Rearranging and Removing Portals

[Hardwire-velen (Hardwire)]

Feedback was NOT “Some places are harder to reach”.
Feedback was “ Taking away convenience and functionality for the sake of taking it away to pad playtime frustrates people into playing the game less until they stop playing entirely ”.
The feedback was that your decision, your phony design pillar that contradicts with other design pillars, is wrong.

This just deserves to be repeated.

[Verdre-silvermoon (Verdre)]

It’s all about metrics. They want to make sure people are playing for a set amount of time that looks good on their stat sheets.

And when they’re too blatant about it, things can backfire. When enough players suffer the straw that broke the camel’s back. Because as Aehl commented on another topic “they’ve taken aware more in the past few expansion than they’ve given us.”

Take Take Take, and eventually the player will Break!

Broken players tend to cancel Subs BTW and often take other players with them!

[Shelldin-zuljin (Shelldin)]

I really wish Blizzard would learn that removing content even if it’s “just portals” is a terrible way to fix a problem.

If you want players to interact in a certain area or spend more time doing one thing vs another ADD something to the game to make players want to go there. Don’t take something out and force them.

1. Forcing players do have to do something a certain way will almost always feel restrictive and be met with resistance.

2. Removing things from the game to elicit a specific result makes players feel like they’re being stolen from. You’re not just removing the Caverns of time portal, you’re stealing it from the players, or at least that’s how it feels and will be perceived my many.

On the flip side if you add something to elicit and action players will feel like they’re being rewarded. They’ll have something the didnt before.

[Taienna-aerie-peak (Taienna)]

Just because there are outraged forum posters with mob mentality being vocal doesn’t mean they are right. Sorry. That’s not how it works.

Dude…were you going for irony?
secondly sorry but the people PAYING THE BILLS are right…even when theyre wrong.
no clue how a business works

[anon57392818]

whatever you say, Ions sock account

[Tandryst-proudmoore (Tandryst)]

So in other words, they are removing the portals for the very reason we suspected. They are trying to make people spend more time playing by increasing the travel time. Do they not realize this is going to backfire on them? By making it take longer to get from place to place you are taking away playtime from many people that have a very limited amount of time to play. You really think they are going to spend their time in game trying to get from point A to point B? No, they wont. They will just find another game to play. Congrats Blizzard/Activision. You just shot yourself in the foot. Again.

[Wasselin-thrall (Wasselin)]

What’s crazy about this to me is that it would be so easy to just reverse their decision, show the players in the 4k comment thread that you are listening to them, and keep the portals. They feel so strongly about this supposed principle, that’s really never been evident or explained before, that they are going ahead anyway, with literally no one but Lorethelin on their side.

It’s kind of mind boggling especially after a long line of criticisms that they don’t listen and that they are taking things away or putting up roadblocks to increase playtime. This could have been an easy example of ‘listening and responding’ to player feedback but instead it has to be yet another controversy in a long line of them.

[anon44207803]

Just because there are outraged forum posters with mob mentality being vocal doesn’t mean they are right. Sorry. That’s not how it works.

A little while ago I had to get back to a city to do a task.

In the middle of nowhere, i teleported back to the city, did it, then ported back to the quest area…a one minute walk.

Portals work perfectly…if you design them to do so.

[Taienna-aerie-peak (Taienna)]

Just because there are outraged forum posters with mob mentality being vocal doesn’t mean they are right. Sorry. That’s not how it works.

This isn’t mob mentality. It’s clearly obvious what’s going on to anyone that doesn’t suffer from a lobotomy. If you’re ready to chug on the swill that Blizzard is selling, then by all means chug away ~

Taking things away from the game, IMO, has led to the decline that we see now. Starting after WoD… when numerous QoL improvements were revoked… we’ve only seen removals but we’re expected to continue supporting this dumpster fire.

By his joke statement the ‘mob’ that forced them to keep flight in WoD must have been wrong too.

[Spanko-kiljaeden (Spanko)]

WHOA. Reverse a decision and admit they are wrong? Come on now.

