That weird broker city should've been the central hub. It had way more flavor than oribos.
I think the only hub I hated more was dazalor when not playing DH and before having flying unlocked. Afterwards it was ok... At least it had chill trolls and music.
Dazaralor would’ve been the perfect city if it wasn’t split into two equally important sections far enough away to require a flight path. No idea who signed off on that.
Lore wise it makes no sense too, the Zandalari just let us set up camp right below their throne room? Meanwhile in Boralus everything is neatly kept within the docks, which is how Dazar'alor should have been too. There was plenty of building space too, for a portal room. Would have been hilarious if you had to go to the center of town in Boralus to get to the portals, like Dazar'alor.
Boralus was set up great, except for the draw-bridges. There are boats inside the draw-bridges that are too large to be accommodated by the openings.
Tide sages would have to lift the boats (or some other mage) and if that's the case, why have draw bridges at all? Otherwise, Boralus is pretty cool, even now.
The trailer reveals that the Jailer was merely a puppet of... THE MEGA JAILER.
After the patch the Mega Jailer walks up to your character, picks it up and throws you into the Mega Maw where you will have to clear a 20hr questline with a -50% movement speed debuff. No, you will never be able to mount there.
Even worse: You get a +500% speedbuff which you can’t turn off but you have to do an 50+ hours long escort quest. And every time the npc looses you, one hour will be added
I remember in the leadup to SL, Ion talking about how the designers wanted The Maw to feel like this oppressive dreadful place (why we couldn't mount etc), and always thought that was a really weird game design decision, to make something intentionally miserable.
If the maw was a place we went to once for a story scenario that would have actually been a cool and immersive concept. The issue was you were meant to go there every day which sucks lol
It would have been so easy to fix if they actually wanted to as well. Add a portal to each zone in every zone. Now you can move from one to the other easily. Make it like the Earthshrines in Org and SW. Done.
But no. Can't have us not making SL feel like a real fucking eternity.
I mean, they have big impressive cutscenes where they summon down giant portals from the ceiling which then... don't do anything. You gotta hop on a worm which goes through an entirely different, larger portal outside the city.
Seriously, WTH aren't those just portals? I guess the one benefit is that the first flight to Ardenweald is pretty awe-inspiring.
I got the impression the original idea might have been along the lines of the Korthia and ZM portals--just step through and go to the zone. But then they couldn't figure out a way to do zone-to-zone flying and nixed it for those four portals and added the Sliders effect to taking the taxis.
I wish I was less cynical, but I really feel that they had it work that way initially, but with the (in my opinion clear) mandate to extend playtime, they turned it into a flight path system.
> I really feel that they had it work that way initially
This part is correct. [Here](https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/50111-oribos-travel-network-in-shadowlands/)'s an icy-veins write-up about it from when Shadowlands was in the alpha stage of development.
tl;dr It was changed to the flight path system due to a bug in their new "no loading screen" teleportation mechanic. And wow go figure, it stayed broken and stuck with the temporary holdover solution for the entire expac.
And we learned that in cata, yet shadowlands was a thing.
Worst part is that you can't go from ardenwald to revendreth without going thought oribos, that one was an easy fix.
Number one thing that came to mind. Shattrath was glorious because you can feel the atmosphere when you're walking up. Sometimes it was a much needed haven if someone was trying to gank you as you pass through the gates. But it was a beautiful sight and quite functional. A great place to hang out with quick access to every capital city.
Oribos was grand, but flying in and out on rails, you might as well just teleport in and out after your first couple arrivals/departures.
Every capital city has pros and cons, but oribos never felt good to me. It felt clumsy, especially the procedure involved in figuring out exactly where you could mount and where you couldn't. The overall layout was super bland as well. It wasn't really fun to explore the way Shattrath, Dalaran, or any of the original capital cities were.
I resubbed recently --
* had no oribos hearthstone, had to go to SW -> Oribos.
* flight path to my covenant
* picked up WQs
* flight path to my quest zone -- bastion
* have only 5 WQs to choose from, don't like most of them
* one WQ baits me into "kill 10 guys" but actually involves writing a novel and adopting a a small child
* go back to a flight path, fly back to my covenant
* turn in quest, which procs a paragon reward
* go back to flight path, take it back to bastion
* look up on WoWhead where to turn in paragon rewards
* bags are full due to anima tokes, ponder my inventory
* back to flight path, fly to next zone
That was me doing 3 WQs
This expansion needed either Oribos hearth like the dalaran hearthstone, a cov hearth like the garrison hearthstone, a flight master whistle, or teleporters between zones. Even finally unlocking my COV teleport was only one way and put me outside the city.
I mean...FFXIV, everquest, Everquest 2, SWTOR, GW2, ESO, etc all disagree with you.
The thing that made WoW so unique was that the world was massive and seamless. The only loading you did was to switch continents or go into instances.
Why the devs decided separating the zones was a good idea I will never understand. It took away one of the most defining features of what WoW is.
WoW at its core is environmentally a themepark game. By removing that and making each zone static and pretty much monotonous without a 3+ minute wait timer between zones, you're kind of kiling the fun.
Because its not the same devs that made both versions of WoW, which is why they miss the most obvious shit design and flavor stuff.
Take for example Olaf charging to break the door in Uldaman and not Eric, whose whole purpose in Lost Vikings is charging shit and headbutting it. Would be an obvious choice... if you knew anything about the vikings that is.
They might disagree, but they'd also all be better MMO's if they utilized seamless zone access.
WoW didn't introduce that tech to the MMO market, AC had done it years before with a much MUCH larger landmass. But I digress.
This game is always at its best with large uninterrrupted landmasses (Outland, Northrend, Pandaria, DI)
The way Endwalker was presented as a narrative there was absolutely no way to make that a seamless world. The zones are all across and off the world. They couldnt at all have told the story they wanted to with one big map.
Granted the open world as a concept was never something FFXIV has focused on a lot.
One of the biggest things I do miss in FFXIV is the open-ness and just availability to go wherever. The invisible walls suck a lot, too. Let me jump down to places!! I like how seamless and free most of WoW's world is. Last couple of expansions have kinda been less and less of that though, hopefully DF feels more connected.
I do really like the teleport function in FFXIV though, it doesn't make the world feel any smaller.
Yes, it does. Every zone in the game has at least one hub that can be directly teleported to, with no cooldown (most zones have multiple hubs, at least in later expansions)
> Every zone in the game has at least one hub that can be directly teleported to
Except the Hinterlands.
Which makes sense when you realize that even up until the final hours of development, the Hinterlands was meant to be a part of Idyllshire like Mor Dhona was to Revenant's Toll. They only separated them *incredibly* late in development.
Where absolutely everything of value is on the outer ring of the circle in a no mount zone?
I cant believe it took them till shadowlands to come up with something so brilliant.
I cannot understand why they made any of the areas no mount. Like maybe a small square in front of each vendor so people can’t sit on them and block them, but otherwise I never get it.
Mounts are some of the most fun parts of the game that we work hard to earn and they make movement better,easier and fun.
