Stop removing portals

[Concequence-malorne (Concequence)]

Bornakk, I have spent a lot of my time collecting portal items, Dalaran Rings, Portal Tabards, Timeless Island portal, Pandaria Teleports, I have every single portal possible… And I rely heavily on the remaining portals at those locations, to quickly get me from anywhere I am, to anywhere I want to be instantly. I find no reward in travel in old content. I require speed, to get everything done.

It seems rather counter productive to remove more than a decade of portal locations, which people use as routes to places and have done so forever. If you plan to “improve” the portals, taking them away is not improving. You are making things difficult for people who have never had this difficulty in this area, and now only see this as an obstacle. You are putting up artificial hurdles. It does not make the world larger, it makes it annoying.

[Spanky-zangarmarsh]

PS- flying from Uldum to CoT does not make the world feel BIGGER. It makes it feel more tedious.

ALT - TAB FTW.

I would go right to the FP and select the FP near COT and tab out.

During content droughts when the only thing to do is looking for rejects, level alts, or mount runs. I think I might spend my $15 on Netflix instead.

[Coril-deathwing]

I… um… do you play the game? People will just stop going to those places.

[Calaiyse-veknilash]

No it doesn’t feel bigger it feels annoying. I love to do old content for achies and things but if I can’t get there easily then I won’t do it at all. So odd to remove something that enables you to get to past content easily so you can do it. You guys just keep making it harder and harder to do the few things left to do

[Concequence-malorne (Concequence)]

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).

This brings up a wonderful point. Why do we not have a “portal” bar yet. We had one for Pandaria dungeons. And then we have a plethora of portal items. I pride myself in my massive portal item collection. Draenor Spire portal, Draenor Hearthstone, Deathgate, Regular Hearth, Zulduzar Docks Ring, Dalaran Ring 1, Dalaran Ring 2, Argent Tournament Tabard, Black Temple Ring, Pandaria Dungeon Bar, Timeless Island Port, BRD Mole Machine, Brawl Ring, Cloak of Coordination…

Why would it be bad to have a Pandaria style portal bar that brings up a list of the quick travel portals you’ve obtained?

[Hardwire-velen (Hardwire)]

If blizzard wants to get rid of the Dalaran portals and the MOP portals just put them all in the new portal room. Then everyone would hang in .ORG/SW like they want them to. Everyone would be happy then, but maybe that makes too much sense

I wouldn’t be happy, and I’m sure a lot of others wouldn’t be happy, because not everyone wants to hang out in SW or Org no matter how much the devs want to shove us all there.

[Concequence-malorne (Concequence)]

If blizzard wants to get rid of the Dalaran portals and the MOP portals just put them all in the new portal room. Then everyone would hang in .ORG/SW like they want them to. Everyone would be happy then, but maybe that makes too much sense

I wouldn’t be happy, and I’m sure a lot of others wouldn’t be happy, because not everyone wants to hang out in SW or Org no matter how much the devs want to shove us all there.

The problem is a lot of us spent a TON of cash on Dalaran Rings… SPECIFICALLY so we could quickly get to those portals whenever we wanted to.

[Vhx-kiljaeden]

But I am dumbfounded why they want to funnel everyone into Stormwind/Orgrimar and away from the other capitals.

There really is no need for other capital cities than SW/Org. Yea for story purposes, or RP purposes, it’s nice to have individual cities but they should restrict the “capital city” category to the 2 main cities already. Give other purposes to the other cities, enrich the story behind each and give them back a unique status, but factions don’t need multiple capital cities anymore.

[Concequence-malorne (Concequence)]

But I am dumbfounded why they want to funnel everyone into Stormwind/Orgrimar and away from the other capitals.

There really is no need for other capital cities than SW/Org. Yea for story purposes, or RP purposes, it’s nice to have individual cities but they should restrict the “capital city” category to the 2 main cities already. Give other purposes to the other cities, enrich the story behind each and give them back a unique status, but factions don’t need multiple capital cities anymore.

They fail to realize a lot of us have a favorite capital city. A lot of us prefer to be in a less populated place.

[Nandinna-shadowmoon]

Has anyone noticed that all the people who vehemently defended blizzard & kissed their bacteria ridden boots 24/7 are gone? They kinda left when all the “layoffs” happened. Sometimes, good things happen! No Flying & no portals is not a good things.

[Huneypot-runetotem]

My diatribe since I found out about the removal of portals has been, “I pay for this!” I pay real world money to play a game that is looking for ways to anger me, for no good reason. Blizzard is losing subscriptions in droves. Why do this?

[Nillah-uldaman (Nillah)]

There really is no need for other capital cities than SW/Org.

The only reason we need is that we want to go to the other cities and hang out.

[Dunkleosteus-area-52]

I don’t see them “giving other purposes to the other cities,” as they seem to be having difficulty putting out good, widely-enjoyed content at a pace satisfying enough for most players. If they have the resources, I’d 100% agree with you, but I doubt they do. So I’d prefer that they:

1. Leave the choice in and
2. stop removing choices

It’s fine that the other capitols exist, they should have portals to them and travel should be easy.

Leave that difficult travel crap to Classic WoW. That’s part of “that world.”

Because with the new forums I’m apparently a “new user” and can’t post again, here’s my comment to Don from later:

A lot of people argued for “compromise” when the Great Flying Debate occurred in WoD. The “compromise” we got was generally awful–flying is brought into the game way, way after the content has grown grossly stale. Flying should be a bonus and a convenience factor for alts after you’ve already “Earned” it by playing through the content on your main, not something you get when Blizzard decides; “Okay, it’s been long enough, they can fly now.”

