Portals in Cataclysm

[Deleted]

Okay, let's be realistic for second here.

A game with such a huge map must have some kind of way to "fast travel", whether it's portals, goblin zeppelins, "queing up", flight masters or like in other games where you simply click on the map or pay a sum of money to an NPC to get a carriage and instantly end up at your location.

It's fun to explore the world the first time, but slowly it becomes boring and tedious, especially for older players. That's why as we level we learn faster, more efficient mounts, as we explore we find new flightpaths etc. UNLIKE some other games where you just click on the map, I think there's a balance here between fast travel and exploration.

The new LFG tool is excellent because it actually makes leveling in instances a viable alternative to questing. Would you rather be teleported to the instance within minutes and have your "immersion" ruined a little or not be able to do it AT ALL? Before the LFG change it was almost impossible to get a decent group for dungeons within a reasonable amount of time, okay maybe people ran a few of the dungeons, but nobody was ever in Dire Maul, Gnomeregan or Shattered Halls, most (active) players these days have already leveled to level cap, the low levels are generally alts and they prefer a speedy solo leveling, rather than spending 45 minutes looking for a group, then disbanding because nobody wants to go to summon or becaues of one wipe or ninja drama.

I'm not a casual player at all, but the LFG change was overall great. Now I can actually do the routine stuff like daily heroics faster.

The only alternatives (I can see) to this would be to make dungeons give 5 times more experience than they do now and remove all or 99% of experience from "boosting" by much higher levels, so people their own level would find it worth grouping up. Or, redesign the game so low level content actually MATTERS, cause right now everyone just wants to rush to 80. (But really that's not realistic for an old MMORPG, so hopefully they learn their lesson for the next.)

And even then there would be some problems, you'd still be qqing about how the game is too "casual" and low pop servers would still have trouble finding groups.

[Saksy2]

This was a triumph....

[warcrimes]

You've got a pretty exaggerated sense of the amount of time it takes to go places in the game. For example, it's five minutes TOPS from Orgrimmar to Undercity, thanks to zepplins. Thunderbluff is a little bit longer, but with flying mounts allowing you to no longer have to wait for a zepplin, is also five minutes tops, if that.

People cry about stuff taking 15-20 minutes when in reality it doesn't take anywhere near that long, especially not so when we can use flying mounts in old world.

and 310 speed will be trainable for anyone who doesnt have it yet i think

[Vitorog]

You dont have to use portals or any of that shit. You can walk all the way from Dalaran to SW or wherever.
But also you dont have to make other people do it, the ones that really dont want to take a hike through some bloody mouintains to get to the AH or a dungeon.
So, in the name of Explorers Azeroth-wide, less qq.

[Corgran]

Okay, let's be realistic for second here.

A game with such a huge map must have some kind of way to "fast travel", whether it's portals, goblin zeppelins, "queing up", flight masters or like in other games where you simply click on the map or pay a sum of money to an NPC to get a carriage and instantly end up at your location.

It's fun to explore the world the first time, but slowly it becomes boring and tedious, especially for older players. That's why as we level we learn faster, more efficient mounts, as we explore we find new flightpaths etc. UNLIKE some other games where you just click on the map, I think there's a balance here between fast travel and exploration.

The new LFG tool is excellent because it actually makes leveling in instances a viable alternative to questing. Would you rather be teleported to the instance within minutes and have your "immersion" ruined a little or not be able to do it AT ALL? Before the LFG change it was almost impossible to get a decent group for dungeons within a reasonable amount of time, okay maybe people ran a few of the dungeons, but nobody was ever in Dire Maul, Gnomeregan or Shattered Halls, most (active) players these days have already leveled to level cap, the low levels are generally alts and they prefer a speedy solo leveling, rather than spending 45 minutes looking for a group, then disbanding because nobody wants to go to summon or becaues of one wipe or ninja drama.

I'm not a casual player at all, but the LFG change was overall great. Now I can actually do the routine stuff like daily heroics faster.

