I remember when they took something out of WoD (and “all expansions going forward”) and players didn’t take kindly to it. Makes me wonder if we’ll get all the portals back after we complete a long, involved, two-part mega-achievement.
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Once again, anything to drive up how long it takes to get anywhere and thus time logged in. Maybe instead of this bull to maximize our time ‘logged in’ to World of Taboutcraft the devs could make actual content.
Making all of the World except SW/Org desolate doesn’t make the world bigger and certainly doesn’t make it better.
Plus it feels like my loyalty isn’t being rewarded. Instead of “Hey I know a cool way to get there because I’ve been playing for years” that makes you feel like a local you have to get on the freeway with everyone else.
Also, you guys are scoring an own goal in terms of server load at launch days. Having everybody in the same place ain’t helpful to stability or responsiveness when everybody is on.
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Flying anywhere is not fun.
I tab out almost anytime I fly anywhere. If its a long flight I go downstairs and do something else and log back in later.
Even auto-flight, can’t count the amount of times Ive been flying somewhere gotten distracted and ended up dying way out in the middle of the ocean. I can’t even tell you how removing portals makes me feel because the language I use would be against the tos.
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What even is the mass majority? What kind of content do you do in-game on your main that you feel the need to look down on how other players choose to engage the game?
You are seriously underestimating the amount of time and effort that collectors put into this game and the number of characters they do these runs on. People go to Mists and CoT pretty frickin’ often if you haven’t read through the last 10 pages of this thread. 2 minutes might be fine for one destination for one character, but when players have mapped out routes across the entirety of 9 landmasses for running multiple characters, that time adds up for each destination. Sorry dude, not everyone enjoys the game the same way you do, why do you care to make the game less fun for them? When my friends end up quitting the game because they no longer find the game worth investing time in, because the stuff they like to do is now no longer feasible against their available play time, that’s when the world feels smaller.
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All three of these locations still have portals in the new Portal Room… The specific locations for Alliance are Dalaran (Northrend), Shattrath City, and Paw’don Village in Jade Forest. Mages can also teleport you to these locations.
The complaint isn’t about these locations. It is about locations that Mages cannot port you to and are more difficult to get to without a portal. Kharazan for the Horde. Lordaeron for the Alliance. And the Cavern of Time.
I just came across this post, so apologies for repeating topics that I’m sure have been discussed. I still want to throw my two coppers in, though.
First, I’ll point out that the portal to Pandaria in Org has always gone to the Jade Forest, not the Shrine. The portal in Legion Dalaran went to the Shrine, however - was that removed?
Second, I’m a big proponent of time/risk = reward. I don’t have a problem with the idea of taking a bit of time to get somewhere that I want to go. I’m not saying I prefer ground over flight - it still takes time to fly across a zone. If there’s a reasonable payoff for me to take the time to go somewhere, I’ll do it.
That said, I absolutely HATE it when abilities are taken away from us. If I’ve been able to hope through a couple of portals to get somewhere for the last few expansions, I should be able to continue doing that. Removing them now after they’ve been there is just bad service, bad design, and quite frankly, Not Fun. It’s literally the sort of thing that people point at as proof that Blizzard is Anti-Fun.
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Presently the Dalaran portals are gone on the ptr
I just can’t comprehend the removal for the Vale portal at all for getting to Pandaria. It’s the central zone for quick access to getting around the entire continent.
I go from Vale to farm the four world bosses, I go up north to do Mogu’shan Vaults. I fly west as far as I can to do Throne of Thunder/Thunder Isle. I enter Siege of Orgrimmar directly from the Vale.
You know where I spend 0 time? Jade Forest, lol. Compared to all the other zones, there’s barely anything useful there. And if I did need to spend time there, I’d either just easily fly east from the Vale - or take the portal to the village.
I valued my time on the Timeless Isle so I farmed rep for the trinket there. Now my only two ports will be to Timeless Isle - which is ridiculously east of everything I otherwise do in Pandaland…or enter through Jade Forest, which is not as far east but still pretty far east compared to everything I’m doing.
Like, let’s be real, we’re at the point that there are so many continents and worlds and expansions we should just have a hearth to the major centralized hub of each one to get around.
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I respect your opinion for that is how you like to play this game and you pay for your subscription. I on the other hand like the portals for I do not have unlimited time to do the things I like to do in this game.
If they leave things as is, you have the option of never using a portal, thus never losing the way you want to play the game. On the other hand, if they remove the portals, it does impact how I want to play this game, and like you, I pay for my subscription.
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Removing the portals from older content is yet another terrible mistake, denying player agency and artificially dragging out time played. Removing content that players enjoy and depend on is never a good idea. I see that Blizzard continues to make poor design decisions and enrage what’s left of their dwindling player base.
I have loved WoW for many years, but I’m just about done. It’s not fun anymore.
Death by a thousand cuts.
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Please forgive me for not reading all the way through the thread. I came in through Wowhead’s Blue tracker.
“Why do Mages get portals” was asked. I have to assume the answer was to provide income for mages that other classes didn’t get to pay for Classic reagents. Because my only other answer is “Bad Game Design”.