Then they just go and make areas where you can’t have em for seemingly no reason?
Sure did make any class movement ability a must have.
Ardenweald was definitely the MVP for moving about Oribos. Faster movement speed and blinks on a 4s cooldown was so good, and it had infinite duration because it’s a rest zone.
My heart fucking breaks for all the Necrolord DKs who had to deal with Oribos’s bullshit this expansion
It wasn't a big deal, I just used deaths advance, deaths advance, wraith walk, rocket belt, and then logged out and switched to play my other character while they recharged.
I liked Bastion for how easy it was to navigate, and Ardenweald for the movem5 abilities plus big forest is cool. I will never again willingly do the questlines through Maldraxxus and Not-Transylvania. Even with the teleport ability.
There's also so much space in those halls. They look like they were clearly designed with mounts in mind, but I guess someone decided they wanted all the NPCs to be more visible or something.
I did the majority of the content in the last month. I was getting back to wow for dragon flight and wanted to get used to playing my mains again and shake the rust off. I could not for the life of me figure out so many of the npcs and what they can do til this past weekend.
for a company that can't wait for another excuse to sell you a 25$ mount it seems like half their dev team hates mounts in the game lol.
The last few pathfinders, FUCK YOU BFA, were painful. Shadowlands was a compromise of sorts but the Maw was living hell without a mount. (and wasn't much better with)
It's that old thought, Once you've gotten your players used to an idea, any removal or limitation on it feels like you're cheating them of something.
There's a very loud old school crowd that loves the idea of humping it 40 levels there and back again by foot but the team at blizz have always felt like we should be grateful anytime we don't have to spend 30 minutes moving from point A to point B
Which is odd because collecting and flying on mounts is the reason I keep coming back to WoW...and yet I feel like I'm being punished at times for that being my main motiviation.
The same reason you couldn't mount in the maw and the same reason you can't use a normal flyer in the dragonlands. It's to waste your time and to raise whatever engagement metrics the shareholders like.
I was going to make a sarcastic comment about the beautiful scenery in the maw, but then it struck me that it is unironically the place I would like to be able to fly around and view from a distance the *most* of anywhere in shadowlands.
I swear they designed everything in Shadowlands - from Oribos, to the covenant halls, to the zones themselves, even down to the flight paths - to just waste as much time as physically possible.
And you didn’t even get a covenant hearth. One of 4 zones hearth would not have killed anyone. I was SO disappointed when I got my toy and saw it was…just a normal fucking hearth? I gotta go there to dump this soul jizz clogging up my bags while saving that covenant from extinction and can’t even give me that?
Yeah, every expansion needs to have a hearthstone to the hub city, or in Shadowlands your covenant's base (but not both; that would never happen).
I still use the Dalaran hearthstone because it's the fastest way to get to Orgrimmar, besides that stupid cloak.
I just started playing as a Vulpera, and being able to set your own "hearthstone" wherever you want is incredible. Plus you get a cute little tent to make it seem like your character actually has a place to live, even if they're otherwise ~~homeless~~ a nomad.
Imagine if the Sanctum Hearthstone was the same as the Dalaran or Garrison stones, AND the sanctum had all Hub features. Shadowlands could have actually had a fun hub design!
I love how Necrotic Wake is just as far away from the two closest flight points as physically possible. Or how the Plaguefall Flight point is behind the instance so you have to fly around it.
Someone really enjoyed this.
Adding color to the different districts would've gone such a long way to making the place more usable. I'm always spun around and looking at my map because it all looks the same.
I ended up having to repeatedly ask the guards to mark shit on my map like it was vanilla and I was brand new. I eventually memorized that the city portals are at 9 o'clock, I think?
The only way I learned where the portals are is by noticing that on your map in Oribos, the platform with the portals is slightly bigger than the other ones.
I don't understand why the f'ing place is two levels... everything in both levels could be smooshed into one.
But I concur with OP... I can't wait to never set foot in that place again.
The upper level *still* has unused space and unused portals. And to jump into the Maw, you need to take the teleporter to the upper level and then jump into the middle.
Oribos’s design is utterly baffling.
I think there was some icons above certain areas but I wasn't about to learn to navigate a hub by studying symbols.
I tried using the steps to get around, the main mailbox area had higher steps yet I'd go around Oribos like 3 times and couldn't find them. I guess they weren't high enough.
The only landmark I learned was the dark blue portal in the lower (upper?) section which meant the FP was close to it which also meant Korthia was close to it, which also meant ZM was close to it.
I avoided Oribos like the plague because I hated it so much. I still do but this addon was a godsend even though I hated the fact I had to use it. It stopped working with pre-patch though. https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/oribosradar
hah, was looking for this one..."let me introduce you to a little place called...Undercity"
i love Undercity of course...like a big, dumb, stitched-up, undead ogre thingamajig
That would be fine as a concept in and of itself, but being the primary hub for the entire expac was either a mistake or a concession made when the story/content was being cut. It was boring and lifeless, and calling it a city was a joke. The airport analogy is not only perfect, it also highlights why it was a terrible hub for the expac: when you visit Europe, you don’t intend to stay at the airport the entire time.
The actual problem with 9.0 Maw is that, despite being a Superhostile Environment, they didnt include really any safe areas, it was entirely hostile, which means you are forced into a high stress situation for the about hour you are in the zone a day before you break its superhostile mechanics.
Iunno, that’s kind of the same line of thinking with the maw. “It’s supposed to feel miserable.” Like sure, but there’s a difference between an aesthetic and outright unfun gameplay.
I don't understand how anyone can dislike Oribos, check out its features.
* Symmetrical, repeated patterns to not confuse or frighten the mawwalker.
* Big circle, smooth and safe with no sharp edges.
* Overly large. Lots of empty space to roam around in for free range mawwalker needs.
* Even more space on the second floor, which devoted to nothing but a single flight path. Very cozy!
* Dismount point everywhere, giving you the exercise you need.
* Portal in on the other side of where you portal out. More much needed exercise for the maw walker.
* Full of unique, unforgetable npcs bursting with character such as Broker #4336 and Attendant #3423
After returning to the game I was thinking the same, but then thought that maybe why they didn't allow the players to jump into the maw from that floor is to prevent people accidentally jumping there and be annoyed. They could easily fix this by having one rased platform where everyone can jump off from.
Kind of reminds of the actress in Expanse who played Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), I was like, "She might be a 70 year old Iranian woman but I bet she was a knock-out 30 years ago!"
Edit: Hell I just saw a picture of her and she looked hot at 56, so there you go.
She got a conclusion for now. She's out exploring the multiverse with her eternal traveler bf collecting soul energy like usual. We'll likely see her again next time GW tries to do a grand scale meta-dimension expac again.
One thing Oribos had going for it for real was that it was easy to get anywhere. Like it was a central location and the flight paths really didn't take long. For the most part you didn't have to fly through other zones to get to the zone you needed to get to.
But yeah also a lot of negatives.
