thought like that.

[Thequixote-staghelm (Thequixote)]

For example you can only go to Org , Shat and the old Dal from the Pandaria temple now. Seems petty to me and just another time gate that we didn’t ask for.

That was a bummer, still have my stone set there for the shat portal, but it was nice because the portal room was close to the inn and it loaded quickly compared to Dalran.

[Graff-nathrezim]

Holy crap is that a scary thought!

The Magic Garden sure is, just watch this!

[Revannia-draenor (Revannia)]

Removing the ones from Pandaria was annoying but removing them from Legion Dalaran is just plain stupid. There are so many quests that make use of them including various artifacts and the Chromie scenario. People still are doing Legion content. They should want more people doing old content and visiting old zones, not less.

[Audrena-dathremar (Audrena)]

Weren’t the portals there for most of MoP? That’d make it about three.

Well, I wasn’t counting the expansion they were created for, just to give Blizzard a little bit of slack there.

But how about the Caverns of Time portal in Northrend Dalaran? That’s been there since, what, 2008? So a portal that’s existed in that spot for an entire DECADE is being arbitrarily removed “because portal room” - but then not being given a place in the portal room!

[Salana-lightbringer (Salana)]

Well I guess it’s time to finally finish leveling my mage. These changes to portals are likely requested by players that couldn’t find the pvp vendors in earlier expansions. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why there is a centralization of portals and subsequent removal of redundancy or previous portal hubs.

If you couldn’t find your way around Azeroth and you requested this, you should feel ashamed of yourselves. I have had no problem navigating to where I wanted to go on all 12 classes. And if I found a port that I hadn’t activated I went out of my way to open it just in case I would have needed it later on. Absolutely sad if the double portal hub of legion dalaran gets gutted because a few people had fewer navigation skills than a fresh butter bar.

[Truthspeaker-alleria (Truthspeaker)]

Also, all of the portals in Boralus except Stormwind’s and Silithus’ are being removed as well, in stark contrast to Dazar’alor where all the portals are still available.

Oh good lord. We’re losing current expansions’ portals, too?

[Zeerah-khazgoroth]

From what I’ve read, they’re taking out useful ports like Caverns of Tme and Legion Dalaran and replacing with not so useful destinations like Aszuna

[Chroesire-bleeding-hollow (Chroesire)]

But don’t worry! The Caverns are just a 15 minute flight path away! Click, tab out, watch some Netflix and enjoy the comfy knowledge that you’re helping with that “engagement” metric that makes the shareholders all warm and fuzzy!

Out of curiosity, I timed it. Both speeds measured with 300% flying + 10% guild perk.

• 2m37s from Theramore – closest Alliance accessible destination (mage portal)
• 3m35s from Magni in Silithus – closet Horde accessible destination (town portal)

Certainly slower than taking a portal, but not exactly gamebreaking.

[Greymerk-perenolde (Greymerk)]

I’d much prefer a simple waypoint system (ala diablo/argus) or just a teleports tab added to the spellbook.

That’d be a pretty hard hit for mages. Blizz would need to do something like give mages the ability to teleport and make portals to arbitrary points on the map to make up for the loss of class utility.

The only thing that would change is i’d need to go through less loading screens. I don’t personally care if it’s a minor imposition on a rather meaningless aspect of one class’s fantasy. We’re talking about something people can already do, just making some tweaks to improve the user experience.

Maybe we should hide buffs again and bring back detect magic so you can have your class fantasy back.