Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Pointless time sinks

    • 643 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:10 AM PDT

    I disagree.

     

    One of my favorite things in EQ was the incredibly long journey from continent to continent.  Waiting for a boat and riding the boat, including the islly falling off bug that made it scary.

     

     

     

     

    • 2756 posts
    August 18, 2018 2:29 PM PDT

    fazool said:I disagree. 

    One of my favorite things in EQ was the incredibly long journey from continent to continent.  Waiting for a boat and riding the boat, including the islly falling off bug that made it scary.

    Scary?  Only if you find tedium 'scary'.

    • 388 posts
    August 18, 2018 8:27 PM PDT

    2 things

    Goofy said that EQ1 was made to help AOL to make make money because you paid by the hour. ... 'by the hour' was in 1990, NINE years before EQ came out. 

    Um. Not sure what part of the world you are in, but in the United states, in 1998 I had unlimited 56K dial up access for about $10-$15 a month. I literally Never once paid "by the hour" 

    in fact, by fall of 1999, I had ADSL installed and it was also unlimited and was $30-35 a month.  

    even when AOL did want to do "by the hour" you would get a new CD with a new "free month" or "free 1000 hours" all you had to do was sign up using a new email. Hell, I bet I had 50 AOL emails before I went to a consistent monthly (every month) internet charge. i went to an unlimited monthly charge in 1995 when Windows 95 came out. 4 YEARS before EQ came out.  

     

    Darch said: boat took over an hour. 

    maybe Verant Interactive loved me and i got special boats, but boats were never an hour.  it was 30 min round trip. 15 min from bb to freeport.  15 min from freeport to bb. the only time it took "more than an hour" is when the boats were broken. 

    • 1714 posts
    August 18, 2018 11:52 PM PDT

    The sentiment that waiting for a boat to take you across a freaking ocean is a "time sink" is nonsense to me. Real. Virtual. World. 

    • 346 posts
    August 19, 2018 12:09 AM PDT

    @Flapp is correct. AOL for as long as I had it since 1994 was billed by the hour at $10 for 5 hours, then $3 per hour after. You had free hours from disks and you could just use them and set up a new Email for free. I was able to have free AOL for months before they moved to a monthly rate around 1995 or 1996. In 1997 I just paid for my own phone line until I moved out for College in 1999. During that time I just kept AOL connected 24/7. The time sink wasn't for ISPs but to keep you in the game longer without reaching end game since the game was subscription based. 

    Boats however aren't one of those features as much as it may seem so. They were very much an RP based or realism based approach. Using boats to travel across the sea to include accessing OOT was very much a staple point of MMOs and EQ in particular. Generally, the majority of other sinks were as a point of balance.


    This post was edited by Janus at August 19, 2018 12:21 AM PDT
    • 201 posts
    August 19, 2018 11:22 AM PDT

    Darch said:

    As I wait for the 45min boat on P99 I find myself remembering some of the silly things I hated that essentially did nothing but waste time in a poor attempt to make the game "feel realistic".  I seriously hope PRotF will not adhere to some of the more asinine time sinks of old.  Those time sinks may have worked 20 years ago, but now everyone has at least 2 monitors and likely a smart TV.  People's interests will be diverted after having to essentially be afk for more than a few minutes.  Oh... my boat is here, time to actually pay attention to the other screen long enough to board the boat and then maybe watch some Netflix during the ride.

     

    Yeah I disagree here.  There were actually things to do and places to jump off at during the boat ride, which made it a destination in a way at times, plus I enjoyed it.  It certainly was not game ruining to have to wait around a little once in a while.  It also made you think about where you wanted to be, especially early on.  It gave you a real sense of "adventuring" as you crossed a continent to go adventure in another zone, rather than just crossing another zone line.

    • 752 posts
    August 19, 2018 11:56 AM PDT
    I keep harkening back to the good old days when eq1 was fresh and even druids/wizards had to ride the boat because they didnt have the levels or spells to travel. Here is the main point: there can be boats or other slower forms of travel for the first while until people progress in levels or spells or attunement to portals. Then we can all utilize the taxi service. I agree that a boat system should be updated to include more boats so the wait time is 5min or so. Enough time to bio, grab a frozen burrito or hotpocket, and some fluid to drink.