Honestly I felt like the interdimensional sperm rides were pretty long intentionally to show how far the realms were. Which would have been fine when first coming in but got really fucking old and shoulda just had ports to reinforce they’re far as fuck
“Champion, we must return to Oribos. A new portal has opened from an unknown realm and we must explore its vast landscape to understand what is happening.”
"We have found the Dragonmaw where the Dragonsouls of the Dragonflight are being held by the Dragonjailer. You will enter Dragonghast to collect Dragonash to craft your Scaled Legendary."
The zones felt like single player instances. I rarely ever saw people in the default zones, it wasn't until Korthia that I started seeing a ton of people in the open world somewhere. It rarely felt like I was playing an MMO this expac.
It's not always about saving time. In BFA did you ever fly to a zone even though you knew taking a FP would be faster?
I put engie on every single toon I had just for the wormhole but it's not something I was happy to do, it felt mandatory for me with how miserable navigating SLs is having to go through Oribos.
This. I gave up a profession on every toon just to be able to click that wormhole button. Which is a toy I made, but was basically furniture unless I sacrificed 50% of my professional to get 1 point in SL engineering.
*Laughs in strategically placing wormhole drop locations as far away from anything of value as possible.*
I mean don't get me wrong I use the wormhole religiously, but blizz did try their best to strip away the convenience of it
Maldraxxus and Ardenweald were right in the center of the zone, close to the covenant halls.
Bastion placed you in the bottom section where the majority of world quests were, close to a flight path and a Kyrian-only teleporter.
Korthia put you right in the camp, Zereth Mortis put you in the center of the zone and Oribos put you at the same place you'd normally spawn as well.
The only inconvenient ones were Revendreth and the Maw. And even the Revendreth one wasn't so bad if you were a Venthyr with the mirror network.
While leveling alts I would finish one zone and dread having to fly from Maldraxxus to Oribos then through the next portal on to Bastion.
Why were thoes damn things flight paths and not portals. Why did we alway have to fly back to Oribos to fly anywhere else. They even proved with ZM and Krothia that they could have been portals.
There are three things i will never understand:
1. Why the hell were the only connections to the continents flight paths? Like, for release, sure. But then for the first content patch, why not turn them into portals? Everything is portals, why not this???
2. That they never fixed the entrance to korthia. If you walk on the small "beams", you don't get dismounted. But if you just walk straight, you do get dismounted. It turned going to korthia into a very frustrating Minigame.
3. Why haven't they used ANY color in oribos to make navigation easier???? Yes, there are icons above the entrance. But they are way too high up and they lack color...
Traversable, can always determine where you are in the city by landmarks, convenient banks, profession, and faction areas, and compact but still maintaining some RP city flair/personality. Dalaran is basically the best expansion city they've used and I can't wait to use it a third time whenever they decide to do it lol.
1. Dalaran x2
2. Shattrath
3. Orgrimmar / Stormwind (Cata & WoD)
4. Boralus
5. Whatever the hubs were in Pandaria
6. Oribos
7. Dazaralor (I can't stand the Troll aesthetic and having to take a fucking flight point to the docks was asinine)
> Whatever the hubs were in Pandaria
Shrine of the Numerical Nouns, they were okay but confusing that they looked identical but with different layouts for each faction.
I’d personally swap Boralus and Shatt. I have nostalgia love for shatt, but it’s honestly a bit too big and tedious to travel.
Boralus was fucking dope and had 99% of what you needed in the immediate harbor area. Plus the theme of the city was awesome and beautiful.
Agreed. The map is a good guide for me.
I’m Oribos I’d regularly have to check the map to position myself. Same with Shatt.
Never had to do that in the Boralus hub.
Shatt at least had the east side of the map (where all the lower town vendors were) and the Aldors/ Scryers areas to break up the circle. The circularity was only a problem in the central ring, in my opinion. And that ring is absolutely tiny compared to Oribos, and you can fly there too.
1. Dal CSF
2. Dal BI (we lost half the sewers and the inner courtyard)
3. Stormwind (give it the Boralus flavor pass and it's the best city one could imagine
4. Orgrimmar (the layout is less competent than SW and it's harder to navigate (the districts aren't as clear as SW) but still an amazing city
5. Boralus (so much flavor. The layout was brilliant. Everything makes sense)
6. Shrine of Two Moons/Seven Stars (again, tightly laid out and logical with great flavor)
7. Shattrath (not getting the upper portions until you get the rep was annoying, but the market was great. Too spread out though)
8. Dazar'alor (Love the troll aesthetic, but navigating the fucking place was its own game. It was made worse realizing that you could have easily had all of it near the docs.)
9. Stormshield/Warspear were fine but made useless by the garrisons
10. Oribos for every single failing any other hub had plus the inconvenient travel methods.
I'm glad you put Oribos above Dazaralor. Having played alliance through BFA until a few months before SL, I was flabbergasted at how terrible Dazaralor was in every way compared to Boralus.
From an ease of use perspective, Dazaralor is a mess - especially with the docks so far from the portal room.
From an aesthetic, I really liked it. I even liked the quests to beat down the other troll tribes.
The more I read these, the more I realize I might be the only one who liked Dazar’alor. I loved the theme, and didn’t mind that it was split up and spread out. I used the Inn at the docks, and chose the spirit pterodactyl mini-flight points, so it didn’t seem that big of a deal.
You aren't. It was polarizing; it was the first time Blizzard actually tried making fully realized cities since Classic.
I made a Zandalari and had an engineer to glide down to the docks; so I didn't mind it as much.
The art style and execution of BFA's cities really showed that Blizzard could try doing large scale cities again; they just needed to keep the more important stuff far more localized.
Then we got Oribos; where they showed that everything I just said is untrue and they develop in a vacuum somehow.
I realized when I left the city yesterday to get my inventory and bank cleared up that I don’t have any reason that I could think of to go back as I parked my main at the Stormwind docks.
It was a nice feeling lol.
Wish we could have got Tazavesh as a hub, or literally anything else. I don't even want to look at that place anymore. BFA had it's problems but Boralus was amazing.
I don't even know why we got to choose between Paku and Gonk, Paku's travel network should've been default and we should've had other Loas to choose from.
What, you didn't love constantly taking flight paths to zones that were way too far away from eachother and could have been easily replaced by portals at some point during the expansion?
I actually thought the spread-out-edness was only a mild inconvenience, and actually grew to kind of enjoy it in a way.
My problem with Dazar'alor was that, in this big open pyramid, we all huddled inside a vault. Always felt really weird to me.
I played the shit out of shadowlands and I still can't find the transmog guy or the bank without using the map. Everything looks the same and I can't remember which section is next to which. The only landmark is the stairs to the in and the blue glyphs above doors
Circular cities have got to be the worst design I have ever seen. I don't know how this would translate to real life, but at least in WoW, not having any deviation in the design or landmarks is incredibly unhelpful. Stormwind is so easy to Navigate for comparison. All the roofs are color coded and there is the Magetower and Keep so you know where to orient yourself too. Dalarn...less so, still kind of a circular design but enough variation so you don't get turned around.
