I don’t understand. youre not being forced to use a Druid or wizard to teleport you somewhere... you could hike it out or wait on a boat.
Its like saying being forced to buy an item from a crafter because you can’t craft it, it may indeed be true but there are other alternatives.
Beleive it or not, not everyone charges a lot for a port. But I actually think that if they make it extremely restricted porting than the will, which is a good thing.
eldrun said:I don’t understand. youre not being forced to use a Druid or wizard to teleport you somewhere... you could hike it out or wait on a boat.
Its like saying being forced to buy an item from a crafter because you can’t craft it, it may indeed be true but there are other alternatives.
Beleive it or not, not everyone charges a lot for a port. But I actually think that if they make it extremely restricted porting than the will, which is a good thing.
Not literally forced, no, but when the alternatives are being bored for 30 minutes or handing someone 10 platinum and having 30 more minutes of fun, there really is no sensible choice, hence you 'feel' forced.
And when the server is quiet and you're in an out-of-the-way location and you don't have long to play you either summon a Dial-A-Port or you log off. So, pretty much feeling 'forced' there too.
I get that you don't want travel to take more of an investment than it did in EQ. I personally never thought EQ travel was particularly bad at all, but I can get it.
But when you say that you don't want to have to travel, and you also don't want to ask another player who can help you for some of their own time... I mean, what is left?
A clicky book or a hearthstone? I think the vast majority of people here, even those who are hoping for an easier time with ports, do not want to see anything of the sort.
To your comment that a harder/longer journey does nothing to make the destination sweeter, I mean, that's just wrong. That's like half the reason people are here - because we've realized convenience and easy gratification is actually hollow.
Raine said:I get that you don't want travel to take more of an investment than it did in EQ. I personally never thought EQ travel was particularly bad at all, but I can get it.
But when you say that you don't want to have to travel, and you also don't want to ask another player who can help you for some of their own time... I mean, what is left?
A clicky book or a hearthstone? I think the vast majority of people here, even those who are hoping for an easier time with ports, do not want to see anything of the sort.
To your comment that a harder/longer journey does nothing to make the destination sweeter, I mean, that's just wrong. That's like half the reason people are here - because we've realized convenience and easy gratification is actually hollow.
No, I'm happy with it taking more of an investment than EQ. I'd be happy having to do quests and collect resources and get intimate with a destination before you could be 'attuned'. Way way harder than just sitting around and hassling druids and wizards.
And no, I didn't say I don't want to travel. I don't want to do the same travel over and over and over.
And no, it doesn't have to be as trivial as a clicky hearthstone. You could have to gather fresh mistletoe or power crystals every time you port, maybe. Even more 'harder' than EQ.
And no, I didn't say a hard journey isn't a good thing, at least I don't think that's what I implied. A hard journey is only hard the first time or two, when you're exploring and avoiding unknown dangers. Once you know the route it's not anywhere near as much fun. Once you've 'beaten' it a few times it's not really fun.
Like I said elsewhere, I'd be ok with having to do quests and tasks that prove you've explored all along the route and the destination, but I see no reason to lock fast travel behind being (or bugging) a limited number of classes.
The equivalent of the occassional 10 second taxi ride is not a social experience that stacks up against hours of boring travel and occassionally waiting/begging/paying for teleports.
Just to add a few more comments.
Some posters seem very concerned about taking an extrodinarily long time to 'slow travel' to get somewhere to play with friends. But I don't see how this would neccessarily have to be the case every time they logged in to play unless they choose to play in some location that happened to be so distant from the spot they previously logged out at every time they logged in.
I've never been aware of anyone playing this way, I know I have not. Is that how some of you play? Typically what I've done is log out near where I plan to spend time exploring or grinding experience until that area is explored and the experience is moot. Perhaps I'm not understanding something.
Also, I think it's fair to say that as we players level up then more avenues of approach would open up as well and thus diminish travel times to various locations. To what extent, we just don't know yet. From what Brad and Chris have indicated, the goal is to not waste time getting to play and that roughly 2 hours of gameplay will allow a typical player to feel as though they have accomplished something worthwhile. I doubt they mean excessive travel times.
On that note, they have further indicated that exploring areas will reveal things such as spells, rewards, and (if I remember correctly) abilities linked to class and race. So it really behooves people to think about how they want to play and what they want to take away from the game sessions. It seems to me that those favoring rapid travel all over would possibly miss a great deal of required and necessary content. Including the opportunity to advance your character. Getting from point A to point B quickly might be the wrong perception to have, particularly in the early stages of the game.
I have a gut feeling, and experience may prove me right, that a fair number of people really want to get to the grindy areas as quickly as possible for the only goal to level as quickly as possible to get to that ubiquitous 'end-game' content and they don't want to slog around to get there. That kind of gamer logic might be a trap in Pantheon if there is embedded in the slow exploration of game, items that your class or race would find it neccessary to progress in the first place.
Last, we don't know, but it's been mentioned in this thread (not a confirment game mechanic) that there may be the possibility to summon group members via a Summoner spell for example, offering another mode of fast travel. I don't think there will be any shortage of traveling effectively and so far I've not seen any evidence to suggest that current game design is intending to make players run for hours to get where they need to go.
disposalist said:Tralyan said:Edit: What I am absolutely not ok with is any kind of teleport option, anywhere, for any reason, that does not involve another player.What's so special about having to beg, hassle and/or pay another player to teleport you? It's hardly the height of social interaction.
Once the Dial-A-Port guild is set up it will be pretty much automatic anyway. Like hailing a cab, but paying straight away and getting straight out. Fun.
