One of the main themes I have seen on many discussions about the removal of portals to older content is from the game designers point of view “don’t overuse portals between locations in the world”. Too many eliminations of the distances between places can diminish a sense of the world having a meaningful size.” In other words “we want to make the world seem bigger”. Early on in World of Warcraft this made sense but as huge as Azeroth is now it does not. Some players disagree with this mainly because these portals of convenience are all related to OLDER content and that it is not the players fault that the game designers abandoned all these places. Many players wonder why every capital city did not have a full slate of portals and the reason “We want to keep you all together in one area” and that just makes people think “hmmm” as they look around. These portals could even be attuned so they could not be used unless you had already completed some specific quest line for the area you are going to.
I have played wow more than any other MMO and sometimes when I think about how the game designers use the world they have created it just confuses the hell out of me.
From a players perspective it seems like an easy thing to say when we say “give us new things to do all over the world and that will make the world seem bigger” for example bring back some old world bosses give them a loot table that rewards some hard to get mats (tradable of course) or create short 5 to 10 quest questlines in Teldrassil for example that takes Night Elves back there for some emergency or to help and old friend. Oh wait you destroyed Teldrassil…well you better fix it. But you get the point I hope. These small quest lines could be a monthly thing and could be related to your toons race, class or faction or all three.
Now from a game designers point of view the above is a lot of work. You have to develop the quests, get the code written and perhaps some artwork will need to be done etc. etc. etc. but it is doable. Even updating a few old quests would be fine by me but having done all those quests multiple times I would prefer a couple of new ones.
Something like this that gives people reasons to go back to older zones is how you should be “making the world seem bigger.” If you started now by the time 9.0 goes live you could probably have several hundred quests ready to go and by the end of the next expansion you could have 1000 or more and you could watch all of us peons running all around THE GREAT BIG WORLD OF AZEROTH. Another option would be scaled zones where no matter what zone you are in you are playing at your level. If you did the scaled zone I might would suggest that you cap that to the max level of the previous expansion so people will need to play through the current content to level past that.
We understand that new content areas are were you really want us to be and that is basically our “new world” where you put us on the ground for 10 months so we can see how big the new area is but keeping older content less convenient to access especially since those are zones that our current level surpasses or areas we have already been and played through does nothing but create frustration for many players. In addition to that those portals would be convenient to newer players trying to catch up to the current max level.
Your philosophy from my point of view makes no sense because it has nothing to do with CURRENT CONTENT and many people think keeping us grounded for 10 months gave us a pretty good perspective of how big the area of current content is and we do not need a reminder of how big all of Azeroth is.
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As I recall…those cats you speak of were stealthed along the rock spires just
WAITING for people to stray from the road. Even road travel was rough since there was that Kolkar messenger you had to kill to get the quest to protect an NPC at Whitereach. Then of course there was that elite hyena Steelsnap and his two guards that patrolled as well…very perilous area to be as a lowbie…I can’t count the number of times I got killed for being afk too long in that zone…fond memories indeed 
Edit: I somehow quoted the wrong person…my apologies Jops
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They did the EXACT SAME THING with the removal of flying and then this Pathfinder BS and claimed it was a compromise…then they ensured they could keep us from flying for as long as they wanted by holding off on part 2 for an indefinite and exceedingly increasing amount of time. I only just recently resubbed so I could play Classic. I’m never going back to retail until Ion and his team are no longer calling the shots
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If I were the CEO of Activision/Blizzard, I would have fired Ion and his team LONG ago. As soon as I saw the massive drop in sub counts between MoP and WoD, and then the even larger drop in sub counts during WoD when they announced flying would be removed, that would have been it right there. You’re done! You have 5 minutes to collect your things from your desk and you will be escorted out of the building. Any devs who wish to remain will have a formal apology issued in the forums and undo ALL of the changes that incurred the exodus of players ASAP
Edit: Matter of fact, that flight removal announcement wouldn’t have even happened. Design decisions that have such a massive impact on the game and it’s players would have to have APPROVAL by upper management, and that would definitely NOT FLY on my watch…but alas I was not in charge
Edit: /FACEPALM
I just realized the irony in that last statement about the potential removal of flying. I really didn’t do that on purpose it just came out that way I swear 
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I’m having fun, and really dont mind the occasional ports. I just didn’t want to log on and be swamped with wtb port to thankfully that didn’t happen
I didn’t like that portals were added in BC, so it’s not a big deal for me.
Honestly I want old portals back. They can keep the news ones, that’s fine, but bring back the old.
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Move portals to the Jade Forest
Puts current content into the vale
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Yeah oi Blizzard, may we please have the Panda Portals to Panda-shrines please. 
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I would rather have 3 portals to legion dalaran within 10 feet of eachother again than these ports that take you to the middle of nowhere
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There is no one to blame but yourself.
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I love how this is one of the most responded to posts on the forums and they still won’t change this. What a joke.
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A very sad and pitiful joke, as no one is laughing.
Blizzard as it was: ‘‘Games for gamers!’’
blizzard today: ‘‘moneymoneymoneymoney…’’
They could give lessons to Goblins.
Flips hair
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You new? You see the guild rank permissions thread? Not even a blue comment. This is nothing.
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They committed art resources for the new portals. The problem is that Blizz doesn’t think long term about consequences.
Just re-subbed. Really missing Legion right now. Convenience is very important to me personally and after a week of being back I’m already feeling sad about this change and many others that took place since I’ve been gone. Between removing the portals, the GCD changes and World Quest Group Finder no longer working… Everything feels clunky and slow. The world is just massive at this point, I really hope they reconsider. For anyone who does like the changes, you can always walk/fly to destinations as a choice to play the game the way you want to but I generally feel the time I’m already losing to travel (I run old content frequently) is just painful.
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probably have activision to blame for that a bit more.
I think if Blizzard could run this alone theyd actually make the game a lot better
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Glad to see I’m not the only one who’s still annoyed about the portal debacle.
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This is still a significant issue for me. Every major city needs a portal room with a full set of portals. That’s how it should’ve always been and how it needs to be in the future. Please don’t remove any more portals ever.
One portal that I still think is important for alliance is to northern EK, esp. with some events out there such as hallow’s end (undercity) and winter veil (the greench). Not to mention things like farming old dungeons such as Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery. A portal to southern EK (Karazhan maybe?) is important for horde. Both of those at the very least need to be added to each faction’s portal room.
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And everyone would have loved them if they had not been used as an excuse to remove nearly all the old portals.
The Vale and both Dalaran portal rooms are just sad relics with the portals gone.
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