[Rankin-shandris (Rankin)]

But if they’re putting in a different portal to Silithus, that’s close. So is the Uldum portal.

The Uldum portal, which I think is only visible if you do part of the Uldum quest line, is still a zone and a half away from the Caverns. And that travel time adds up if you want to do CoT stuff on more than one character.

I just don’t see the total inconvenience and drastic impediment to our traveling with the portal changes that people are yelling about. Even with portals, traveling around to the old world has always been a logistical pain to plan out.

It might have been a pain, but that’s no excuse to make it more of a pain. Especially when they’re adding these big portal rooms while also pruning away existing portal locations.

[Solarus-korialstrasz (Solarus)]

If there are any specific locations that feel as though they’re about to become unreasonably inaccessible, we’re certainly open to adding additional means of travel in the future.

Caverns of Time: Without a doubt this one is the largest issue, since you are removing all THREE portal/teleportation methods of getting there, that have been around since as early as TBC, and NEVER removed, until now.

Shrine of Two Moons/Seven Stars: Because Jade Forest is not centralized to the continent of Pandaria. All the raids are 1.5-4+ ZONES away from those portals. And anyone wanting to go back to Pandaria for old content (ya know, where you are adding Raiding With Leashes VI to), likely has the trinket to teleport to Timeless Isle, which is right off the shores of Jade Forest. The portals in Jade Forest make little sense, short of because they already existed to “start” the zones for those going their for the first time.

[Tarc-fenris (Tarc)]

secondly sorry but the people PAYING THE BILLS are right…even when theyre wrong.
no clue how a business works

You’re one of those “the customer is always right” types.

People who say that would be the worst type of boss one could ever have the misfortune to work for; I’ve worked for a few.

The only thing possibly worse is the “do you know who I am?!” guy.

[Hocksy-emerald-dream]

Good thing, in the case of the portals, that if immersion is so important to you you can simply not use them, and allow others who feel it doesn’t break immersion continue using them.

To me, having those portals there makes sense. I’ve got archmages traveling through time/dimensions, raising ships from the bottom of the sea and nuking stuff. I think having some portals open is the least of our immersion worries. In fact, it makes sense in context. Child’s play for magic.

Unfortunately, removing the choice and free will of others is important to certain types of players and developers, sometimes more important than profits/subscriptions.

[Taienna-aerie-peak (Taienna)]

What’s crazy about this to me is that it would be so easy to just reverse their decision, show the players in the 4k comment thread that you are listening to them, and keep the portals. They feel so strongly about this supposed principle, that’s really never been evident or explained before, that they are going ahead anyway, with literally no one but Lorethelin on their side.

The funny part is this is over some TRIVIAL portals that make NO difference to the devs either way.
They literally are so obtuse that they will watch players quit again rather than replace a couple ports to TRIVIAL content.

[Solace-anetheron]

Yo guys, I have a CRAZY idea:

How about they just add dynamic events (like Legion invasions) to older locations in the game (with xp boost rewards for lowbies, AP or something meaningful for max level chars) and BOOM you have the world suddenly feeling larger again.

WEIRD CONCEPT.

[Valestia-wyrmrest-accord (Valestia)]

THIS! ACTUALLY, we don’t care WHY. We want it done. ASAP. DELAY THE PATCH TO FIX IT.

THIS! ACTUALLY, we don’t care WHY. We want it done. ASAP. DELAY THE PATCH TO FIX IT.

I would LITERALLY rather have the removed portals back rather than more allied races I don’t play.

[Jose-blackwater-raiders (Jose)]

This kind of reads like a certain faction of devs (or lead devs) have had things they personally wanted in the game (or removed from it) for a long time, and given that relative struggle that BFA has had, it’s the perfect time to slip more “unpopular” decisions in without impacting it too much, rather than trying to put the changes in during a more popular/“happier” expansion.

[Digital-zuljin]

nuh uh , ive been waiting too long for Zandalari.

[anon44207803]

Has been suggested dozens of times.