Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

How much would it take to stop the city teleporters?

    • 383 posts
    February 26, 2015 4:47 PM PST
    Gawd said:
    Raidan said:
    Niien said:

    I know we have spoken about this topic in at least two other threads in the distant past. I didn't want to necro those threads, and I believe this is a little different question/discussion. I'm also not sure if the new team is still moving towards easy mode city teleporters. Though I would like to know if they would consider a stretch goal to NOT implement them.

     

    Basically I would like to know if the team could be bribed to not put them in the game and force us to explore and travel. Some of the most fondest memories I have were traveling between cities, getting lost, killed, and meeting people along the way. I'm totally okay with spells for travel like the druids/wizards, though free travel is just sucking the enthusiasm out of my wife and I. We would be willing to loosen our pocket books a little more if we could make these teleporters not come to fruition. 

     

    I'm not sure if this would be considered PTL(Pay to lose) lol ?

     

    Niien,

     

    As you know from my previous posts - I 100% agree with you.  I re-asked the 3 cities question for the next Roundtable (although it might have been answered already now).  To Aradune's point, travel could have been considered virtually impossible (in today's terms) from Halas to Ak'anon at Everquest launch, but I made that journey and it was one of the most memorable experiences I had in EQ or any other MMO.

     

    I do appreciate it though Aradune that the stance has changed now to at least see how it tests in beta versus ports definitely being in Pantheon, which I still believe is opposite the vision of an old school, challenging, immersive MMO.  When you want folks to experience and explore the world through a (forced?) rights of passage system, it is counterproductive to implement a system that allows for instant travel when a person would be otherwise choosing willingly to explore and travel across Terminus because they want to group with a friend in a distant land - and creating an emergent Rights of Passage quest in and of itself.

     

    The ports will single-handidly make the world of Terminus feel much smaller - even a one-time port.  However, even in EQ, the world became much smaller after 6-9 months or so.  Much like Jezbel said in the "Sting of Death" thread, travel similar to death with cleric resses becomes much more trivialized once wizards/druids etc. obtain access to porting spells; however, you can't replicate that newbie experience of having to explore and experience the world before the ports exist.

     

    *Edit For reference and to avoid getting in the same discussion and not derail this topic, I have linked the original 3 starting cities thread below:

     

    https://www.pantheonrotf.com/forums/topic/1108/3-starting-cities/view/post_id/11241

    honestly i cant see how ports between the newbie cities will make it so that noone has to explore. there is still the entire rest of the continent that you cant port to. and are you really exploring if you are running for your life from mobs 20 lvls higher than you trying to meet up with friends in cityB because you wanted to be an elf and they only start in City A dying 50-100 times while trying to map out the 8 or 9 zones between you? and now you finally get to the coast where the ship will take you to city B and there is no port here.... so you start going south along the coast, eventually finding the port after another 6 hours of travel and death. and what do we find out? the boat costs 5 silver... and you lost all your money when you died, and the only place there is anything you can kill is the starting city.

     

    hrmm sounds to me like a bunch of work that is just there to keep me from actually playing the game and really doing exploration.

     

     

    That's the problem I see with today's games from my perspective. They create a world/game out of convenience for the players. What I believe should be created is a huge living world of mystery, beautiful unique wonders, and danger. The world should make you curious enough to venture out from the safety of the walls/guards and experience/explore the world. It should also teach you the hard way that you need to be cautious and friends are always welcome. It should remind you that you are a part of this world, though you don't own it, you're not some magical all-powerful hero,  and if you're not careful it will remind yo often. :)

    • 383 posts
    February 26, 2015 4:48 PM PST
    Aradune said:

    It really depends on how the world is laid out, which is still very much a work in progress.

     

    If a trip between starting cities is virtually impossible we will need them; if not, we won't.

     

    Aradune, I guess there are different types of players. When I see "virtually impossible" I think... "challenge accepted".

    • 383 posts
    February 26, 2015 4:56 PM PST
    Sarim said:

    I don't see the point of "one time" ports so players can start together even with different races. Just allow players to start in whatever starting city they want (within reasonable limits...I don't think an ogre should be allowed in an elven city right away). In such cases there should also be no port if you end up doing those.

     

    Sarim, I would speak against this for this simple reason. I remember that for probably a good 10-12 levels of my first EQ char during the EQ beta I only saw Barbarians like myself around me. Still to this day do I remember seeing my first gnome in the snowy mountains of Halas... then I remember getting rooted(back then you couldn't even turn around in place). Then nuked to death... it was quite exciting haha... I was right on the edge of the mountains and the tundra where the mammoths were at.

