More Portals being removed in 8.1.5

[Hitei]

Nah, but I don't need to throw cups away when I can put them somewhere else. I have an entire house, what do you have in your attic?

So yes, you are a hoarder. The funny part of this dumb analogy is that it is well, well documented that taking up space for storage makes whatever room it happens in feel smaller. Even in your analogy you're advocating for a smaller feeling world, lmao.

I'm no more immersed without flying or with it. I don't buy the immersion argument.

I mean, it's fine and totally reasonable that you don't think you are. But, you are, in a very fundamental way. It is easy to sit there and reflect on liking flying and say "No, I feel the same way about the world either way." but you really, really don't. They are two completely different experiences. Launch any open world game, set your speed to 4 times your normal run rate and tell me that there isn't any impact on your immersion or perception of the world.

In the mid 1800s it took 5-6 months to go from St. Louis to California by wagon. It takes 4 hours to go from STL to LAX by plane. You can't pretend that the people on the plane have the same sense of distance and same immersion in the places they are traveling over that the people in the wagons do. It's just not possible. Taking longer and being on the ground where you have to deal with terrain and mobs, and can't always go in a straight lines, puts you in the world. Yes, this is an exaggerated example, but it is accurate.

Flying above it all is still way better than instantly teleporting there, but it's a far cry from the ground travel.

[Schizoide]

They might not quit, but there's a pretty good chance they'll just stop doing that older content to the same level they were. Part of the appeal of going back and doing it is it's easy and convenient.

People usually don't quit en masse over one big thing. That's very rare and has only happened a couple of times, RealID and no flying ever come to mind.

People quit because gradually, over time, the game changes in a way that makes them enjoy it less and less. It's a death of a thousand cuts.

Am I going to quit over removing portals? Not a chance. But it does make the game incrementally less fun for me, in a small way, and it's one more piece of straw on the camel's back. Not a big deal in itself, but every little poke adds up. The devs should be looking to remove straw, not add to the burden.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

People usually don't quit en masse over one big thing. That's very rare and has only happened a couple of times, RealID and no flying ever come to mind.

People quit because gradually, over time, the game changes in a way that makes them enjoy it less and less. It's a death of a thousand cuts.

Am I going to quit over removing portals? Not a chance. But it does make the game incrementally less fun for me, in a small way, and it's one more piece of straw on the camel's back. Not a big deal in itself, but every little poke adds up. The devs should be looking to remove straw, not add to the burden.

Well said. I cannot say I have agreed with a post more than this one on the subject.

[Lime]

I don't know why you guys are even bringing "content" into this argument. It's such a strawman. It isn't about "content" it's about the scale, depth and immersiveness of the world.

I do appreciate this. I've been asking people why they felt like this was needed, but kept getting responses akin to "I don't like skipping content", which wasn't making any sense.

Your perspective, though, is simply something I disagree with. There aren't so many portals currently in the game that you don't get a scope of the world. My old mount run in Legion was DS -> TotFW -> Onyxia. Just off that path alone, with the CoT port in there, I know how large the world is. It takes like 7 mins to fly from TotFW to Onyxia.

It's also an argument for newer player vs older player. Even if there was a port from Org to Gadgetzan, I'll always know just how long the distance is simply because I've done the flight/run.

If you feel there are too many portals, I feel that's your right, but I disagree. Many newer portals added each expansion are for the new continents, not old ones. There's still plenty of flying that goes on.

There's also another angle to this. Players who've done the trip without a portal will always remember just how long the journey took. For them, it doesn't matter if there's a portal or not, they know how large the world is. Blizzard could always lock the portals behind a quest that requires you to make the trip the traditional way to ensure that, if they feel it's important enough. That's how FFXI handled it.

[Drusin]

So yes, you are a hoarder. The funny part of this dumb analogy is that it is well, well documented that taking up space for storage makes whatever room it happens in feel smaller. Even in your analogy you're advocating for a smaller feeling world, lmao.

I dunno, never thought the world felt small. I'm not of the immersion type though.
Of course in the physical world hoarding will make space feel smaller but we aren't talking about a physical world.

Also no I'm not a hoarder Come join me on https://www.reddit.com/r/minimalism/

[Hitei]

I do appreciate this. I've been asking people why they felt like this was needed, but kept getting responses akin to "I don't like skipping content", which wasn't making any sense.

