HS change = Less time played

#0 - April 5, 2007, 3:16 a.m.

Well, after taking several days off from wow I come back only to see Blizzard has messed with the Auto-Unstuck. Old news to some but new to me. I realy dont understand why this was changed. It was never clearly stated that this function was to be used only for actual terrain glitches when you are unable to move.

Im stuck when im in the middle of no where with no herth. Im stuck when i herth to Shatt then port to SW and have no way to get back.

Something that took 3 minutes (herth to Shatt, port to the AH, then auto-usntuck back to Shatt) now takes 20+ minutes. I know tons of people who did exactly this several times a day. There was nothign wrong with it. Hit the AH/trainer and the autounstuck rite back to Outland and continue to play.

What this results in is people simply logging off when their herth is up. Im not going to spend 20+ minutes flying too another frikin world blizzard. What i will do is log off and find something beter to do.

This was one of the worst general changes made since i started playing over a year ago. The ONLY thing you managed to do with this change is burden your players and give them another reason to log off.

Drysc

#21 - April 5, 2007, 4:08 a.m.

The auto-unstuck feature actually is clearly listed as a support feature, and clearly describes what it's to be used for. The intended hearth mechanic, the hearth stone, has a one hour cooldown, and so it could also be easily extrapolated that we only intend that function to be used once per hour.

If you really didn't know it wasn't intended to be used like that, then I don't think you were putting enough thought into it. It bordered on exploitative use.

It's quite easy to plan around your hearth cooldown.

Drysc

#63 - April 5, 2007, 4:48 a.m.

Q u o t e:

Can you please enlighten us on to how we plan around our hearth cooldown?

Most of the time it goes like this.

Farm in outlands,

Pick up some bank stuff in shat

Hearth to if or SW,

Use the ah which takes maybe 10 minutes.

then.....

Please tell me how by careful planning, we have 50 minutes magically disapear so that we can hearth right away again.

Well Shattrath has portals to all major cities, so you should have your hearth set to Shattrath, take the portal to IF or SW, then hearth back when you're done.

Drysc

#69 - April 5, 2007, 4:52 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Blue please post a specific reason for the 60 min cooldown on the hearthstone and the function that the timer serves. I think that people just want to know why they must sit at their PC on the griffin, and do nothing for 20 min because of a game mechanic that they don't understand and that they are getting no response to.

We've definitely discussed portals, hearthstones, and travel times before. We don't want the world to lose its size, we don't want players to be able to zip around without any thought to the distance they have to travel.

Now we've made changes such as the Meeting Stones becoming Summoning Stones, we're improving flight paths to cut down on time and redundant paths, and there's also plenty of ways for players themselves to move around the world fairly quickly. Even with all of these things that already allow a lot of quick or instantaneous travel, we want the game world to feel like a world, and we want player choices to matter, and that includes when and how you choose to travel.

Drysc

#78 - April 5, 2007, 4:59 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Think outside the box for just 1 second if you could. People do not want to spend time flying to shatt constantly. People would love to have fast access to outlands.

What's the farthest flight? Stormspire to Shattrath I guess? That isn't a long flight, Outland is pretty small.

Drysc

#92 - April 5, 2007, 5:07 a.m.

Q u o t e:

Azeroth to Outland is not size.

It is not a flight that people will make at all. I have gone through the dark portal once on all my 58+ chars, and thats it. Since then I have never flown there. Its hearth, and thats it. If I can't hearth I log until I can. Now I don't speak for everyone, but the 4 times I have gone through the dark portal besides release day the blasted lands was empty. completely empty, and there was no one at the flight path just on the other side of the portal. I don't have access to internal stats, but I would wager a large portion of my WoW gold that the dark portal doesn't get used by others much more than myself.

If you can show me something to prove me wrong on this I will listen. But if your internal data shows that people don't make this flight, consider why, and seriously consider giving people some alternative to logging to wait for that cooldown to be done.

Like I said it's easy to plan around your hearth. Now if you screw up and maybe hearth back to Shattrath before doing something you meant to, which I think we have all done at least once, then you'll hopefully be a bit more careful before you decide to travel between planets.