    What i am getting at is make travel meaningful but not a waste of time. Yes eq1 was on the waste of time side of the spectrum. But it helped to show you that if you were to swim that distance it would take a whole loads more time than sitting and twiddling your thumbs.

    The thing that bugged me was you were unable to zone without the boat. So when they were broken you were forced to wait for porters or stuck on that continent. Please don’t let that happen, allow for swimmers to cross those thresholds. This was especially frustrating if you were KOS at the port city.

    But i digress. I just feel there is a misgiving about early timesinks that are important before characters cross those specific achievements such as attaining the level needed to port, or grabbing that attunement item from the portal location.

    What i dont want to see is fast travel initiated without these initial barriers. I dont want to see hub worlds that take away from meaningful travel. I dont want to see people able to achieve quest triggers without first leveling up thier perception skill. Thats how i feel about timesinks.
    • 287 posts
    August 19, 2018 12:06 PM PDT
    I loved the boats in EQ. I joined a great guild talking to a guildee at the docks. I don't recall a 45 min wait. Seemed to be 30 minutes max if you ran up and saw the boat leaving. That is the worse case scenario.... How many times did we arrive with the boat or only have to wait 5 minutes. I enjoyed the randomness. VR, please go with the majority of posters on this who want a slower more immersive game play.
    • 287 posts
    August 19, 2018 1:39 PM PDT
    I would like to have destinations that you can only reach by boats. These locations would have content (loot, quests, great experience spots, trainers etc) that would make the wait for a boat worth it. I don't think a 30 minute wait is too long. That is also the worse case scenario.
    • 11 posts
    August 19, 2018 2:11 PM PDT

    Nothing like the memories of riding over a hill seeing the top of the masts of a ship sailing out of port you just missed.  Then waiting for 10 minutes to afk at some point to come back to it shipping off again or falling off the edge to miss it.  That being said why cant certain transports from one place to another not be a dungeon.  Maybe a lost ship that travels to a certain port a few times a month where the journey starts on the a ghost ship (enemy ship etc.) that actually has a boss and things to do. You are sneaking aboard to get to a far off land.  The ride can take an hour or so and you have to complete it or pay the toll to the ferryman that catches you.


    This post was edited by Napalmangel at August 19, 2018 2:14 PM PDT
    • 612 posts
    August 20, 2018 8:48 AM PDT

    Flapp said: Goofy said that EQ1 was made to help AOL to make make money because you paid by the hour. ... 'by the hour' was in 1990, NINE years before EQ came out. 

    First off I never said EQ1 was made to help AOL make money. I said that the period of time that EQ was in development was the same time period where AOL was using this type of by the hour system. And the origional plan was for EQ1 to copy this pay/hour system.

    Flapp said: Um. Not sure what part of the world you are in, but in the United states, in 1998 I had unlimited 56K dial up access for about $10-$15 a month. I literally Never once paid "by the hour" in fact, by fall of 1999, I had ADSL installed and it was also unlimited and was $30-35 a month.

    I am guessing that this was 'internet' access you are refering to and not AOL access. I never suggested that normal ISP's ever charged per hour. Only AOL did this.

    Flapp said: even when AOL did want to do "by the hour" you would get a new CD with a new "free month" or "free 1000 hours" all you had to do was sign up using a new email. Hell, I bet I had 50 AOL emails before I went to a consistent monthly (every month) internet charge. i went to an unlimited monthly charge in 1995 when Windows 95 came out. 4 YEARS before EQ came out.  

    And how many years do you think EQ was in development before it came out? And since AOL was moving away from this per/hour system during this time, and it was falling out of favor with the public, hence the reason EQ changed their plans and never actually used a pay/hour system.

    Flapp said:

    Darch said: boat took over an hour.

    maybe Verant Interactive loved me and i got special boats, but boats were never an hour.  it was 30 min round trip. 15 min from bb to freeport.  15 min from freeport to bb. the only time it took "more than an hour" is when the boats were broken.

    In project99 the boats are 14 minutes each way. But in Classic EQ the boat was ~20 minutes each way. The 'Hour' Darch was refering to applies when you miss the boat and need to wait 40 minutes for it to show back up, and then 20 more minutes on the boat, which means total 60 minutes (that's an hour) time invested. Even in p99 if you miss the boat you wait 28 minutes for it to return and then 14 minutes on the trip for a total of 42 minutes, not quite an hour but still a big time investment.