Cataclysm

[Soulflame]

Let me know when I can fly from Orgrimmar to Undercity.

Right now. You get on a zeppelin.

See, right now, I can port to Dal, run to the correct portal, and be where I want to be.

Or I could run out of Org, pray I hit the zepp, possibly stand around waiting for the goddamn zepp, then fly to outside of UC, then run inside of UC.

I would only do the second one if my hearth was down, or I knew I needed my hearth for a more annoying journey in the next half hour.

WUA, those other reasons I listed are way more annoying to me.  The removal of portals seems to underscore the theme of Cataclysm as "We're going to make the world a whole lot less convenient."

[DraconianOne]

The WoW team strove really hard to make Wrath accessible.  WoW was successful as a result.

This is true. As we all know, prior to the release of WotLK, WoW was really struggling with its subscription numbers.

[Hawkbit]

The WoW team strove really hard to make Wrath accessible.  WoW was successful as a result.

This is true. As we all know, prior to the release of WotLK, WoW was really struggling with its subscription numbers.

Seriously.

[dd0029]

So, I found a beta invite in my mail last Friday.  That's a long download.

First, this expansion is spread all the fuck around for 80-85.  Which is going to really make that portal removal thing fairly annoying if you want to do something else.  Second, the old world is really big and there are a shit ton of trees.  Actually flying anywhere and trying to find something can be a pain ass as most of place was not designed to be viewed from anywhere other than the ground.  Yes, they did pass through everything and there's lots of new neat things to see when flying, but things like Elwyyn are not really meant to be seen from the air.  I have the suspicion that they are going to use the tree thing to make people ride through the new content, Hyjall has lots of trees.  It's kind of clever, you can fly if you want to, but it's going to be kind of boring as trees block what you can see. 

There are a number of really cool quality of life changes.  First, it took me a bit to figure out, but anyone you might want to talk to for a quest you are on or has a low level quest has their name lit up.  Spell tool tips have changed too.  They now suggest when and how to use a spell.  I need to look around to see if there is a way to turn this off though.  With it on, you can't see damage numbers.  I don't think this is a mod, but instant cast spells via proc have their buttons light up and glow in a "Hey press me now" way.  Your class trainer always shows up on the minimap with a groovy little book icon and their names always glow.  Though, the new spell acquisition scheme takes some getting used to.  You get spells kind of randomly now, not every two levels or in a predictable fashion.  My worgen druid is lvl 11 and still does not have Mark of the Wild.  Lots of things have been jammed into the spell book now and some things have been broken out within it.  Professions now have their own tab/page.  Mounts and pets are also there and have been split up into their own tab/pages.  When a new spell or ability is available, it shows up in your spell book prompting you to go train.  So, my spell book is currently taunting my lock with the availablity of 310 flying.  Speaking of flying, the "old world" flying trainer is next to the flight master in Stormwind for the Alliance.  And the possibly exalted cost for 310% flying is 4000g.

I am not sure where you go for profession training though.  There's no real "look new place starter" town.   That makes things kind of odd actually.  The whole expansion seems kind of abrupt post 80. 

The Worgen start is fairly interesting, though on rails.  I also wonder how it will play later on in the expansion or even after the next expansion.  There's a fair amount of quest material that is immediately dated.  There are also a number of cinematics, but most of them are not in or completed.  Worgen women are rocking the awesome jauntily angled top hat as well.

[Ingmar]

The Worgen starting experience will probably stay 'locked in time' the way the Draenei one does - it kind of provides the backstory for you and your race, then you get dumped out into the current timeline once you hit the rest of the world. Kind of a flashback thing.

[Dren]

I'm not going to lie and say I'd quit over this, but taking portals out really is not a good direction.  If people want to see all the new stuff, great.  If they don't, great.  They are paying either way.  When are developers going to get it.  Forcing content on players is not necessary.

For me, I'd go ride around looking at the new stuff once.  Once.  Then I'll take the short cuts.  I get stabby when I'm forced to "experience content" for the 150th time like flight paths that circle every point of interest along the way, or boats I have to actively sit at my computer doing nothing but fish, which sucks too, or ride my mount from A to B for 5 minutes per trip.

I guess I shouldn't fight against it too much.  The times I log off because I really just don't feel like sitting, staring at my screen while travelling someplace helps me keep balance with real life I guess.  From a game design standpoint, doesn't make much sense.  And no, I'm not worried one least bit about immersion.  Long travel times do nothing for my immersion in WoW.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yes, what wow really needs is to have everyone clustered in a single building where no travel is required and we only need to hit a big red button on our screens.  This big shiny button will produce purples we can then wear and brag about to the others around us. It's genius.

