How to make no portals acceptable.

[LQDMTL]

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with him, I'm simply pointing out the fact that the only argument people who are for this change have is either some sort of self entitlement with the whole 'we did it back in my day' bullshit, or it's people claiming it's better for the game, which as I said I fail to see how taking additional time to get to where you want to go to actually tart playing the game how you want to is any good for the game.

At least the people against this change have a valid argument in that it taking more time to get places may not ruin the game, but it certainly doesn't make the game any better for them and makes it take more time for them to actually get to the point where they can play the game however they choose.

Also, the whole point of comparing it to what another MMO does or did is moot because this isn't the same MMO. No one cares that you had to spend hours upon hours to get somewhere in Everquest, this is WoW and that's what it should focus on. This game isn't designed solely for 'hard core' players who may like time sinks like that and so the comparison is invalid.

---------- Post added 2010-09-27 at 01:13 PM ----------



Again, I'm not saying 5 minutes is a lot of time, but tell me how this isn't anything but a time sink when added up overall. I'm not saying it's necessary that we get to where we want to go instantly, but how is it so necessary that things like this be in the game to only add time overall to how players choose to play the game? How does it really help the game in any way other than making people not stay in Shatt or Dalaran any more?

How much time are you really going to spend travelling? Seriously. How much time? If this is a problem for you I'd counter that you're wasting too much time of your own volition and that it has nothing to do with whether or not the portals are in Dalaran or Shattrath.

Whether or not there are portals in Dal or Shatt: You are still on a flight point from point A to point B once you are on the continent of your choosing. It's fair to say that without the portals being in Dal or Shatt that you'll instead make your home SW, Org, or another major city and thus actually be CLOSER to your exp destination, by way of removing the need to load the game, click a city portal and load that city up. You've reduced your travel time by 2 steps. The flight point from the city you would have clicked to your final destination is... the same.

Whether or not the portals remain, the best way to buy and sell from the auction house for speed-minded, or time-minded individuals (such as those concerned with travel time), is STILL to do so via a bank alt and mailing things between your toons. Mail is instant. Opting to travel to a city and AH on your leveling toon and then complaining about that travel time is absurd. You caused your own time sink, regardless of any flight or portal mechanics. Play smart and this isn't even close to being an issue. At all. And you can't convince me, or any smart player, otherwise.

So what precisely is the time-sink concern? The leveling toon in Outlands? Aha! But they've just sped your leveling UP by doing this. You go to Shattrath and train and get right back to the exp grind. What, you want to auction? Mail stuff to your bank alt and swap over. If you insist on travelling there in person on each and every toon, see my previous paragraph and go cry in a towel in your closet about Blizzard wasting your time. If you insist on causing yourself to spend more time doing things you've no leg to stand on when you complain about how long those things take.

This change will have nearly 0 impact on anyone who plays with any sense of strategy, planning or forsight. None whatsoever. It is thus not a time sink.

[Jadugarr]

Well I logged in the beta today and found the portals missing in Dalaran. At first I thought "Ahh crap" then I took the portal to Caverns of time and Flew to Orgrimmar from there.. You know what, it was lovely, I sat back listened to some music and enjoyed the view of the new world. Really, lack of a few portals is not important at all. As it's been stated already once you're 85 you'll spend your time in a major city of your choice anyway so that's not important. Orgrimmar and Stormwind have portals to all the new levelling zones so that's not important.. So... Really. There's no issue not having portals unless you suddenly feel the urge to afk in Undercity instead of Orgrimmar

TL;DR "I did it once on the beta and it wasn't an issue. That means it'll never be an issue and won't be an issue when considered as an aggregate."

[Tuvok]

Aren't there going to be portals in the major cities anyway? I could've sword that was the case, and if it is, who cares if shatt and dal don't have portals.

If there are no inter-city portals, then it's inconvenient, and a little boring - but I do indeed laugh in the face of those who would suggest it's an improvement to the game, I can see no possible way this could be true. Hopefully some day people will get it through their thick skulls that travel time gets old very very fast, it doesn't make the game "less easy", and serves no purpose after the first or second time other than being a time sink. It's pointless and boring, people don't mind travelling to raids, and if you think it makes the game better, then why don't you do it now on live? That's right, because you value the convenience as well.

[Hadrin]

And if that's indeed a good thing, then dungeon finder should go away too. It's a convenience like the portals and has left the world empty of people.

