(No) "Warp" travel by talking to an npc.

[Virusu]

Just curious to see what people think about this. I'm personally sickened by the system of being able to talk to an npc and teleport to virtually anywhere in the game world you want for a nominal fee or even for free.

AoC has it the worst, but there are other games that also have it bad. EQ2's zone travel required clicking on a bell that teleported you to the next zone over. Even in WAR, long distance travel simply requires you to talk to a flight master npc who teleports you to basically any zone you want. This shrinks the size of the world, and makes it feel less like a world, and more like a series of individual "maps." The epic feeling fades from the MMO, and so does the immersion of being in a massive world. I think mages having teleport spells is perfectly fine as well. They could even profit by charging fees for teleportation services, as long as it isn't overdone and they can't instantly teleport you to every other zone in the game.

I thought real time boat travel in early EQ was great. Having to wait on the docks, and seeing the boat arrive and take you on a 15 minute trip made you feel like you were truly part of a massive world. Especially considering you could jump off at any time and even find mobs and npcs on scattered islands in the ocean. There were also multiple harbors that you could stop off at.

I'm also against pre-made regional maps that show you where everything is. Part of the immersion for me was also having to learn how to get places on your own, and not having a giant map that points everything out for everybody. It also made exploration feel much more enjoyable and rewarding for me as well, but I suspect less people will go for this map idea.

[Lachrymose]

like flying mounts, i think it effectively shrinks the game world. so no matter what size they make the actual world, everything's too "close to home." it would also get rid of pvp that you would otherwise encounter when travelling from one city to another. again, many of the same basic arguments against flying mounts.

[Heliopios]

The thing about maps are, I'd like if the first maps in the world were just geography maps, with no political boarders or countries on them, and with time, player Cartographers would update these maps with information from explorers. I think that would be just swell.

Also, I agree with the no fast travel, just to make sure you don't think I just glossed over your post.


P.S.You can take 'No' out of the parenthesis and still have a fluent sentence.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Virusu

I thought real time boat travel in early EQ was great. Having to wait on the docks, and seeing the boat arrive and take you on a 15 minute trip made you feel like you were truly part of a massive world. Especially considering you could jump off at any time and even find mobs and npcs on scattered islands in the ocean. There were also multiple harbors that you could stop off at.

yea ffxi had this too. i didn't really like it, i usually just hid my guy under the deck and went to the bathroom while in transit, but i could see it being pretty cool for a roleplayer or pve'er, since the boat could be attacked by creatures or you could fish while you're on the boat. it was interesting.. also, real time travel on an npc boat wouldn't shrink the gameworld since it would still take time to travel and going afk might not be such a good idea since the boat might be attacked.

[Virusu]

Originally Posted by Heliopios

P.S.You can take 'No' out of the parenthesis and still have a fluent sentence.

Yeah, I understand that but I put the 'no' in parenthesis to try and emphasize that I wanted a discussion thread open to all opinions regarding warp travel, and that this wasn't simply a warp travel bashing thread. The no was supposed to be my personal opinion on it. Guess it didn't work.

[Doomshepard]

I agree, I dont want or like any sort of "easy" travel, no waypoints, bells to click on, shards, whatever....as stated above the old EQ days of waiting for a boat and traveling that way was very fun. I remember on our way to the boats we would all be busting our asses to get there before we missed it and yes sometimes we saw the boat just leaving and had to wait for it to come back.

As far as maps go I dont like those either at least not pre made maps with all you locations and quest points marked on it. I think if there are maps in the game they should be player made and only showing the different regions and names of places. I think though if you decide to take up map making somehow you need to go explore that area before you can start making maps, Im not sure how it would work...but again please no easy travel, with easy travel you might as well skip all the scenery and just release a game with dungeons and mobs, whats the point in having beautiful scenery? With easy click travel everyone passes it by anyways.

[Virusu]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

yea ffxi had this too. i didn't really like it, i usually just hid my guy under the deck and went to the bathroom while in transit, but i could see it being pretty cool for a roleplayer or pve'er, since the boat could be attacked by creatures or you could fish while you're on the boat. it was interesting.. also, real time travel on an npc boat wouldn't shrink the gameworld since it would still take time to travel and going afk might not be such a good idea since the boat might be attacked.

I'd avoid being able to be attacked by an npc in transit. It seems a bit like a gimmicky attempt to spice up a boat ride, but in the end might just be annoying. However, if PvP was enabled on harbors, then I think it could add an interesting element to PvP in the game. There would be alternate routes to get to your destination if you chose to avoid the boat (unless it was cross continent, in which case a mage might be able to port you), but they would most likely take quite a bit longer.

