Ok - so we've all waged the "instant travel vs meaningful travel" war at one time or another. I think I'm making a fairly safe assumption that most if not all of the folks currently on these forums is in favor of meaningful travel.
BUT - what does "meaningful travel" mean when you (specifically you, not a generalized "you") say it?
Here's why I ask:
- I think all/most of us liked EQ's druid and wizzy port mechanic. Player driven travel reducers. You typically had to travel to and/or from a port... so not instant, and not even always short - but shorter than if you ran the whole way.
- I think most people here didn't mind boat rides - but maybe thought missing one and having a 45 minute wait was perhaps a tad painful... because that's essentially "non-travel, travel time" - you're just sitting.
- I think all/most of us loved how large the world felt when you actually did run somewhere... especially since there were never really single paths from place to place. You'd decide to go somewhere, and in your mind think "I could go from here, to there to there - OR - I could go from here, to there, to there" when figuring out a path. That kind of thought process makes a virtual world feel bigger all by itself.
So - what does it mean to you?
Would that 45 minute wait for a boat be just fine if it were, say a 20 minute wait and you could double dip? For example, say the dock had merchants, bankers, and tradeskill stations (when trades are added) - Now you might have a 20 minute wait, but you have a 20 minute wait where you are putting stuff you won't need in the bank, getting stuff you will need out of the bank, etc...
If you did like the druid / wizzy ports - why?
In short - what is "enough" what is "too little" and what is "too much" for you?
Because I think when we wage the travel holy war, we mostly just stop at "I don't want instant travel" - so - let's start expanding on that. I hope many of you decide to respond :)
I am not sure how much we will be keeping from the original team but we have discussed this quite a lot in the past. You can check it out by typing "Travel" into the search bar (brings up around 10 pages of links) and in there is also a YouTube video Dev discussion for concepts and idea's on travel, fast travel, portals, boats, mounts etc. on the front page of that list.
Here is a topic from back in July where I gave a detailed list of what I would like to see with Travel too ;)
https://www.pantheonrotf.com/forums/topic/1080/forms-of-travel/view/post_id/10811
I love that you guy's are pumping out these questions and idea's, they are awesome and they promote healthy discussions and community interaction, but before anyone posts the next one, just type it into the search bar first and check it out to make sure we don't overflow the forums with already available information ;)
I may not have worded my initial post very well. I'm not really looking for a list of mechanics folks want. I'm wondering from a "how you feel about it perspective" what does it mean to you.
For example - someone could say "I WANT HORSES!" But... if travel by horse meant when you got on it to "travel" somewhere, you flipped to a graphic showing you riding your mount for 10 minutes and - at the end - you magically appeared where you set out for... that's going impact you one way - where if you were actually riding your mound for 30 minutes somewhere, across terrain, etc.. that will impact you in another way.
In that example - I would assume the 10 minutes of travel would be not desirable at all, and the 30 would be desirable to many (but maybe not all).
So I think I may be looking more for the emotional hit for folks. "Why do you like X" for example is more about "I like it because"
Maybe we've still crossed that ground - but I was actually thinking of starting that type of questioning about a whole variety of often discussed topics where we, as a player base, make hard line statements - but never really discuss the reasoning behind those hard line statements.
What I'm after overall, and hoping to provide the devs through these - is that softer "feeling" aspect attached to mechanics.
IF though - you guys think such a line of posts isn't worth the time, I'll find something else to discuss - no harm, no foul :)
Logical premise:
Those who don't want to travel back to the city for rations all the time, typically don't leave the City until they have fast-mode travel planned. That is why a full fledged game like EQ is important, because being stuck in Freeport until a ship arrived.. to take you to another city... was worth the wait. You were not in fear of dieing and being alone... or out on your own. It was a relatively safe way to travel.
Having to travel to anything in a MMORPG is part of being in an actual World, not just playing "a game".
If you as a player know you can cut off 30m of travel time between your favorite route, by tossing a local Wizard a few coins, You are going to do it. But early on, it might be more worth your time to travel on foot because the cost of a Wizard port seems too high. But as time wears on, the path you take becomes trivial and mobs no longer endanger you... and the cost of a Wizard port seems trivial now too... now that you have substantially more wealth. Etc..