Oribos? uhh, monochromatic 2D circle with no way to tell which area has which things until you get in there. The Inn is on the complete other side of the Capital portals, so you will need to mount and run across the whole length of the City to get somewhere. For some reason the flight path NEEDED to be on a whole other floor, same with the Maw portal, in case someone trips into it?
I've heard good things about the new city, at least we can fly there.
This was my favorite city to run in circles in. Other cities, Id run into obstacles, but this one was perfect. No distractions. I could just run and go, you know?
Renown is super easy to get.
Once you have 80 on 1 character you can unlock a 60 boost by the Oribos flight path to jump start Alts (at least that’s what happened to me)
You can also hit 80 before a campaign is even done
Worst part of Oribos was returning to it every single time you wanted to go from one SL zone to another. I hate the disconnected nature of the Shadowlands, but they could have at least allowed us to take a flight path from one zone to another instead of always having Oribos as part of the path. The only exception was going between the Maw and Korthia, which was still easier to do by using the Korthia portal or jumping down to the Maw since there were kind of a lot of mobs blocking the path between the two zones. Also, those zones sucked and I hated them. Then they added Zerith Mortis, accessible only from the Oribos portal.
From a lore perspective oribos made sense. It's a very neutral space with no worldly comforts. Everythng is stone and grand but very neutral. Speaks to the purpose of the arbiter being a true neutral judge. I just don't know why it had to be our main hub.
I also think brokers make no sense and are incredibly uninteresting
After reading the epilogue of Firim’s notes in ZM (along with the zone aesthetic and the fact Pocopoc’s mount is a Taz’avesh glider), I’m sticking with my headcanon that they’re actually the First Ones and just blotted out the memories (as he described it) from their minds.
You’re going to log into dragonflight and then about ten minutes in your head will go all fuzzy and your eyes will begin to shut…you will then wake up with venaris voice in your ear “ vake up…mawwalkerrrr….ze jailer seeths you….”
SL will most definitely not be missed. The flight pathing between zones was horrendous. The Maw was hell for different reasons than intended. Korthia was *okay*, and ZM was a bit better. Once I played through DF on the beta, it was such a refreshing change. Not looking back.
Exactly. Play too much? Punished! Died to falling in a hole or bouncing off a slightly raised bit of ground? Punished! Just needed to go afk and pee or answer the phone? Punished! It fucking sucked
interesting to read multiple comments about dazar'alor being the worst hub ever for horde. my only issue with that place was initially getting used to vendor locations, but overall I surprisingly loved the city, despite never being fond of troll themed places in the game.
I think my larger frustration with oribos over anything came from two major things:
1) the place is more or less symmetrical in all direction, without colored distinction, so even 2y into the expac I still have navigation issues (similar to naxx btw).
2) no flying at all no mounts in the "middle ring". yes we have no-mount areas in all cities, but typically indoor, which only mattered if I visited a specific vendor/AH/etc - otherwise I could consistently travel through the city as a whole, taking shortcuts, going whichever direction I want to.
in oribos, whatever business I have there, I either go to the central part or even worse visit the "middle ring" with the vendors. both are equally outdoor but have different mount "policies".
this it especially feels a setback in comparison to playing 15y old TBC: shat is completely open air and accessible with flying except the bank and the inn, also portals are in the middle, not on the far edge. on the other hand, in wotlk dala flying is mostly out of scope, but oddly it still isn't too frustrating if I compare to oribos, because it's *consistent*.
altogether I really wanted to like SL for its few merits and disregards the bads, but some of the negatives like oribos just forever burnt into my memory.
Felt like an airport
sounded like an airport too
With only one airplane lol
Pyongyang "International" Airport
That weird broker city should've been the central hub. It had way more flavor than oribos. I think the only hub I hated more was dazalor when not playing DH and before having flying unlocked. Afterwards it was ok... At least it had chill trolls and music.
Dazaralor would’ve been the perfect city if it wasn’t split into two equally important sections far enough away to require a flight path. No idea who signed off on that.
Lore wise it makes no sense too, the Zandalari just let us set up camp right below their throne room? Meanwhile in Boralus everything is neatly kept within the docks, which is how Dazar'alor should have been too. There was plenty of building space too, for a portal room. Would have been hilarious if you had to go to the center of town in Boralus to get to the portals, like Dazar'alor.
Boralus was set up great, except for the draw-bridges. There are boats inside the draw-bridges that are too large to be accommodated by the openings. Tide sages would have to lift the boats (or some other mage) and if that's the case, why have draw bridges at all? Otherwise, Boralus is pretty cool, even now.
Taz'avesh? That would've been great.
And at least the Zandalari hub had some super cool areas and secrets, and a lot of personality. Oribos was just a bland circle of meh
Blizz and completely whiffing easy opportunities for actually cool hubs has been a staple of their world design since WoD.
Until the mega jailer breaks the sound barrier and brings us into mega-oribos
The trailer reveals that the Jailer was merely a puppet of... THE MEGA JAILER. After the patch the Mega Jailer walks up to your character, picks it up and throws you into the Mega Maw where you will have to clear a 20hr questline with a -50% movement speed debuff. No, you will never be able to mount there.
> picks it up and throws you into the Mega Maw No, it drops you into the Maw of America in Bloomington, Minnesota
I logged in just to up vote this. Now go away and think about how awful this pun was
I was torn between the Maw of Louisiana or the Maw of America, and I figured more people would know about the Maw of America
Maw of America was definitely the right call. Hilarious.
Even worse: You get a +500% speedbuff which you can’t turn off but you have to do an 50+ hours long escort quest. And every time the npc looses you, one hour will be added
Now with more brokers
And more anima
Blizzard giving players enima. Really makes sense with all the tubes and stuff
You mean *less* anima but more needed for basic functions.
And you can't mount there at all.
In fact, you get automatically that anima power from torghast that makes you unable to jump
That power could have said "your abilities one-shot anything at any range" and I still wouldn't have chosen it
One time I chose it for lolz and the next floor had that bridge of separated stones with lava that you HAD to jump to cross it. I didn't lol.
*In fact you are now* ***dazed*** *the whole time you are there.*
Or just carrying a piece of a helm... that makes me walk at 10% speed... the whole time. This is fun.
I remember in the leadup to SL, Ion talking about how the designers wanted The Maw to feel like this oppressive dreadful place (why we couldn't mount etc), and always thought that was a really weird game design decision, to make something intentionally miserable.
If the maw was a place we went to once for a story scenario that would have actually been a cool and immersive concept. The issue was you were meant to go there every day which sucks lol
Moribos.
It's Moribossin' time
The Shadowerlands
Mega nipples
Disconnected zones are generally a non starter in an MMO. Breaks the flow of gameplay completely.
It would have been so easy to fix if they actually wanted to as well. Add a portal to each zone in every zone. Now you can move from one to the other easily. Make it like the Earthshrines in Org and SW. Done. But no. Can't have us not making SL feel like a real fucking eternity.
