I see a warcradt icon replying to the post – are we actually getting a company response…? fingers crossed
I think it is to get you used to it, so you’ll think that vanilla is a great experience. They know they are at the end with their current version of WoW. The last 3 expansions are a net zero for abilities and talents. They are wholly banking on Classic being where people will go.
I got news for you developers. Classic isn’t going to be your savior for this garbage. There aren’t that many people that like your idea of a world without flight.
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Or a prompt thread shutdown…
It just gets tiring.
I’ll just consolidate it real quick again.
The Caverns of Time portal (NewDal and OldDal) was a necessity to my Dragon Soul runs (curse you Blazing Drake) for two reasons: quick access (half the time compared to from Uldum) to DS on 14 characters a week, and avoiding the trypophobia-inducing scenery in southern/west Tanaris because of my poor partner.
The Azsuna/Jade Portals are downright mindboggling because they’re downright counter intuitive to both new players and veterans wanting quick access to the World Boss Run of Disappointment.
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What new person in management thinks “time spent in game” is the same thing as “time spent playing the game”?
Personally, I always alt-tab during flight paths. Even if it’s 30 seconds, I’ll alt tab and check Twitter or something. If I’m in a zone where I can set myself to fly in a direction and num lock to keep flying while I can alt-tab again, I’ll do it. “Taking in the scenery” is nice for the first couple times you’re seeing something, but now when I have to either take a flight path from Org or auto-fly from Tol’vir to get to Caverns of Time for the umpteenth time, I’m not enjoy the sights. I’m not seeing anything new.
This is not engaging gameplay. The world doesn’t “feel larger” because the size isn’t changing. It’s an artificial way for Blizzard to inflate the “time played” numbers and call it a victory that players are spending more time in game. I’m sure that’s also why they’re gating flying so much in each expansion.
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Aww you’re the warcraft icon. So sad you’re not a blue.
Here here, though.
They removed flying entirely from WoD and any expansion going forward. You couldn’t earn it with an achievement. You couldn’t buy it with gold. You couldn’t fly, at all. And it was set that way to be for every following expansion. No flying in Legion. No flying in BfA. Ever.
And the backlash was swift and huge. Even worse than this backlash over portal removal. So, they had to do something, and Pathfinder is that something.
There isn’t nearly as much backlash over Pathfinder as there was over the initial removal of flying completely. I personally prefer Pathfinder to buying flight for gold at max level on every single character. I don’t like it being gated until the end of an expansion, but it’s still better than not ever being able to fly at all.
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it’s the disconnect here that matters.
Shareholders don’t care if you’re enjoying the game, they are buying the stats that Blizzard is giving, and they really can’t lie about those ‘stats’.
And the developers don’t care if you’re unhappy and still paying. They care when you are unhappy enough to unsub.
That’s the truth. If people are upset you know what the action is, that you have to take.
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Because forcing your player base to play how YOU want to play never backfires, and is always the best decision, right?
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- Striking Ironforge feels like a demotion. Capital cities used to matter.
- Caverns of Time - I still do a lot of transmog farming in those instances.
- Maybe flight time makes the world feel big. It also makes the game feel boring. Flight paths usually mean it’s time for a bathroom run for me.
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The point being, they created a solution to what they thought was a problem (flying in WoW existing.) And time-gated it with Pathfinder
Now, here we are again. They created another problem (convenient portal networks) and decided to make a “solution” to it.
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The opposite of Silvermoon is Exodar. Alliance get one to Exodar.
The complaint isn’t so much on losing city portals from Dalaran (besides the Shrine), it’s in the loss of the portals in Dalaran’s basement that has not been consolidated and has at best another location nearby in excess of 3+ minutes of flight, CoT and Dalaran Crater. Those portals weren’t even removed, they were coded to be out of phase unless you have a quest requiring them. So blizz went of their way to inconvenience us. Along with the needless removal of the portal to Blasted Lands and to Hellfire Peninsula.