EQ had Circles and Spires... that were a part of the old world. Nobody knew exactly why, they were where they are... but accepted their special properties allowed for traveling to far off places, quickly.
I do not think there should be any world portals in actual cities, unless the lore has reason. I like how EQ had them indiscriminately in nearby zones.
I also think Druid and Wizard ports (not gates) should require a reagent. Portals might leave you with a "portal sickness" if the Wizard's skill is not high enough for the distance covered. Not-to-mention, Portal spells require specialize scribing technique & inks. Location of ports require a special meditation in the area, to become familiar with the magnetic lines of the area, etc..
Wandidar said:
Ok - so we've all waged the "instant travel vs meaningful travel" war at one time or another. I think I'm making a fairly safe assumption that most if not all of the folks currently on these forums is in favor of meaningful travel.
BUT - what does "meaningful travel" mean when you (specifically you, not a generalized "you") say it?
Here's why I ask:
- I think all/most of us liked EQ's druid and wizzy port mechanic. Player driven travel reducers. You typically had to travel to and/or from a port... so not instant, and not even always short - but shorter than if you ran the whole way.
- I think most people here didn't mind boat rides - but maybe thought missing one and having a 45 minute wait was perhaps a tad painful... because that's essentially "non-travel, travel time" - you're just sitting.
- I think all/most of us loved how large the world felt when you actually did run somewhere... especially since there were never really single paths from place to place. You'd decide to go somewhere, and in your mind think "I could go from here, to there to there - OR - I could go from here, to there, to there" when figuring out a path. That kind of thought process makes a virtual world feel bigger all by itself.
So - what does it mean to you?
Would that 45 minute wait for a boat be just fine if it were, say a 20 minute wait and you could double dip? For example, say the dock had merchants, bankers, and tradeskill stations (when trades are added) - Now you might have a 20 minute wait, but you have a 20 minute wait where you are putting stuff you won't need in the bank, getting stuff you will need out of the bank, etc...
If you did like the druid / wizzy ports - why?
In short - what is "enough" what is "too little" and what is "too much" for you?
Because I think when we wage the travel holy war, we mostly just stop at "I don't want instant travel" - so - let's start expanding on that. I hope many of you decide to respond :)
I would agree that 45 minute waits on the boats (and I really want to see boat travel again :) was pretty much just a time sink.
Cut that time to 15 or 20 minutes, and I think that would be fine, allow tradeskilling or some sort of interaction (minigame ie gems for instance or something else) when you think about a dock, in real life, its not just a dock, there are boats coming and going, people coming and going, people fishing off the end of the dock and all kinds of other activities going on.
Now describing all those actions ..I am thinking too much activity close to the boats, might cause some lag, so perhaps put some of these things a little ways away, so as not to interfere with the coming and going of the awaited vehicle.
I am sure there are tweaks that could be made to "update" how this activity is done without resorting to the 2D action of click!! instant landing on the map somewhere. :)
As for wizzy or druid porting, I am biased, my favorite class in EQ was wizard, I had every port, group port, translocate, evac you could think of...including the special ports that required a reagent to get to a particular Plane...for raiding purposes. I would play this character role again, no doubt about it! :)
Hieromonk said:
Logical premise:
Those who don't want to travel back to the city for rations all the time, typically don't leave the City until they have fast-mode travel planned. That is why a full fledged game like EQ is important, because being stuck in Freeport until a ship arrived.. to take you to another city... was worth the wait. You were not in fear of dieing and being alone... or out on your own. It was a relatively safe way to travel.
Having to travel to anything in a MMORPG is part of being in an actual World, not just playing "a game".
If you as a player know you can cut off 30m of travel time between your favorite route, by tossing a local Wizard a few coins, You are going to do it. But early on, it might be more worth your time to travel on foot because the cost of a Wizard port seems too high. But as time wears on, the path you take becomes trivial and mobs no longer endanger you... and the cost of a Wizard port seems trivial now too... now that you have substantially more wealth. Etc..
EQ had Circles and Spires... that were a part of the old world. Nobody knew exactly why, they were where they are... but accepted their special properties allowed for traveling to far off places, quickly.
I do not think there should be any world portals in actual cities, unless the lore has reason. I like how EQ had them indiscriminately in nearby zones.