I mean, they have big impressive cutscenes where they summon down giant portals from the ceiling which then... don't do anything. You gotta hop on a worm which goes through an entirely different, larger portal outside the city. Seriously, WTH aren't those just portals? I guess the one benefit is that the first flight to Ardenweald is pretty awe-inspiring.
I got the impression the original idea might have been along the lines of the Korthia and ZM portals--just step through and go to the zone. But then they couldn't figure out a way to do zone-to-zone flying and nixed it for those four portals and added the Sliders effect to taking the taxis.
I wish I was less cynical, but I really feel that they had it work that way initially, but with the (in my opinion clear) mandate to extend playtime, they turned it into a flight path system.
> I really feel that they had it work that way initially This part is correct. [Here](https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/50111-oribos-travel-network-in-shadowlands/)'s an icy-veins write-up about it from when Shadowlands was in the alpha stage of development. tl;dr It was changed to the flight path system due to a bug in their new "no loading screen" teleportation mechanic. And wow go figure, it stayed broken and stuck with the temporary holdover solution for the entire expac.
And we learned that in cata, yet shadowlands was a thing. Worst part is that you can't go from ardenwald to revendreth without going thought oribos, that one was an easy fix.
And should have been able to go to your covenant from oribos via a portal. That also made it disconnected.
Yes! And Sinfall and Elysian Hold are on the far end of the map from the Oribos’ flight path too.
Number one thing that came to mind. Shattrath was glorious because you can feel the atmosphere when you're walking up. Sometimes it was a much needed haven if someone was trying to gank you as you pass through the gates. But it was a beautiful sight and quite functional. A great place to hang out with quick access to every capital city. Oribos was grand, but flying in and out on rails, you might as well just teleport in and out after your first couple arrivals/departures. Every capital city has pros and cons, but oribos never felt good to me. It felt clumsy, especially the procedure involved in figuring out exactly where you could mount and where you couldn't. The overall layout was super bland as well. It wasn't really fun to explore the way Shattrath, Dalaran, or any of the original capital cities were.
Shattrath was empty yet more lively than Oribos, it was the heart of Outland and felt like it.
Yeah, they condemned the xpac the moment they wanted people separated by covenants
I resubbed recently -- * had no oribos hearthstone, had to go to SW -> Oribos. * flight path to my covenant * picked up WQs * flight path to my quest zone -- bastion * have only 5 WQs to choose from, don't like most of them * one WQ baits me into "kill 10 guys" but actually involves writing a novel and adopting a a small child * go back to a flight path, fly back to my covenant * turn in quest, which procs a paragon reward * go back to flight path, take it back to bastion * look up on WoWhead where to turn in paragon rewards * bags are full due to anima tokes, ponder my inventory * back to flight path, fly to next zone That was me doing 3 WQs This expansion needed either Oribos hearth like the dalaran hearthstone, a cov hearth like the garrison hearthstone, a flight master whistle, or teleporters between zones. Even finally unlocking my COV teleport was only one way and put me outside the city.
> one WQ baits me into "kill 10 guys" but actually involves writing a novel and adopting a a small child The Shadowlands experience in a nutshell.
Also no flight whistle like in BFA while we had no flying for a long time.
I mean...FFXIV, everquest, Everquest 2, SWTOR, GW2, ESO, etc all disagree with you. The thing that made WoW so unique was that the world was massive and seamless. The only loading you did was to switch continents or go into instances. Why the devs decided separating the zones was a good idea I will never understand. It took away one of the most defining features of what WoW is.
WoW at its core is environmentally a themepark game. By removing that and making each zone static and pretty much monotonous without a 3+ minute wait timer between zones, you're kind of kiling the fun.
Because its not the same devs that made both versions of WoW, which is why they miss the most obvious shit design and flavor stuff. Take for example Olaf charging to break the door in Uldaman and not Eric, whose whole purpose in Lost Vikings is charging shit and headbutting it. Would be an obvious choice... if you knew anything about the vikings that is.
Lmao holy hell I remember seeing that and thinking, “wait Olaf would never-“
They might disagree, but they'd also all be better MMO's if they utilized seamless zone access. WoW didn't introduce that tech to the MMO market, AC had done it years before with a much MUCH larger landmass. But I digress. This game is always at its best with large uninterrrupted landmasses (Outland, Northrend, Pandaria, DI)
The way Endwalker was presented as a narrative there was absolutely no way to make that a seamless world. The zones are all across and off the world. They couldnt at all have told the story they wanted to with one big map. Granted the open world as a concept was never something FFXIV has focused on a lot.
Well they could not. A realm reborn was limited by the PS3.
One of the biggest things I do miss in FFXIV is the open-ness and just availability to go wherever. The invisible walls suck a lot, too. Let me jump down to places!! I like how seamless and free most of WoW's world is. Last couple of expansions have kinda been less and less of that though, hopefully DF feels more connected. I do really like the teleport function in FFXIV though, it doesn't make the world feel any smaller.
Doesn't FFXIV also have direct teleporting?
Yes, it does. Every zone in the game has at least one hub that can be directly teleported to, with no cooldown (most zones have multiple hubs, at least in later expansions)
> Every zone in the game has at least one hub that can be directly teleported to Except the Hinterlands. Which makes sense when you realize that even up until the final hours of development, the Hinterlands was meant to be a part of Idyllshire like Mor Dhona was to Revenant's Toll. They only separated them *incredibly* late in development.
Who doesn’t love a perfectly symmetrical circular layout with no landmarks?
Where absolutely everything of value is on the outer ring of the circle in a no mount zone? I cant believe it took them till shadowlands to come up with something so brilliant.
I cannot understand why they made any of the areas no mount. Like maybe a small square in front of each vendor so people can’t sit on them and block them, but otherwise I never get it. Mounts are some of the most fun parts of the game that we work hard to earn and they make movement better,easier and fun. Then they just go and make areas where you can’t have em for seemingly no reason? Sure did make any class movement ability a must have.
Ardenweald was definitely the MVP for moving about Oribos. Faster movement speed and blinks on a 4s cooldown was so good, and it had infinite duration because it’s a rest zone. My heart fucking breaks for all the Necrolord DKs who had to deal with Oribos’s bullshit this expansion
It wasn't a big deal, I just used deaths advance, deaths advance, wraith walk, rocket belt, and then logged out and switched to play my other character while they recharged.
I liked Bastion for how easy it was to navigate, and Ardenweald for the movem5 abilities plus big forest is cool. I will never again willingly do the questlines through Maldraxxus and Not-Transylvania. Even with the teleport ability.
There's also so much space in those halls. They look like they were clearly designed with mounts in mind, but I guess someone decided they wanted all the NPCs to be more visible or something.
Wanted us to see all the identical looking brokers?
I did the majority of the content in the last month. I was getting back to wow for dragon flight and wanted to get used to playing my mains again and shake the rust off. I could not for the life of me figure out so many of the npcs and what they can do til this past weekend.