Your perspective, though, is simply something I disagree with. There aren't so many portals currently in the game that you don't get a scope of the world. My old mount run in Legion was DS -> TotFW -> Onyxia. Just off that path alone, with the CoT port in there, I know how large the world is. It takes like 7 mins to fly from TotFW to Onyxia.

It's also an argument for newer player vs older player. Even if there was a port from Org to Gadgetzan, I'll always know just how long the distance is simply because I've done the flight/run.

If you feel there are too many portals, I feel that's your right, but I disagree. Many newer portals added each expansion are for the new continents, not old ones. There's still plenty of flying that goes on.

There's also another angle to this. Players who've done the trip without a portal will always remember just how long the journey took. For them, it doesn't matter if there's a portal or not, they know how large the world is. Blizzard could always lock the portals behind a quest that requires you to make the trip the traditional way to ensure that, if they feel it's important enough. That's how FFXI handled it.

I don't really agree. Doing the run from Ironforge all the way to Hillsbrad for Ravenholdt in Vanilla with no mount gave me a good grasp of how large the continent was, and how secluded Ravenholdt Manor was. That doesn't change that now I can teleport to Arathi if the warfront portal is up, or to Dalaran Crater and then fly to Hillsbrad in 10 seconds, and that because of this, Hillsbrad feels much closer to Ironforge than it once did, and Ravenholdt is a quick jog away instead of an isolated location.

Silithus was once at the far end of a continent, now it's one zone over from a portal.

Obviously I have no idea what games you have and haven't played. But if you've played Dark Souls or Skyrim, you can't tell me that the world didn't immediately feel at least a bit smaller and less immersive the second you got the lordvessel or unlocked all the cities. Regardless of whether or not you've walked the distance before hand, the second you have teleports, locations go from "X at the far end of Y area" to just being "X", because you stop thinking of the location in terms of it's place in the larger world, and start thinking of it at just the location itself.

Instead of "It's down this valley and then along that river till I reach the mountains" it becomes "It's next to X fast travel point I already have". There is a fundamental shift in the way you view the world.

[prwraith]

I've not heard about this - when did they decide to remove flying ?

Either way - people are just skipping past content too much then whinging that there isn't any, so any move to make the game less of a whack a mole game and more of a WORLD of warcraft game is good in my books.

I'll put you in the let's make things as inconvenient as possible and intentionally being obtuse category.

[Arakakao]

Teleport ... something you need a mage to do in D&D I suspect ?

A wizard (not mage) that, unless something weird happened, is always with the party. Also, at that level a wizard can fly all day long.

[Lime]

Obviously I have no idea what games you have and haven't played. But if you've played Dark Souls or Skyrim, you can't tell me that the world didn't immediately feel at least a bit smaller and less immersive the second you got the lordvessel or unlocked all the cities.

It doesn't, but I imagine that this comes down to how you perceive the world. The world always felt the same size to me in that regard.

If anything, actually exploring the world by foot is what made it feel smaller. When you're new to a game, you imagine the game to be a lot bigger than it actually is. When you get a good grasp of the world, you start seeing the limits.

Regardless of whether or not you've walked the distance before hand, the second you have teleports, locations go from "X at the far end of Y area" to just being "X", because you stop thinking of the location in terms of it's place in the larger world, and start thinking of it at just the location itself.

I guess I just simply disagree with this. When I take the CoT portal, I can still perfectly imagine how large Tanaris is, the distance from Org, and it's location on the map. Same if I'm flying there. Same if I'm on a FP there.

I said it in an earlier post, but traveling was only really a substantial experience back before flying. You had to know the map, you had to avoid mobs, and if you were on a PvP realm, you had to watch out for players. And obviously, there weren't FPs everywhere.

[Playintrafic]

*laughs in Mage*

Was unaware that mages have a portal to COT or Karazhan? Oh wait they dont.

Without the portal to COT my alternative is to fly tanaris, so now im on a flight path, and oh im bored so I alt tab. Now I forgot im playing wow. 20 minutes of looking at dank memes later, oh yeah I was gonna run dragon soul. So I alt tab back in, and re log, and then ughh I gotta fly all the way across a zone so I log out and say fuck it.

next week I don't even bother.

Vs.

Hearth to Dal, port to COT , kill deathwing no mount. relog alt do it again. No mount so I hearth to dal, portal to wyrmrest and go farm northrend for mounts, heart to dal go to shrine, farm pandaria raids for mounts and mog, hearth to dal port to shat, do outlands content.

