We think we want portals, but we don’t. Don’t you guys have mages?
Seriously, I’m sure Blizz is thinking that they’ll increase player online time by making them travel more, and/or that the world will appear more populated if we all have to go to the same spots to port, but the decision is a bad one. I really don’t think they’ll admit it’s a mistake and walk it back, despite the yuuuuuge thread in general discussion. Too bad, really.
I always come at things from a lore perspective. So I’m just salty they’re removing them from Dalaran. The MAGE city.
On one hand, I’m looking forward to the cleft of shadows being more RP friendly since there won’t be so much rando foot traffic passing through.
On the other, oof oof oof at everything that Blizz person said ![:woman_facepalming:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/woman_facepalming.png?v=6" ":woman_facepalming:")
Inb4 four months down the line…
“Blizzard is excited to announce Portals! We’ve heard you really miss the old days before you had to take long winding flightpaths! Portals now available account wide, purchasable from the in-gamestore! Now with a discount in celebration of Midsummer’s Festival!”
![:face_with_monocle:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/face_with_monocle.png?v=6" ":face_with_monocle:")
fishes monocle out of wine glass
“We know there’s a 5k+ posts thread about what you all think about Portals, but it’s not the feedback we were hoping for so please let us know what you think!”
“We know you’re pissed at this frankly baffling decision that completely missed the point of why the world is empty but we frankly dont care and are going to ignore the 5000+ post thread because it’s not what we want to hear.”
Yep, I did. I wrote a novel.
That is a literally insane response. How can you be that tone deaf? They have to know how that looks.
Nothing is more immersive than the city of mages not having portals.
Remember how in every new expansion there’s a questline or big thing of dialogue of finally getting to set up portals to get reinforcements and supplies from home base?
So what you’re saying is in 8.1.5 we’ll get a quest to open a portal to Blizz HQ so they can just pop a leg through to kick us in the butt without getting out of their chairs.
I’m hoping the next expansion gives us portals to Diablo 4 and Diablo 2 Remastered.
I wouldn’t dislike this portal room being implemented if it was a central hub of portals that connected to all the cities instead of just the two favorite childs. But we just lose so much without a gain here.
https://blizzardwatch.com/2019/03/04/blizzards-removal-several-portals-patch-8-1-5-unnecessary-change-poor-reasoning/
Blizzard Watch has a pretty good and pointed article on the portal removal.
Again Blizzard is so very clearly so disconnected with how MMOs are actually played it’s a wonder the game has lasted this long.
It’s as though they are purposefully ignoring the examples of MMOs with full very lively zones across the board that have far more convenient travel than WoW has ever had.
Because even if those games are successful, they see themselves as the best, and the trend setter. It doesn’t matter if other studios have non-objectively good ideas that work well. Blizzard isn’t gonna take advice from some Freshman, they’re Blizzard.
That entire company is run based on ego, and it’s all falling apart now. I hope they wake up eventually.
Its baffling to me that Blizzard hasn’t coopted and developed their own versions of Events (or Fates for those of us in FFXIV).
Or not even that, why not have WQ gradually start showing up all over the old world as the Faction War grows more and more.
This would have been the perfect expansion to make the old world relevant again for all players.
So I already posted in the big thread. Not like it matters. It’ll be buried along with the other few thousand posts.
I already pay with gold and have been for the past several months. This game isn’t worth paying for in its current state and the dev’s attitudes toward it make it clear why. WoW is like a mobile game now FFS. Making it more complicated to get to certain areas is not convenience. It’s a time sink to make those hours played go up so your investors are happy.
This is absolutely ridiculous to hear “Well the portals will be up while doing those quests!” Why aren’t they up all the time? Why don’t we have a portal to caverns of time any longer? Is there a reason it’s being removed? Why can’t you have a huge portal room with all the portals to everywhere and just keep adding to it over time? There’s no thought or care put into this. It’s just stupidity.
Honestly? The more I see their responses the more I feel it’s pure ego.
Blizzard seems too enamored with themselves to admit that many other games have a way better understanding of how to engage their players in older zones.
Is there a feature to block incoming whispers because otherwise I can’t see ever wanting to play on my mage after this change.