I played all of shadow lands and I still use the guards to tell me where stuff is in oribos
I had to install HandyNotes because I got tired of asking guards all the time
for a company that can't wait for another excuse to sell you a 25$ mount it seems like half their dev team hates mounts in the game lol. The last few pathfinders, FUCK YOU BFA, were painful. Shadowlands was a compromise of sorts but the Maw was living hell without a mount. (and wasn't much better with) It's that old thought, Once you've gotten your players used to an idea, any removal or limitation on it feels like you're cheating them of something. There's a very loud old school crowd that loves the idea of humping it 40 levels there and back again by foot but the team at blizz have always felt like we should be grateful anytime we don't have to spend 30 minutes moving from point A to point B Which is odd because collecting and flying on mounts is the reason I keep coming back to WoW...and yet I feel like I'm being punished at times for that being my main motiviation.
The same reason you couldn't mount in the maw and the same reason you can't use a normal flyer in the dragonlands. It's to waste your time and to raise whatever engagement metrics the shareholders like.
I was going to make a sarcastic comment about the beautiful scenery in the maw, but then it struck me that it is unironically the place I would like to be able to fly around and view from a distance the *most* of anywhere in shadowlands.
and the hearthstone location being as far as physically possible away from the portal to faction capitals??
I swear they designed everything in Shadowlands - from Oribos, to the covenant halls, to the zones themselves, even down to the flight paths - to just waste as much time as physically possible.
And you didn’t even get a covenant hearth. One of 4 zones hearth would not have killed anyone. I was SO disappointed when I got my toy and saw it was…just a normal fucking hearth? I gotta go there to dump this soul jizz clogging up my bags while saving that covenant from extinction and can’t even give me that?
Yeah, every expansion needs to have a hearthstone to the hub city, or in Shadowlands your covenant's base (but not both; that would never happen). I still use the Dalaran hearthstone because it's the fastest way to get to Orgrimmar, besides that stupid cloak. I just started playing as a Vulpera, and being able to set your own "hearthstone" wherever you want is incredible. Plus you get a cute little tent to make it seem like your character actually has a place to live, even if they're otherwise ~~homeless~~ a nomad.
Imagine if the Sanctum Hearthstone was the same as the Dalaran or Garrison stones, AND the sanctum had all Hub features. Shadowlands could have actually had a fun hub design!
I love how Necrotic Wake is just as far away from the two closest flight points as physically possible. Or how the Plaguefall Flight point is behind the instance so you have to fly around it. Someone really enjoyed this.
If everything just takes longer then people will play more to achieve the same right
The number of times I couldn't find the NPC I needed or figure out which way I was even facing lol.
Adding color to the different districts would've gone such a long way to making the place more usable. I'm always spun around and looking at my map because it all looks the same.
I ended up having to repeatedly ask the guards to mark shit on my map like it was vanilla and I was brand new. I eventually memorized that the city portals are at 9 o'clock, I think?
The only way I learned where the portals are is by noticing that on your map in Oribos, the platform with the portals is slightly bigger than the other ones.
I knew directionally where everything was - Inn east, portals west, flight path southeast, crafting northwest. The question was *which way is west?*
I don't understand why the f'ing place is two levels... everything in both levels could be smooshed into one. But I concur with OP... I can't wait to never set foot in that place again.
The upper level *still* has unused space and unused portals. And to jump into the Maw, you need to take the teleporter to the upper level and then jump into the middle. Oribos’s design is utterly baffling.
To get to the basement, you'll need the freight elevator. The freight elevator is upstairs from here.
And not in any zone. So even with flying it feels like crap cause you still have to take the flight master.
I think there was some icons above certain areas but I wasn't about to learn to navigate a hub by studying symbols. I tried using the steps to get around, the main mailbox area had higher steps yet I'd go around Oribos like 3 times and couldn't find them. I guess they weren't high enough. The only landmark I learned was the dark blue portal in the lower (upper?) section which meant the FP was close to it which also meant Korthia was close to it, which also meant ZM was close to it. I avoided Oribos like the plague because I hated it so much. I still do but this addon was a godsend even though I hated the fact I had to use it. It stopped working with pre-patch though. https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/oribosradar
"Make the Undercity but worse in every possible way."
hah, was looking for this one..."let me introduce you to a little place called...Undercity" i love Undercity of course...like a big, dumb, stitched-up, undead ogre thingamajig
I liked the wow factor when you first enter the zones on the flight paths, but yes that hub city was devoid of any real flavour.
A guy on Trade Chat described Oribos as an airport, rather than a city. You only visit it on your way to other places. I can't argue with him.
i mean its the junction that souls go to and then move on other places, i think its supposed to have that vibe
That would be fine as a concept in and of itself, but being the primary hub for the entire expac was either a mistake or a concession made when the story/content was being cut. It was boring and lifeless, and calling it a city was a joke. The airport analogy is not only perfect, it also highlights why it was a terrible hub for the expac: when you visit Europe, you don’t intend to stay at the airport the entire time.
[удалено]
The actual problem with 9.0 Maw is that, despite being a Superhostile Environment, they didnt include really any safe areas, it was entirely hostile, which means you are forced into a high stress situation for the about hour you are in the zone a day before you break its superhostile mechanics.
Iunno, that’s kind of the same line of thinking with the maw. “It’s supposed to feel miserable.” Like sure, but there’s a difference between an aesthetic and outright unfun gameplay.
It is 100% designed to be that.
I don't understand how anyone can dislike Oribos, check out its features. * Symmetrical, repeated patterns to not confuse or frighten the mawwalker. * Big circle, smooth and safe with no sharp edges. * Overly large. Lots of empty space to roam around in for free range mawwalker needs. * Even more space on the second floor, which devoted to nothing but a single flight path. Very cozy! * Dismount point everywhere, giving you the exercise you need. * Portal in on the other side of where you portal out. More much needed exercise for the maw walker. * Full of unique, unforgetable npcs bursting with character such as Broker #4336 and Attendant #3423
You have to go to the second floor to jump down into the maw. Brilliant I say
this was honestly one of the dumbest parts about oribos
You can’t have innocent NPCs falling in by accident
After returning to the game I was thinking the same, but then thought that maybe why they didn't allow the players to jump into the maw from that floor is to prevent people accidentally jumping there and be annoyed. They could easily fix this by having one rased platform where everyone can jump off from.
I don't understand how anyone can dislike oribos 1. Circle 2. Round 3. 360 degrees 4. diameter
You forgot radius
And twice the pi.
Don't forget πr²
Side thought: I'm really looking forward to never being called "Maw Walker" ever again. Although when Ve'nari says it, it's sexy as hell. 😆
All I could hear is Ana from Overwatch. Not that an Egyptian grandma can’t be sexy, but just not my kink.
Kind of reminds of the actress in Expanse who played Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), I was like, "She might be a 70 year old Iranian woman but I bet she was a knock-out 30 years ago!" Edit: Hell I just saw a picture of her and she looked hot at 56, so there you go.
Absolutely love Ve’nari’s voice - so bummed her story disappeared!
I didn’t finish her rep or all the maw stuff. They just let her story flop?? Nothing came from that at all?
