And you really thing that this could make the situation, with WoW loosing more and more RPG elements, better? This just won’t help at all, you just use flight paths, but no one will really pay attention at all, so they won’t admire their surroundings, it won’t excite players to explore moer etc…
You know, if it was always intended, why they add the portals then? Still if it wasn’t the problem back then, why now, I see no good outcome from “fixing” something that does not need it. You are not obliged to use them, no one is threatening you, so what is exactly the big issue here?
It is maybe just a few minutes of travelling, yeah, but added for no reason at all. It seems strange to me, that they are doing this when I have never seen anyone really protesting against too many portals in the game.
There are tons of RPGs and MMOs which have instant travelling and it does not break any immersion or taking any RPG aspects from the games.
I think it is one of WoW’s strengths, that its gameplay has peaks and valleys.
You have moments where you’re deeply concentrated and pressing buttons like a madman – like when you’re killing a boss.
And then you have moments where you’re chatting, checking the dungeon journal, looking up the achievements, waiting for a mob spawn, and so on. Being on a flight path, hanging out in Stormwind, the Timeless Isle, and so on, help facilitate these moments.
When I play Civilization VI, then I start the game and begin playing. And my gameplay engagement is consistently high until the moment when I close the game down.
WoW is different. It’s an MMORPG and it’s meant to be a world where you sometimes just hang out and chat and chill. In order to facilitate that there needs to be lulls in the gameplay. Moments where you aren’t spamming buttons like a madman. Traveling helps facilitate these lulls in gameplay. And those lulls are important.
I actually red both this and the more impressive US version. I simply canceled my intended login in WoW for today. I’m yet to find something positive about the change.
Is funny, as the selected few defending this change don’t have any issue speaking on behalf of the vast majority criticizing it. Then again, that was the case with flying in WoD too.
Ill become rich with this weird change.
I dont see much usefulness in that… sw and the ugly ogrimmar will remain the only place to go.
Probably i would have created this portal room in another city. Just to have a choice to visit it.
For the minor portals… no reason here too. Devs should have one. …
In classic i ran and gallopped and ill run and ill gallop with my mount. But in a 14 years old and tire game i dont want to go to cot by fly. I know kalimdor better than my home. Next step should be erasing fliyin with this thinking way.
I also love to hang out in the world or participate in RP events, but you have to understand that not all people find this exciting or relaxing, some of them can find it even extremely boring and this game does not say what is the best possible and efficient way how to enjoy it.
Players make their choices according to them not by by others’ point of views.
Removing some of the QoL changes, that were available for a long time, just seems like a really, really bad idea without any reason or positive outcome. If they want us to hang out in the world, explore etc, if there is any way, this is just not it. People will mostly be just annoyed by this, again.
But those lulls in game play should be chosen by players, not forced upon us. If I want to hang out and just chat either in guild or in /LFG I can do that whenever I want. Or I can do it during a transmog/mount farm run by sacrificing efficiency and time for being social or engaging something on my secondary monitor. MMORPGs are best when they have meaningful player choice, removing these portals removes some of those choices. Instead of having several different routes to a location there will now only be 1 or 2.
On top of that it actively disincentives doing old content by making it take longer. If I have a guild raid starting up in 30 minutes or I woke up too early and decide to play a little WoW the amount of travel time between destinations severely impacts my choices then.
Now there is a balance to be struck between having instant teleportation to anywhere you want in the world on one end and having to walk there unmounted on the other. But even the ones that gets brought up most often weren’t even direct teleports anyway. The Cavern of times portal still required you to fly down into the Cavern and then choose the dungeon you wanted to do. The closest of the portals that came to directly porting you to the dungeon is Karazhan but that could just be adjusted by porting you to a different place in the zone.
That’s very true. That’s why you still have some portals. Blizzard aren’t asking anyone to travel around on foot. By and large, we still have lots of means of fast travel to get around. So even the people who dislike traveling don’t have to endure it for more than a few minutes. To me that seems like a fair compromise between preserving the sense of space and location in an MMORPG and acknowledging some people’s desire for more immediate gameplay.
But why taking away the possibilities from the players, which were in the game for so long? I’d understand if they would not like to add so many portals in the future, but not this, especially for content so old. No one can really benefit from using these portals, so I still do not see the reasoning behind this.
