Rearranging and Removing Portals

[Ohgodmyeyez-hyjal]

That’s what you call a solution looking for a problem. If a player is happy doing level 60-80 content, so long as they’re paying their sub and not being disruptive, who cares?

It honestly really depends on how one frames the problem, and what the actual circumstances of the problem are. If creating world shards for old content puts unnecessary strain on game servers that need to be focused on current content, then one could very easily argue that a solution like this is a good stopgap measure while server upgrades or software upgrades are investigated.

That’s purely a hypothetical though, and even if that’s the case and Legion Dalaran is a world shard they’d like to have less activity on, the means to accomplish that shouldn’t be removal of functionality, because removal is unnecessary.

The Goblin/Gnome teleporter concept works perfectly fine to keep people out of Dalaran if Dalaran is the problem. You don’t clear up traffic jams by demolishing every building along the road so that people no longer have a reason to drive on it. You either provide other routes, or you put the businesses people want to visit in more convenient locations.

[Hardwire-velen (Hardwire)]

The solution Blizzard has presented may resolve their stated goals of redirecting players into more current content locations

Every time this stated goal comes up - and I believe they used a similar reason back in Cataclysm - I ask myself, why is it so important that the players be funneled into these “current content locations” if they prefer(for reasons of aesthetics, roleplay, collecting, or anything else) to remain in the older faction hubs. How does my choice to set hearth at the Shrine in Pandaria, or Northrend Dalaran, harm the game so long as I’m still subscribed? How does Blizzard benefit by pressuring players into SW/Org or Boralus/Dazar’alor?

The only real answer I can come up with is the appearance of an artificially inflated population. And that answer is both depressing, and infuriating.

[Ohgodmyeyez-hyjal]

The only real answer I can come up with is the appearance of an artificially inflated population. And that answer is both depressing, and infuriating.

Server resources. We saw some issues in Cataclysm when bots were running rampant in Grim Batol and Halls of Origination where normal players couldn’t access dungeons because instance servers couldn’t create any new instances.

That’s probably not as much of a concern today, but when players are reporting stability issues in places like Drustvar, if there’s any indication that making Dalaran (a heavily phased and definitely instanced location) less likely to require space on a server, it makes sense to try to accomplish that to improve the gameplay of those affected in current content.

But again, this is a really clumsy way of accomplishing that.

[anon10011179]

So, what, you’re making old content more inconvenient for us to get to in an effort to make us spend more time in new content?

The problem with that is that we aren’t looking at old content with rose tinted glasses. The current attitude of the devs, direction of the game, and virtually every decision of this expansion is forcing every previous iteration of Azeroth to be bright, glowing rose. I’d rather level my alts then go grind old raids and old content for mounts and transmogs than go grind up more gear in the slot machine we currently live in.

And that right there goes against your goal. Many people just want to play the single player game now because why raid? Let’s run some dailies–sorry, world quests–and get some titanforging and get geared to the teeth. This isn’t going to force people into the world. It’s going to make people go “Oh, it’s going to take me 30 minutes longer to do raids on my alts? Eh. I don’t need to do it this week.”

And then they wonder why they’re paying for the sub.

[Verdre-silvermoon (Verdre)]

redirecting players into more current content locations

There’s another negative thing to consider. If they have to actively coerce players to engage in current content by making older content unpleasant or time consuming to access … perhaps they need to drop their arrogance and ask themselves, “why aren’t players interested in current content?”

[Dia-dathremar (Dia)]

That’s probably not as much of a concern today, but when players are reporting stability issues in places like Drustvar, if there’s any indication that making Dalaran (a heavily phased and definitely instanced location) less likely to require space on a server, it makes sense to try to accomplish that to improve the gameplay of those affected in current content.

Didn’t they recently move to cloud-based server infrastructure, or is that just a rumour I’ve heard?

Because it wouldn’t surprise me if moving from dedicated servers to cheaper cloud-based ones is causing all of the sharding/lagging issues (especially because of how bad it gets any time an OCE player gets grouped with a US one!).