But nah, cant fucking have that. Lets make a portal room that is 50% bullshit, and 50% less portals, that will get players out in the world.

NO THE FUCK IT WONT. ENGAGING GOD DAMNED WORLD CONTENT DOES.

[Lime]

Dragons of Nightmare are going to be interesting this year. I imagine a lot of Alliance complaints.

Kazzak - Blasted Lands teleport NPC in city
Azuregos - Booty Bay teleport in the Shrine is further away. Hyjal -> Azshara on Alliance now. Shrine not worth traveling to from Jade.
Emeriss - Near Kazzak, refer to it
Ysondre - In the middle of nowhere. Same as it is now, though.
Taerar - Near Azuregos, refer to it
Lethon - Crater portal removed. 5-10 additional minutes to get there from IF / Twilight Highlands. If you control Arathi, you can teleport there from Boralus (might have a level requirement).

[korijenkins]

The cynic in me says this is only being done to waste time, and thus waste subs.

[darklogrus]

Adjusted that to reflect what I am saying.

Flying, 100 flight points per zone, teleports everywhere - no need to see the world, just whack a mole.

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Teleport ... something you need a mage to do in D&D I suspect ?

We must be playing 2 different games because I had to see the world to unlock Flight Paths, I had to do the War Campaign to unlock Flight Paths, I had to do mission table to unlock flight paths.

[Hitei]

I guess I just simply disagree with this. When I take the CoT portal, I can still perfectly imagine how large Tanaris is, the distance from Org, and it's location on the map. Same if I'm flying there. Same if I'm on a FP there.

But how often do you? How often when you teleport to CoT to farm DS do you even consider that you're actually going to Tanaris or are in Southern Kalimdor? And how often is it just "Time to take the Dal portal to CoT and do my DS runs for the week."?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Why is blizzard so hellbent on making this game more inconvenient.

Maybe because we have loudmouths on forums professing loudly how inconvenience literally made the game the best game evah during X time period?

It's not about MAU since those literally only count your login, not hours spent.

[Lime]

But how often do you? How often when you teleport to CoT to farm DS do you even consider that you're actually going to Tanaris or are in Southern Kalimdor? And how often is it just "Time to take the Dal portal to CoT and do my DS runs for the week."?

A lot of the time, actually, but not for normal reasons. As I stated, I run DS -> TotFW -> Onyxia and I do that on my alts. I'm always looking for ways to improve the run time (outside of changing my Hearthstone), which means taking into account the location of each instance.

Let's alter that a bit, for the sake of your argument. Let's say that I get my mounts in TotFW and Onyxia on that account. So now it's simply DS.

The thing is, would my mentality change? Probably. I'm no longer plotting the best course between 3 locations during my downtime flying, but I still know the size of the world and everything. I'm not going to suddenly forget that it takes me 5mins+ to get from TotFW to Onyxia.

This is where our differences come into play. Traveling, just for the sake of traveling, isn't for me. There needs to be a purpose behind it. I don't have any trouble realizing the scale of the world, so I don't need the reminder, and in all honesty, it's not even important to me should I not know it.

[darkwarrior42]

People usually don't quit en masse over one big thing. That's very rare and has only happened a couple of times, RealID and no flying ever come to mind.

People quit because gradually, over time, the game changes in a way that makes them enjoy it less and less. It's a death of a thousand cuts.

Am I going to quit over removing portals? Not a chance. But it does make the game incrementally less fun for me, in a small way, and it's one more piece of straw on the camel's back. Not a big deal in itself, but every little poke adds up. The devs should be looking to remove straw, not add to the burden.

This is a fantastic post.

My wife agrees, and together we would add that people might not even think about the little cuts when it comes time to quit.

They might just log in one day, realize they aren't having fun anymore, and without articulating the exact reasons for that, log out and not come back.

[Charge me Doctor]

This doesn't really affect me much, I have all the mounts from pre-MoP except the one from Vortex Pinnacle and the Uldum camel which don't benefit from more alts. I'm fighting for my bros who still have to farm.