I also think Druid and Wizard ports (not gates) should require a reagent. Portals might leave you with a "portal sickness" if the Wizard's skill is not high enough for the distance covered. Not-to-mention, Portal spells require specialize scribing technique & inks. Location of ports require a special meditation in the area, to become familiar with the magnetic lines of the area, etc..
Magnetic lines...as in Ley lines? :)
Even though I loved EQ having Druids and Wizards be able to port and translocate people , in a way I wish there wasn't any port or rift system, only recall/gate and perhaps evacs . This keeps the world from ever feeling overly small. At the same time I would like flying mounts like VG had. You could rent the slower if you are low level and eventually do quests for the fast ones or even purchase them. This way even if you are bypassing content you have outgrown by flying over it, the world still seems the same size to you, it seems big , but you are traveling thru it quickly when need be. With all that said, it's not much of a game breaker for me. EQ and VG handled travel very differently, and yet those games are the two that are dearest to my heart of all games. However Brad and team decide to do things, I am sure I will be fine with it.
Jason said:
Even though I loved EQ having Druids and Wizards be able to port and translocate people , in a way I wish there wasn't any port or rift system, only recall/gate and perhaps evacs . This keeps the world from ever feeling overly small. At the same time I would like flying mounts like VG had. You could rent the slower if you are low level and eventually do quests for the fast ones or even purchase them. This way even if you are bypassing content you have outgrown by flying over it, the world still seems the same size to you, it seems big , but you are traveling thru it quickly when need be. With all that said, it's not much of a game breaker for me. EQ and VG handled travel very differently, and yet those games are the two that are dearest to my heart of all games. However Brad and team decide to do things, I am sure I will be fine with it.
Early on, translocate was not even in the game. Secondly, not every Wizard had the spells to port you where you wanted to go. It wasn't until after website look up made such things trivial. I agree ports can easily get trivialized, but with reagents, and Portals actually using ALL of the wizards mana, might curtail a lot of the fast travel in later life-cycles of games. I quite playing EverQuest shortly after PoP because it trivialized the whole game before it...
The OP question still boils down to how emotionally attached to the size of the world you are. If you really want a big world and to always feel like it is big, then you want very limited convenient travel options. If you want zones/camps/encounters to have an extra layer of badassery to them, you make them tough to travel to (like running past level 35 drachnids to do level 15 content in Lake of Ill Omen).
Travel is meaningful if the action itself has value and adds to your gaming experience. If your gaming experience rotates solely around a "how fast can I move the exp bar" axis, then immersive travel will likely be a giant and annoying pain in the neck to you. If however, extending your clip plane and that mountain in the distance makes getting to next thing more rewarding, then immersive travel is likely to be quite enjoyable.
It's one component of the larger overall theme, feel and soul of the game. In WoW, there is no travel. You queue random, and accepting an invite takes you instantly to the entrance of whatever instance you queued into. Done. There may as well not even be an overland world, just a giant guild hall with doors to each particular instance, since that's what the queue system has reduced the game to. You sit in orgrimmar or stormwind, and you queue. I sat my last character (new pally) by a vendor in SW, and the sum total of my "travel" from level 1 to 50, no joke, was between that vendor and the bank like 40 steps away and back. Other than that, I never moved once. I didn't need to.
So which game do you feel like playing? What kind of RPG experience satisfies you? Do you care about more than your inventory window and the exp bar? It's those answers that dictate whether Brad's idea of travel (which I actually prefer) will please or anger you. That 30 minute boat ride across OoT was boring, but nobody who did it can tell me they did not consider Faydwer and Antonica separate continents. That crazy long boring boat ride really, truly made the two places seem really far apart and like separate worlds. Do the two worlds matter, or do you want things to be speedy and convenient? That's up to the player.
I played a wizzie so I loved wizzie travel, for 2 reasons. 1: It would take me or the group I happen to be in or the person/grp I was porting to the zone or the closest zone they needed to be at. They just needed to run the rest of the way. Still had to figure out the way to get to the destination, fight off mobs and baddies, guards, etc., but chances were less likely you would die wizzie travel than waiting for a boat. 2: I made serious coin!!!!!! I was not greedy. I would sit somewhere it was not crowded, most people knew who I was. I offered my services. Singles were 1 gold, 3+ ppl 10 gold, whole grp 1 plat. All part of the economy.
