Blizzard's excessive use of Portals

[Deleted]

Also you could decide to form a guild that is called...like.."The Amish people of Azeroth" and denounce all quality of modern life and only do it the way it once was and apparently some people liked. With CRZ and all (damn, also a modern thing)...well...with...SOME luck and effort you find like minded people. I mean, the idea gets tossed around a lot here how awesome everything was back then, so it could work.

This would most likely attract a bunch of people for two hours. Then they find out its actually not what they want and they find something else to complain about.

TLDR: People dont know what they want

[Rudkobing]

You do know I've only made 5000 mages. So, yeah, I like using portals. ALOT.

[Deleted]

I'm glad it doesn't, as portal hopping is tacky.

I'm guessing it's simply a matter of laziness as you say OP, because nearly every expansion story does start out with players arriving via physical methods. Legion is really the only one where we arrive to the island via portal right off the bat.

Or you know, BC's dark portal, WoD's portal... Wait, that's 3/6, which is 50%. How did "the only one" become 50%?

[Feel The Power]

Now I know that a lot of you have been to Northrend and Ulduar countless times in the past, you've probably seen every nook and cranny and you'd much rather have a teleport, but look at this from a new player's perspective. Chances are he's leveled up with a friend through dungeon spam, he probably hasn't even seen half, if even a third of the world Azeroth has to offer. For him or her, going on a journey to Ulduar could offer scenery they've never seen before, which adds to the rpg feeling of the game. With a teleporter they just go and do their business, then hearthstone back to Stormwind to afk. It's so unimaginative!

I think Blizz knows at this point that most of the people who play at this point have been around for a while. Also from my own experience from playing this game a long long time (as well as visiting this site a long time) that a good portion of people either A. Just want to get quests over and done with asap, and/or B. don't really care much about scenery or exploring, which I always found extremely sad. I totally understand what you're saying, but I don't really find it to be unimaginative...more just that I feel Blizz knows people want to get cracking on new stuff asap and that brand new people who never traveled to Ulduar before are quite few in the minority over people who have been there a thousand times.

[Jakisuaki]

OP, are you complaining about portals opened by NPC's in quest lines? If so, I agree with you.

If you're talking about a major city having a portal to everywhere, then no I don't agree.

OP needs to clarify, because it looks like this thread has derailed.

I'm very much against portals being used (excessively) without, at the very least, some kind of minor questline that helps establish the portal. I know mages are all powerful teleporting boogaloos, but for the sake of immersion the prospect of travel time is more important than mages being able to conveniently open portals everywhere.

When it comes to capital cities/hubs, I agree that having a portal network could benefit the game, these portals connect capital cities. I am ok with this. Comparing the latter to the former here, it would be equivalent to clicking on an object in a city and marking the specific point in a zone that you want to teleport to. No penalty.

[ryudaraku]

Mechanically Portals are to make the quality of life of the players better by not having to spend half an hour traveling from point A to point B. No I don't need to spend longer going to a place than I actually spend at it.

Narrative Wise Portals are required for anything to get done in any sort of reasonable time frame. Else Wyrnn's Funeral would have had Anduin, Genn and a bunch of nameless guards.

[Jakisuaki]

You do know I've only made 5000 mages. So, yeah, I like using portals. ALOT.

Because it's convenient or because it's fun?

[Deleted]

I'm very much against portals being used (excessively) without, at the very least, some kind of minor questline that helps establish the portal. I know mages are all powerful teleporting boogaloos, but for the sake of immersion the prospect of travel time is more important than mages being able to conveniently open portals everywhere.

When it comes to capital cities/hubs, I agree that having a portal network could benefit the game, these portals connect capital cities. I am ok with this. Comparing the latter to the former here, it would be equivalent to clicking on an object in a city and marking the specific point in a zone that you want to teleport to. No penalty.

I dont think immersion means what you think it means

There is plenty of stuff in wow that ruins immersion. Such as for example repair shops with no forge or anvil near them.

Portals however that has always been in the game and fits the lore does not ruin immersion

[Trollfat]

Portals are fine, though it would be nice to have a little lore or explanation behind them. Like if in the broken isles we had to offer up a demon soul or something to power each use. Or place a couple of npc mage slaves to hold it open for everybody.

Just plopping down an infinite portal doesn't make sense lore wise. And many of the portals in game simply appear after quest completion - we don't actually see the portals being opened. They could at the very least add them to the quest log.

Tldr portal functionality is fine but portal lore is lacking

[Trumpcat]

"Betrayal"... talk about twisting the facts. Some conscience you must have if accepting a political faction with a leader who has comitted genocide (Gilneas), slaughtered civilians, razed towns (Hillsbrad) and spread an UNDEAD PLAGUE is okay for you. Not to mention the many other atrocities of that political faction. And you call the refusal to let that rattling snake in Dalaran, which they had already stolen from to create a weapon for mass destruction a "betrayal". Disgusting.

[Jakisuaki]

Traveling through old zones without any new stuff going on is just a waste of game time.

