I think they have moved to the "random" portal access instead of "giant building" access as a way to save time and money. It is far less invasive to plop a portal somewhere... instead of redesigning a whole section of an existing zone just to make a portal to a new zone.
Don't get me wrong, I think I agree with you... pretty much... but I was just sharing my perspective on the 'why' of it all.
When you hit level 50 you automatically get a new contact whose short "arc" leads you directly to the entrance. Doesn't get much more obvious than that. Same with First Ward, only you get that contact at level 20.
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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Yeah I understand that its cheap to slap a portal up, but when you look at where they put them its like "wha..?" The entrance to Pretoria for instance. Its tucked back in a corner next to a guy puking. FBZ? Hidden in one of the 6 portal corp portals with no clear marker. |
Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
I think they have moved to the "random" portal access instead of "giant building" access as a way to save time and money. It is far less invasive to plop a portal somewhere... instead of redesigning a whole section of an existing zone just to make a portal to a new zone.
Don't get me wrong, I think I agree with you... pretty much... but I was just sharing my perspective on the 'why' of it all. |
I don't mind the abundance of portals so much as I do the strange places they choose to put them.
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This is more for new players then it is vets. CoH was my first MMO and I was lost about a lot of things when I first played. Not to mention I didn't really care and just wanted to play. I learned as I went and that took time. Getting to level 20 is trivial now and expecting new players, especially younger ones to fully understand the whole contact system in a day or 2 is little much. But if they happen to pass by a portal on the way to the hollows they might be a little more inclined to check it out before they can fully grasp the game and its contact system.
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
When you hit level 50 you automatically get a new contact whose short "arc" leads you directly to the entrance. Doesn't get much more obvious than that. Same with First Ward, only you get that contact at level 20.
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The TUNNEL system announced for Issue 23 will address this.
Global name: @k26dp
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yeah. This. You even get a popup saying "hey! Look here!"
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
When you hit level 50 you automatically get a new contact whose short "arc" leads you directly to the entrance. Doesn't get much more obvious than that. Same with First Ward, only you get that contact at level 20.
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O really? I'll have to look into this. Any links you can throw at me?|
Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
The TUNNEL system announced for Issue 23 will address this.
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(I guess this is the downside of not playing beta.)
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Originally Posted by Agent White
yeah. This. You even get a popup saying "hey! Look here!"
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Sounds like they should be calling it the NAVI system.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
yeah. This. You even get a popup saying "hey! Look here!"
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I don't understand how much easier it can get than a window popping up, directly obscuring your gameplay, saying "HEY LOOK!!!!!!!!! THERE'S A NEW CONTACT!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN TELEPORT TO THEM RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!"|
Originally Posted by SmegHead
This is more for new players then it is vets. CoH was my first MMO and I was lost about a lot of things when I first played. Not to mention I didn't really care and just wanted to play. I learned as I went and that took time. Getting to level 20 is trivial now and expecting new players, especially younger ones to fully understand the whole contact system in a day or 2 is little much. But if they happen to pass by a portal on the way to the hollows they might be a little more inclined to check it out before they can fully grasp the game and its contact system.
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The "this is my first MMO" excuse doesn't hold much weight for me as I started playing in I4/5 (also my first MMO) when the game didn't handhold you to nearly the degree it does now. Most of what I learned about the game was from the person who got me playing in the first place.
Also, new players shouldn't be going to Dark Astoria. If you're not at least level 50 you'll basically die immediately, and if you're not VIP you can't do any missions there anyway. Your argument actually makes sense for a low-level zone like The Hollows, less so for an endgame zone, by which point you really ought to understand the game well enough to get there. And if you don't, well, maybe this isn't the game for you. I hear Minesweeper is pretty hella intense.
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Originally Posted by SmegHead
Does FBZ get one of those now too?
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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
I didn't bother reading the above due to the obnoxious large text, but since the devs already addressed this problem with this tunnel system they seemed to have felt the same way as me about it. Problem solved, time to move on.
