Here’s an example that took me five seconds to think of.
Class Hall content was fairly dependent on those lower Dal portals to complete efficiently. Believe it or not, people have this thing called “alts” that they use during content downtime, such as 90% of BFA.
Take it back to the design peeps and see if they remembered why those portals were put in when they made this decision.
“When there are fewer portals, does the world feel a bit bigger to you? Do you like that?”
The problem is that once something like portals have been introduced and used for years, taking them away feels like a loss of something that was very helpful. So the answer is no I don’t like it and it’s annoying.
ETA: The same with flying…
So the next logical step is removing portals from BfA max level hubs, right?
Be consistent—this is solely inconveniencing lowbies.
Why would we want the world to feel bigger, who wants to spend extra time going to and doing things we have already done before. You guys are already slowing down everything we do. Why are you trying to slow down old content travel now???
In other words, “we want that time played metric to go up and up and up, deal with it nerds.”
No it doesn’t feel bigger, it feels more restrictive. I mean, if the goal that Blizzard has is to increase participation in things, making people do more isn’t the answer. Unless of course your goal is just to make people travel more.
I can tell you if it comes to a choice of do I farm X because of a chance at something I want, or but in order to get there I have to ground travel and then port on other items, I know that people will just stop doing that old stuff.
Dev: “Lets make the world seem bigger by making it a pain in the #$% to get around.”
User: “Huh what? How is this anything except bad game design. How does this match with flightpaths, hearthstones, flight whistles etc. Does the left hand know how the right feels about awkward game design -making the world seem bigger-?”
Do you think if we took away their cars and make them walk to the office every day for work they’d marvel at how much bigger the world feels? Somehow I doubt it…
New alliance characters can no longer get to the Isle of Thunder. Cool, eh? You get disconnected while in flight on the first quest and find yourself in the water after re-logging. Horde questgiver is on a boat with a gangplank, Alliance deck is too high and you can’t ever reach the boat.
Thank you Blizzard quality control department!
They also have the option of quitting the game entirely. Gee, I guess they figure there are too many subscribers.
I agree, but how convenient should things be for everybody? Why do mages have portals? Should everybody just have the teleport abilities that mages have? I don’t think that’d feel right, heh.
Feels pretty good in GW2.
And with this news, I have made sure my account and all my alt accounts are cancelled.
It’s truly the last straw for me, I’m tired of the removal of content, abilities, portals, etc and the weak justifications used for it.
I feel insulted each time it’s insinuated that these changes are somehow “good for the game”, when it’s quite obvious just what it’s good for, time played metrics.
If instead of taking away portals and flight, they instead encouraged the artists to make use of their incredible talents to make the world feel large, if instead of just flat out removing so much of so many spec’s spell kits and instead gave you reasons to use them (reasons that don’t have to involve combat, even!), if instead of making it harder and longer to travel to places and instead gave us MORE REASONS TO BE IN THE WORLD some of which can just be fun things instead of gear treadmill chores, then maybe this would still be a game worth playing to myself and so many of the friends whom no longer log in.
I guess it’s time I join them.
I’ve given much feedback in the Beta, I’ve given feedback in every survey I’ve been given, and I, like may others, only see it cast aside for decisions that can only be viewed as purely driven by something other than the desire to make an exciting, fun, or compelling game.
I hope that something changes for the better, but I don’t think there’s anyone who advocates for the players or for the idea of adventure/fun left working on WoW anymore.
Adios, friends, enemies and everyone inbetween, and no, you can’t have my stuff, because I am ever hopeful that someday I can come back and find this fun again.
Nothing more than a typical PR response. Not going to get a blue to go against the company that is paying them. Unless they’re looking to get fired, they’re going to sell everything that Blizz does as the next best thing since sliced bread.
Absolutely. The problem is the world is too big and we have to travel too much to do many things. Thus the portals are a necessity, even if they make the world seem smaller.
Instance and raid portals are far off and take lots of time to get to, world quests and invasions are similar. Only some areas have access to banks, auction houses, and other necessary game elements. In order to get anything done in a timely fashion you have to use some way of speeding up your travel.
If, instead, there was plenty to do in whatever area you happened to be then we wouldn’t need to travel as much. What if every zone had a bank, an auction house, instances, world quests, etc.? Travel would be much more rare and special. You’d undertake a long journey for epic quests, trading with far-off lands, conquering a new zone and bringing back riches.
For example, suppose you could do the local content and get trade goods you could turn in at any faction. You save them up and then make a journey to far-off lands to trade for a special recipe or piece of equipment. Maybe you’d spend some time in those lands too or maybe you’d come back to where all of your friends were doing content. You’d have a home base to depart from and return to.
Right now we’re pinging around and appreciating nothing because each area is a temporary home that we’re there to plunder and leave. We return to the capital city to do business and stand around, waiting for something to happen. But it’s not a home because we have no investment in it, it’s just another place to do stuff and then zip away from.
You’re lucky I have friends who keep me playing because this kind of condescending snark makes me regret every single cent I pay you.
It does seem that the choice to not play any longer is also a choice that players can make.
I honestly don’t understand. They should be doing everything they can to increase people playing by making quality of life things like travel as easy as possible.
It’s not that this is a winning business model, i can telegraph right now what will be the result of this. Why can’t the people who are supposed to be close to it see the same thing?
This new portal room and removal of convenience portals is total and complete horse sh!t
Alright, I’ve chilled a little. Holy crap was your last comment just… astoundingly wrong, Bornak.
A legit commentary. Why is removing portals bad? Because of the very thing you cite as a bonus. 100 pounds of packing peanuts is still just packing peanuts. Fun to mess around in for a little while. However once you’re done, you’re done.
Actual size does not make a game world feel “big.” Content makes a world feel “big.” There is no content in the old areas. If there were any reason other than xmog hunting to go back to some of these zones, your argument would make sense. I.E. If there were at-level world quests, frequent non-progression based activities, etc.
A perfect example that’s current is “Anthem”. One of their selling points is their open world is vast. But there’s nothing in it. Nothing worth doing outside daily quest requirements and even that is limited to 3 samey activities. That is not vast, that is your hot sauce being shipped in 100 pounds of packing peanuts. The world might as well not exist outside those small bits of content.
On the same token, take another BioWare game. “Dragon Age: Inquisition”. Their areas were large, but you could traverse them quickly by multiple means. On top of that they felt large not because of their size, but there was always something tucked away as you traveled that made the trek interesting; or at the very least not pointless.
There’s a meme I’m sure you know of. “Fun detected; fun removed.” We as a community need you to steel your [spine], stand up to the devs, and tell them to quit it. We as a community state that meme because the truth saddens us and takes something away. You force us to find our own fun in our misery.
How difficult is it to regurgitate a stance you where given in an email?
I’ll “tap dance” to that tune.
Could you do like “a day in the life” that shows how portal accessibility became a development priority for the game at this time? What conversations took place behind the scenes leading up to this being decided upon and implemented?