Traveling is dull. It doesn’t make the world bigger. It’s an excuse to either set my flying mount on a path and AFK, or get to a flight point and on a bird and AFK.
I have my Garrison Hearthstone, my Hearthstone set to 7 Stars, my cape that ports to Stormwind and my New Dalaran Hearthstone all in my main backpack because I Use them all.
If you want to make the world seem bigger - add random stuff that might happen on the road. Don’t give us dead time in the middle of the game we’re playing. Please.
Maximize portals - don’t minimize them.
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and I wouldnt need to repeat the same answer over and over again if that poster would stop repeating the same lame excuses
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At first when I heard we were going to get a portal room in our main cities, my reaction was “this is cool, all portals in one spot!”. However, I did not know that getting a portal room meant that all the portals that already existed would be removed. A portal room might have been a popular player request, but I feel pretty confident to say that removing existing ones to get it was not.
Please reconsider!
You ask if fewer portals make the world feel bigger, it doesn’t, it just makes it so some places I go to now I won’t bother with in the future. In fact, this decision might even be enough to make me stop traveling in WoW altogether as I may just unsub.
The different existing hubs and their portals make the world feel alive! There are countless of times where I have used my legion Dalaran hearthstone, arrived in Dalaran to a gathering of players. One fun such memory was in the fall, I zone in to legion Dalaran and I am met by a sight of traveling yak parade. I was originally zoning in to use the portal to wyrmrest temple, but ended up jumping on my yak and joined the yak parade in rp walk circling Dalaran. I have also had plenty random encounters zoning into mop’s shrine.
Please don’t take away what we already got! If you want to add a portal room in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, great! But please keep it as ADDING something to the game, and not as a way to remove hubs we use still.
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I agree that Blizzard should be doing more to support roleplay in their roleplay game. Let’s face it, during content droughts what kinds of players are most likely to stick around? Roleplayers, collectors, and achievement-hunters. Blizzard ought to give those types of players a high (not exclusively, of course) priority when designing content because they are going to be around longer, and they don’t need as much to keep them interested as say, high end raiders. Removing portals hurts collectors and achievement-hunter, and possibly roleplayers if they just want to get to where they’re going as fast as possible so that they can spend more time in roleplay.
One thing Blizzard could do to add RPG elements to travel without removing speed - switch (most) portals for “traditional” forms of Azerothian travel. Ships and zeppelins, make use of the Ironforge airfield, etc. Allow two options:
(1) Talk to the dockmaster/balloonmaster/whatever and charter instant and safe travel to your destination for a small fee. Would work exactly like portals do today. Heck, some of the travel option could be portals, just ask the portalmaster for a direct and stable portal.
(2) Simply take the ship, zeppelin, mostly-stable portal, aircraft, etc. and it will transport you through a loading screen, BUT has a reasonably low chance of triggering a scenario for all passengers. Your ship gets attacked by pirates or a kraken! The zeppelin runs into a heavy storm! The portal’s connection was interrupted by a mana wyrm swarm! You then have to complete the very brief scenario, loot a little bit of gold, materials, or old-content transmog out of it, and then the game zips you on your way to your intended destination. Make the scenarios fun, and people might actually hope those pirates or mana wyrms interrupt their travel this time.
With both instant and roleplay travel options available, Blizzard could make things better for more players, without sacrificing anything for other players.
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I got a $100 bill in my wallet that says they ARENT replacing ALL of the removed portals. That would be too convenient for the player base.
And even if they did theres always that lovely 15/30 minute hearthstone CD to drag out play time anyway.
We ALL know what this was really about.
They didnt remove those MoP portals for MY convenience and they KNOW IT!
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That’s not a fast travel problem; that’s a lack of content problem. Or possibly a slow loading screen problem. But if folks are really spending more time on loading screens than doing world content, the solution isn’t to remove the portals, forcing folks to use flight paths and slower means of travel. As evidenced in this thread, all that does is encourage folks to alt tab away and risk getting disconnected because they’re now playing a different game.
Exactly.
Edited to add that this is Truthspeaker. I switched alts because I keep running out of likes. 
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I don’t plan to stick in this thread - but I love ideas like this.
You want to make us experience the world, I want to. Please let the world be worth experiencing.
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So, would your work at Blizzard feel more rewarding if you were commuting from let’s say Burbank, Indio, or Lancaster to Irvine?
Because that is literally what you just compared it to. How much work would you get done in your car heading down the 5 South from Burbank?
I want to get to my destination so I can PLAY THE ACTUAL GAME.
Travel time ≠ content.
In fact, if I’ve only got 20min to jump on and get a few things done, I’m less likely going to log on when I know most of it is going to be spent traveling.
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Yes because drowning in the sea when the boat despawned was so awesome. Or finding yourself on a boat in the middle of stonetalon mountains was so wonderful. No thanks!
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If you want to remove portals to the Shrines in Pandaria. Do what you should have done in MoP. Add Zeppelins and boats to Pandaria, honestly the portals to jade forest just do not work. Especially if you want to add more immersion or time played.