Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Travel systems - which do you like the best?

2»

Comments

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247

    Originally posted by Coltaine00

    So which do you think are the best?

    UO, AC and Shadowbane allowed me to quickly connect with friends and clanmates so I'm very partial to fast travel in games where my focus is primarily social and group gameplay. In a tactical and conquest-based games, where there is a greater plan and larger focus than just the individual battles, I prefer systems that are on the other end of the spectrum, making travel part of the gameplay itself.

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
    "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre

  • CorthagathCorthagath Member Posts: 291

    i dont have a problem with the waypoint/teleport pads ... unfortunately im one of those new kids who like to get into the action fast but in my early games i had to travel to places .. sometimes i would have to make it to places where the travel itself was more dangerous than the playingfield i was going, now to think of it, it felt "immersive" i guess, the travel itself was in fact, a adventure of its own since there was mobs in the way to my destination that would kill me one shot :D

    i did also, like someone else who mentioned this before, enjoy the "bus" system where you hop on something where other players are waiting as well. i had few very enjoyable conversations on my way to places and met some cool folks. i just remember how for example in diablo 1, you would walk slowly to every place, back then it was ok, but when you got your hands on d2 where you could  run fast and use waypoints it felt like a blessing and you wouldnt want to go back to same old method...

    i guess im just saying im fine with pretty much anything ... but dont make it too time consuming... ;)

  • UtukuMoonUtukuMoon Member Posts: 1,066
    Vanguard travel,go where you want on your own mount,ship,horse,camel,wolf,spider and 20 other typd of mounts including flying mounts with no restrictions.Cross vast oceans by flight or ship or run across with a levitatiin skill.If you dont want a journey that takes hours then use a riftway but even then you will still have to travel within the zone.

  • NitthNitth Member UncommonPosts: 3,904


    Originally posted by Coltaine00
    So I've had a fair amount of experience playing MMORPGs and had quite a bit of experience with the travel systems.  Some of them are down right terrible, while others seem to enhance your playing experience.
    Best: UO - recall rune system.  You could mark 'runes' almost any spot in the game and recall to it at any time (with the exception of dungeons year later).  This system developed over time from having runes which you could lose when you die, to blessed runebooks which stayed with you.  It allowed you to travel instantly to help friends and meet up with other groups of players for PvP fights and raids.
    Pretty Cool:  Shadowbane - It had a portal system which allowed certain classes to "summon" you to a certain location (with cooldowns), but a large portion of the travel was actually walking / running from point to point, through a lot of open PvP warzones. 
    Downright horrid: SWTOR / WoW -  Rail to Rail on safe nodes.  I remember 20 minute long griffin rides in WoW which you couldn't do a single thing except go AFK.  One of the biggest reasons that I left the game as I really didn't appreciate the game "extending" your game artificially.
    So which do you think are the best?
    Fallen earths vehicle travel system is the best travel system ive come accross

    image
    TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    I like slow travelling with slower mounts made for combat instead of fast movement, but teleporting between towns you already been in.

    The last is so it is easier to meet up with your friends, it was hopeless inthe old MMOs where you could travel for hours just to get to the town your buddie is in.

    Flying mounts are the worst thing in mmos, particularly since flying usually is a lot safer. It do work in sci-fi MMOs like Shadowrun though.

  • RefMinorRefMinor Member UncommonPosts: 3,452
    Originally posted by Cthulhu23


    Originally posted by Vaultar

    I'll trade the feeling of world becoming smaller (which is completely irrelevant to me as I never get that feeling knowing that I can simply chose to explore anywhere thoroughly if I feel like it) for instantly coming back to where I left off and continuing my journey to unexplorable lands or joining a nearby DE anyday.

    In the long-run, coming back to interesting parts in the shortest time possible is all that matters for me and that is exactly how the ArenaNet devs want you to think about waypoints and teleportation portals.

    Waypoints and telportation portals are simply lazy.  No other way to say it.  If ArenaNet truly wanted to encourage exploration, do away with those things altogether, and add a faster form of land travel like mounts.  For a developer that claims to be innovative, they took the path of least resistance in terms of travel systems.  Big immersion-breaker.

     

    Spot on +1
  • evilastroevilastro Member Posts: 4,270

    Originally posted by Cthulhu23

    Originally posted by Vaultar

    I'll trade the feeling of world becoming smaller (which is completely irrelevant to me as I never get that feeling knowing that I can simply chose to explore anywhere thoroughly if I feel like it) for instantly coming back to where I left off and continuing my journey to unexplorable lands or joining a nearby DE anyday.

    In the long-run, coming back to interesting parts in the shortest time possible is all that matters for me and that is exactly how the ArenaNet devs want you to think about waypoints and teleportation portals.

    Waypoints and telportation portals are simply lazy.  No other way to say it.  If ArenaNet truly wanted to encourage exploration, do away with those things altogether, and add a faster form of land travel like mounts.  For a developer that claims to be innovative, they took the path of least resistance in terms of travel systems.  Big immersion-breaker.