The only alternatives (I can see) to this would be to make dungeons give 5 times more experience than they do now and remove all or 99% of experience from "boosting" by much higher levels, so people their own level would find it worth grouping up. Or, redesign the game so low level content actually MATTERS, cause right now everyone just wants to rush to 80. (But really that's not realistic for an old MMORPG, so hopefully they learn their lesson for the next.)

And even then there would be some problems, you'd still be qqing about how the game is too "casual" and low pop servers would still have trouble finding groups.

Portals =/= LFG, lets try to stay on topic here peeps

[thsevecha]

Last time I checked a game was supposed to be fun. Spending 30min to get to a place to use the AH or quest is NOT fun. If you don't like to take portals and like travelling around you can just do it. Blizzard is not making you use a portal if you don't want to. They are OPTIONAL. You can still mount up (take a flight path or even run...) and go wherever you want.

[Sinner563]

Travelling on foot in WoW is boring, and slow. I will most probably travel by flying mount in azeroth for short journeys, but I'm afraid the ability to either instantly portal to another continent OR FP to a faraway place will beat the tedium of flying manual (and slow) any day.

Now, if blizzard add a sportcar, or a jet plane, we can talk further. But right now, i don't like to feel like i'm moving 2 MPH.

[Qtulu]

The fewer portals the better.. Right now the world feels so small

[Corgran]

Travelling on foot in WoW is boring, and slow. I will most probably travel by flying mount in azeroth for short journeys, but I'm afraid the ability to either instantly portal to another continent OR FP to a faraway place will beat the tedium of flying manual (and slow) any day.

Now, if blizzard add a sportcar, or a jet plane, we can talk further. But right now, i don't like to feel like i'm moving 2 MPH.

Would be cool if Blizz added <insert cool name here> that could be fed to your mount or added to the fuel of your helicopter that would greatly increase the speed, but would create a debuff where you couldn't dismount for x time; like 1 minute

[Gamevizier]

Please do not add any portals.

This is a MMORPG and let the player travel between maps.

Joining any event(arena, bg, dungeon, raid)while you are jumping on Orgrimmar Bank is not cool. That's not Modern Warfare Game, select server and start headshotz!

...you know what? they should make a refference about Cpt.Price in Tol Barad prison...prisoner 627

[HammondQ]

Thanks for the info

For the record, I am against adding new portals. I'm tired of people just porting around bypassing which could turn to some world PvP action; except on my mage, that shit is a necessity

Edit, after having thought about this a little more, I think blizz should remove most of the portals in Dalaran and Shattrath, leaving only Org and SW

yeah bummer if they put more portals in you might not be able to grief as many people.

[Corgran]

yeah bummer if they put more portals in you might not be able to grief as many people.

You should have scrolled down and then you would have realized that I was joking about the mage comment. If I'm on my mage, I'm usually in STV trying to get some world PvP action going while in que for a BG. If I get asked for a port and they come to me, I'll gladly port them for free.

[PBitt]

I thought that at Blizzcon, they stated Deepholm would kind of be the 'central quest hub' for the expansion, and that while there are not cities each faction would have a major town with a few portals in them. I'm sure there will also be more convenient ways of getting into Deepholm and Vash'ir, the way you get in initially is through RP/quest related things. I'm not in the Beta and obviously things could change, but I guess it still could be a possibility.

[Bubblykiss]

Last time I checked a game was supposed to be fun. Spending 30min to get to a place to use the AH or quest is NOT fun. If you don't like to take portals and like travelling around you can just do it. Blizzard is not making you use a portal if you don't want to. They are OPTIONAL. You can still mount up (take a flight path or even run...) and go wherever you want.

I concur, after 5 plus years of playing my lock I still don't have all of the flight paths. Why? Because it is terribly boring to ride an epic pony around getting them.

[Sollace]

There will, in fact, be new portals.

They will be orange.

Will the other side be blue?

[Wildstaff]

Couldn't care either way because my main is a mage.

As a mage i plan on moving my hearth to the main faction city of the Alliance and then keeping myself on a PERMANENT <DnD> that or i'll charge 30g for each and every portal i provide instead of the 5g i do now.

I shudder to think at the amount of tells i will be receiving in cataclysm.

[Reclaim]

I'm a Mage lol. Don't really care o_O