10400 posts…and locked twice and no new blue responses. This thread is serving no purpose to be honest. But it is unique I’ll give it that I never seen a thread survive two locks and unlocks before.
So then my question is on main topic why remove portals?
Multiple reasons, but let’s just focus on two big ones:
First and foremost, to pad their metrics (“time played”). Problem with this is, their own data, as shown by their quarterly reports (required to be released to their investors by the SEC) show their metrics across the board have been falling. Which shows their gimmicks like this (using cheap tricks to try and keep players going longer) don’t work and only drive players away from the game.
Two, it makes the lower level content unlivable. This has two effects: first, if you’re a lowbie, you want to get out of the “bad part of town” quickly to where the action is (in this case where there are usable portals…bfa content [which of course will change when they up the level content next release, because we all know this nightmare will never end of we don’t stop them here]); second part, it make content farming (mogs, mounts, etc) there less desirable so you want to spend less time in that content and more time in new content.
What the devs fail to realize with this, is that by making old content less desirable (indirectly or directly…honestly not sure on that one, sometimes I think even they aren’t aware of all the unintended outcomes of their actions), they will up the complaints about the current content.
Why?
Because when you drive everyone into the current content and force them to play pretty much that…they’re going to see all the warts and annoyances with it. And since bfa has been really lackluster, do they really want the extra scrutiny from those old content farmers who would otherwise spend most of their time elsewhere?
This is a catastrophically tone-deaf decision. Players don’t interact in places where there are no players. If you want players to interact in a given place, you have to make it easy and fun for players to be there. So…like I said: catastrophically tone-deaf.
Players told you very specifically (5,000 times) what the community wanted. I don’t generally criticize the game this harshly, but this was a huge mistake. Massive. No point in saying more. It’s all been said, in great detail, many times.
Re the Zandalri Capital: I love the aesthetic of the place, but I agree on layout and utility. Boralus is easy and quick to navigate, while Horde toons are stuck with somewhere that requires using cooldowns (I’ve legit used my flight whistle at the flight mast at the top to get quickly and for free to the bottom) or padding in time and expense to go up or down.
Not everything needs to be super convenient. We don’t always need to port into a spot 2 feet from our needs.
But.
Design choices like removing EXISTING portals and making one faction capital super frustrating and the other ultra convenient just come off as tone deaf over and over again.
This. Please see my thread about how Blizzard unnecessarily tweaked the new Sin’dorei golden eyes, which now look like terrible flashlights. The female eye’s aren’t even centered.
As a fellow Software Developer, I have to jump in and defend Ion. I’ve seen lots of posts like this, and while I firmly support the idea that removing portals was a horrible decision and a waste of time, it’s not fair to pin all the blame on Ion, or any developer for that matter. These decisions aren’t made in a vacuum, and they aren’t made by any one person. In my experience, they aren’t even necessarily made by developers. The only thing Ion is guilty of is being the company’s mouthpiece and presenting their poorly conceived explanation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the explanation we’ve been given here was crafted after the fact as the least evil explanation among many.
By all means, criticize the decision and the explanation, but let’s all lay off of Ion and “his crew.” Ion is not a dictator that Blizzard installed. While I’m sure he has some input into decisions, those decisions are going to be made in conjunction with product management and marketing folks that we have no idea even exist.
The other guy who (laughably) bears a great deal of ire is Bobby Kotick. To be honest, I doubt the guy has ever leveled a character to 20. I don’t think he gives a flip about WoW’s gameplay experience. He gives vague directives like, “Subscription revenue is down, and data indicates that the decrease in new player numbers is to blame, so you guys need to find ways to engage new players.” Then a team of product managers and designers brainstorm to turn those directives into concrete actions. Once that’s done, developers are finally consulted.
TL;DR - Everyone’s piling on at the top and bottom of the corporate ladder, but the problem is most likely somewhere in the middle. Throwing shade isn’t constructive, especially when it’s at the edges of the problem.
Eh, I agree and acknowledge that decisions aren’t made in a vacuum, but being at the top of the pyramid means getting the credit when things go right and it also means taking the blame when things go wrong.
Note that I’m not blaming the devs who are just doing what they’re told; I’m blaming the top and the middle, but mostly the top, because, again, being in charge means getting both credit and taking blame.
I also agree that playing the blame game isn’t constructive, although it can be somewhat therapeutic to have a name and face for the source of my frustration.
I am sure that the guys at the top set the metrics - Time played and time played in current content in place.
Then the boss of the development department said, “Ok guys, you are being measured by these metrics and I know you all want your year end bonus and I want mine, so figure it out.”
So they had a meeting to discuss how to get people to play longer and to play in current content. Someone at the meeting brought up the fact that there are more people hanging out in new Dalaran than in BFA and that it was because of the portals there.
So the lead developers told a team to figure out a way to change this as it was messing up their ability to get their year end bonus. Thus the portal room was developed and the other portals were removed.
The developers figured that most people would probably either be in the portal room or in BFA content if there wasn’t any other place (New Dalaran) to hang out in, and since the new portal room was developed in BFA, it is considered new content.
“You get a year end bonus, and you get a year end bonus, Everyone gets a year end bonus!”
It is more of the way they present the info to the player base. A lot of the time they come off as condescending and aloof to the community. I have been helped a lot by the GMs and Customer service for ingame related things and they are always great to work with and I always thank them greatly. It is also not a great idea to say things on Twitter that can be related back to the community in a bad way, which has happened.
Again, this is not the only thing that a lot of people are upset about. There are many other issues that have a lot of the community at the end of the line. This is for some is “That one other thing” added to the rest which have come before.
While Im sure thats the case, I also know that I watched enough of Ions laughable excuses to know that it IS partially his doing. He may share the guilt, but he DOES share the guilt.
If his morality was so great that he felt he was doing something horribly wrong and unjust, he’d step down.
Im not laying off anything. The ENTIRE ‘crew’ is guilty of all of this.
yeah. I not buying this ‘poor Ion’ crap.
Ive worked for chumps before and when they crossed MY line of morality I walked.
Ion is as guilty as the rest of them are and anyone in this thread supposedly being a dev has no bearing on that matter whatsoever.