Venjenz said:
The OP question still boils down to how emotionally attached to the size of the world you are. If you really want a big world and to always feel like it is big, then you want very limited convenient travel options. If you want zones/camps/encounters to have an extra layer of badassery to them, you make them tough to travel to (like running past level 35 drachnids to do level 15 content in Lake of Ill Omen).
Travel is meaningful if the action itself has value and adds to your gaming experience. If your gaming experience rotates solely around a "how fast can I move the exp bar" axis, then immersive travel will likely be a giant and annoying pain in the neck to you. If however, extending your clip plane and that mountain in the distance makes getting to next thing more rewarding, then immersive travel is likely to be quite enjoyable.
It's one component of the larger overall theme, feel and soul of the game. In WoW, there is no travel. You queue random, and accepting an invite takes you instantly to the entrance of whatever instance you queued into. Done. There may as well not even be an overland world, just a giant guild hall with doors to each particular instance, since that's what the queue system has reduced the game to. You sit in orgrimmar or stormwind, and you queue. I sat my last character (new pally) by a vendor in SW, and the sum total of my "travel" from level 1 to 50, no joke, was between that vendor and the bank like 40 steps away and back. Other than that, I never moved once. I didn't need to.
So which game do you feel like playing? What kind of RPG experience satisfies you? Do you care about more than your inventory window and the exp bar? It's those answers that dictate whether Brad's idea of travel (which I actually prefer) will please or anger you. That 30 minute boat ride across OoT was boring, but nobody who did it can tell me they did not consider Faydwer and Antonica separate continents. That crazy long boring boat ride really, truly made the two places seem really far apart and like separate worlds. Do the two worlds matter, or do you want things to be speedy and convenient? That's up to the player.
Thank you. This is exactly what I was after - and you echoed my thoughts on the topic. I'm a very big believer in the idea that one of the primary things that made EQ different than today's MMO's is that (intentionally or not) it hit you on many different emotional levels - sometimes within seconds... where today's MMO's which all seem to try to follow the Blizzard mantra of "am I having fun now" - have narrowed the emotional hit of those games to such a point that they may be enjoyable to level up in - but then quickly lose any sense of "life."
The things you talked about - how travelling on that boat made the world feel big - to me - also means it makes the world feel alive.
Again, thanks :)
I'm all for meaningful travel, but I most definitely fall into the "travel is meaningful if the action itself has value and adds to your gaming experience" appropriately defined by Venjenz.
I traveled in VG (post-launch) and WoW (at launch) and while I traveled in both, neither were as meaningful to me as EQ was. I was more led by the next quest hub in both games; whereas, with EQ, I designed my own travel plans.
For example.. in EQ, usually the travel revolved around either exploring a new dungeon with friends I had heard about or had stumbled upon. Or, instead of being told/getting the quest from a hub to go to a dungeon like Gukbottom to kill the Ghoul Lord to get the Short Sword of the Ykesha, it was rather - I want to go do X zone to kill/camp Y mob to get Z item beacause I want to explore the zone or I had heard of this great item/inspected some player in awe. That choice and freedom I believe made the travel (and item drop) more meaningful as well.
I had created a boat poll near the launch of this site that discusses some of my meaningful travel experiences in EQ regarding boats and my vote to have them in Pantheon (although I would hope Pantheon would have less of the LD deaths): https://www.pantheonrotf.com/polls/view/68/boats
I like VG style travel early on when you ran everywhere and mainly only had bind stones to recall. I enjoyed it later on when they had selected rift points for certain areas with lvl caps on rift points helped me join up faster with my team. Though in VG I swam the oceans a few times from thestra to Qualia or Kojan. It was a long swim lol. I also really enjoyed when they first brought in flying mounts and I got my Griffon it was a hard quest and I felt I accomplished something when I got it. Also was the same when I got my shadow hound. I would like to see it all again, but I leave it all up to the team to make it right.
