Evoras said:I will say this just once....
1. Modern transport (Bus / Train / Plane)
Designed as 'Mass transport' with the primary (only) goal to get passengers from A to B as fast as possible.
Designed to be impersonal
Designed to be easy to turn around to minimise time wasted
Designed to MAKE THE WORLD FEEL SMALL
2. Leisure transport (cruise, orient express, trekking)
Designed as 'individual transport' with primary goal 'enjoyment of the travel experience'
Designed to be personal
Designed to maximise enjoyment over time wasted (cruise ships avoid bad weather)
Designed to SHOW YOU THE WONDERS OF A HUGE WORLD
With our modern, cosmopilitan travellers, 'rushing to the holiday experience' is undertsandable since you have limited (short) holiday time. IF you impose modern criteria on the game world, you are feeding the idea that it is the destination that is the important point and not the journey.
In a game DESIGNED to provide an alternative to the 'convenience, fast-paced world' MMOs out there ....
... WHY would you want option-1 above instead of option-2 ??
It is my (personal) feeling that :
The Journey IS the adventure.... NOT the destination.
PS: Airlines don't want to make travel enticing. They may work to make you think it is, but it isn't and will never be. I had flown over 80,000 km by the time I was 15 years old. If you follow the 'impersonal' dictat foisted on you by the airlines, then your travel will be extremely tedious. To relieve boredom, talk to the passengers, talk to the crew. Travel is absolutely NOT 'dead time'. This is a myth both created and perpetuated by the marketing departments of companies making mobile phones, tablets, mp3 players etc. If you buy into this ennui driven paradigm, you will forever be locked into tedium. Can I suggest a cruise? or in the words of a (now antiquated) piece of pop culture ....
'would you like to play a game of chess?'
Nicely put. In my opinion traveling both in the real world and game world is a matter of perspective and choice. Sure, we could choose to be boared in an airlne terminal or boat dock but we (my wife and I) rather choose to see what there is to see in the termianl or on the docks. Even a time or 2 end up ded cuase we got to wondering while waiting for the boat and found some nasty things, but it was still fun...at least we died together lol.
Totally agree with Evoras; the quality of the journey directly affects its enjoyment. The time spent on that journey has little impact if the quality is good. A journey of 30 mins stuck in traffic is way worse than a journey of 2 hours on an open road.
I think the developers or maybe even Brad have already said something along the lines of "Pantheon is all about the journey and not about the destination." So as long as the journey is an open road and not a traffic jam, Im going to be happy.
I've been going back and forth as to whether or not to post here since I like so much of what people have posted already. I want to feel the magnitude of the ocean and be immersed in the trip. I'm a big fan of boat rides (both in game and irl) and fishing, which for me are opportunities to be engulfed in a serene environment and quietly think, but I can believe that after taking many boat rides they would lose their lustre. I do distinctly remember going afk in EQ (after the first 30 trips or so) and missing arrivals/departures as a result. All of the engaging side games and random events that have been talked about would certainly remedy my eventual boredom, but I think I might actually prefer a more subtle (and easier to program) approach.
What I would like to see is a magical lighthouse (or lantern for an easier route) that gets brighter, turns on, or changes colour based on how close the boat is. Having a boat schedule would feel a bit impersonal to me, but it would be nice to have some indicator (not necessarily my proposed concept) of the boat schedule.
Another thing that would be nice is to have a reason to seek out boat rides. I think it would be cool if people actually rode the boats on a regular basis and if they were a place to congregate to some extent. I think this could simply be accomplished by allowing players to troll for fish. Perhaps a variant of trolling lure could only be used while on the a boat and is the only way to acquire silver salmon (random), which are required for dexterity (random) potions.
All that being said, if the boat was packed with pirate events, storms, or all the other stuff that has been suggested, I would still be a very happy camper.
Dullahan said:Martell said:I disliked waiting for the boats in EQ. I suppose its heresy to say, but I loved the addition of PoK books to the game. I found the whole affair tedious and unnecessary - it confuses me how people romanticize what is the gaming equivalent of sitting in the doctor's waiting room.