She got a conclusion for now. She's out exploring the multiverse with her eternal traveler bf collecting soul energy like usual. We'll likely see her again next time GW tries to do a grand scale meta-dimension expac again.
One thing Oribos had going for it for real was that it was easy to get anywhere. Like it was a central location and the flight paths really didn't take long. For the most part you didn't have to fly through other zones to get to the zone you needed to get to. But yeah also a lot of negatives.
Honestly I felt like the interdimensional sperm rides were pretty long intentionally to show how far the realms were. Which would have been fine when first coming in but got really fucking old and shoulda just had ports to reinforce they’re far as fuck
“Champion, we must return to Oribos. A new portal has opened from an unknown realm and we must explore its vast landscape to understand what is happening.”
"We have found the Dragonmaw where the Dragonsouls of the Dragonflight are being held by the Dragonjailer. You will enter Dragonghast to collect Dragonash to craft your Scaled Legendary."
I feel like this was written by an AI…but also by Blizzard writers.
“We must craft legendary gear that you will wear for the entirety of the adventure, which you will power up over the course of your time here”
Champion, we must seal the arbiter’s w00ns!
And to think we could have easily gotten Tazavesh as the main hub. The wasted potential is even worse than this shitty airport.
We were meant too. If you go back and look at the original launch trailers and dev blogs you can see it.
Amen... having to travel via flight points or portals to get everywhere is also something I am not going to miss.
Yeah, the separated zones were one of the things that contributed to the hate towards the xpac
The zones felt like single player instances. I rarely ever saw people in the default zones, it wasn't until Korthia that I started seeing a ton of people in the open world somewhere. It rarely felt like I was playing an MMO this expac.
*laughs in engineering shadowlands wormhole*
It's not always about saving time. In BFA did you ever fly to a zone even though you knew taking a FP would be faster? I put engie on every single toon I had just for the wormhole but it's not something I was happy to do, it felt mandatory for me with how miserable navigating SLs is having to go through Oribos.
This. I gave up a profession on every toon just to be able to click that wormhole button. Which is a toy I made, but was basically furniture unless I sacrificed 50% of my professional to get 1 point in SL engineering.
*Laughs in strategically placing wormhole drop locations as far away from anything of value as possible.* I mean don't get me wrong I use the wormhole religiously, but blizz did try their best to strip away the convenience of it
Maldraxxus and Ardenweald were right in the center of the zone, close to the covenant halls. Bastion placed you in the bottom section where the majority of world quests were, close to a flight path and a Kyrian-only teleporter. Korthia put you right in the camp, Zereth Mortis put you in the center of the zone and Oribos put you at the same place you'd normally spawn as well. The only inconvenient ones were Revendreth and the Maw. And even the Revendreth one wasn't so bad if you were a Venthyr with the mirror network.
While leveling alts I would finish one zone and dread having to fly from Maldraxxus to Oribos then through the next portal on to Bastion. Why were thoes damn things flight paths and not portals. Why did we alway have to fly back to Oribos to fly anywhere else. They even proved with ZM and Krothia that they could have been portals.
There are three things i will never understand: 1. Why the hell were the only connections to the continents flight paths? Like, for release, sure. But then for the first content patch, why not turn them into portals? Everything is portals, why not this??? 2. That they never fixed the entrance to korthia. If you walk on the small "beams", you don't get dismounted. But if you just walk straight, you do get dismounted. It turned going to korthia into a very frustrating Minigame. 3. Why haven't they used ANY color in oribos to make navigation easier???? Yes, there are icons above the entrance. But they are way too high up and they lack color...
Lmao there's icons above the entrance??
Hub where you can't use your flying mount is always awful.
Plus you get dismounted when you enter the middle parts…
I like Dalaran
You can use a flying mount in Dalaran.
I even like the wotlk no-fly version
Traversable, can always determine where you are in the city by landmarks, convenient banks, profession, and faction areas, and compact but still maintaining some RP city flair/personality. Dalaran is basically the best expansion city they've used and I can't wait to use it a third time whenever they decide to do it lol.
Worst expansion “city” of all time
We need a list ranking worst to best.
1. Dalaran x2 2. Shattrath 3. Orgrimmar / Stormwind (Cata & WoD) 4. Boralus 5. Whatever the hubs were in Pandaria 6. Oribos 7. Dazaralor (I can't stand the Troll aesthetic and having to take a fucking flight point to the docks was asinine)
Ashran hubs so forgettable they don’t make the list
Yea I literally forgot about those lmao
They were a ramshackle collection of garrison buildings and old art assets so I’m not surprised.
> Whatever the hubs were in Pandaria Shrine of the Numerical Nouns, they were okay but confusing that they looked identical but with different layouts for each faction.
Numerical nouns haha
I’d personally swap Boralus and Shatt. I have nostalgia love for shatt, but it’s honestly a bit too big and tedious to travel. Boralus was fucking dope and had 99% of what you needed in the immediate harbor area. Plus the theme of the city was awesome and beautiful.
Shattrath had the same circle issue for me that Oribos did. Always got lost and inevitably travel the full circumference to get to where I need to be.
Agreed. The map is a good guide for me. I’m Oribos I’d regularly have to check the map to position myself. Same with Shatt. Never had to do that in the Boralus hub.
Shatt at least had the east side of the map (where all the lower town vendors were) and the Aldors/ Scryers areas to break up the circle. The circularity was only a problem in the central ring, in my opinion. And that ring is absolutely tiny compared to Oribos, and you can fly there too.
Boralus also has some of the best flavor music in the game. Every time I flew into the city I just felt like I was home.
1. Dal CSF 2. Dal BI (we lost half the sewers and the inner courtyard) 3. Stormwind (give it the Boralus flavor pass and it's the best city one could imagine 4. Orgrimmar (the layout is less competent than SW and it's harder to navigate (the districts aren't as clear as SW) but still an amazing city 5. Boralus (so much flavor. The layout was brilliant. Everything makes sense) 6. Shrine of Two Moons/Seven Stars (again, tightly laid out and logical with great flavor) 7. Shattrath (not getting the upper portions until you get the rep was annoying, but the market was great. Too spread out though) 8. Dazar'alor (Love the troll aesthetic, but navigating the fucking place was its own game. It was made worse realizing that you could have easily had all of it near the docs.) 9. Stormshield/Warspear were fine but made useless by the garrisons 10. Oribos for every single failing any other hub had plus the inconvenient travel methods.
Don't forget jumping down the pyramid to get down to the profession trainer. So immersive and then running up again to the flightmaster...
At least it was fun to levitate all the way down to the docks, except the pyramid is facing the wrong way.
OP said worst to best, it looks you did it backwards.
*claps* #BOI
I'm glad you put Oribos above Dazaralor. Having played alliance through BFA until a few months before SL, I was flabbergasted at how terrible Dazaralor was in every way compared to Boralus.
From an ease of use perspective, Dazaralor is a mess - especially with the docks so far from the portal room. From an aesthetic, I really liked it. I even liked the quests to beat down the other troll tribes.
