Patch 8.1.5 PTR - New Kul Tiran and Zandalari Customization Options, DLC 670

The new CM has a social disorder? Or do you think it is one of those AI / Machine Learning customer service bots. Everything I read it say just comes across as weird.

Lol that blonde beard on the dark-skinned Kul'tiran makes him look like Dr. Zaius from the original Planet of the Apes. But I like the full beard option, I don't like just mustaches and goatees, so will definitely rock the full facial beard look when choosing facial hair at all.

Necklace option for the females is cool.

Zandalari Trolls. Blizz you're getting 2x faction change payments from me lool my Ret & feral are going over sorry my brothers on the alliance but i cannot resist this race.

I've ignored every other allied race up to this point as they were all reskins really.

Blizzard are monumental control freaks. It's freaking pathological.

*Removal portals to make the world feel more alive* - "wtf you're taking more away than you're giving! Give me my portals back!"
*add more portals for convenience* - "I miss Vanilla when the world felt alive and you couldn't teleport everywhere!"

When I read the blue, I cant help but picture what EA said: "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment..." This CM seems a little off tbh.

I don't mind the portal changes... except the CoT removal. That's going to make mount runs very time consuming

They really gave up on Kul'tiran female

Originally Posted by barrsftw

*Removal portals to make the world feel more alive* - "wtf you're taking more away than you're giving! Give me my portals back!"
*add more portals for convenience* - "I miss Vanilla when the world felt alive and you couldn't teleport everywhere!"

To be fair it's not the same people saying both quotes. You have the classic purists that want everything back to Vanilla when it was terrible to level or raid as half the specs but except for their class which JUST HAPPENS TO USUALLY BE A MAGE OR WARRIOR. Like gee, no wonder they enjoyed it...

Then you have the people that don't want to spend hours just to get 1 level or to spend hours in trade chat looking for a group just to get through 1 measly dungeon after 50 hours of getting to the point where you're attuned just to even enter the dungeon. They enjoy streamlined content where you can log on if you only have an hour and still get some enjoyment of the game.

Right now Blizzard is just missing the mark completely trying to mix both back in by adding an absurd "RNG" element on the gear as well as the farming for azerite power and they just now realized they made a wrong choice after doubling down.

They really need to add more customization options to Zandalari. They all looked identical in PTR, kind of disturbing.

Originally Posted by barrsftw

*Removal portals to make the world feel more alive* - "wtf you're taking more away than you're giving! Give me my portals back!"
*add more portals for convenience* - "I miss Vanilla when the world felt alive and you couldn't teleport everywhere!"

Two crowds.
I cannot help but view the first as children who cannot see the whole picture of the game (or any game, really). If you take back anything from them, even if it globally makes the game better, they are completely unable to understand it. They would add a teleport anywhere command if they could, because it would be more convenient. No reasoning about game rules and design is possible with that crowd.

Now repeating like a parrot that the world is better without portal is not enough either. It's important to understand why. And it has to do with the randomness of what happens in an open world. What you'll find, what you'll fight. To make the world truly more alive, removing portals might only be the first step. The map itself needs to hold interesting content.

Making a portal room without portals, seems good.

Is the CoT portal in old Dalaran going away with this change? You can still teleport to Uldum and fly to the CoT, but that's a much longer flight.

Originally Posted by BoltBlaster

It still exists in old Dalaran, in new Dalaran and there is NPC in Shattrath that can teleport you.

No it's removed in both new dal and old dal on the PTR. As for the Shatt NPC, you have to be revered with Caverns of Time on the character you're on in order to use the portal, which most people aren't on their alts.

> it is more rewarding

So fucking rewarding to alt-tab for 5 minutes. Somebody, please plug his connection to reality cord back in.

> For how I personally
> For me, it is
> Traveling over large areas reminds me
> Sometimes I

"Me, me, me, me, me". Not everybody is you. And, anyway, everyone who wants to travel by FP still got their FP - portals do not replace them. You only make it worse who prefers to travel with portals, when FP lovers weren't ever affected in any way.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Koward

Now repeating like a parrot that the world is better without portal is not enough either. It's important to understand why. And it has to do with the randomness of what happens in an open world. What you'll find, what you'll fight. To make the world truly more alive, removing portals might only be the first step. The map itself needs to hold interesting content.