Yes, it should. Too much instant gratification is really not improving the game. Is it really so hard to find some friends to run an instance with? Is the game better because you can sleep walk your way through a dungeon with people you've never met before and will never see again?

No, I don't think it is. It completely detracts from this being an MMO.

One man's opinion, I'm rather certain many don't share it, but WoW was successful before the implementation of portals and the dungeon finder, and it would continue to be successful without them. All those conveniences do is rob us of the fun of participating in an online persistent world with a real community, which has been the whole point of MMO gaming from the start.

[LQDMTL]

It's not necessary, and the people defending it fail to see that they'll still have to fly from a major city to said raid, which, keeps the world big right?

I'm not defending the change so much as pointing out how stupid it is to cry about it. I'm not one of those people who sees his hearth to Dalaran is on cooldown and all of a sudden has to ask for a port. I realize that travel is possible without port mechanics and I start heading in the necessary direction to travel without said portal. Portals are a convenience not a necessity. Removing these portals won't kill anyone and it will not hurt the game whatsoever. Blizzard wants people to experience the revamped world. They think this change is warranted. That's good enough for me. If you can't adapt, I feel sorry for your guild for having to put up with you.

[Dangerjoe]

i play mage on doomhammer, if u bring the reagent and im not in a group for a HC/BG i'll open a portal for free.. most mages would

if u have the i CBA to get reagents for u mage, i want portal NAOW attitude! its a 10gold fee. sounds fair imo

[sicness]

How much time are you really going to spend travelling? Seriously. How much time? If this is a problem for you I'd counter that you're wasting too much time of your own volition and that it has nothing to do with whether or not the portals are in Dalaran or Shattrath.

Whether or not there are portals in Dal or Shatt: You are still on a flight point from point A to point B once you are on the continent of your choosing. It's fair to say that without the portals being in Dal or Shatt that you'll instead make your home SW, Org, or another major city and thus actually be CLOSER to your exp destination, by way of removing the need to load the game, click a city portal and load that city up. You've reduced your travel time by 2 steps. The flight point from the city you would have clicked to your final destination is... the same.

Whether or not the portals remain, the best way to buy and sell from the auction house for speed-minded, or time-minded individuals (such as those concerned with travel time), is STILL to do so via a bank alt and mailing things between your toons. Mail is instant. Opting to travel to a city and AH on your leveling toon and then complaining about that travel time is absurd. You caused your own time sink, regardless of any flight or portal mechanics. Play smart and this isn't even close to being an issue. At all. And you can't convince me, or any smart player, otherwise.

So what precisely is the time-sink concern? The leveling toon in Outlands? Aha! But they've just sped your leveling UP by doing this. You go to Shattrath and train and get right back to the exp grind. What, you want to auction? Mail stuff to your bank alt and swap over. If you insist on travelling there in person on each and every toon, see my previous paragraph and go cry in a towel in your closet about Blizzard wasting your time. If you insist on causing yourself to spend more time doing things you've no leg to stand on when you complain about how long those things take.

This change will have nearly 0 impact on anyone who plays with any sense of strategy, planning or forsight. None whatsoever. It is thus not a time sink.

Again, I'm merely pointing out the flaws in the arguments being brought up by people who are for this change. Honestly, I really could care less either way because my main is a mage so it doesn't effect me anyways and hence why I'm simply pointing out the major flaws in the arguments for this change.

To look at this and not realize the convenience it removes is silly. Being able to go to Orgimmar from Undercity by hearthing and using a portal is considerably less time for example, and my point is all that time adds up. I'm not talking about the one time you do it, I'm talking about the amount of time added up over the course of you playing the game. 5 minutes is nothing obviously, but 5 minutes every hour is a considerable amount of time (again I'm not claiming this to be the amount of time, just that the time does exist and does add up).

So again my point remains that it only adds unnecessary time to the game than it currently does, not so much that it truly effects your game play but it is added to the game. However, it adds ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE to the game other than that, so how is it beneficial to the game? That's what my point is, with people saying this is better for the game, explain how it is, because there's nothing beneficial about this in any way. That's my point, not that this adds so much extra time that it's ridiculous because again my opinion on the matter is mostly unbiased because I could care less either way being a mage. It's that the counter arguments people bring up for this have absolutely no merit as to why this change is being made.

The only statement I've seen in how this benefits the game that is actually unbiased and true is that it keeps people out of Dalaran and Shatt, which is a perfectly fine reason for me. But when people try to argue that it's simply 'better for the game' that people take more time to get places I'll gladly counter argue that it's silly and biased reasoning for this change and more based on what you as a player had to experience in the early parts of the game rather than a real point for this whole change.