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FBZ and Praetoria portals both have minimap markers, you know.
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Originally Posted by SmegHead
Yeah I understand that its cheap to slap a portal up, but when you look at where they put them its like "wha..?" The entrance to Pretoria for instance. Its tucked back in a corner next to a guy puking. FBZ? Hidden in one of the 6 portal corp portals with no clear marker.
I don't mind the abundance of portals so much as I do the strange places they choose to put them. |
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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Now, yes. When I first started the game, no. Like I said, I was 3 months into the game before I knew FBZ existed.|
Originally Posted by ArcticFahx
FBZ and Praetoria portals both have minimap markers, you know.
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Either way I was a day early on posting this because it has already been addressed in the announcement today. The devs seem to have gotten a lot of feedback saying the same thing I am right now since it has already been put in place. Either that or they have common sense...
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| Easy Portal Travel: The new Interdimensional Tunnel System makes getting from one world to another quick and easy. Get to outlying areas like Praetoria and the Shadow Shard easily with a quick dimension jump through conveniently located portals. |
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No it isn't. If a person chooses to jump blindly into a game they have no one to blame but themselves if they don't understand things. The information is available, all they have to do is make an effort to learn it.
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Originally Posted by SmegHead
Getting to level 20 is trivial now and expecting new players, especially younger ones to fully understand the whole contact system in a day or 2 is little much.
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Well, blame me then because I jumped in head first. I just wanted to play a game not learn stuff. In fact when I first bought CoH and got it home I was mad when I found out I had to pay a monthly sub. I was a complete MMO noob.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No it isn't. If a person chooses to jump blindly into a game they have no one to blame but themselves if they don't understand things. The information is available, all they have to do is make an effort to learn it.
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Anyway it doesn't matter. People have options now, and that is a good thing in my book. Giving new players (and current players like me *derp*) easier ways find zones is a great idea IMO. I'm glad they saw it the same way and didn't have the opinions of most in this thread.
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I jumped in headfirst as well, but I didn't and still don't blame anyone but myself when my own ignorance comes back to bite me. I just put on my big boy pants and look it up or ask for help.|
Originally Posted by SmegHead
Well, blame me then because I jumped in head first. I just wanted to play a game not learn stuff. In fact when I first bought CoH and got it home I was mad when I found out I had to pay a monthly sub. I was a complete MMO noob.
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Hell when I first started playing I was always the last one out of missions for months because I never bothered to read the manual and learn that I could exit by clicking the button in the nav bar.
It's not so much that finding the zone the first time is difficult, as has been stated the game makes it pretty clear when it introduces the area to you at gunpoint.
The problem for me is returning there a second time. I know that if I want to get anywhere in the Rogue Isles, I need to take the ferry or helicopters. I know that if I want to get anywhere in Paragon, I need to take the monorail or highways. I know that if I want to get to First Ward or Dark Astoria, I need to...Locate a three-foot-wide portal slapped in a random corner of a random zone.
They handled the new portals poorly. There should have been a main hub of travel to get to these places. If only we had someplace with a lot of PORTALS. Like a CORPORATION of some sort...
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
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I don't know about you, but I've owned at least a hundred games in my life, and I've maybe read the manual for a half dozen of them. A lot of people are like that. Call me lazy call me daft, I just do it that way and it isn't wrong just because you say so. Is reading the manual before playing a game the best way to do it? Yes. Do people always do things the best way.... hell no. Just go play the game for a day you can see that. These improvements are for those people and as one of them I gladly welcome it.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I jumped in headfirst as well, but I didn't and still don't blame anyone but myself when my own ignorance comes back to bite me. I just put on my big boy pants and look it up or ask for help.