Nah, don't get me wrong, but it's really weird to farm something while not having your alts parked near the instance via heartstone, or by just logging off near the instance, it's way quicker than using portals. After you're done - you just fuck off to whatever and return your toon back by simply asking a mage for a org portal < Uldum < fly a bit to CoT. Or in worst case of mage strike or your shard excluding all magi from it - you'll have to get smart on getting into org/stormwind

Having portals everywhere (in sense - to a lot of places of interests) is convenient, but it shouldn't be available to everyone. They can make these portals exclusive to classes/professions, or mobility of that kind in general, so these classes and professions will be more unique, all classes should have something unique. I started playing mage mostly because of blizzard ability and because it said that i can teleport, then they put portals fucking everywhere so this ability became obsolete. Imagine all classes getting a fellhunter with spell lock? or everyone gets a resurrection spell? or everyone gets a summing spell? or like some of these already happened and they backpedaled on these changes or something?

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Now I forgot im playing wow.

Such short attention span is probably worth medical check IMO

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A
This is where our differences come into play. Traveling, just for the sake of traveling, isn't for me. There needs to be a purpose behind it. I don't have any trouble realizing the scale of the world, so I don't need the reminder, and in all honesty, it's not even important to me should I not know it.

The only reasoning behind traveling is getting from point A to point B. You travel to get to DS > TotFW > Onyxia. You travel for sake of getting mounts and that isn't for you? It's not enough purpose to make you spend 5+ minutes navigating around and auto-running under the ceiling of skybox or on fly path?

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This is a fantastic post.

My wife agrees, and together we would add that people might not even think about the little cuts when it comes time to quit.

They might just log in one day, realize they aren't having fun anymore, and without articulating the exact reasons for that, log out and not come back.

If removal of the portals that made you play less of the game make you realize that you aren't having fun anymore - the game have bigger problems to be fair.

[Lime]

The only reasoning behind traveling is getting from point A to point B. You travel to get to DS > TotFW > Onyxia. You travel for sake of getting mounts and that isn't for you? It's not enough purpose to make you spend 5+ minutes navigating around and auto-running under the ceiling of skybox or on fly path?

There are plenty of reason behind traveling. Same as IRL. It isn't always about getting from A to B. Sometimes it's the journey, not the destination.

The problem with WoW is that the journey isn't interesting. If I had the option to take a bus to work (flight path) or just teleport there instantly, I'd choose to teleport. I wouldn't be missing anything.

Current WoW offers no incentive for me not to want the fast option. Perhaps Blizzard should improve that, then work on nerfing convenience. But this would expect Blizzard to not be lazy. I see no reason to applaud this...

"OMG, Blizzard. This is the change that got me back into the game. This is why you're the best company. I hate portals and totally miss afk'ing on Flight Paths and Flying mounts."

Why was this change needed again?

[Charge me Doctor]

There are plenty of reason behind traveling. Same as IRL. It isn't always about getting from A to B. Sometimes it's the journey, not the destination.

The problem with WoW is that the journey isn't interesting. If I had the option to take a bus to work (flight path) or just teleport there instantly, I'd choose to teleport. I wouldn't be missing anything.

Current WoW offers no incentive for me not to want the fast option. Perhaps Blizzard should improve that, then work on nerfing convenience. But this would expect Blizzard to not be lazy. I see no reason to applaud this...

"OMG, Blizzard. This is the change that got me back into the game. This is why you're the best company. I hate portals and totally miss afk'ing on Flight Paths and Flying mounts."

Why was this change needed again?

I thought that we are talking about traveling in wow, not in general. At least i was, and had an impression that you do too.

In wow there is no reasoning behind traveling but getting from point A to point B. If i stretch it long enough - you can meet rares and battle pets on your way to point B if you choose not to nosedive endpoint of your travel. And i used to do that, walking through whole two halfs of barrens just to grab some rare grubs was quite fun, but i burned out of it with abundance of pets.

This change was needed to remove players dependency on portals to travel, so blizzard can actually get feedback to improve travel. If players don't travel and use portals instead - they have hard time fixing traveling, if you choose to put your heart in a hub and use portals all the time - the only feedback you can give is "i don't like traveling it takes longer than instant portals", which translates into "i don't want to play your game more than i have to, i want to do content asap and gtfo", you can't say why you don't want to travel in game because of that.

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Who cares. I already have a bag and toy sets full of portals to the weirdest places. I can be in almost any zone in less than 2m

Teleportation scrolls for scribe-mage with long cooldown could also be a solution. Imagine being able to setup your own point for a portal?