Never enter negotiations at the middle point. Stand at your extreme, let them argue theirs, and compromise is between the two. Coming in as a “moderate” just lets extremists pull you into their zone.

[Aldebaran-thrall]

Removing the shrine portals sounds like a seriously bad idea. I don’t want to have to set my hearth stone to shrine to go to old dal/ shattrah, if those will even still be a thing.

[Donhorn-icecrown]

If I could suggest a compromise to help with the perceived convenience balance issue

As someone pointedly mentioned earlier, this is not something that a compromise should be reached on, simply because there’s no beginning benefit to the removal, let alone a reason for said removal.

I’d rather they pull back the Room for now, keep the portals up, and split up some more wings for miscellaneous portals in a later rendition of said Room. Waygate them if they must, since Pathfinder-type solutions seem to be the only way to do it. ._.

The main reason I even suggested a compromise is because I’m sure Blizzard is pretty dead set on going forward with this the same way they were with removing flying despite that not really being a problem. They met us half way with adding pathfinding, so I’m offering up a suggestion for a halfway point for this. I’d prefer if they only removed the redundant city portals and left the miscellaneous ones alone (as I said at the beginning of my post) but also wanted to offer up an alternative that I’d personally find acceptable. I can understand the desire from the devs for us to experience the world, and my suggestion is to use reward that experience with convenience as opposed to having an extreme in either direction.

At this point I’ve just accepted that no matter how much we complain the devs are going to plug their ears and go forward with what they want to do regardless. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t complain, just that we should offer suggestions with our complaints that work with what the devs stubbornly think is the best way forward instead of against it. At this point a compromise at least feels like it could be given a second thought. Anything else is just going to be handwaved away.

[Locknlöl-thrall]

Why can’t we just have a normal portal room/NPC like literally every single other MMO has? It would even help like a gold sink. Put one in every major city and people can just have its HS wherever the hell they want.

I honestly can’t understand how this is an issue that needs to be solved. The less time I spend traveling (Alt Tabbed out of the game), the more time I spend actually doing stuff I find fun and/or want to do.

[Hardwire-velen (Hardwire)]

What new person in management thinks “time spent in game” is the same thing as “time spent playing the game”?

I think it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a number to parade in front of stockholders as “player engagement”. The people holding the purse strings won’t know if we’re actually engaged in playing, or engaged in watching someone else play another game on YouTube while we’re on a flight path.

[Kainga-amanthul]

What if you don’t meet the level requirement to use the cataclysm portals?

if you don’t meet the requirement to use the cata portals, then nothing has changed.

I hope you’re not as dumb as you’re acting.
Of course things have changed for alts who are too low level to use the Cataclysm portals. You have been touting the convenience of the Uldum portal as a replacement for using the CoT portal.

Lowbies can presently use the CoT portal to access Tanaris, now they will be unable to portal there at all.

[Aquaserge-cenarius (Aquaserge)]

The removal of some of the portals is fine, as there can be cases of redundancy. For instance, why have a portal to Wyrmrest Temple if there is a portal to Northrend Dalaran? Do we need a portal to Hellfire Peninsula if there is a portal to Shattrath? A portal to Karazhan may not be necessary for Alliance players as it is Horde. There is some bloat when it comes to portals, but when it comes to Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, the more the better.

This game has become MASSIVE in size. If you aren’t a Mage, or turned yourself into a psudo-Mage by being an Engineer and also collecting every “teleport” bag item and piece of equipment you can get your hands on (I have almost completely filled a 32 slot bag with these items, btw), getting around goes from being “expansive and alive” to just down right tedious, frustrating, and a major factor when deciding if doing something should be a one time thing or a repeated action.

The game is going to keep growing, and by limiting easy access to major legacy content, I would argue it shrinks the game and makes it feel less alive. Why go to Iron Forge if there is no quick access? It doesn’t offer anything special over Stormwind, and if I can’t get there quickly, I’m not going to bother. As it stands I go to Iron Forge and even old Darnassus because of its aesthetics and change of scenery over Stormwind, but I do it because I can get there quickly and also get back to what I want to do just as quickly. I fear that by removing these portals all together, you will basically turn them into an even bigger ghost town.

So here are some suggestions:

• Keep the portals for IF, Darnassus, Exodar, TB, UC, and SMC
• Portal to Shattrath
• Portal to Caverns of Time (it is a MAJOR content hub…)
• Portal to Northrend Dalaran
• Keep all Cataclysm portals in their place
• Change the portals to Pandaria to go to the Shrines in Vale once you out level the content
• Portal to respective Ashran establishment (or even better, just our garrisons…)
• Portal to Broken Isles Dalaran
• Portal to Boralus / Dazar’alor

I realize the portal to Silithus will likely die once BfA is over.

I would argue to say keep the Dalaran Crater and Karazhan portals, but that’s because Kalimdor and EK are a big problem when it comes to getting around. These zones are huge, have tons of content across them, and the Cataclysm portals don’t do much.

When Legion hit you neutered most of their classes of their utility and quality of life spells, only to later come back and say you went a bit overboard. Learn from this mistake, and realize that in a game of this magnitude we need a reasonable amount of flexibility in our travels. KO’ing the two largest landmasses in WoW is not flexibility.

EDIT: I think it’s fine to only offer a single portal back to the portal room from the “Capital Cities” of each expansion. No need for 15 different hubs. Other portals, such as Dalaran Crater, Karazhan, and Caverns of Time should be a one way ticket.

[Vicktoria-area-52 (Vicktoria)]

But that is why blizzard is putting it there, that’s there excuse. They don’t want people sitting around at the shrine or new Dalaran.