Anyway I’ve played a lot MMOs and fast travel was not immersion-breaking nor it did make world seemed smaller. WoW has different problems, which destroys the immersion and gameplay…
i would not use the word driven, i would put it down to some sort of mental issue. and no, i dont understand why things are the way they are for LEGACY content.
if you do the task, you are entitled to it. or at the VERY least, you are entitled to a buff in your chance of it dropping. maybe the cold hard rules of mmorpgs cant apply in the current era. maybe thats why most of the “popular” games are other genres?
but who even created these “rules”? why do they need to be hard cast? does it effect the MMO? no. does it effect the RPG? no. so why do they need to exist when it burns people out.
again, we are not taking about current (bfa) or recent (legion) content. we are talking about LEGACY content. stuff that is at the newest, 2 and a half years old, up to FIFTEEN years old!!!
how does it effect ANYONE, if people are guaranteed a certain sword to drop in dire maul, or mana tombs, or the nexus etc? people wanting to withhold items from others who have put in the time, let me say again, PUT IN THE TIME of trying to get the item is selfish. they are not getting it for free. they are not getting an upgrade. it is not effecting you!
i am curious how classic will do tbh. i may try it. i am curious, but with the amount of time that current takes up, i am not sure how much i will be able to put into it. but my curiosity stems from this: so many people think classic will sort everything… i wonder have they taken into account the changes in their life and world that have occurred in the last 15 years? they now have bills, or a partner, or children or a job. i wonder how many will be able to stick classic, with the added fact that its all content we’ve already done. i’ll still try to play it, i did love TBC after all. but i dont know what realities will need to be factored in until i try it.
It’s funny when you think about it because surely, the older something is, the rarer and less accessible it’s likely to become, or at least I suppose that’s how things are in reality.
I have no problem with the current system. It keeps me busy.
in the physical world, i would agree with you 100%. but in a game where “rarity” is completely dictated by the developers, that arguement cant be used. and what is the point of really rare old stuff if almost noone has it? as in actually no one? as the best example, i wonder how many people STILL PLAYING have the aq black scarab? a few possibly, but how often do you see one? for example, i should never see one cause my server is dead. i dont even think anyone has it cause some mage apparently server changed over here, got it, and server changed away. they either remove something from the game, or stop with such stupid rng. although i am against content being removed anyway.
i would rather be busy doing something i wanted to do (pvp) than doing the same stuff im now bored of cause items wont drop. your argument is valid, but not in this context. like i said, in a digital product where EVERYTHING is controlled by the developer, such positions dont hold value.
I don’t disagree, the journey is important but removing transport hubs which is what portals are, feels retrograde. The journey in a MMORPG includes the arc of the story and the sense of progress toward destinations and goals. Dodging Hyenas in the Tanaris desert is what we had to do 10 years ago, I thought we’d moved on.
Think outside the Azeroth box and imagine a city or a country that would remove transport hubs.
In London for example: “Citizens of London, great news! We are shutting down the following stations; Clapham Junction, Waterloo, Victoria, Kings Cross, St Pancras, Liverpool Street, Paddington, Camden Town, Richmond, Wimbledon. Highbury & Islington and Brixton for your convenience. Enjoy your new found freedom to get stuck in horrible traffic.”
There would be riots. It makes no sense. Removing stuff that just works, is used by people and has never been a problem is just plain stupid. Blizzard has lost the plot.
Last time I checked, I didn’t have the option of flying to work on a dragon or riding an undead warhorse through the streets. Maybe you have a different experience there to me though.
Prefer portal, it will be faster to get from Europe to US or Japan.
And why they left horde portal do Zandalar? It is worst designed city in entire gaming history. Did you seen how much stairs it have? How hard it do ger from one point to another? Where are vendors? Who was thinking build a city like this witout fast travle option is a good idea in online game! Even Alliance have better acces to raid and dungeon zones in Zandalar than horde in they own town.
just watched a T&E video joking on exactly this. as he mentioned at the end about the horde entrance for BoD i thought i would look for it cause i have NO idea where it is. just found it now on map, and its on the OTHER SIDE OF THE CITY! xD its not even in a part of Dazar’alor that has anything else in it. its probably about as far north from the Great Seal, as the harbor is to the south -_-