     

    At any rate, that segregation of races played a very unique role in helping set the tone of the game. It was full of raciest and real world feelings. Now I'm not saying I promote that type of behavior IRL, however almost everyone can relate to things like that and it helps immerse you into the deep story/lore of the game. Maybe a bad example, though it was probably as equally as awesome the first time I saw a hill giant... and then saw the loading screen haha.

    • 999 posts
    February 26, 2015 5:31 PM PST
    Niien said:

    That's the problem I see with today's games from my perspective. They create a world/game out of convenience for the players. What I believe should be created is a huge living world of mystery, beautiful unique wonders, and danger. The world should make you curious enough to venture out from the safety of the walls/guards and experience/explore the world. It should also teach you the hard way that you need to be cautious and friends are always welcome. It should remind you that you are a part of this world, though you don't own it, you're not some magical all-powerful hero,  and if you're not careful it will remind yo often. :)


    I would agree here again and like Joppa has mentioned in this thread, I don't want anything easy - allowing ports between starting cities removes some of that wonder and could also trivialize starting race factions (Ogre warping to a elf city to group up with their elven buddy - Ogre should be KoS). 

     

    However, I would imagine one of the most difficult aspects of game design is to find the balance between punishment and challenging-  it seems counterintuitive to create challenging mechanics that basically inflict pain instead of avoid it, but the sense of achievement gained in game for accomplishing those meaningful mechanics is more much rewarding and lasting than the alternative, which I believe could maintain the playerbase much more than the cry for more instant gratification mechanics like ports.

    • 49 posts
    February 26, 2015 6:14 PM PST

    Well, as long as we are keeping in mind the need to keep the world huge, I don't see any problems with compromising a little in order to counter big problems like low populations, etc. In fact, it could be quite fun to, for example, go outside the newbie town and harvest some materials for a teleport to another city. This was totally possible in EQ simply by relying on a bit of kindness from teleporters (accepting whimpy payments).

    In the end it's the spoiling of the journey that concerns me, and that seems to be of primary concern here.

    Side note, I would much prefer a boat trip or flight path to a teleport, unless the teleport was totally cool.

    • 201 posts
    February 27, 2015 7:52 AM PST
    ImmerseMe said:

    Well, as long as we are keeping in mind the need to keep the world huge, I don't see any problems with compromising a little in order to counter big problems like low populations, etc. In fact, it could be quite fun to, for example, go outside the newbie town and harvest some materials for a teleport to another city. This was totally possible in EQ simply by relying on a bit of kindness from teleporters (accepting whimpy payments).

    In the end it's the spoiling of the journey that concerns me, and that seems to be of primary concern here.

    Side note, I would much prefer a boat trip or flight path to a teleport, unless the teleport was totally cool.

    I think that's what portals for cities and the old cities would do.  As long as there are players of a race, people are going to be in that city/zone.  Heck let's not rule out also that there probably will be a few cities that are relatively close to each other.  The abandonment of a city is also a different topic.  It basically lands on what is / isn't required in those cities.  IE: WoW,  They took any and all reasons for you to actually visit a city.  So now there are abandon cities from each expansion that rarely have more then a few people in them.  Where as EQ gave you a reason to venture back(like spells, banking, etc).

    • 671 posts
    February 27, 2015 8:05 AM PST

    As long as there is no Nexus, or Planes of Power.....   this game will survive.

    • 118 posts
    February 27, 2015 8:16 AM PST

    I love the "strait forwardness" implied by the title of this thread.  And want to ask the same question for crafting.

    • 23 posts
    February 27, 2015 8:29 AM PST
    CelevinMoongleam said:

    I love the "strait forwardness" implied by the title of this thread.  And want to ask the same question for crafting.

    How much would it take to stop crafting?¿?


    This post was edited by Yvyll at February 28, 2015 10:27 AM PST
    • 118 posts
    February 27, 2015 8:36 AM PST

    Forgive my ambiguity.  I was thinking in terms of flipping the bit from its current state of "no crafting at launch."

    • 288 posts
    February 27, 2015 9:33 AM PST
    Joppa said:
    Aradune said:

    It really depends on how the world is laid out, which is still very much a work in progress.

     

    If a trip between starting cities is virtually impossible we will need them; if not, we won't.

     

    Except perhaps a 1 time teleport so you can get together with a friend at your or his starting area.

     

    Community and getting friends together, at least in this case, IMHO trump meaningful travel.