Current Portals in Orgrimmar compared to Portal Room:
- Hellfire Peninsula — Nothing
- Blasted Lands — Nothing
- (Nothing, see below) — Silvermoon
- Ashran — Ashran
- New Dalaran — Azsuna (but… why? gif)
- 2nd New Dalaran — Old Dalaran
- Dazar’alar — Dazar’alor
- (Jade Forest by the blimp) – Jade Forest
Removed New Dalaran Portals compared to Portal Room:
- Shrine of Two Moons — Nothing
- Undercity ---- Nothing, but the Zepplin tower still has one
- Thunder Bluff — Nothing, can just portal back to Daz
- Silvermoon — Silvermoon
- Shattrath — Shattrath
- Wrymrest Temple — (Old Dalaran works)
- Caverns of Time — Nothing (removed from Old Dal too)
- Dalaran Crater — Nothing
We lost a portal to New Dalaran, gained one to Old Dalaran. We got a shiny new room (good job art team!) and we lost… Five portals.
The time difference from Uldum to CoT instead of just a direct portal to CoT is ~3 minutes, per toon you are taking down there for your Mog/Pets/Mounts.
The time difference for Alliance between Dalaran Crater and Twilight Highlands with manual flight is about 6 minutes. “That’s crazy…” some say, “…just take the flight path!” … 9 minutes.
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I can’t help but feel that this change, internally, was discussed in much the same way as Ion falsely claiming that “not enough people do Legacy content to warrant Legion to be included” (when the interval for Legacy Raid Loot flagging was 10, rather than the day-before sneaked in change of 11).
That, for some backwards reason, the removal or change of conveniences that negatively impact one or more sections of the playerbase (ahem, roleplayers) could be positive.
Spoiler: no. It isn’t a positive change. The idea that it somehow “reintroduces the lost feeling of a larger world” simply isn’t true, as it doesn’t impact new players from experiencing for the first time, only adding convenience to those who have seen it time and time again - and deleting player agency (the choice to digest content or the world as you will over several times of playing through it) is the antithesis of positive.
Count me positively salty that I wasn’t allowed to go back into Antorus to try getting the Scythe of the Unmaker, or Taeshalah on my Warlock. Those things would look beautiful on my Wrathguard… if he could still dualwield, anyway.
Point is we should be allowed choice without external removals having to force it.
I’ve RP walked all the way from Orgrimmar to Thousand Needles before. I’ve gone on foot through both continents on a low level Hunter to get rare pets.
That was my choice to do with my time.
It’s also my choice to utilize the tools allowed to me by the game to let me go farm Deathwing.
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Now wait, if this is sarcasm, I’d just like to point out that the new rooms do look really nice. The art and music are the only things I’m still continually impressed about in this game, lets not drag them down with everything else.
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No no, not sarcasm. It was gorgeous, when I saw it, I was all excited and was telling people on my bnet list about how awesome it looks. That was before I learned what it cost the players, but that isn’t on the Art Team, they did their job wonderfully.
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Same. They really want us to be there apparently
That’s the usual Blizzard response of “immersion” to justify removing any convenient means of travel, but even so, you’re not being consistent about it. If the developers want “the world to feel a bit bigger,” then by your logic, no portals would expand the world tremendously, too. That means you should get rid of hearthstones, summoning stones, and flight paths, too; however, the developers know that would destroy the player base, for sure.
So, I’m not sure why the removal of our current portals is in the making, just to “make Azeroth feel larger,” when, actually, their usage allows for the convenience of players to be immersed longer in locations without spending unnecessary travel time to those locations.
The difficulty in getting to somewhere has nothing to do with this; what’s important is the quality of time spent playing in Azeroth. Most players would rather be killing or farming something than just looking at scenery pass by them because they want “the world to feel bigger.” Not only is it tedious, but it almost guarantees that most players will go “AFK” while in transit. Where’s the immersion in that?
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Definitely bigger, but it means even less player involvement. If I have to fly across an entire continent, I will select my destination, Get up from the computer, go do chores or play a different game or make a snack, and come back 10-15 min later when I have arrived.
It actually disengages me more than porting.
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You are mistaking my post for defending this, don’t do that…
Also, I’m not saying “just take the flight point.” Are you replying to the right poster? Or reading what I have been posting in this thread the entire time?
I’m already aware of the changes before you sent that. It was a quick copy and paste because someone was making their travel longer even before Blizz does.
I have to agree with the general tone of feedback here. Removing convenience does nothing more than dissuade me from going back to old content I would otherwise enjoy.
More portals means more convenience which means I’m more likely to go experience old dungeons and raids for transmog, pets, mounts, or just nostalgia. Add to that the convenience portals offer when completing various holiday “collection” tasks like the Lunar Festival’s elder coins, and making folks fly/run more just means I’m less likely to bother.
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