DracoKalen said:Valorous1 said:If im understanding Caravans correctly, I think they seem redundant. Why not just stick to vessals and air ships between each continent? I want to play with friends at an early stage, but I also want to have the knowledge of how to get there by being forced to traverse quite the distance. It would make me appriciate the games run speed buffs giving them more relevance. Also, have you seen the enviornmental detail in this world? Make me run through it all!
Because caravans allow you to travel in country. Not just to the continent.
Ah, so maybe I did not understand caravans completely. I just dont want the caravan to take away from the depth of this game, such as finding perception quests along the way or lacking geological knowledge of the game's zones.
Valorous1 said:DracoKalen said:Valorous1 said:If im understanding Caravans correctly, I think they seem redundant. Why not just stick to vessals and air ships between each continent? I want to play with friends at an early stage, but I also want to have the knowledge of how to get there by being forced to traverse quite the distance. It would make me appriciate the games run speed buffs giving them more relevance. Also, have you seen the enviornmental detail in this world? Make me run through it all!
Because caravans allow you to travel in country. Not just to the continent.
Ah, so maybe I did not understand caravans completely. I just dont want the caravan to take away from the depth of this game, such as finding perception quests along the way or lacking geological knowledge of the game's zones.
From what I read a long time ago on the discussion was that a player could log off and use a caravan to travel from one location to another over the night. So, if you had to log out one night early, your group as long as it stayed together could then contniue moving and playing. to which if they decided to go to another dungeon, and retained their group, you could log on the next day with them and still be in that group with them at the new location.
DracoKalen said:So a mechanic that can let me hang with my guildee's until I can take control of my toon is a godsend. It does NOT grant solo play and I'm willing to bet while I'm using the caravan functionality I will not get any XP or gold. So it really is only a convenience.
The caravan feature has come up quite a bit recently and I'm sure the type of situation you referenced is the kind of thing that was being considered when this mechanic hit the drawing board. Regardless of what some may think, it is a design goal to facilitate this excerpt from the FAQ: "The main point is that we'll be doing all sorts of things to proactively bring people together and KEEP them together." There will certainly be measures in place to prevent abuse but it's safe to assume that VR is aware of the various pain points that were associated with group interdependency in the past and that Pantheon is being designed from the ground up to alleviate some of them, whenever it makes sense to do so.
Tanix said:Valorous1 said:If im understanding Caravans correctly, I think they seem redundant. Why not just stick to vessals and air ships between each continent? I want to play with friends at an early stage, but I also want to have the knowledge of how to get theer by being forced to traverse quit the distance. It would make me appriciate the games run speed buffs giving them more relevance. Also, have you seen the enviornmental detail in this world? Make me run through it all!
I think they argument as was made above is that "some" people do not have time due to their RL schedules or committments and so having a system where they can just log in and play with friends at an instant is needed.
My only point is RL circumstances of this level of need should not dictate entire game systems to circumvent game play to accomodate. If a person does not have time to play a type of game, they should accept their limitations and try to make due, or find other forms of activity that do allow for it. After all, there are tons of MMOs out there that allow for the log in and in 5 mins you are up and running and entire adventures can be finished in 15-20 mins.
I understand, and for me its incredibly rare that I'll get to play with my RL friends, and in game there will always be people roaming around. I just feel caravans will isolate people further away from the community and thats makes games like this great. Among the other things i've expressed.
Tanix said:I think they argument as was made above is that "some" people do not have time due to their RL schedules or committments and so having a system where they can just log in and play with friends at an instant is needed.
My only point is RL circumstances of this level of need should not dictate entire game systems to circumvent game play to accomodate. If a person does not have time to play a type of game, they should accept their limitations and try to make due, or find other forms of activity that do allow for it. After all, there are tons of MMOs out there that allow for the log in and in 5 mins you are up and running and entire adventures can be finished in 15-20 mins.
My not enough time, or lot of interruptions type game is Civilization 6 or simular.
Two points to add to this.
1. I see valid arguments being made in all directions and we have gone literally for *hours* without anyone attacking anyone else who didn't agree. Much more pleasant to read threads like that.
2. This reminds me enormously of the threads on Progeny. We have opinions about how we want the system to work but we have no idea what VR is thinking of - other than it is surely a system that will enable a character to travel together with others (that is what caravan means after all) when he or she is off-line.
