With Diablo III, many new systems have been put into place to keep the action in ARPG, Waypoint locations have been significantly increased to help minimize any walk time between areas and towns when you needed a quick portal. Checkpoints were also added for a player to respawn at after death. Along with these quick ways of transportation, Health Globes were also added, removing the necessity to constantly go to town to restock on potions. With these three mechanics in place, it appeared as though most of the town portal's uses were covered without any of the disadvantages they caused. However, it appears through Blizzard's constant iteration process, it seems like this still is not enough for the loot heavy, quick-pace game that is Diablo.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We've always been trying to see if we can create a better system than town portals, making waypoints the main travel back to town mechanic. But, it's looking like it's just simply more fun and a quality-of-life-nicety to be able to jump back to town from anywhere even if waypoints are all over the place. Plus it's not really that hard to avoid the few pitfalls that TPs in Diablo II had.
Also I never said you can just use them anywhere anytime as much as you want.
On a related note, it was also mentioned, by a user, about the ability to quickly join others without town portals. In Diablo II, any person joining a game could instantly join their friends in the fight by one of the players opening a portal for them. Without this system, even the closely placed waypoints still seemed to be too much of a hassle for players to go through. In Diablo III, players will still be able to group up instantly when wanting to join the fight.
Official Blizzard Quote:
There is actually a mechanic that allows you to jump from town (one-way) to any other player in the game.
The last bit of news we got included just one more piece of the puzzle that town portals have created. With their official removal, Blizzard also added a new item to the game. The scroll of wealth was an item a player could carry around in their inventory. This scroll could be used on an item and give the player gold in exchange. This helped alleviate the need for players to go back to town to dump off loot without missing out on any potential gold. However, it seems that this item was short lived.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We haven't had those for a while, although we do have another mechanic to sell items while out and about.
With all of these changes still going, it is clear to see that the Diablo III team is still hard at work perfecting the game. However, do not let this trick you into thinking that our coveted Diablo III will never be released or that it is doomed to continuous push-backs. Blizzard always continues progress on their games up until release and then after.
agree 100%. There are a few things we need to think about in terms of balancing TP's. Single player and multiplayer games and translating TP's to be relevant for each. In the diablo 2 single player campaign, what was the role of the TP? Selling items and escaping combat, maybe hiring back your mercenary. In diablo 3, TP's will not need to function like this anymore if we are to believe they won't be usable in combat. I don't think escaping combat is necessarily a bad thing, but should not be instant.
As for being restricted to using TP's out of combat, I'm not sure when our character is ever technically out of combat. If TP's are serving a function that aligns itself with the universe, combat persists throughout the entire game. And I refuse to believe that our lovable game designers are trying to find a way to get us out of the action so that we can take a trip to town. No, channeling a portal sounds much more likely, and much more desirable. TP's actually help the game keep its hellishly fast pace.
It's safe to assume we are not going to have tomes for TP's. I just don't see them coming back. We're going to have to change our belief that TP's are scrolls. I'm almost certain they will not be.
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Also I wanna give shout outs to the Diablo fight in D2 for attempting to solve the TP problem. If TP's are usable during boss fights, we need to see more of this.
The truth is that I need the TPs back. With 2 demanding kids and a wife, I go through TPs like water! My afk time in town hanging with Cain is almost on par with the amount of time I actually get to play. Charsi and I have a thing going on - don't judge me!
It appears to me that the single biggest issue that people (and maybe Blizzard) have with TPs is that it makes the game considerably less challenging (be it through rushing, escaping death, boring a boss to death, etc.). While I don't think that people are going to argue that point much, I tried to envision a world where I couldn't bring up a TP.
"So I walk into town and Cain informs me that all of the hero's got suddenly lobotomized and can't recall how to create a portal back to town. As a barbarian; I grunt, scratch my ass, and move on. Running outside, I start hacking my way through demons very happily. 20 minutes later, I encounter a pack of 16 mobs with a boss that is lightning enhanced, stone skinned, and immune to physical JUST as the doorbell rings in real life. Remembering the epic conversation with Cain, I promptly bend over and take it like a man while answering the door irl. (Cursing Cain the whole time.)"
Granted lightning enhanced and the rest of the old D2 boss features may not be relevant in D3, I still admit that I'm not a fan of no TPs at all. Someone accurately indicated that it would be very difficult to explain on the lore side of things.
Seeing as the original context of the Diablo series was to be labeled a "Hack and Slash", I genuinely thought that the ability to mash a town portal was normal. However, I concede that Blizzard may wish to change direction and carve a new path. I just hope that they pull a rabbit out of the hat that will make everyone happy.