She’s saying the company is old and can’t quite perform the way they used to, so they need a pill to satisfy their loved ones, that’s right, not the players, the investors.
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That discussion happened when Blizzard went merge-crazy in Cata because of the loss of subs at that time. If that’s the reason they shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
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Fair enough. Though I’d argue if reporting record profits isn’t going to satisfy your lover and letting 8% of your staff go, they need to find a less abusive relationship.
Also keep in mind they Blizzard has no major IP coming out in 2019. So what exactly are they doing at this time, outside of this garbage?
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More “metrics” so Ion can report that players are spending more time in WoW, doesnt matter that time is wasted. Hey Ion why dont you just merely remove all portals and force players to use flight paths, boats and blimps?
Yeah, I remember that. I doubt it’s the problem, but I really don’t get the point of taking out a convenience feature like this. The flying change from WoD I was ok with, because I actually agree that even though it’s way less convenient, the active, current content parts of the world feel more grand and interesting if you aren’t skipping it all. But why the change for old content and old convenience features? Is there a desire to have more people spend more time afk on a flying mount or afk on a long drawn out flight path?
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I’m not convinced that anyone who works on this game anymore has ever played it. That’s the only explanation I can think of for these changes.
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I freaking love WoW. I’ve been in the same guild for almost the entirety of my 14+ years playing, but man some of the things are just baffling. It’s not like right now is the only baffling time-frame of the game, but it’s a real weird one.
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I get it, I started about 2008 and loved the time I’ve spent. It’s been there for me when no one else was.
But I’ve started seeing baffling changes starting in Cata. And it’s been one baffling decision after another.
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[WOW Flight Paths. ] [(https: //wow .zamimg. com /uploads/screenshots/normal/ 525293.jpg)]
I mean, to be fair, where I live they took out a couple of straightforward streets and put in a stygian summoning circle, a Gordian knot design that forced drivers to go up, down, and around in a loop to get anywhere where it was a pretty straightforward set of intersections before.
I’m pretty sure that it turned out that way because the city officials who okayed the project were on the take from the construction companies who, according to the associated documents, are going to get around a billion dollars from the whole project start to finish.
The way I see it, the removal of portals is not entirely dissimilar. Someone profits from increasing time played metrics…it’s just not us.
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Not related, but nice mog!
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So as I sit upon my porcelain throne, I had a thought pop out. Why does it seem like the answer to making the game better is always to remove things. In order to make classes better, we need to remove abilities. We can’t make the rewards feel rewarding unless we remove them. Removing portals make the world better. Maybe I’m just talking out of my a$$ but, it does seem like an odd trend.
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My thoughts on the portal room:
Azsuna Portal: This should be changed to Legion Dalaran. Anyone using this portal who does not have pathfinder or flight paths will have no way of being able to get to Legion Dalaran manually. Adding to that, Azsuna is not even a central point for Legion nor is it really the starting point for anyone starting to level in Legion content.
Also I just copied one of my 110’s over to the PTR and they could not use the Azsuna portal. However, my 120’s are able to use it just fine despite one of them not having done any quests in Azsuna at all.
Thrallmar/Honor Hold Mage NPC: This NPC should also offer an option to teleport you to directly to Hellfire Peninsula. This NPC offers a teleport to Blasted Lands but I get sent to the post Iron Horde invasion Blasted Lands. The Dark Portal there takes me to the Ashran Hubs yet there is already a portal to them in the portal rooms.
Also I am sure this is a bug but whenever I travel back to the Blasted Lands either by the Honor Hold/Thrallmar NPC or by the Hellfire Peninsula Dark Portal, I get sent to the post Iron Horde Invasion Blasted Lands even after talking to Zidormi to set it to Pre Iron Horde Invasion Blasted Lands.
Other then that, the portal room is a good addition.
As for removing a lot of the portals from the old cities in my opinion is a completely unnecessary change that just takes away options from players. It doesn’t really make the world feel bigger. It just adds a few extra minutes of travel time to getting to various destinations.
Regarding the point brought up about mages, the reason why their services aren’t required as much anymore is because from WoD onward, we have been given portals in Org/SW to the expansion’s main city thereby giving us quick access to all the portals the city has to offer. In previous expansions, you’d take a boat/zeppelin (or a portal in MoP’s case) to an area on the continent far from the city. In order to get to said city without asking a mage or using your Hearthstone, it would require some travel time.
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It’s a reverse psychology thing. The thing is better if you don’t have it. Or after having it for awhile, it’s taken away. It’s something Blizz is known to do/
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Hey Bliz! If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it! The portals were not broken! They didn’t need a fix. Every day I keep asking myself why I keep playing this game. Answer: Hope! Hope that Bliz will get their head out of their butts & become the game it started out as. But you keep proving that will never happen. No flying! No portals! No gold! Bah! Right back at ya Bliz with the “screw you!”
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No, it doesn’t. What it feels like is SW and Org are the only cities that matter, hence the incentive of the portal rooms to get people to congregate there, while most of the world is not relevant enough for you to want players traveling to and from those zones.
Making travel less convenient for players who want to be enjoying the World of Warcraft, rather than the Current Zones of Warcraft, doesn’t equate to the world feeling bigger. But it will definitely lead to the world feeling more empty.
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Which is all well and good, but it’s not like any of us are asking for instant teleports to our precise destination wherever in the world it may be. If I port to the Shrine, I can still enjoy the flight out to One Keg for my weekly Sha kill and Mogu’shan Vault run just fine. And if I’m in Pandaria, being able to port to Northrend Dalaran doesn’t stop me from enjoying the flight out to Icecrown.
You honestly seem to be treating portals as if they remove travel entirely, when all we’re asking is to be allowed to get in the ballpark of our destination without having to chain ourselves to SW and Org.
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Good for you. Most people just tab out and sometimes just AFK log out because they’ve found something more interesting to do than stare at an environment they’ve seen a million times before that has nothing that doesn’t just make their eyes glaze over.
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These are really on point. I appreciate you laying it out like this.
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Not sure you’ll actually read this but might as well type it out anyway:
It is perfectly OK if you like to take a few mins to fly to places, it’s how you play WoW and we respect it but you also need to understand not everyone likes to fly for a few mins, some don’t have all day to play so fitting in a few portals to get to Dragon soul faster via COT, karazhan portal in legion(I know about ring but still) for horses, ect saves the busy people a lot of time to be able to do these things as well as other quests that involve flying through the world.
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