I will never support "baking in" boredom into what is supposed to be a GAME.
It wasn't about boredom, it was about bringing the world to life by separating places by time and distance.
It was also an opportunity to fish, train language, socialize, utilize vendors, raise your swimming or a variety of other activities.
Nailed it!!
I always loved the rides. I would think the length of time should be based on the distance needed to travel. Also the entire area the boats travel should be explorable.
Ox
I do not want to see boats implemented in the same way they were implemented in EQ. I know how others have stated in other topics that the boats were great! However, if folks actually take the time to remember what it was like they will remember that as soon as the ability to not have to take a boat was there they never took the boat (ports, friends for ports, guildmates for ports, etc.). Boats were a pain especially if you just missed it. I believe it was something like a 20 minute journey so just missing it meant having to wait 40 minutes for it`s return - get on the boat, travel with it for 20 minutes to reach your destination. That was one hour of a huge waste of time - maybe not the first time or the first 20 times but after that it was super annoying that anything and everything to avoid it was done - even if that meant completely abandoning continents and content. As a casual player where an evening's playtime may only be 2 hours with 1 hour overlap with friends - wasting that hour was painful and not at all pleasant.
My opinion is that a boat should be a zone. Zone into the boat. It is a tiny zone with multiple decks and whatnot going on. Not a combat PVE zone but NPCs that make sense (food, drink, message boards). There would be multiple exit points to represent destinations. Perhaps an effort to actually have to travel through the boat so it isn`t super instantaneous, but it also isn't 60 minutes of waiting to reach a destination. Since most zones could be run through in 5 minutes this isn't necessarily content-breaking material. And the whole aspect of zoning adds time and inconvenience that a port doesn't necessarily have so there are still benefits for porting.
If an Ocean Of Tears zone is still necessary then be able to port to the ship deck (a zone similar to a boat traveling through the zone) and while on the deck you are traveling through the Ocean of Tears wherever the boat happens to be and if that means you timed it poorly and have to wait 30 minutes or so to reach your destination then it's the same as it was for original EQ - plus you can swim to islands and such.
The boat may have a tavern - even have it a PVP tavern for drunken brawls - similar to the PVP areas of EQ like the Warrior Guild area in Qeynos. It`s own separate ruleset in that tavern - whatever. Have another galley for bulletin board updates or quest information where NPCs may change on an irregular basis. Perhaps need to track down the captain of the ship who wanders around - engage him and request to disembark from the zone (instead of running to a zone door or something) so take some effort and time to locate. But please avoid the forced boat mechanics that existed in EQ. For those of us that did not have a reliable option, boats were a huge detractor and inconvenience that needed to be overcome.
Obliquity said:muscoby said:For those of us that did not have a reliable option, boats were a huge detractor and inconvenience that needed to be overcome.
Under 15 minutes wait time for boats in EQ, not much to overcome really.
Plus you could use that time to make new friends, inspect someone's cool gear, organise your bags, there was plenty to do to pass the time and interact with fellow players :D
Obliquity said:muscoby said:For those of us that did not have a reliable option, boats were a huge detractor and inconvenience that needed to be overcome.
Under 15 minutes wait time for boats in EQ, not much to overcome really.
Apparently you are bound at the dock and boat travel is instananeous.
Searril said:The rose colored nostalgia is strong in this thread :)
Well put. and in reading this thread:
I like the Lighthouse Idea (I loved it when people shouted "BOAT"- but when people were there to shout "BOAT". when no one was there, not so much.)
What initially made travelling on a Boat so pulling the nostalgia strings? I think it is: the measure of success. As a newbie you could barely make it past the gates- alot of negative reinforcement- heh. So when a "bat" was manageable, to then walk 3 feet and see a "Large bat" and almost die- you assumed it only got harder and harder from here- let alone into another zone!
So, actually getting on another place, (a boat) safely, no wandering spiders with poison you didn't know at first, and "making it" to the other side! Well then- that's an accomplishment! I'd want to turn around and take it back, just to turn around and come back again! success!
