I'm happy that they're adding portals to the main faction cities, but I'm surprised to see them removing the portal hubs from Dalaran and Shattrath. I can see them wanting to encourage players to populate the main faction cities, but Shattrath has had it's portals since BC launch, and that didn't stop players from migrating to Dalaran. Shattrath is a ghost city on my server at least.


Currently, if I were to need to visit a trainer while in Outlands, skipping Shattrath would require me to fly back to hellfire penninsula, walk through the portal to the Blasted Lands, ride my mount to the town in the NEXT zone, and then fly from there to (depending on my class) either Undercity or Stranglethorn Vale where I'd then take the boat to Thunderbluff / Orgrimmar.


That strikes me as overly tedious, but maybe they're adding in OTHER alternative travel methods to get back and forth that are less tedious that I haven't read about. Either way... have they announced a reason for this change?


Read that on the mmo-champion boards: http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2080-Darkmoon-Faire-Fortune-Patch-4.0.3a-content-Blue-Posts-Fan-Art

 

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the portals are going to be replaced with class trainers. last I heard.

 

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The situation between Dalaran and Shattrath are totally different. Dalaran is a complete HUB to anywhere in the world, Shattrath is not.
Why? because the portal drop from Dalaran to Shattrath is utterly important and gives you full access to Shattrath from Dalaran, while the reverse is NOT true.

If they had kept those portals there, Dalaran would become even MORE important as a hearthstone location than it is now.
Why? because those "old city" portal drops are even more important now due to the content in the old world being relevant once again. Navigating around Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms becomes much easier when you can portal drop to any city and then fly out from there. Today, we don't care that much because what do you do in the old world? Nothing but hit auction houses and class trainers. That all changes with 4.0.3a.


By getting rid of Dalaran based portals, they effectively tie the player back to the old world cities which is what they want, for several reasons, such as the game IS in old world and to help newbies find cities that have people in them again, though Darnassus and Exodar will mostly remain empty.

Now, for Alliance, the main hub will be Stormwind because of the portals that are located there, which is why it is getting a second bank added.

It also makes travel mean something (somewhat) again because you wont be able to just portal drop anywhere you want, you will need to learn the bus routes again like in the old days.


Personally, I am for the change as I want the people in the game to be populated around where the content is located. Northrend is dead now, so I see no reason to keep people centralized there, same as Outland.

 

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They are adding class trainers and auction house to Dalaran and Shattrath but removing portals, I like that they are removing all portal hubs (except the ones that go to new places for obvious reasons) but for convenience they sure were hella nice


I won't miss em that much I have lots of mage friends

I'd rather they left the existing portals alone. The 80-85 content location and the added capital city portals would have been sufficient to move player hangouts around without forcing it so much. I already have a mage on 2nd account so no biggie for me either - it just seems an uneccesary (and annoying for some players) change.

 

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hopefully ink traders migrate off of D then.... else I am going to not have fun

 

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Did you hear? Blizzard wants to make WOW hard again. This is a feature of Cataclysm!

 

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Return to the Future with Speedbump-Travel-Times!

 

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I'm parkin' the mage in dalaran to sell ports to the people who haven't moved out by patch day. Nothing outrageous but I can make a few gold.

 

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Thanks for the explanation Mithan - great changes.

 

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