Stop removing portals

Just want to post that I really like the level of questions and responses Bornakk is giving us. It feels better to be asked questions as to how these changes affect us as opposed to simple rhetoric.

Though I don’t dig the portal changes, thanks, Bornakk for the dialogue

4 Likes

Remove all portals, give them to mages. Make Mages great again.

I logged on just to reply to this topic. Don’t remove the new Dalaran portals. I use them all the time. Don’t add time to my old content transmog farming, it takes long enough as is. This is a bad idea. Don’t do it.

5 Likes

but… none of those portals you listed are in Legion dal…?
(which is what all this screaming is about)

i didn’t respond to your counterpoints, because they weren’t relevant to the reason i quoted you.
i never claimed you didn’t want to do old content.
(and i’ve got so many people replying “at” me, that it’s hard to respond to everything)

i can assure you, it was not a baseless claim.
feel free to search the forum for keywords like “no content” or “bored”.

(but yes, i kind of do enjoy watching people get so bent out of shape) :slight_smile:

I have two mages and can do without players begging for Ports.

I can’t get there without a mage. Right now, My mage needs a mage. And I’ll say, anecdotally, I haven’t seen too many low level players in New Dal. In fact, I can’t think I’ve seen a single under 100 character there. Not saying it doesn’t happen.

And I don’t even use those portals. Going into New Dal is like watching a Train wreck happen in slow motion for me.

2 Likes

I wasn’t being sarcastic. Apologies to you and others who felt I was dismissing them in any way.

For how I personally play and enjoy games, I like when I feel like I need to travel for a few minutes to get somewhere. For me, it is more rewarding when I complete the task that way and I wouldn’t want to be able to get everywhere instantly but there is a good medium to find (but continuing to pile up various teleporting items feels strange). Traveling over large areas reminds me of how vast the world is and I often reminisce while flying on a flight path or a mount. Sometimes I have even just used the port to Timeless Isle and taken the flight path to Shrine (instead of going straight there) as I can enjoy the view and relax.

That being said, I know I can be a bit strange and I’m often not bothered by things that bother others - that’s why I ask a lot of questions. I want to understand the different play styles and opinions of others so I can better discuss them both with you and internally. Getting to the fundamental impact is important for me as the solution sometimes requires a different approach. Hopefully I can avoid the feeling that I’m just talking at you and want to be talking with you. Cheers!

37 Likes

Stop trying to mask things by playing games with portals and flight. You’ve already “shrunk” the world with flight whistles and hearthstones. Nobody is fooled at all.

22 Likes

Yeah, but you don’t know all these people are the same people. Either way I do know you enjoy it.

1 Like

Actually, a strong familiarity with the game helps to relay feedback and sympathize with the players more effectively. They won’t know coding or basic design principles, but they’re the only bridge between us and some sincerely blind developers. CM’s understanding (and playing) the game should be a part of their job. In fact, most studios either require or strongly encourage it.

There is a CoT portal in Dalaran, quit crying. This is a great change. You just want something to complain about.

2 Likes

That’s one of the ones being removed.

34 Likes

So you are removing portals and forcing every single player to play the game how you like to play it, no matter how ridiculous that way of playing may be. Great plan.

65 Likes

Encourage the designers to use that principle in future content (without it being too tedious) and don’t impede on our ability to enjoy previous content (especially for alts)

BfA is unenjoyable for me. I’m sorry. But the only way I can kind of enjoy the game still is by running old content for transmogs and mounts in hopes of things improving in the next expansion (or future patches). These immediate changes seem like unnecessary fluff. Organizing the portals makes sense, but taking them away does not, especially since we’re been using them for ages.

42 Likes

I’ve been hearing this argument since 2006 and I promise you beyond any shadow of any doubt the answer has literally always been no.

Portals make it easier to jump enormous distances quickly, like cross-continent or cross-world stuff. It means that we can visit radically different locations quickly, hopping from Outland to Dalaran to Pandaria to Argus in a matter of minutes. Warcraft is a colossal game with a dizzying array of environments and aesthetics built over more than a decade, and that is what makes it feel big. It is big, and the team seems weirdly lacking in confidence about that. Making travel inconvenient just reduces the incentive to go to any of those places, which encourages us to stay in one place, which reduces the environments we see, which makes the world feel smaller.

Saying that making travel slow will make the world feel bigger is like saying you can make LOTR better by turning the pages reeeeaaally slowly.

(ETA)
Y’all remember when the team said that they thought Exodar and Silvermoon would become the new favourite capitals in TBC because they looked so much cooler, and then no one ever went there because they were massively out of the way from anywhere that anybody cared about? This isn’t a new scenario. Players aren’t excited about how hard it is to get around.

77 Likes

Why not?

There are two activities in WoW, doing fun things and travelling to do fun things.

When Blizzard counts MAU’s both activities are given the same weight.

Players, however, want to maximize their fun time and reduce their travel time.

When Blizzard removals portals it is increasing travel time and reducing fun time.

39 Likes

What about this is great?

11 Likes

Are you surprised given their approach to development in recent years?

9 Likes

You are alone in this. Travel time is not gameplay. I want to get where I want to go NOW, not fly straight up ten thousand feet and hit autorun.

49 Likes

Not even a little bit, I personally expect them to consistently make this game worse and worse. Eventually playing a game with my friends will no longer be enough to keep me subbed.

9 Likes

I realize, of course, that WoW and ESO are very different, but I’m a big fan of how they handle it.

There are no Flight Paths, but there are Shrines. Shrines are less common than Flight Paths, with only a handful per region, but they’re instant travel.

As a result, you spend more time traveling from the shrine to where you want, as compared to a flight path. However, because you got close to where you wanted much much faster, it actually feels more engaging.

I think that’s what I don’t like about removing portals. I don’t mind having to travel a couple of minutes, but I’d much prefer to have a “get close instantly” button, and have to manually travel there.

If you’ve ever ridden in a car in traffic and felt like you could just get out and walk faster (even though traffic is going 25), you’ll know what I mean. It just feels more productive when you have freedom when you travel.

I’ve often thought that WoW could do with some kind of “hearthstone network” where you could pay a hefty fee (100-200 gold) and teleport from an Inn to another Inn.

6 Likes