So how do you keep that minor success still going? I like the mysterious stranger idea, I also like the deep sea fishing idea, passing ship idea, pirates (maybe not). From a development perspective these would have to nbe coinsidered time-specific mini-games maybe? or maybe include a RNG on the rare "albatros" that has to be caught with an arrow, or even the RNG on a sea monster with potential to wreck the boat! and all on it!- would that be seen as an awkward interruption? ( no time for this kind of thing)
in addition maybe some gambling choices only available on Boats,
or crafting products you could only get from boats; for instance if you are on the boat FROM Syronia's Rest to the Whispering Lands, you could only purchase a certain whispering lands item from the ships stores, and likewise only a Syronia's Rest item from the whispering lands ship- or the other way around. I thought of it this way because it woud force the player to leave and adventure to get the item and end up in the foreign land to get stuff from their home town.
The key here as I see it is: how do you get higher level players who are powerful and very busy geting to the group/raid on time to keep taking the boats- Back, instead of safely camping out in the wild to return the next day. How do you make valuable the return trip to safety and incoporate it into game play (like a corpse run?).
I remember jumping on theboat- I intuitively knew when it was about to leave- when Tumpy for whatever reason did not like the look of this eridute and started beating me, almost killing me I tried kiting as long as ai coulfd then JUMPED on the boat JUST as it was leaving the dock. I lived. I could not bind wounds because I was "distracted" on the boat to cast, so I was greateful to stay on that boat untill it docked and get some health back. I bound wounds at home.
boat rides were an adventure in itself , to me. It had a sense of fear to it because first you had to get past the dock guards if you didn't have the right faction for those certain docks. Then you had to stay hidden ( exciting :P ) once on the boat, you had to think , crap, did i get on the right boat ? If not, how am i going to get past the dock guards on the other side, ugh... frustrating ( yet exciting ) :) Actually being able to fall in the water, ugh, I won't even go there, but yeah.... loved my boat rides ! :)
If there is an advantage or something to be gained from the boat rides, then I'll use the boat in Pantheon. Otherwise, I'll have a character or guildmate to port me over so I can get on with the adventuring.
The boats in EQ (initially) were buggy as all hell. You were just as likely to have to swim the entire OOT because the boat zoned faster than you, and you appeared in empty air. Or the boat zoned slower than you, and you appeared in empty air. Or the boat killed you after it ran over you. Or you fell through the boat trying to get on, get off, zone, or whatever other thing.
Eventually, possibly even months or years after launch, the boat was mostly reliable. But even then, I would rather get a port from gfay to the commonlands than endure that damned buggy boat one more time.
Some of you must have had a diffferent experience on the boats than I. The only social interaction I had was exchanging "this sux" comments on the docks or chuckling with other passengers while departing about a player who evidently went afk on the boat and was now heading back to where we started. The boat ride was fine, the actual wait for the boat to arrive was the worst especially if you were like me and had a knack for arriving right as the boat was departing. I guess it did give me 20 minutes to work on my casting skills.
I thought the Griffons/Blimps in vanilla WoW were perfect when it came to wait time.
coach said:Obliquity said:muscoby said:For those of us that did not have a reliable option, boats were a huge detractor and inconvenience that needed to be overcome.
Under 15 minutes wait time for boats in EQ, not much to overcome really.
Apparently you are bound at the dock and boat travel is instananeous.
I never waited longer than 15 minutes at the docks for a boat, what does that have to do with boat travel time?
Once druid/wizards got their ports you could get around pretty fast. Travel time made having classes with ports more valuable, if everyone could just fast travel the value would go down for those abilities.
Maybe they sped up the boats after I left EQ (Velious). But if a SoW buff was cast on you right when you boarded the boat on Butcherblock it would have worn off by the time you arrived in Freeport. There was only one boat that made a round trip - maybe they added a second boat or more boats. So just missing a boat was a long wait for it to return and then having to take it. I re-iterate, maybe the first time wasn't too bad or even the first 20 times that happened to you. But after about 20 times of doing the wait thing just to get from BB to Freeport (or the other way around) you stopped using boats. In fact a whole lot of people stopped using boats. Those folks that had to wait for the boat or take the boat know that there weren't a whole lot of people taking the boats after a while. That's what my post was refering to. Boats stopped being utillized by the multitudes on the server and were vacant. Although maybe boats are intended to be akin to low level zones and once you progress past the level you may not return.