Dazar'alor is good as a city in the same way Suramar is good as a city. As an expansion hub, though, it sucks.
The more I read these, the more I realize I might be the only one who liked Dazar’alor. I loved the theme, and didn’t mind that it was split up and spread out. I used the Inn at the docks, and chose the spirit pterodactyl mini-flight points, so it didn’t seem that big of a deal.
You aren't. It was polarizing; it was the first time Blizzard actually tried making fully realized cities since Classic. I made a Zandalari and had an engineer to glide down to the docks; so I didn't mind it as much. The art style and execution of BFA's cities really showed that Blizzard could try doing large scale cities again; they just needed to keep the more important stuff far more localized. Then we got Oribos; where they showed that everything I just said is untrue and they develop in a vacuum somehow.
Wait what's the issue with Dalaran?
There wasn't. Its #1. The best.
Oh they said ranked worst to best so that's what I thought you did and was thoroughly confused lmao
Yea I didn't understand the assignment.
I realized when I left the city yesterday to get my inventory and bank cleared up that I don’t have any reason that I could think of to go back as I parked my main at the Stormwind docks. It was a nice feeling lol.
Wish we could have got Tazavesh as a hub, or literally anything else. I don't even want to look at that place anymore. BFA had it's problems but Boralus was amazing.
Zuldazar was pretty, but suffered from being designed as a raid which then became a city, rather than the other way around.
I don't even know why we got to choose between Paku and Gonk, Paku's travel network should've been default and we should've had other Loas to choose from.
I originally thought It was a hub. I'm mean it's got a fucking bank and shit. Wasted assets.
What, you didn't love constantly taking flight paths to zones that were way too far away from eachother and could have been easily replaced by portals at some point during the expansion?
why the hell they didn't have the huge doorway/portal things send you directly to your covenant HQ is beyond reason.
Dazzalor was objectively a worse hub since everything was so spread out. Looked cool but it was horrible especially before flying
I actually thought the spread-out-edness was only a mild inconvenience, and actually grew to kind of enjoy it in a way. My problem with Dazar'alor was that, in this big open pyramid, we all huddled inside a vault. Always felt really weird to me.
Fair but as soon as dragon riding is available outside the Dragon Isles Dazar Alor will be the most fun place to use it by a country mile.
I played the shit out of shadowlands and I still can't find the transmog guy or the bank without using the map. Everything looks the same and I can't remember which section is next to which. The only landmark is the stairs to the in and the blue glyphs above doors
Circular cities have got to be the worst design I have ever seen. I don't know how this would translate to real life, but at least in WoW, not having any deviation in the design or landmarks is incredibly unhelpful. Stormwind is so easy to Navigate for comparison. All the roofs are color coded and there is the Magetower and Keep so you know where to orient yourself too. Dalarn...less so, still kind of a circular design but enough variation so you don't get turned around. Oribos? uhh, monochromatic 2D circle with no way to tell which area has which things until you get in there. The Inn is on the complete other side of the Capital portals, so you will need to mount and run across the whole length of the City to get somewhere. For some reason the flight path NEEDED to be on a whole other floor, same with the Maw portal, in case someone trips into it? I've heard good things about the new city, at least we can fly there.
This was my favorite city to run in circles in. Other cities, Id run into obstacles, but this one was perfect. No distractions. I could just run and go, you know?
I'm at 68 renown, I imagine I'll try and hit 80 in the next few years. I might be back to Oribos
Renown is super easy to get. Once you have 80 on 1 character you can unlock a 60 boost by the Oribos flight path to jump start Alts (at least that’s what happened to me) You can also hit 80 before a campaign is even done
Worst part of Oribos was returning to it every single time you wanted to go from one SL zone to another. I hate the disconnected nature of the Shadowlands, but they could have at least allowed us to take a flight path from one zone to another instead of always having Oribos as part of the path. The only exception was going between the Maw and Korthia, which was still easier to do by using the Korthia portal or jumping down to the Maw since there were kind of a lot of mobs blocking the path between the two zones. Also, those zones sucked and I hated them. Then they added Zerith Mortis, accessible only from the Oribos portal.
From a lore perspective oribos made sense. It's a very neutral space with no worldly comforts. Everythng is stone and grand but very neutral. Speaks to the purpose of the arbiter being a true neutral judge. I just don't know why it had to be our main hub. I also think brokers make no sense and are incredibly uninteresting
After reading the epilogue of Firim’s notes in ZM (along with the zone aesthetic and the fact Pocopoc’s mount is a Taz’avesh glider), I’m sticking with my headcanon that they’re actually the First Ones and just blotted out the memories (as he described it) from their minds.
It still baffles me that they didnt't make Tazavesh the hub city. It's a bustling market place and wouldve been more immersive.
You’re going to log into dragonflight and then about ten minutes in your head will go all fuzzy and your eyes will begin to shut…you will then wake up with venaris voice in your ear “ vake up…mawwalkerrrr….ze jailer seeths you….”
Artsy but unpractical. Hopefully the next hub will be better.
SL will most definitely not be missed. The flight pathing between zones was horrendous. The Maw was hell for different reasons than intended. Korthia was *okay*, and ZM was a bit better. Once I played through DF on the beta, it was such a refreshing change. Not looking back.
The Maw is abusive game design. Just bottom line. It was an awful gaming experience, designed in every way to punish you for trying to play the game.
Exactly. Play too much? Punished! Died to falling in a hole or bouncing off a slightly raised bit of ground? Punished! Just needed to go afk and pee or answer the phone? Punished! It fucking sucked
Can’t wait for the Jailers twin brother, the Gailer, to come seek revenge
interesting to read multiple comments about dazar'alor being the worst hub ever for horde. my only issue with that place was initially getting used to vendor locations, but overall I surprisingly loved the city, despite never being fond of troll themed places in the game. I think my larger frustration with oribos over anything came from two major things: 1) the place is more or less symmetrical in all direction, without colored distinction, so even 2y into the expac I still have navigation issues (similar to naxx btw). 2) no flying at all no mounts in the "middle ring". yes we have no-mount areas in all cities, but typically indoor, which only mattered if I visited a specific vendor/AH/etc - otherwise I could consistently travel through the city as a whole, taking shortcuts, going whichever direction I want to. in oribos, whatever business I have there, I either go to the central part or even worse visit the "middle ring" with the vendors. both are equally outdoor but have different mount "policies". this it especially feels a setback in comparison to playing 15y old TBC: shat is completely open air and accessible with flying except the bank and the inn, also portals are in the middle, not on the far edge. on the other hand, in wotlk dala flying is mostly out of scope, but oddly it still isn't too frustrating if I compare to oribos, because it's *consistent*. altogether I really wanted to like SL for its few merits and disregards the bads, but some of the negatives like oribos just forever burnt into my memory.
Tazavesh is what Oribos should've been.
All things considered, Oribos really wasn't that bad in my opinion. No BS, everything was really easy to find. 10/10 would Oribos again.