For me meaningful travel is not the same as realism. Meaningful travel for me is when I go from point A to B there is something non combat related to do. Look at good scenery, explore some hidden alcove a bit off the beaten path that serves no purpose or almost none (so no MoBs there, maybe a letter or some lore). Or listen to stories. For example I would love a bard singing songs on the lower decks of a boat. Speaking of boats I would also love if I could fish off of it or some such. To put it another way meaningful travel, to me, is about having traveling be about something other than going from point A to B as fast as I can.
As to "realistic" travel I am all for that, for the most part. Say there is a city that takes 20min to walk across. The city planner was a bit touched in the head so the bank is on one side, while the broker/shops/etc. were on the other. There I wouldn't mind some teleportation because it's more of a quality of life issue. I like player teleportation spells because while not utterly realistic it adds to the RP aspect of the game. And for me RPing is the main reason I play MMOs.
40min is a bit steep for public transportation, even if there was stuff to do. There is a line between doing something that source of pride and doing something that is simply tedious. Like playing a game on hard mode vs getting all the little achievements (For example, spending 8 hours finding feathers so you can say "hey look how I wasted a day!"). For some stuff relating to EQ1 and the like it feels like people just want to stay as old school as possible not because it is better but because they want it to be because new MMOs kinda suck (Ok they really suck) and they just want to distance themselves as much as possible.
Personally I think games like EQ can go from being the only good MMOs to being great ones. I don't like doing things the "hard" way just to say I did. There are real world time constraints and while I want games to last me a long time, waiting around should not be the gimmick to keep people playing longer. That being said I believe there is value to not getting everything right away. Having patience is a great skill. But I think a 15-20 min. wait would suffice. It would strike a nice balance between realism (so instantly teleporting everywhere all the time) and practicality. Kind of roundabout, I know. Sorry about that.
Kazingathi said:
I like VG style travel early on when you ran everywhere and mainly only had bind stones to recall. I enjoyed it later on when they had selected rift points for certain areas with lvl caps on rift points helped me join up faster with my team. Though in VG I swam the oceans a few times from thestra to Qualia or Kojan. It was a long swim lol. I also really enjoyed when they first brought in flying mounts and I got my Griffon it was a hard quest and I felt I accomplished something when I got it. Also was the same when I got my shadow hound. I would like to see it all again, but I leave it all up to the team to make it right.
That shadow hound quest took me 8 days (had to solo most of it). It made it so meaningful and awesome when I got it. I would love to see such quests again.
Amen I think we are in good hands I know it won't all be the same, but dam it was good. I still remember old EQers' talking about EQ and how much they like VG so I'm hoping for us EQers and VGers can do the same on this one. I remember I only mainly used my griffon to go every where when I got it, the only time I rifted was usually to change continents.
Have any of you played ArcheAge? Here's what you have in that game:
- Portal stones: Everyone has a port book, and after you travel to a new location (by whatever means) that place is added to your book. Porting to a location in your book requires portal stones. One for ports on the same continent, three for ports to other continents. The stones are crafted, and while easy to make, always require a continous flow of materials to make more.
- Sailing: Obviously a huge point in AA. You can sail your own crafted boat wherever you want (if you survive the pirates and sea monsters). Travel can take a fairly long time (for standard routes between the starter continents, I'd estimate 15-20min, farther destinations take more time). Now why would you sail if you can port? Because in some situations you can't use a port: Especially when you carry trade packs (which you exchange for gold or other goods on the other continent).
- Mounts and Farm carts: Different kinds for traveling and trading.
- Gliders: Everyone gets a basic glider, and better ones can be purchased or aquired through quests/drops. Gliders are not flying mounts...you slowly descend while using them, although better models have a thrust ability which allows you to regain a little height (but not enough to stay airborne forever). All gliders will drop you off after a certain time.
Personally, I found the traveling in that game quite meaningful and enjoying. You could port to many locations after traveling there. You still had to run/ride quite a bit since houses or other locations might not be at the port location. Often times you had to think wether it wasn't faster if you used your boat to get to a destination rather than riding (when trading). And you had to consider the risk of doing so...the oceans are dangerous.And one of the most enjoyable experiences in AA for me was using gliders. I understand that permanent flying like in VG may be considered too powerful, but gliding really adds a lot of fun to the game while avoiding that problem.
So, that's my take on traveling, from another angle :)