If boats are implemented in the same fashion as EQ (originally, since they may have changed the way they worked post Velious) then they'll be avoided (vacant) as soon as other options materialize.
muscoby said:Maybe they sped up the boats after I left EQ (Velious). But if a SoW buff was cast on you right when you boarded the boat on Butcherblock it would have worn off by the time you arrived in Freeport. There was only one boat that made a round trip - maybe they added a second boat or more boats. So just missing a boat was a long wait for it to return and then having to take it. I re-iterate, maybe the first time wasn't too bad or even the first 20 times that happened to you. But after about 20 times of doing the wait thing just to get from BB to Freeport (or the other way around) you stopped using boats. In fact a whole lot of people stopped using boats. Those folks that had to wait for the boat or take the boat know that there weren't a whole lot of people taking the boats after a while. That's what my post was refering to. Boats stopped being utillized by the multitudes on the server and were vacant. Although maybe boats are intended to be akin to low level zones and once you progress past the level you may not return.
If boats are implemented in the same fashion as EQ (originally, since they may have changed the way they worked post Velious) then they'll be avoided (vacant) as soon as other options materialize.
Its important that they work in Pantheon to make sure they don't become vacant. With EQ you saw several aspects of the game become easier (too easy, imo) as you reach higher levels. The availability of fast travel via portals for one (96% resurrection to name another). Travelling and utilizing boats was necessary as you leveled up, but by the time you reached your 40s and higher you usually had several druids and wizards on your friends list or a guild willing to accommodate you. That was most likely be design.
Personally, I don't think it was a perfect design because convenience should never become the norm. There should always be a reason to ride the boat or to travel manually and teleports should, in my opinion, be a luxury and come at a price.
coach said:Obliquity said:I never waited longer than 15 minutes at the docks for a boat, what does that have to do with travel time?
How is waiting for a boat not part of the travel time? I guess I'm missing something.
Guess I never thought of it as travel time since I wasnt traveling, I was doing other activities while I waited, so the time went by pretty fast really.
I suppose if you just ran to the dock and counted the seconds it would of seemed like it took longer than it really did.
I think Sea of Thieves do boats right. It's a different type of MMO that focuses heavily on boats, but the interactivity of the boats, the splashing fo the waves, all the islands to stop at,etc I think add up to a way to make riding on boats really fun. Of course some of this stuff isn't right for Pantheon but some of it could be used.
https://youtu.be/QVsqvRsXj9o?t=6m11s
Obliquity said:coach said:Obliquity said:I never waited longer than 15 minutes at the docks for a boat, what does that have to do with travel time?
How is waiting for a boat not part of the travel time? I guess I'm missing something.
Guess I never thought of it as travel time since I wasnt traveling, I was doing other activities while I waited, so the time went by pretty fast really.
I suppose if you just ran to the dock and counted the seconds it would of seemed like it took longer than it really did.
I guess it depends on why you are taking the boat. If you're in no hurry then by all means take your time and explore, I certainly will, but after you've visited the area a few times and are simply passing thru because you are using the boat for transportation to get to a group or buyer/seller that is waiting for you it's a different situation. World-expanding time sinks need to feel as natural on your 20th boat trip as your first, if well implemented you won't notice them, not because devs sprinkled glitter on them but because they tweaked the times to reflect a reasonable delay.
As long as it serves a realisitic purpose, I don't mind longer boat rides. If rides take awhile just for the hell of it, so you can talk it up with others to pass the time, then yea thats just gonna get old fast. I'd probably just use the time to browse the web if that were the case.
If the boat is moving and going by multiple areas around the zone I don't mind waiting a bit. I would also like to see the boat on a set schedule so you know exaclty when it will come and how long the ride will take, so you can get something else done before waiting. Personally Id rather see player controlled form of sailing.