Given that VR currently intends to do *something* - is there *any* system that the more ...rigorous purists .... concede is consistant with their view of a difficult slow world or is their view that any form of Caravan is a mistake and VR should drop the idea entirely (a legitimate position I hasten to add, I have also been known to say that certain positions taken by VR are ...imperfectly correct).
oneADseven said:DracoKalen said:So a mechanic that can let me hang with my guildee's until I can take control of my toon is a godsend. It does NOT grant solo play and I'm willing to bet while I'm using the caravan functionality I will not get any XP or gold. So it really is only a convenience.
The caravan feature has come up quite a bit recently and I'm sure the type of situation you referenced is the kind of thing that was being considered when this mechanic hit the drawing board. Regardless of what some may think, it is a design goal to facilitate this excerpt from the FAQ: "The main point is that we'll be doing all sorts of things to proactively bring people together and KEEP them together." There will certainly be measures in place to prevent abuse but it's safe to assume that VR is aware of the various pain points that were associated with group interdependency in the past and that Pantheon is being designed from the ground up to alleviate some of them, whenever it makes sense to do so.
Yep. And I'm happy they provide consideration for those of us who have to work and/or other things going on.
Valorous1 said:Tanix said:Valorous1 said:If im understanding Caravans correctly, I think they seem redundant. Why not just stick to vessals and air ships between each continent? I want to play with friends at an early stage, but I also want to have the knowledge of how to get theer by being forced to traverse quit the distance. It would make me appriciate the games run speed buffs giving them more relevance. Also, have you seen the enviornmental detail in this world? Make me run through it all!
I think they argument as was made above is that "some" people do not have time due to their RL schedules or committments and so having a system where they can just log in and play with friends at an instant is needed.
My only point is RL circumstances of this level of need should not dictate entire game systems to circumvent game play to accomodate. If a person does not have time to play a type of game, they should accept their limitations and try to make due, or find other forms of activity that do allow for it. After all, there are tons of MMOs out there that allow for the log in and in 5 mins you are up and running and entire adventures can be finished in 15-20 mins.
I understand, and for me its incredibly rare that I'll get to play with my RL friends, and in game there will always be people roaming around. I just feel caravans will isolate people further away from the community and thats makes games like this great. Among the other things i've expressed.
Doubt any of my RL friends will play this game at all. They just don't have the time, which is one of the reasons I joined a guild. Hopefully find a few good folks to team up with and what better way to be immediately available.
Now like a few others you take things to extremes. I have no intention of using the caravan system 24/7, I'm also a fairly intense crafter as well, so will need some time on my own to craft, maybe a bud or 2 for gathering in a group for protection.
Caravan I would use when we are doing a push, to map a series of areas, maybe gathering but really don't intend to too much in a group that would require caravan. Also, area's I miss because of caravan means I would have to backtrack and explore those area's
In addition say someone caravans up to the top skipping all the low and medium level zones. Well he's still the level he started at so how does he survive? his friends who fought their way all the way up there are now higher level and probably won't be able to group except as mentor. And that drags the higher levels down to the lower level which would get everyone killed.
After listening to the recent interview I am once again very curious about the caravan system. I see a lot of possible ways to format the system to make loosely connected adventuring parties (possibly as many as 24 members) that travel around and work together. If their play times and amounts roughly match (go go RPGharmony) then a lot of that awkward waiting around to find people significantly decreases.
The fast travel tool will somewhat shrink the world but I think minor losses on that front could massively open play opportunities for the “filthy casuals”. With something as simple as a 7 day timer on joining a new caravan and an 18 hour (end of one play session to the beginning of the next) timer on “teleport to caravan bind point” you severely limit the possible ways to overly game or abuse the caravan system while still providing a significant boost to effective play time for the non-hardcore players. If you add in a few restrictions like you must be unencumbered and out of combat to use a teleport system and bind points are in more restricted safe points for all classes then the remainder of the issues mostly fall away.
Keep in mind that one of the caravan leaders will still need to travel by normal means and most likely a certain percentage of the caravan members will also need to be present in order to shift a caravan bind point to a new location. In this way likely at least half the caravan will still need to move the old fashion way so there will still be plenty of travel. Mostly it really will just be used by the people with fairly little time that otherwise get left behind all the time or everyone sits around for half an hour and waits on rather than actively playing.
P.S. The caravan system is yet again another system that could be disabled on a specific hardcore server along with many other QoL systems that a subset of players feel would ruin the game world.
Caravans sound optional to me.
Use them to stay synced with your regular group,
or
run uphill both ways if that feels more fulfilling.
Personally, I can see myself doing both.
If tonight’s the night for my static group w/RL friends then I’ll caravan over to where we plan to play that night.
Next evening is a guild event halfway across the world, caravan to be able to make it to the event.