Or how about this, let's just play a zelda game where every dungeon is next to eachother and the bosses all line up in a row to be killed. I can understand wanting to condense a game to make it less tedious but at some point it goes beyond removing bloat and starts gutting the world itself.

I agree with those who say the bg and dungeon queues ruined a lot of the 'world' feel to the game even though I enjoy these features I understand they've made players less connected than ever.  Think about it, you really need a faster way to ironforge from stormwind than the fucking tram?

[Lantyssa]

Yes, since it involves two zone transitions, a wait for the tram, and a wait while on the tram.  I do anything I can to avoid that fucking tram.

[Merusk]

I've always looked at flight baths as built-in AFK time.   Then again, I do the same thing flying places.  Hit the general direction, hit "autorun" and go afk for a few, hoping I come back before fatigue kills me.  Needless to say I liked Outlands better than Northrend for the lack of fatigue death.


dd0029:

Lots of those changes are part of the general UI changes coming in 4.0.  You can check them out on the test realms right now.  I like the light-up skill thing and the spellbook changes.. but finding your mounts and pets the first time is a bitch.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm with Lavkov for once. The game is not obligated to let you travel between any two arbitrary locations in thirty seconds or less. Fuck, how do you dipshits even go from Dalaran to Shadow Vault or Stormwind to Booty Bay without breaking out in a "This isn't fun! I play to have fun! TWO AND A HALF MINUTES WASTED!" hissyfit?

Walking back and forth from the mage district to the auction house isn't fun! I play to have fun! Auction house in the mage tower or I quit! Sometimes I farm Scholomance and it's NOT IN IRONFORGE! MOVE SCHOLOMANCE TO IRONFORGE NAO!!1!

[Soulflame]

There's a lot of room between "There are multiple changes that promise to make this expansion less fun than the previous expansion" and "wah I want everything without effort."

[Rasix]

I'm with Lavkov for once. The game is not obligated to let you travel between any two arbitrary locations in thirty seconds or less. Fuck, how do you dipshits even go from Dalaran to Shadow Vault or Stormwind to Booty Bay without breaking out in a "This isn't fun! I play to have fun! TWO AND A HALF MINUTES WASTED!" hissyfit?

Walking back and forth from the mage district to the auction house isn't fun! I play to have fun! Auction house in the mage tower or I quit! Sometimes I farm Scholomance and it's NOT IN IRONFORGE! MOVE SCHOLOMANCE TO IRONFORGE NAO!!1!

I don't like taking the blimp. Doesn't mean I go into your proposed spergie tantrum (like when you see a bit of troublesome throwaway lore). It just means I'm not having fun and I don't look forward to it.  I'm waiting in fucking line for a ride in a goddamn video game.

I've taken that blimp so many times. Granted, they've made it better as you get announcements, it's a shorter trip, and you can see where it is at all times.  It's still a bother, especially compared to hitting a my recall button and hoping into a portal or taking a flight path.  You'd think by now they'd just put in a goblin rocket-ride by now that shoots you across the ocean without having to climb up the tower and /dance while you wait.

Flight paths in general, I don't mind. Some are a little dumb, like when you circle around Dalaran for a solid minute out of flight that takes 90 seconds in total.  There are still some long ones, but you take them so very rarely (would be nice if they sped them up a little). 

We'll see how this pans out in Cat.  I will miss my teleports and would like to see a transportation option that does away with the blimp experience.

[SurfD]

Personally, I dont think the Dalaran / Shattrath portals being removed are going to be as much of a problem as everyone thinks.

Think about it for a second.  What was the REAL reason those portals were there, speaking from a "current content while leveling" point of view.  They really only existed for pretty much the express purpose of giving you a quick way to get to your preferred main city Auction House and Class Trainers.   One of those things has been solved: They replaced the portals with Class trainers, and if they added a faction auction house as well,  you would never need to leave Outland or Northrend durring your entire leveling trip through those expantion continents.

Besides, chances are they will just slap portals somewhere in a quest hub in deepholme and everyone will be happy again.

[Ingmar]

The only real issue around it I think is how inaccessble Shat and Dalaran themselves become once we're no longer incentivized to keep our hearth locations in Dalaran. That's why I think they probably need to add portals there from the faction capitals, particularly for characters in the 70-73 range who can't get the quest to get into Dalaran. It will be harder to find some random person to port you there since nobody is going to be hanging out there anymore, and there are no trainers out in the regular Northrend areas, so your only other choice is the trip back home every level until you can finally get to Dalaran.

[Rendakor]

I actually really like it because it gets players back into Org/IF and separated, instead of clustered together in a bullshit sanctuary city. At least they should put a port (or give a free FP) to Dal for level 70 players, however, so that people at least have a city while they're questing through NR.

[Simond]

I don't like taking the blimp.

So use the portals added to Orgrimmar instead?