This doesn't make any sense. You don't "find" or "fight" anything while you on FP or ship. And portals are exactly the same, only faster. It is not like portals are porting you to any arbitrary place. So, no, as long as we have any other auto-travel, removing portals only WASTES GAME TIME, not adds anything "interesting".

Originally Posted by Tincjin

I really wish Blizzard would make another trip and add nice customization to the old races as well (female human hairstyles make me cry)

I think they should go another route and slightly revamp the system:

• Seperate the eye color from the Blood Elf faces and add it as the custom option, maybe also add blue eyes for some high elf hype.
• Seperate face paint from the Troll male tusks and add it as a eperate custom option. Add it also for the females.
• Add facial markings for male Night Elves.
• Add tattoos/face paint/body paint for many races.
• Add some jewelry for other males and some females like Tauren, Night Elf or Troll
• Seperate Nose, Chin and Ear customization for goblins.

As for portals. Most of those removed portals aren't that necessary. But the portal room should have Cavern of Times(there's a lot of instances there), Ironforge/Thunder Bluff, Darkshore(Darnsassu)/Tirisfal Glades(Undercity), Pandaria portals should be linked to Shrines not Jade Forest. Borken Isles portal should be to Dalaran and if they don't want two Dalaran portals then the Northrend one could be to Wyrmrest Temple.

Originally Posted by rowaasr13

This doesn't make any sense. You don't "find" or "fight" anything while you on FP or ship. And portals are exactly the same, only faster. It is not like portals are porting you to any arbitrary place. So, no, as long as we have any other auto-travel, removing portals only WASTES GAME TIME, not adds anything "interesting".

You first sentences are completely correct, FP or ships have the same problems regarding that as portals. Well one could say they might look better or increase immersion but that's not what is discussed here. So I fully agree with you about that.
However, I think travel outside of ships/FPs/portal (actually walking/riding in the open world) can be interesting. In my opinion that's what Blizzard tries to promote here.

Originally Posted by Shambulanced

Counter:
Removing options is bad and only caters to one crowd (the "I WANT THINGS THE OLD WAY WAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH crowd"). See also: Flying
Keeping options in = play my way

So if people are going to whine about having options, ignore them. They aren't saying anything worthwhile and require somebody to hold their hand into playing a certain way.

Mmm, I get your point but I think catering to one crowd might pleases both if some people are mistaken about what they really like.

I wish they’d add red as a haircolor option on female zandalari. And a real triple mohawk, not the single one. But alas, that will never happen and so my poor main will stay a plain old standard troll

Originally Posted by Shambulanced

Counter:
Removing options is bad and only caters to one crowd (the "I WANT THINGS THE OLD WAY WAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH crowd"). See also: Flying
Keeping options in = play my way

So if people are going to whine about having options, ignore them. They aren't saying anything worthwhile and require somebody to hold their hand into playing a certain way.

I understand your point but that's like saying hacking in shooters is fine. It's just more options, don't use the hacks if you don't want to and if they complain just ignore them... More "options" isn't always better. There's no denying less portals makes the world feel more alive. You lose convenience though so there's a trade off. You can't please everyone I guess. Personally I think keeping the convenience at this point is probably Blizzard's best course of action, and hope that Classic fills the void for the players who like a more lively / interactive world.

Originally Posted by Vampyr78

I think they should go another route and slightly revamp the system:

• Seperate the eye color from the Blood Elf faces and add it as the custom option, maybe also add blue eyes for some high elf hype.
• Seperate face paint from the Troll male tusks and add it as a eperate custom option. Add it also for the females.
• Add facial markings for male Night Elves.
• Add tattoos/face paint/body paint for many races.
• Add some jewelry for other males and some females like Tauren, Night Elf or Troll
• Seperate Nose, Chin and Ear customization for goblins.

As for portals. Most of those removed portals aren't that necessary. But the portal room should have Cavern of Times(there's a lot of instances there), Ironforge/Thunder Bluff, Darkshore(Darnsassu)/Tirisfal Glades(Undercity), Pandaria portals should be linked to Shrines not Jade Forest. Borken Isles portal should be to Dalaran and if they don't want two Dalaran portals then the Northrend one could be to Wyrmrest Temple.

If high elves are ever implemented they will be and should be alliance only agree with the rest as far as customization goes but those portals do server an important purpose they reduce congestion. When everyone is in one place on a server is when you get lag and since they moved to a cloud style architecture rather than each server being on it's own blade lag happens with way fewer people than it used to. Having only one portal room is going to make a major lag area.