Free nights, go exploring, gathering, running perception quests, all on my own 2 digital legs.
I fail to see the problem.
That's a subject I can hardly have a concrete opinion :
On paper it looks like a "good" way to enforce community and friendship and not let anyone fall behind, the problem comes when people close to logging off asks/pay for a caravan to an other destination to "free up" time while playing, or when you just fall behind in levels and get brought in an area you can't manage.
I personally wouldn't vow for such a system, because I consider I won't need it or prefer to run by myself, but that would be discarding players to whom it's an usefull feature.
I would say at first I'm not a big proponent of the caravan system mainly because an individual could easily game the system and essentially would not have to potentially endure the hazards of travel that his friends did, but I could definitely see some increases of QoL as long as people don't exploit the process and have some restrictions such as:
1.) Can't caravan to a location that you have never been to before.
2.) Some sort of rule where there has to be a proportion of caravans you've had the luxury of of utilizing vs. you performing the actually caravan task yourself.
3.) Some sort of mutual consent to allow an individual to caravan.
4.) Potentially require some sort of resource to caravan
5.) Only one active Caravan per account i.e. can't have multiple alts running caravans simultaneously.
I typically like going on these treks across the continent myself, but can understand that if you've done it a couple times already it can get quite tedious and potentially be a 2-3 hour endeavor in itself.
I can understand the desire for tools to bring people together, but I fail to see why the game should help keep them together while some go on playing and some log out. In fact, keeping people together like this reduces the incentive to find new friends. It's a slippery slope to let some players skip obstacles because they cannot find the time to play as much as others do.
I also fail to see how caravens would fit into "meaningful travel". If I were to go on a long journey to a far-away land, I would want real companions to come with me. Somebody to chat with and to cover my back. That would be meaningful travel. But maybe there would be safe highways for caravans? We cannot have players dying while they're not playing, can we?
It's interesting that people are using EQ as an example of why this feature shouldn't exist in Pantheon since VR has stated time and time again this is not a continuation of any of the EQ titles. If anything, people should be taking note of the players that are familiar with this system as it existed in Vanguard since that is the most relevant comparison. You find a group of people, presumably 6, you attach yourself to that group, and when you log out and then back in at a later time it gives you the option to come into the game in an area somewhat near them. They have mentioned in the past that this system won't give players access to exclusive areas, i.e. depths of a dungeon, etc.., so I don't think this will affect people (those that want to use it) in a negative way. For the folks that don't want to use it, well, it won't affect them at all. What is interesting is, if you listen to most of the ex-Vanguard players talk about it you'll notice that 90%+ never used it and are not threatened by it at all. I'm all for systems like caravans and mentoring being included at launch in an effort to help keep friends together. I, for one, am excited this feature is planned for launch.
The few pieces I'm interested in include:
-What if you log in and decide to join a pug group? Are you somehow still meta tied to this special group of your "core" friends.
-When you log in, what if your group is offline? Does it tag the last area they were in and the caravan is attached to that area?
-What if you have people log off at different times and the group continues to move? Is the caravan tired to the designated leader of the "caravan group" or is it just the last member that was online determines the area in which the caravan will sit?
The resistance to this and similar mechanics is interesting.
Why would someone care if someone else 'piggybacks' on a friend's travel ability and time? How does it effect you?
In a world where almost certainly there will be group teleportation that would devolve into EQ-style druid-taxi services, how big an impact will it have to allow real life friends to stay together when their personal circumstances might otherwise preclude it? Is spamming "/ooc LF port to Lavastorm 10pp" something we should miss?
In a world where there will probably be power leveling and twinking, we are worried about players helping others to 'skip' some travel time?
Is this another 'competitve' thing, where acomplishments and achievements are somehow degraded if someone else takes a route you see as 'easier'?
*shrug* I like the idea of caravans. It often wasn't a positive experience taking time to get together with friends before the fun could even begin. We still did a lot of travelling together and it's not like every bit of travelling would be removed by caravans, just the initial get together and only for friends who previously dropped out of a group session.
In a role-playing sense, it was nonsense to 'camp out' and abandon your party. Much more sensible to consider yourself still 'with' your friends, but obviously you can't be 'active'.
Imagine how tedious Lord of the Rings would have been with one member or another of the fellowship constantly dropping out and reappearing forcing the rest to backtrack or wait for them.
Caravaning keeps the fellowship moving.
I just realized, the concept of the caravan assumes there will be no fast travel in Terminus, no porting at all.