[Ingmar]

Assuming they add them. I rate portals to Dalaran and Shat as 'likely' but portals to all the other cities, when they already have direct flight paths and/or orbs of translocation and/or trams and/or boat rides? Not so likely.

[Rendakor]

We'll see how this pans out in Cat.  I will miss my teleports and would like to see a transportation option that does away with the blimp experience.

I heard a rumor that you might be able to use a flying mount in Azeroth come Cataclysm.

[Sjofn]

And I would want to fly across the fucking ocean ... why?

[Ingmar]

Yeah, flying mounts in Azeroth is not really a relevant solution to the sorts of travel issues the portals address.

[Rendakor]

Given the choice between FPs and flying mounts, I've always used my flyer instead of the FP; I'd do the same with a Zep if I had the option. I was mostly replying to Rasix with his blimp hatred.

[WindupAtheist]

Blue post said Shat and Dal are getting auctioneers. I still maintain that when I hear...

"How am I gonna get between X and Y?!"
"There is a boat directly connecting them."
"Those boats can take as much as a minute or two! What kind of McQuaidian hell is this?!"

...someone is just spoiled.

[Morat20]

Um, there IS an Auction House in Dalaran. Or is that engineer only?

[Rendakor]

Engineer only.

[Morat20]

Engineer only.

While I happily take daily advantage of that, that is sort of lame. On the other hand, engineering as a profession isn't so hot so I guess we did deserve a bone.

[Threash]

Are you kidding? engineering is the best profession around.

[Azazel]

Did wow make people this lazy or is it just general bitchiness?

What Rasix said. "Work" and "Lazy" aren't things I really feel should have to apply to my leisure time activities, as opposed, to, say, my job.

[Azazel]

The Worgen starting experience will probably stay 'locked in time' the way the Draenei one does - it kind of provides the backstory for you and your race, then you get dumped out into the current timeline once you hit the rest of the world. Kind of a flashback thing.

My understanding is that the Worgen starting experience is going to be like the DK one, or the ones in LOTRO - a newb "phase" of the place that you'll be finished with when you finish the starting quests.

[Sjofn]

Blue post said Shat and Dal are getting auctioneers. I still maintain that when I hear...

"How am I gonna get between X and Y?!"
"There is a boat directly connecting them."
"Those boats can take as much as a minute or two! What kind of McQuaidian hell is this?!"

...someone is just spoiled.

If they're adding an AH to Shat and Dalaran, that takes away most of my "blaaaargh" about it, but it is still a change for essentially no reason at all. Now it's just a silly change instead of an "argh why do you hate me, personally, Blizzard?!" change.

[Azazel]

If it's to remove the massive congestion and make the old world feel populated, that's perfectly fine, if they add capital city portals to all the capital cities. As I said. I'd liikely expect a 6mo-1yr delay on this because they really want you to see and not skip all the new in-between-cities terraforming they have done. See: BC Flying, Northrend/Cold Weather flying and so forth.

[K9]

The congestion will move anyway, look at Shatt post-BC, the only people there are levelling, or people doing old achievements and such. Dalaran in Cataclysm will be exactly the same, there is no reason to be there unless you are doing 68-78 or doing various occasional tradeskill/achievement related tasks. The bulk population will move back to IF, Stormwind and Org.

[Xeyi]

From a horde point of view travel from Orgrimmar to the Eastern Kingdoms is fine, there are two zeppelins right in the centre of town and the portal to blasted lands is still right there.  Travel within Kalimdor is a problem though, the zep to Thunder Bluff moves at flying mount speed so there's no point in catching it whatsoever once you have an epic flying mount.  I've heard there may be portals added to travel to the new zones but as far as I can see there's nothing there yet.

edit - I just found the portals, seems you just have to unlock them.  I now have no complaints about travel as horde  

[Azazel]

The congestion will move anyway, look at Shatt post-BC, the only people there are levelling, or people doing old achievements and such. Dalaran in Cataclysm will be exactly the same, there is no reason to be there unless you are doing 68-78 or doing various occasional tradeskill/achievement related tasks. The bulk population will move back to IF, Stormwind and Org.

I think most moved from Shatt to Dal was simply because Dal has more portals (Including the one to Shatt) as well as all the item vendors. If IF had that now, with a portal to Dalaran to get to the LK content, no-one would be in Dalaran.

[Paelos]

When are people going to start screaming about bringing back Captain Placeholder!

[lesion]

The reason the portals from Shattrath were not removed from Outland when Wrath of the Lich King released is that there was a new central hub with portals to all major cities in Northrend. There is no longer a neutral city hub which both factions will be using in Cataclysm. We want to ensure visiting the major faction capitals is still the most attractive thing to do in Cataclysm, rather than having people use Shattrath and Dalaran as easy connector hubs.

Choosy muthas choose mages.