    Forcing players to travel slowly is just a time sink that a B2P game doesnt need. Most single player RPGs (Skyrim, KoA, FF etc) let players use waypoints / teleportation to get around simply because they do not need to waste your time.

    ANet are encouraging exploration for the sake of exploration by having hidden puzzles and dungeons scattered around. What is innovative about putting in mounts? Pretty much all games have them and very few use them well by having mounted combat. In fact most games make it look terrible by either having magically appearing / disappearing mounts or terrible mounted combat animations. So from my perspective, mounts are a big immersion-breaker in most MMOs.

    Waypoints / teleportation is far more practical. I don't want to wait 30 minutes for players to run over to where the rest of the group is waiting. I also don't see the need to watch my character fly or ride slowly to the area I wanted to get to, I have already seen the journey once by activating the waypoint, we can assume my character can get there safely again.

  • AlBQuirkyAlBQuirky Member EpicPosts: 7,432


    Originally posted by Quizzical
    If there's not a reason why travel needs to be hard, then just give me Guild Wars map travel and be done with it.  If there is a reason why travel needs to be hard, then you do something appropriate to the game.

    Guild Wars was nice in that when you needed to, the map travel was there. You could still run from place to place, if the feeling hit you to do so.

    - Al

    Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.
    - FARGIN_WAR


  • LarsaLarsa Member Posts: 990

    Travel systems...

    I actually like instant travel in a game where it makes sense from a lore point of view, i.e. in many sci-fi games. I usually dislike it though in a low fantasy setting, after all the hobbits didn't teleport to Mordor to drop the ring, didn't they? The whole story wouldn't exist then.

    High fantasy settings are somewhat in-between but I'd prefer not to have these portals scattered around the landscape but rather teleporting would be a player skill (EQ comes to mind).

    I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.

  • DeldorDeldor Member UncommonPosts: 51

    Originally posted by Coltaine00

    Best: UO - recall rune system.  You could mark 'runes' almost any spot in the game and recall to it at any time (with the exception of dungeons year later).  This system developed over time from having runes which you could lose when you die, to blessed runebooks which stayed with you.  It allowed you to travel instantly to help friends and meet up with other groups of players for PvP fights and raids.

     

    Can these runes be traded? Are they permanent or limited use?

    I can really see this in a sandbox game, where people sell teleportation runes for all popular locations.

  • Coltaine00Coltaine00 Member Posts: 52
    I know a lot of people are not happy with instant travel systems - from my perspective and perhaps if you've played UO, it isn't that 'instant gratification' part at all. You still could explore the world - lots did and there were reasons to do that, but I thought the instant travel actually enhanced the community.

    You could easily group up with friends - or help out friends if they were being attacked at some place. There were no ingame whispers or global chats so it wasn't as if you could bring a hellfire of people down on someone like other games. If your guild was in vent that was one way and really the other tool people used was icq.

    I mean it encouraged assisting and helping guildies and brought communities closer together I found. It also helped with the death system, since sometimes you might be wandering for hours unable to Rez with the lack of places to Rez.
  • Coltaine00Coltaine00 Member Posts: 52
    UO runes could be sold and traded. Lots of people used that for their way to make in game coin.
  • dave6660dave6660 Member UncommonPosts: 2,699

    Any type of travel that is not instant and does not make you invulnerable to attack.

    Putting dangerous areas in the game becomes moot if you can just bypass them unharmed.

    “There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
    -- Herman Melville

  • midmagicmidmagic Member Posts: 614

    Teleport anytime and anywhere. Rar, UO.

    Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.

  • xDayxxDayx Member Posts: 712
    Mortal Online horse travel. No instaports at all.
  • solarinesolarine Member Posts: 1,203

    Teleporting is just way too "/kill command" for my taste. Way too obvious of a design convenience, like a "villain's exposition": As the latter is necessitated solely by plot mechanics and not character, so is the former by convenience.

    To me, if you need to get somewhere, you need to actually travel there and not just blip into that spot. Mounts, rails, flight, whatever, all those are OK.

    I like having both mounts and considerably faster "on rails" transports. And of those transport systems, I'd say I am partial to the ones that let you stay in the world and you can jump off of - and even be attacked.

  • freegamesfreegames Member UncommonPosts: 240

    I like the you can teleport any city for free.

    Minor hubs cost extra

  • CuathonCuathon Member Posts: 2,211

    Just running, with capturable and breedable mounts, not in large quantities.

    Buidling ships and airships and caravans and carts.

    Fast magic travel system constructed painstakingly by players over time which need to be protected in some manner.

     

    Basically the kind of travel you find in a fantasy novel. No level 1 players instaporting all over the world.

  • Moaky07Moaky07 Member Posts: 2,096

    I prefer fog of war maps with teleport stones once you have visited an area, and activated them.

     

    It is an adventure the first time you head out to an area. After that, I prefer to spend my time the way I choose rather than retrekking the distance.

    Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.

Sign In or Register to comment.