This can create one or two beneficial scenarios:
1. If you are in a group and you hear of good things or interesting drops or questlines way the heck over there but you are having a good time here. However you also need to do some RL stuff (let dog out, go to store, do laundry, clean bathroom, etc). So your group finishes what they are doing, then gets on caravan to go over there and while on that in game afk of sorts- while caravanning- they do their RL stuff and come back to keyboard when caravan arrives. Maybe there is a timer when the caravan arrives or maybe the player can choose when the caravan will arrive? Like if the caravan takes 15min to get there, but the player can choose 45min? So if I got on the boat and waited- it would take 15min, but if I caravanned, I could say- drop me off in 45min real time instead of 15min real time that it takes in game. So I can let dog out, do shopping, take a break, walk around, etc etc and all the group agrees to the 45min.
2. The only time instances can be created or targeted guide/GM opportunities- hear me out: Your group is travelling; normally you can get on the boat, OR- choose a caravan when you get on the boat. If you choose a caravan either you will arrive at destination safely- staring at a box for 15min, or there is a RNG chance that ship will get wrecked, sea monster attack, monkeys escaped from the cargo holds, and an instance will open for the group to accomplish within the 15min timeframe of travel. OR a Gm can mess with them, or mess with the whole boat. Otherwise you get on the boat and interact with the world and travel to destination as usual in 15min and not stare at a box, sandbox jump off if you want to, drown, get eaten by sharks, lament your corpse run because you dont know where you are, whatever.
The issue it does not solve: where you group with people the night before, really good group, you promise to meet up the next day. You log in, and they are already on, but they have travelled way the heck over there and you need to travel to meet them, they are adventuring, you are spending time travelling, no other way to avoid that scenario .
MauvaisOeil said:That's a subject I can hardly have a concrete opinion :
On paper it looks like a "good" way to enforce community and friendship and not let anyone fall behind, the problem comes when people close to logging off asks/pay for a caravan to an other destination to "free up" time while playing, or when you just fall behind in levels and get brought in an area you can't manage.
I personally wouldn't vow for such a system, because I consider I won't need it or prefer to run by myself, but that would be discarding players to whom it's an usefull feature.
I want to respond specifically to the underlined part because this really got me thinking: Player could offer (sell) Caravaning services.
This assume that Caravaning would work like this:
1. A character wants to go from somepoint near Wild's End to Thronefast.
2. Another character is already going to Thronefast and tells the first person they will caravan them to the destination.
3. Both characters meet up and a trade window appears.
4. The 'follower', the person wanting to be caravaned, inputs the destination and a fee (which is held in escrow).
5. The 'leader', the person going to Thronefast, accepts the destination and puts in some collateral fee (also held in escrow).
6. The follower logs out.
7. A timer now starts, telling the leader how much time that character has to reach the destination.
8. The leader reaches Thronefast and goes to the caravan drop-off point.
9. The game acknowledges the leader reached the destination, the follower's escrow fee is transferred to the leader and the leader's collateral is refunded.
9.b. If, in this process, the leader does not reach the destination in the time allotted, the follower escrow fee is refunded and the leader's collateral is transferred to the follower.
10. The follower can now log in after X hours at the caravan drop-off point.
An enterprising player could sell these services to everyone, happilying caravaning people around the world for a fee. If 20 people wanted to travel to Thronefast that one person could go pick up all those contracts and 'deliver' them to Thronefast. So long as the follower is required to remain logged out for some duration of time (say 4 hours minimum) it isn't a means of fast travel, isn't very efficient for by-passing content and does promote interaction of players.
@Vandraad Yeah I don't doubt that would happen and I too think it's potentially an interesting and immersive addition and not negative at all.
As you say, it's hardly an efficient fast-travel, content by-pass 'cheat'. Thinking, at the end of your session, "right, where do I want to start next session?" and having to arrange it with your friends, or a barter with a complete stranger, is of tactical interest and a big community plus isn't it?
Something else to consider is that maybe the caravan “locations” stop at designated location and not randomly out in the wild (though Brad did talk about outposts a while back and perhaps that is part of the caravan “location” system). Similar to the roots and branches of a tree the world could be organized such that the fast travel systems pass along the trunk out to the major branches and roots. Along those fast travel routes would be the newbie/low level zones. Going further out onto the smaller branches and roots will be smaller cities and mid level content. Further still would be forts and encampments that lead toward end game content.
The caravans would be linked to one of those branch points along the way and not actually at the true content. One might still need to walk 10 minutes to reach the rest of their group after porting to their caravan bind location but that beats a 2-4 hour total travel/lfg time expenditure. I am still in favor of some pretty draconian timers on joining new caravans and how often you can use the auto port, once per week and once per day respectively.