For some players, old zones offer plenty of new impressions. It's not fair to them. If spending an extra 10-20 minutes on traveltime to make sure everyone enjoys the beauty of the game, then that's a worthy sacrifice. Hel, some may even get some enjoyment out of it.

[Deleted]

For some players, old zones offer plenty of new impressions. It's not fair to them. If spending an extra 10-20 minutes on traveltime to make sure everyone enjoys the beauty of the game, then that's a worthy sacrifice. Hel, some may even get some enjoyment out of it.

A few people might, for most its a waste if time. Balance the scales right?

[Trollfat]

"Betrayal"... talk about twisting the facts. Some conscience you must have if accepting a political faction with a leader who has comitted genocide (Gilneas), slaughtered civilians, razed towns (Hillsbrad) and spread an UNDEAD PLAGUE is okay for you. Not to mention the many other atrocities of that political faction. And you call the refusal to let that rattling snake in Dalaran, which they had already stolen from to create a weapon for mass destruction a "betrayal". Disgusting.

This is a portal thread, I think you mistaked this for the Jaina thread which has already been made

[Decisive The Hallowed]

Probably because we are in the hands of a Archmage? I would say a powerful Mage such as Khadgar would be able to take Portals to anywhere he likes.

[Lilija]

I'm always amazed how people try to make up definitions of rpg or mmo just to justify their personal preference. Portals have nothing to do with a game being an rpg. They are within the particular world rules.

Besides, in most cases in WoW everyone is free to chose if they want to use the portal or get to their destination walking... they can even walk backwards if that's what fun for them.

It's the same bs that ppl whined about when flight paths were automaticly discovered around Cataclysm - that supposingly it breaks immersion. So Blizzard reverted the change and I must say that for me personally it broke leveling alts completely. But I don't go around saying that the current design of old world flight paths I don't like is against WoW being an mmo or an rpg. I just don't like it because it makes my alt leveling less fun. Note, the problem is mostly about old world because the majority of new quest design sends you to further destinations with a portal or flight master. And for me this design is much more natural and engaging. I don't need to make the ride on my own to be more immersed. Tbh, I am more immersed by NPCs helping me get to the destination they want me it - especially if it's logical for them to have the means to send me there.

[DarthMonk79]

You can probably blame the player base for portals. I mean how many complaints have there been about slow FPs, waiting on boats/zep's. OMG I have to wait till level 20 now to get a ground mount, it cost me 5gold to learn to ride my mount. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, WHINE, WHINE, WHINE. SO how does blizzard respond, they give us portals. Which people have made plenty of post and tweets about. They've decreased the cost of learning to ride/fly by so much and lowered the levels needed a ton as well and people will still complain about it. Yes I agree it gets rid of immersion, but unfortunately those that think that are either the minority or aren't as vocal as those that complain about how long it takes to do anything. I mean look what they did with leveling, it used to take forever and people started complaining about it. Now its almost blink and you're done and they are complaining about that.

[Jakisuaki]

"Betrayal"... talk about twisting the facts. Some conscience you must have if accepting a political faction with a leader who has comitted genocide (Gilneas), slaughtered civilians, razed towns (Hillsbrad) and spread an UNDEAD PLAGUE is okay for you. Not to mention the many other atrocities of that political faction. And you call the refusal to let that rattling snake in Dalaran, which they had already stolen from to create a weapon for mass destruction a "betrayal". Disgusting.

I've changed the phrase, people were bitching about it and derailing the topic. Now please stop talking about it, I was using it bread and butter for my example text, nothing more, save it for another topic!

[Snuffleupagus]

There was another place that had a lot of portals. Used to be called Draenor.

[Deleted]

You can probably blame the player base for portals. I mean how many complaints have there been about slow FPs, waiting on boats/zep's. OMG I have to wait till level 20 now to get a ground mount, it cost me 5gold to learn to ride my mount. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, WHINE, WHINE, WHINE. SO how does blizzard respond, they give us portals. Which people have made plenty of post and tweets about. They've decreased the cost of learning to ride/fly by so much and lowered the levels needed a ton as well and people will still complain about it. Yes I agree it gets rid of immersion, but unfortunately those that think that are either the minority or aren't as vocal as those that complain about how long it takes to do anything. I mean look what they did with leveling, it used to take forever and people started complaining about it. Now its almost blink and you're done and they are complaining about that.

You are living 10 years in the past. You are talking like these are recent changes.

[Kaleredar]

For some players, old zones offer plenty of new impressions. It's not fair to them. If spending an extra 10-20 minutes on traveltime to make sure everyone enjoys the beauty of the game, then that's a worthy sacrifice. Hel, some may even get some enjoyment out of it.

Yeah, because EVERYONE was just so enamored with Blizzard making us appreciate the Draenor zones from the ground, right?


And maybe Blizzard thought to themselves "Hmmm... Would it be weird if we sent players back, in a quest, to Northrend, and everything was still the same as if it were being attacked by the Lich king?" and concluded "Maybe we shouldn't remind them that these places are 8 years old and haven't changed all, because that would totally break the immersion more than giving a player a portal there would."