Travel times

Clever_Glove

Brad McQuaid as always felt that half the adventure was getting to the adventure, or traveling large distances is a adventure unto itself.

Many complain about the travel times, so VI reacted (after Brad was given the pink slip) by adding teleporters.

"How many times have you said to your group, remember the time we ran from the Freeport stone to the Halas stone? Right, never. How many times have you bellyached over running through the Karanas, racing another guild or perhaps just trying to avoid danger; maybe you were going to Paw, maybe you were going to Perma, maybe you were going to see if some rare spawns in QHills were up? Who cares, the point is - you REMEMBER those times damn well because making a player actually travel, regardless of how tedious you may think it is, puts them closer to the gameworld. It does immerse you." - Furror

While thinking back when I started playing EQ, I remember that many times traveling around the game world was exciting... the 1st time. By the 100th trip from Halas to Kelethin it's more of a pain than anything. In fact I started a wizard to port my sorry can around. (this what I always though VI true motives where). I'd shot myself my head before running across West Karana again.

While I understand the adventure if finding new places... I understand how shockingly problematic traveling though shark infested waters is. Sure I remember traveling, but most of the time I get a pain in my captains quarters remembering 8 hour corpse recoveries, and trying to get 65 people to somewhere only 35 knew where to go. I can't tell you the amount of gaming pleasure I got from these remembered experiences.

But what says you?

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"elimination of any downtime and you don't have a chance to really talk. The result is no one gives a crap who you are. It's so incredibly anti-community building." - Brad McQuid (sigil games, maker of EQ)

A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%

Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here learn what it means here.

Quess

hehe i am with you onh the long run's

it mite have been a pain to get around.. but it gave the game depth sins some things were dame fare out there. and if something is happening in the other end of the world .. to bad.

so i am a addict .. i can live with it

can you ?

ianubisi

I run around exploring no matter what portals there are or are not.  For me, the adventure is always there...the portals do not remove it.  Once that area is explored, and there's nothign of interest, I have no reason to go back...and don't care if I ever do.

I loved my Recall runes in UO.  I still explored even though I could recall almost anywhere in the world. 

But to play devil's advocate...there was nothing more defining of my character in EQ at the low levels (pre Kunark) than to decide either East or West.  Because running that Necromancer through Highhold was something that I wanted to never have to do more than a couple times.  Thrilling, fun, exciting. 

That being said, running across that gameworld over and over and over and over and OMG over and over and OMG AGAIN over and over was something I got so sick of doing.  It's also the reason many zones in that game remained empty, despite fantastic content.  Nothing more exciting, in my book in EQ, than Chardok...yet it was a devil to get people to get there.

In the end, I think Travel is a nice component...but adventuring is best left to the adventurers at heart.  Give everyone else the chance to enjoy getting where they want to go as fast as possible.

Rasuke

Always foot it in games here.  Most of the time in games it's because they want me to pay for the port and I'm cheap (how else can you expect to save money? hah) but also by traveling like that I learned many of the quickest routes to places that could take me through some areas that I could kill some decent enemies and get something to sell... but that's not really the main point for why I do it either...  The real reason I won't "port" is because I simply enjoy seeing everything along the way, from the people to the uh... less friendly types... anywho I think that if people want to go from one place to another in the blink of an eye to save their time or something then that's fine... but to me, a games a game, it's most likely going to be there for a while so I might as well enjoy it by exploring and becoming well informed about the land my character is in...

I'd like to note as a funny story, back in old Ragnarok Online beta 1 you could charge people money to simply take them to the thief guild (and for those who don't know it's where you upgrade from wimpy novice class to thief) and not because they wanted protection from the aggressive bats, but because gravity failed to map their dungeons back then, so I made like, tons of money in like an hour doing one of the shortest trips.  okay... so maybe my ripping people off isn't that funny...

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Some people sit at think about all the wonderful things that could have been. I no longer believe in that. I believe that instead of wishing you could change what's in the past to make what could have been into what is, you should work to make sure that your future is what is, and not what could have been.

Munki

it depends on the scenery, and what kinda limits they have,

www.shadowpool.com plans on only high high high level mages being able to telepor the rest of travel is done on foot, horse, air or carava style

Vindvalya

The problem with the quote that half the adventure is the trip is that mobs are static short sighted and the path getting places is rarely if ever dangerous.

In some dungeons like DAOCs DF getting to a camp spot is sometimes the fun/hard part but with death penalties and the long treadmill they are not liked but feared.

just my two cents

cedori

Yes, I to remember when eq first came out, ah the adventure to get from point A to point b.  Was I ever glad to get druid ports, but doing it once was ok, twice I just hated it.  I really hated the boats, long wait time when I could have been playing was just a pain.

anborn

I've yet to play in a mmorpg (money, pc, and I have at least one serious reservation about all those currently available)....

as far as travel goes though... my theory is that teleporting options should be "region 2 region" then everything "intra-region" should have to be footed.  any teleporter has to be touched physically by your person before you're able to use it, ie meaning that the first trip has to be on foot.   and none of this "i know everything before i begin with a map that shows everything at the start" thing.  a mmorpg with a geographic automapper (not political), where you can place your own "pinpoints" to indicate things you need to remember, but that is the players responsibility.  and a no-coordinate system.  a travelling system which only uses cardinal directions.  I think players going onto a fanbased board or talkin to players ingame, and getting exact coordinates to a location they've never been to is pretty cheap.  takes away the exploration/adventure.

Anborn

Methuselah

One Word... Diablo

Town Portals were great, or the WayPoints, all games should have it that simple