Hell when I first started playing I was always the last one out of missions for months because I never bothered to read the manual and learn that I could exit by clicking the button in the nav bar. |
And lets face it, the portals are still in god awful places even with the tunnel system in beta. The fact that they even made the tunnel system and the whole "LOOK HERE! THIS IS WHERE YOU GO!" pop up tell me that. Both would be unnecessary if they were in better locations. That is all I was saying here at first. Stop putting new zone entrances in crappy places. With the invention of the tunnel system it wont really matter anymore. I'd still rather have nice custom areas or to have all of the portals stationed in the, you know, the portal corp... but this'll do.
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The intro 'arc' doesn't actually send you anywhere near the permanent portal. It sends you to DA through a different "once only" portal that's in a mission map.|
Originally Posted by DarkGob
When you hit level 50 you automatically get a new contact whose short "arc" leads you directly to the entrance. Doesn't get much more obvious than that. Same with First Ward, only you get that contact at level 20.
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Edit: I'm not actually saying the permanent portals are hard to find. They could have big flashing signs with directions to it every 50 feet in every zone and some people still wouldn't be able to find it. Much in the way that people still occasionaly ask for the location of a new contact for the SSA.
_________
@Inquisitor
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This. When I finally logged into beta, and got about a dozen pop-up new contact screens, I had to think to myself "Where the heck is First Ward again?" I stood in Atlas for a full 2 minutes because my mind went blank. I blamed it on lack of sleep. |
Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero
I know that if I want to get to First Ward or Dark Astoria, I need to...Locate a three-foot-wide portal slapped in a random corner of a random zone.
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I still haven't discovered if the tunnel system works backwards. As in, does it only work one way?
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I'm waiting for the movie.
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
I hear Minesweeper is pretty hella intense.
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Check out the Repeat Offenders network of SGs! You'll be glad you did.
The portals aren't that hard to find, especially considering they are on your map and you get a pop up telling you where to look.
But I agree they were horribly lazily put in. A random magical portal on the beaches of Grandville and in the middle of Sharkhead/Talos/Peregrine that's barely monitored by a few people is laughably uncreative and cheap. Even worse is our entrance to Imperial City in tucked away inside Pocket D. We have Portal Corp, Grandville, and plenty of space in Talos Island and Cap Au Diable. Convert a building into a high tech Aeon Corp/Portal Corp building monitored by professional Arachnos/Longbow agents and scientists and a contact that explains the situations in each zone for players. Bam.
I could get behind some replacement of a few entrances.
Dark Astoria should still be accessible through Talos Island (albeit with a sort of special marker to indicate that that zone will mess you up bad.)
Firebase Zulu? I mean, yeah, it's out of the way... but can you blame it? I went there for exploration badges and never looked back. There's just nothing to do and a whole lot of room to do it.
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Just FYI, the intro arc to DA sends you to the folks standing outside the portal during its course.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Morbid
The intro 'arc' doesn't actually send you anywhere near the permanent portal. It sends you to DA through a different "once only" portal that's in a mission map.
Edit: I'm not actually saying the permanent portals are hard to find. They could have big flashing signs with directions to it every 50 feet in every zone and some people still wouldn't be able to find it. Much in the way that people still occasionaly ask for the location of a new contact for the SSA. |
Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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But there's no big flashing sign!
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
Just FYI, the intro arc to DA sends you to the folks standing outside the portal during its course.
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_________
@Inquisitor
When they add these new zone like the revamped DA and First Ward, why do that place the entrance in such obscure locations?
For example, it took me some time to find the entrance to first ward when it was released and I'm a vet player. Imagine someone new to the game. Dark Astoria isn't much better. A small portal next to a arena in PI? Just the fact that its next to a arena might keep people away... And how about fire base zulu? I didn't know that zone existed for about 3 months after I started playing the game.
They really need to put the access to future zones in more obvious locations. Places where there is regular traffic and new players would have a better chance seeing it. The Rikti War zone is a great example. Its located in busy zones (Atlas Park, Cap next to the BM) AND has multiple entrances on each side. Not only that, it has Vanguard banners, soldiers and in some instances armored vehicles parked at the door. All new zones should get similar treatment. Not a random portal tacked behind a dumpster somewhere.
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