     

    It's really a tight rope we are going to have to navigate quite a bit I think, and that's where building community and bringing friends together conflicts with the other hard core aspects of the game.  There may be some tough calls to make.  Beta will help reveal the answers.

     

    This is an area that Brad and I disagree on - I don't want to move you safely around the world for any reason without dependence on other players to do so (through ships, class-based teleport/projection abilities, as a group, etc.) So I'll be pushing for no teleports, but I do understand his perspective, and we're working to design the game world in a way that could support something like this without trivializing travel or shrinking the world's size, if we decide to keep it.

     

     

    I agree with Joppa here, and I think some insight can be given as to why having friends/guildmates meet up immediately in games may not be such a good idea.  Part of the community/social experience of Real-Life is having stories your friends/family haven't heard.  If you and your friends meet up immediately in a game, all of your experiences will then be the same and the communication will only be based on real-time needs, like im on this mob, or hey check out this quest.  It puts all of the players in your community on the same track.

     

    I realize back in 99 when Everquest launched there wasn't much for internet communities and people didn't have much reason to all try to start in the same area.  It is still possible to all start in the same place if you all play the same race, but that seperation of friends/communities who can then come together at some later point in the game and tell stories of their travels up until then, is much more valuable than simply being able to teleport over and join them immediately.  Being able to share presence in a story is important, but having different and diverse stories to tell is more important IMO.

    • 112 posts
    February 28, 2015 10:52 AM PST

    Also with Joppa.  And like someone else mentioned, I love the fact there is a discussion of different opinions by dev's, and not one macro response to a subject.

     

    What if someone wants to start playing with their friend?  ... Is this person not going to be friends by not getting to group in the first few minutes? hours?  The idea of removing such a crucial experience of immersion from mmo's these days for the sake of I-want-it-now generations is a very tiresome thing.

     

    I say give us the starting cities similar in race/faction/distance separation to original EQ.  It baffles me to think of putting in teleports just so someone can get to their friend immediately.  A critical feature of a really immersive game, similar to EQ, was the right of choice.  You weren't told what you can/can't do, and alot of times if someone was really motivated then they found a way.  Enter kiting concepts, root and nuke, chain pets, quad kiting, kiting groups, AoE groups, splitting pulls, etc.  So much of EQ was a "challenge accepted" mentality, even with the hefty risks. 

     

    Risk vs Reward.  Not being able to play with your RL/pre-existing friends immediately, just means that you will see the benefit of befriending new people sooner than later, and also gives other people the opportunity to step up as members of the community by helping eachother.  In EQ it was just as important to know people as it was to be a good player, and city-teleporting people instantly is taking an important character-building element out of the world imo.

     

    I also agree with those who said that putting in teleports to newbie areas is a step in the direction of making ghost towns due to players choosing a preferable/popular location and straight up abandoning other locations.

     

    Personally I still think there is a good idea somewhere in the concept of having a caravan that goes between two major cities.  One or more npc's that offer either money or reputation for "mercenary guards" in the form of actual players.  Can't help but picture it similar to a MASS buff in pok, "Starting the caravan escort quest in 5 minutes for any newbies looking for some help trekking to freeport!".

    • 671 posts
    February 28, 2015 2:19 PM PST

    Meeting up with friends.. was part of the journey.

     

     

    • 201 posts
    March 2, 2015 6:55 AM PST

    I think with more shortcuts, you attract those type of players as well. Players who don't care whats going on, just want to get from Point A to Point B the fastest without any interruptions in game play.  Where as many of us don't want Pantheon as just a MMORPG, but a new adventure with many social interactions along the way.  I take a EQ guild's interaction both in -game and maybe out of game(guild website), compare it to a newer MMO's interaction.  It's like night and day.

    • 383 posts
    March 2, 2015 9:29 PM PST
    Rivacom said:

    I think with more shortcuts, you attract those type of players as well. Players who don't care whats going on, just want to get from Point A to Point B the fastest without any interruptions in game play.  Where as many of us don't want Pantheon as just a MMORPG, but a new adventure with many social interactions along the way.  I take a EQ guild's interaction both in -game and maybe out of game(guild website), compare it to a newer MMO's interaction.  It's like night and day.

    Agree, if you don't want the wrong type of attention... don't have your T&A hanging out... unless of course that's the kind of attention you were looking for...

     

    If you don't want people taking the easy way out... force them to use their brain and spend the time to achieve the things they want. Don't hand it our or make it easier for them.

    • 118 posts
    March 3, 2015 9:34 AM PST

    There seems to be a consensus on this thread.