What I was thinking wasn't giant harbors in big populated cities either. There might be a harbor in a big city, but there could be small shore towns scattered in the world that gives you options for quick transit by water, but wouldn't be absolutely necessary if you wanted to just run or use another method.

[Heliopios]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

also, real time travel on an npc boat wouldn't shrink the gameworld since it would still take time to travel and going afk might not be such a good idea since the boat might be attacked.

I assume that if anyone attacked a boat filled with people wishing to travel from one place to another, there'd be a huge blood hunt by the more 'righteous' groups of the game. Such as a guild/group/clan that role-plays (or actually is) the 'good people' of the world.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Heliopios

I assume that if anyone attacked a boat filled with people wishing to travel from one place to another, there'd be a huge blood hunt by the more 'righteous' groups of the game. Such as a guild/group/clan that role-plays (or actually is) the 'good people' of the world.

i know. that's the great thing about a pvp game. sure, there's feuds between rival clans and such, but then there's the order vs. chaos that goes on constantly.

it also helps weed out some of the lowbie greifers. when i played UO, i never much respected the players that would camp the minoc mines, but they usually got ganked more than they actually did any ganking.

@virusu: yea, npc mobs attacking would get old, but i was thinking more you could be attacked by players.

[Virusu]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

@virusu: yea, npc mobs attacking would get old, but i was thinking more you could be attacked by players.

Yeah, I agree that enabled pvp on boats would definitely be fun and interesting with FFA PvP. I can just picture an innocent guy sitting on the moving boat waiting to get to his destination, with a dubious looking player standing awkwardly close to him on the deck. All of a sudden the the guy pounces on the person trying to get to his destination and he is forced to jump ship, becoming stranded. He is forced to explore a few islands and areas as he makes his way to the next harbor.

Or it could turn out there are also anti-pkers on board who are there to protect those who just want to travel.

I think it could be a fun.

[melanko]

One of my few fond memories of EQ1 was taking the time to run in between Freeport and Qeynos. It literally gave me that feel of adventure that has pretty much disappeared from current MMO's.

One facet of no fast travel I would love to see realized are trade routes in between cities. If you have to take a large number of resources from one place to another, you need to get a small caravan and manually travel there.

[Rathius]

I like the idea, it's a personal favorite of mine.

As for the boat rides, in Final Fantasy XI the npc attacks weren't all that common unless you continuosly road the boat to fish... even then. But anyhow... I can see people making a living solely off protecting the ships and living out of port towns without ever touching any quests or other content.

[ccoa]

I think it would be cool, with npc attacks and everything it would be really cool.

Trade routes would also be a really interesting concept to be implemented. Like EVE's trade routes that are competed for by large corporations that could lead to all out war just sounds really awesome in my opinion.

[Byggin]

If my vote is worth a damn, I vote for no recall, teleportation, summon ect. at all. It is exploited in every game I have ever played. They also make the game small, you could have the biggest world imaginable, but with teleportation its like playing in NYC. Only certain areas will be inhabited.

[Defiant One]

Yeah I vot fore no warp travel too. Without universal banking, maybe large amounts of goods would need to be transported by organized caravans with hired guard(player or/and NPC) and therefore adding pirating/pillaging and successfull transportation joy to the game Successfull guard groups and pillagers could get rich and famous.

[WonkoZSane]

Just to be contrary and break up the 'don't allow porting' love-in I personally would appreciate the feature. I'm more a social gamer so I want the ability to get together with a group of friends and if I only have a couple of hours to play I don't want to have to spend the first hour just trying to get to where they are. I'm not saying go nuts with the porting options but I'm sure they could find a good balance between the 'port wherever you want in an instant' option and 'you can't get there unless foot it' option. I mean in a magical world wouldn't the first inventions would be to develop a method of fast, safe travel between different regions? And one of the best ways to limit it would be to make it costly and keep it between large centres. In fact one of your major keep upgrades might be a portal to different cities, which each city costing a significant amount.

WZS

[Archimagus]

Originally Posted by melanko

One of my few fond memories of EQ1 was taking the time to run in between Freeport and Qeynos. It literally gave me that feel of adventure that has pretty much disappeared from current MMO's.

I am really glad that there is someone else with the same feeling as me on this. I remember being about level 16 and trying to get from Qeynos to Freeport. It was one hell of an adventure.

I fully agree, that there should not be any built in quick travel. I feel that EQ's planes of power hurt the game more than it helped with the book travel to nearly every zone in the game.