[Pyromor-shandris (Pyromor)]

It also create lag issues in these area. I don’t know how the wintergrasp instance is going to fair on live server when 80 player enter the area ,Last time it happen the servers had a lock down.

[Ohgodmyeyez-hyjal]

There’s another negative thing to consider. If they have to actively coerce players to engage in current content by making older content unpleasant or time consuming to access … perhaps they need to drop their arrogance and ask themselves, “why aren’t players interested in current content?”

Again, server resources. In addition to the stuff I mentioned in Cata, one of the big issues with WoD was that every Garrison was on an instance server, and if those servers didn’t have enough space to create an instance for your Garrison, you just ran in place trying to enter it until there was.

Didn’t they recently move to cloud-based server infrastructure, or is that just a rumour I’ve heard?

I really don’t know on that one. If that’s the case, I’ve not read about it anywhere.

[Verdre-silvermoon (Verdre)]

You know, for someone supposedly indifferent (as in you don’t care one way or the other) to this, you are speaking extremely strong in support of it.

If you don’t care, why are you so determined to speak against those who are calling it a bad idea?

[Mahatma-blackwater-raiders (Mahatma)]

We are completely aware of the world’s “meaningful size”; This is why we love/use those portals. Continuing in the vein of BFA era design in general, you have things backwards. You look at something we do, something we like and make use of, then you remove/alter it like some deluded “well meaning parent” who thinks they know “what is better for us.” I’m 52, so that doesn’t work with me.

I’m 60, so it doesn’t work with me either.
Out of “Likes” so have some thumbs up:

[Ohgodmyeyez-hyjal]

Fixes that create other problems are bad fixes. It’s just that simple for me.

[Hardwire-velen (Hardwire)]

If it’s a server/hardware issue, I think they’d have been better off couching it in terms of “reluctantly necessary while they look into permanent fixes” than trying to convince us that something done once in the past is “tradition” and that funneling people into the faction hubs will make the world feel more alive. A legitimate issue is going to go over better than a condescending lie.

[Scuzzlebutte-sentinels (Scuzzlebutte)]

If I could like this twice I would.

[Verdre-silvermoon (Verdre)]

If it’s a server/hardware issue

Exactly. If it was a hardware issue they could have been honest rather than flimflamming around the issue with “its tradition to do this, its the way things work, it’s good for the game”.

They could have said, “we’re having to retool the various portals due to internal hardware matters.”

People would have been far more accepting of such an answer.

[Pyromor-shandris (Pyromor)]

It use to be a problem with too many people in one area on one server it would be so crowded you could do much of anything you had to fly to the tops of building to get some peace,And now they want us to go through this again?OMG.

[Verdre-silvermoon (Verdre)]

Yeah, if they really want to reduce congestion they’d have Portal Rooms in every major city. That way they spread out the load. But instead they’re going to FORCE people to visit Stormwind / Orgrimar and thus create HIGHER server load as a result.

[anon23092290]

If I known this is how Blizz will end up and do things now back then in 04 I woulda never made my account. I never thought Blizzard would give up like this.

[Vhx-kiljaeden]

It use to be a problem with too many people in one area on one server it would be so crowded you could do much of anything you had to fly to the tops of building to get some peace,And now they want us to go through this again?OMG

This already happens in wPVP 40v40s … except there’s no flying to escape

[Hardwire-velen (Hardwire)]

They could have said, “we’re having to retool the various portals due to internal hardware matters.”

People would have been far more accepting of such an answer.

Exactly. They may have gotten some “upgrade your hamsters” flack over it, but we’re PC gamers; we understand that sometimes, hardware has limitations. We may not like the answer, but at least it doesn’t stink of…well, you said it. Flimflam.

Especially since, as you said further down, putting portals in all the old hubs rather than limiting them would spread the load.

[Verdre-silvermoon (Verdre)]

Then perhaps the issue is that they need to replace potentially older servers or maybe upgrade the software.