[wych]

There you go Adam, fixed your comment so it made sense. If you want that to be more than your opinion, perhaps make a case for Blizzard changing some of our time able to play to time needed to travel before we can play.

And if that's indeed a good thing, then dungeon finder should go away too. It's a convenience like the portals and has left the world empty of people.

It's pretty simple, Blizzard want players to hang around in SW/Org/favourite major city. They don't want everybody staying in Northrend because there's portals there and you can see opposing faction... They are very much pushing the alliance and horde split at the moment and I fully agree with this move.

[danawhitaker]

what does it matter anyway? u will lvl to 85 and never ever again leave stormwind/orgrimmar.

Arrogant. Some of us have alts in the 60-70 range, and will be spending a LOT of time in Shattrath and Dalaran because of questing in Outland and Northrend. Unless they add auction houses out in those places that are accessible to everyone but engineers, it's adding up to be a pretty large annoyance.

And I'm sure 80-85s Alliance-side will want to leave Stormwind to go to, you know, the other continent. I admit it's nice being able to just hearth to Dal and hop a portal to CoT or Darnassus depending on my destination rather than wait for a boat. As someone who has to AFK frequently, that ends up being a lot of wasted time and missed boats.

Why do they care where people hang out? They're already adding a bunch of portals from Stormwind to the new zones, which completely facerolls travel in a similar way. We still have portals to all the BGs. I'm tired of QQ from the developers about things like this. I don't like Stormwind. I will never like Stormwind. I used to like it, until I realized how much more compact Ironforge is for AH placement, ease of getting out of the portal room, and flight path placement. Now Ironforge is my go-to city for auctioning on all my alts. I'm still going to see the pretty artwork in Stormwind when I have to go there, but trying to shunt everyone through one city is rather irritating.

[LQDMTL]

the convenience it removes

End conversation. I never said it didn't remove convenience. I, in fact, tried to drill home that all it DID remove was a convenience. There. Done.

[Menegroth]

If you feel that portals hurt your gameplay OMG then dont use them.

If you feel that the dungeon finder hurts wow and the experience for you then don't use it.

Both of which are optional meaning that if you want a more meaningful wow experience then don't use these systems go take a flight path to the dungeon or ride your own mount. Me personally if I want to see the world I'll jump on my mount and do so but in the meantime I'll be taking portals and using the dungeon finder for pure convenience.

Basically don't complain about something ruining your experiences when its freaking optional. Blows my mind how retarded people can be.

Retarded? Really? You seem to fail to understand why people have a problem with portals. This is not a personal-level issue. The problem people see is that portals and the dungeon finder ruin the player's fun by not seeing people out and about flying/riding in the world, and cause the majority of the community to sit in one city and not move.

This CANNOT be fixed by on player who doesn't like it simply not use it, because the majority of the community WILL use it. Having the empty-world feeling cannot be fixed by you personally refusing to use the dungeon finder/portals, since the problem lies with the community overall, and how they are not spread out over the world, and instead all sitting in Org pressing find dungeon, or hoping somewhere via portal.

[LQDMTL]

for auctioning on all my alts

Thus invalidating any argument you have against added "time-sinks". Park your bank alt in ironforge and do whatever you want as you see fit. Your leveling toons still never have to deal with missing a boat or tram to get there, since they've no justifiable reason to routinely travel there.

[Bombkirby]

If any one thinks flying through the air to see all the "exciting" scenery is going to be FUN, you obviously have never heard of Windwaker. Oh how I loved floating through the barren ocean with nothing to do but leave the game running until I came close to my destination. >_< GOOD...TIMES! Flying through the barren skies are going to be JUST as bland. Now if there was something to keep us like, floating zepplins that randomly spawn with special goblin merchants on them, or an enemy airships with some rare elite spawn, that would keep me flying.

[sicness]

End conversation. I never said it didn't remove convenience. I, in fact, tried to drill home that all it DID remove was a convenience. There. Done.

Fine, but what in any way does it add to the game that is beneficial? THAT is my point, that it does nothing but remove convenience for the game and therefor any statements that it's 'better for the game' are completely untrue and solely based of bias interpretations of how players experienced parts of the game that didn't have that convenience.