I do think I would like to see some Magical teleportation though. But it should be secondary abilities and have the fairly high up the skill tree. Perhaps at mid to lower skill levels there could be a Recall teleport for getting back home. Then a little higher there could be an ability that let you reset your recall point (but you should only ever have 1). It should progress up through having self only teleports to various places up through group ports, finally getting up to target only ports and possibly other group ports at the upper end of the porting skill tree. But to get into some of the more advanced teleports would require a significant commitment to teleporting and would therefor limit you in other ways.

[Yojimbo]

Yep, I agree with the OP. Instant travel robs the game world of depth. There will be mounts, so travel shouldn't be too much of a nightmare no matter what. I to remember having to run around and explore in my early levels of EQ. IT WAS GREAT! Maybe the only great part of EQ... I will say having to travel around the same area over and over again as the game progress does tend to be a bit much. Though it’s usually not unbearable as long as mounts are swift

One last quick note: The type of game play limiting travel, and maybe adding a caravan system, causes is the best type of game play. That being emergent game play. All the devs do is setup a system with some issues and then give the players the freedom to solve the problems that they face. For example: road bandits, difficult terrain, hostile territory, etc..

[Neek]

because a game made me bias, i'm completely ok with players skilled for summons.

NSRFS!

[Witowt]

Any magic teleports throughout the world? It gonna get a lot of time geting to required location from some deep woods,then roads filled with bandits else.
I dont mind if it'll be smth like established waypoints between main locations like cities or temples,there may be runes of teleporting as keys to that teleports which are expensive to craft.
As i think traveling 100 times by same road(from town to temple for example),even in such peaceful world, can become rather boring.

[Archimagus]

Most people here don't seem to want this game to cater to the casual crowd. Things like instant travel teleportation make the world feel too small. Not that it is entirely bad in all games, but most other games out there work this way. The way it seems is that we are here because we are looking for something different. Something a little more hardcore and unforgiving. Something that can invoke the sense of exploration and the fear of death that I and at least a couple others here have not felt since the early days of the original Everquest.

[WonkoZSane]

Originally Posted by Archimagus

Most people here don't seem to want this game to cater to the casual crowd. Things like instant travel teleportation make the world feel too small. Not that it is entirely bad in all games, but most other games out there work this way. The way it seems is that we are here because we are looking for something different. Something a little more hardcore and unforgiving. Something that can invoke the sense of exploration and the fear of death that I and at least a couple others here have not felt since the early days of the original Everquest.

That's fine but the devs said that they want Mortal to appeal to a broad range of gamers. Maybe I'm getting old but I don't want to waste a lot of time just wandering around. (Yea I'm getting old... what about it?) If you're hardcore then you're more than welcome to avoid the porting options and enjoy the feeling of expanse in the world and maybe save money in the process. But please don't have the option removed for people who don't have a lot of time to be just wandering around.

WZS

[Archimagus]

I really am not trying to be rude or mean with this, but if you are not looking for a harder core experience maybe this isn't the game for you? I am truly sorry if this offends you by me saying it.

Q: Is this game for the casual or hardcore gamer?
A: With its deep game system, Mortal Online will probably be regarded as hardcore by many, but we hope that our hybrid skill advancement system and freedom to choose your own style of play will appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers. Mortal Online won’t require you to put hundreds of hours of game play to be able to join your more experienced friends or contribute to the game world. However, Mortal Online is not a point- and click game where only the stats of your character decides the outcome of a battle, and that may indeed be regarded as too hardcore for some

I of course could be completely wrong about the game being more hard core in other areas such as travel.

[Lyllyth]

Might try one of the existing threads on the topic...
World Travel
Recall runes!!
Travel?
Fast travel system discussion

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by Archimagus

Most people here don't seem to want this game to cater to the casual crowd. Things like instant travel teleportation make the world feel too small. Not that it is entirely bad in all games, but most other games out there work this way. The way it seems is that we are here because we are looking for something different. Something a little more hardcore and unforgiving. Something that can invoke the sense of exploration and the fear of death that I and at least a couple others here have not felt since the early days of the original Everquest.

or UO.

i'm glad there's a couple others here who see the significant negative effects of shrinking the game world.. i'd like MO to be a huge world, where exploring the entire thing would be an extremely arduous task. jumping from one spot to the next would just kill the feeling entirely.

[Phi]

grind warp and grind, rinse and repeat. Recent MMOs lack any sense of exploration

[no-one]

I agree instantaneous is not a good thing. In SWG the original shuttle times were 10 minutes. That meant it could take you 20 minutes to get to the planet you were going too. That was to long. They later reduced it to 5 minutes then to 1. I think 5 minutes was the best. It gave time to sociali