[Its Electric]

Looks like I know which class I'm going to be rolling for cata: mage!
Just imagine all the money you could make sitting in Dal and Shatt. 30s on a portal rune 20g for impatient players!
I personally don't understand why they are doing this. Wouldn't having people dispersed around a lot of different cities reduce server lag? People will still be forced to go to the major cities for the AH (unless you are a engineer) and questing so Dal wouldn't be THAT overpopulated, would it?
I like the idea of improving flight paths too. Can you guys imagine how tedious levelling will be through Outland and Northrend? Especially if you are trying to sell some stuff on the AH along the way? That's a good 15 minutes just to get from Outland to Undercity. And then you have to go back!

[danawhitaker]

Thus invalidating any argument you have against added "time-sinks". Park your bank alt in ironforge and do whatever you want as you see fit. Your leveling toons still never have to deal with missing a boat or tram to get there, since they've no justifiable reason to routinely travel there.

I don't like using a bank alt and having all my money on one character. Why does everything about this game have to turn into someone telling other people how to play. Do I tell you how to play? No. I like having all my gold separate, I like easily being able to see which professions are more profitable without having to keep some insane spreadsheet tracking all my auctions. You say you like to see more people out in the world. Wouldn't you rather see my six alts traveling to the AH to do their business rather than have one lame level 10 bank alt that sits there doing thousands of transactions worth of gold when they can't even go anywhere in the world to actually earn that gold? My time sink is a personal choice. I'm not saying that Blizzard should ban bank alts for everyone and remove in-game mail for characters because I rarely use them.

[Jadugarr]

Whether or not there are portals in Dal or Shatt: You are still on a flight point from point A to point B once you are on the continent of your choosing. It's fair to say that without the portals being in Dal or Shatt that you'll instead make your home SW, Org, or another major city and thus actually be CLOSER to your exp destination, by way of removing the need to load the game, click a city portal and load that city up. You've reduced your travel time by 2 steps. The flight point from the city you would have clicked to your final destination is... the same.

Implies that the destination you want to go to will always be on the same continent. It won't. Let's take an example where your statement is untrue even when the destination is on the same continent:

Assume I set my hearth in SW in cataclysm. Let's also assume there's something I want to get to in Hinterlands. In Cata I fly my way up there directly from SW. However, if the portals were still around, I'd start in Dalaran and portal myself to IF, cutting travel time.

Whether or not the portals remain, the best way to buy and sell from the auction house for speed-minded, or time-minded individuals (such as those concerned with travel time), is STILL to do so via a bank alt and mailing things between your toons. Mail is instant. Opting to travel to a city and AH on your leveling toon and then complaining about that travel time is absurd. You caused your own time sink, regardless of any flight or portal mechanics. Play smart and this isn't even close to being an issue. At all. And you can't convince me, or any smart player, otherwise.

I don't see how this is relevant. The type of trading this change will really effect is in-person, not auction house.

So what precisely is the time-sink concern?...This change will have nearly 0 impact on anyone who plays with any sense of strategy, planning or forsight. None whatsoever. It is thus not a time sink.

Flat-out untrue, proven untrue with example above. It is a timesink and a significant one when taking a long view. People defending this change have either a "back in my day we took the flight path uphill both ways in a hurricane" condescending attitude towards other posters or a kind of battered wife syndrome concerning Blizzard, whereby they will rationalize damned near anything Blizzard sets their mind to do, no matter how hare-brained - RealID on the forums comes to mind.

[LQDMTL]

Especially if you are trying to sell some stuff on the AH along the way? That's a good 15 minutes just to get from Outland to Undercity. And then you have to go back!

lol

B a n k A l t. They have this thing. It's called Mail. You can send stuff to another character that's parked next to the Auction House. It's as fast as your internet connection can handle swapping characters. You'll be back to questing before the tool that took his leveling toon to the AH in person even gets halfway done.

[aeonorion]

All single mages in my guild already have whispers blocked because people asking for portals are so damn annoying.. Now it will be only worse..
Even today people don\t run/take zeppelin from Org to TB but ask mages instead..

Wish I got that on my mage, hardly anyone on my server uses mage portals. Maybe 2/3 /w a night.

[rolecks]

I think I should be able to fly anywhere I want. I mean ffs I'm riding around on the skeleton of a giant fire-breathing dragon and I'm wielding a legendary weapon that destroyed the Lich King, but if I want to take a trip to Thunder Bluff I gotta wait for the public bus while some level 5 /pokes the shit outta me.