The only difference with having to use a druid/wizard is another player makes loads of cash for just casting port spells in their down time. Oh, and you might get marooned just because you play when the server is quiet. Yay?
The only problem with the auto-porting in late EQ was you could get pretty much everywhere from everywhere because of the nexus location. They took it too far.
Dispo, this argument boggles my mind.
I play actively on P99 as well, and while you're right that Dial makes teleporting darn near automatic, you'd be remiss in believing that's how Classic was back in the day. The economy on P99 is so wonky after being stuck on classic content for the past 7 years, with only Kunark and Velious released. You can't throw a stick without running into platinum on that server, whereas in the year 1999, 10 platinum for a port was hard to come by before reaching a certain level threshold. That's evidenced by the fact that the normally acceptable agreed upon "taxi fare" on Project 99 isn't 10p, but rather 1 platinum per level. Not sure about your old EQ server, but at level 20 I certainly couldn't go around affording 20plat a pop just to teleport. Back then, it was an OPTION, yes, but not an easy one nor as easily accessible. So using the P99 server as your yardstick here isn't the most honest approach.
I'd also like to point out that while you seem to see Dial as a reason NOT to have a player-porting-system, I see it as evidence of how wonderful it is.
For those who aren't aware, or don't play on P99, there is a guild that was created called Dial-A-Port. It's a guild created solely for wizards and druids that want to make money by teleporting the masses of Norrath. If the druid/wizard in question wants to join a group and XP for a while, they put themselves on Anonymous. If they want to advertize that they're open for business, they take Anonymous off. You, the masses of Norrath, simply type...
/who all Dial
Look at the list, pick one, send a Tell.
/Tell "Howdy , trouble you for a port from WC to EJ for 20p?"
/Reply "Omw after dropping this other person off!"
/Tell "Thanks!"
And that's it. They don't have a set price, and they advertize in every zone they're in while also doing CR teleports for free.
Now, Dispo, what boggles my mind is how you don't think this is the greatest thing ever. I GET that it's dam near automatic on P99, but the fact that players created a virtual taxi guild is like the friggin' definition of "emergent gameplay". There have even been other guilds started that tried to compete with Dial-A-Port, causing a small trade war on the server for a while. I think it's incredible, and all the more reason to make as many things done by the players instead of by the game as possible.
As to your argument that you don't think it involves much social interaction, I would disagree with that as well. Personally, I always pick the same "Dial" porter every time I see him on, and I tip well. Now we duo things together. I get on and tell him to hurry up with his fares so we can go dungeon delving. I made a friend, and I guarantee you I'm not the only one. Just last week, while waiting for a porter in Iceclad, I got ambushed by two giants and a dervish. Low on life, and mana, I had to try my hardest to keep them rooted while the druid porting me medded just enough mana to get us out of there. At 2% mana and only 10% health left, the last image I saw before finally seeing that "LOADING, PLEASE WAIT" text were two giants barreling towards me after the root timed out. It was intense, and insanely fun for both of us. That stuff doesn't happen if things are automated.
But even if that kind of stuff only happens to 5% of the entire server population, I think that 5% is more than enough to justify it.
ANYTHING that can be done by the players instead of NPC's, should be.
In 1999 EQ I played a Wizard to max level. I was on Inorruuk server, Raid ready and one of the first few to get my epic. My porting rules were as follows
Donations accepted, if offerd, never solicited.
For players with rag tag armour, (no epic yet) offered donations were refused.
Undesirable players that had made a name for themselves as assholes on the server were refused or charged dearly.
These guidelines were commonplace for all the other wizards I knew (hung with about 4 or 5)
So when people speak that they couldn't find ports, that they got charged dearly for ports, I have to question if there is more to that story. And why do they want to supercede that community building mechanic.
#reputationmatters
That's kind of the whole deal with the players policeing themselves isn't it?
In my opinion there is a Goldilocks zone for implementing fast travel: just enough fast travel ability so that it doesn't take forever to get to your destination, but not so much that you don't still have to make a journey to get there. A couple quick examples:
I played GW2 for a while when it was first released, and I remember the fast travel system being way overpowered. There were tons of travel points in every zone, and while you had to first unlock them by reaching them on foot, you could pretty much teleport anywhere you wanted after that, and from any location. That, to my mind, is way too much, as it destroys the idea of having to make a journey to get to your destination, which is half the fun for me.
WoW, in my opinion, started off good, with relatively few travel points that also had to be reached on foot to unlock. Later on, they added many more travel points, not to mention flying mounts, and this just ruined any concept of a meaningful or dangerous journey. Definitely something I don't want to see happen in Pantheon.
EQOA had a limited number of coaches (effectively teleport locations) strewn throughout the world that had to be reached on foot first as well. Even though they formed a teleport network, they had to be used in sequence to reach a destination, so just running from Freeport to Qeynos didn't mean you got to coach to Qeynos whenever you wanted. You needed to have all the coaches in between as well. Also, like early WoW, you had to start your "coach journey" from a coach location. You couldn't just teleport to one from somewhere in the middle of the wilderness. (You were given a long-ish cooldown spell that allowed you to return to your bind point, but that was separate from coaches.) The coach points were few and far enough between that you could get closer to a particular destination by coaching, but usually still had to make a decent journey on foot after that, which I thought was a good middle ground. Additionally, wizards had port spells that took them and their party to a selection of middle-of-nowhere locations throughout the world, but I never really saw people utilize them. If wizards or druids have port spells in Pantheon, I'd be curious to see how that is woven into whatever regular fast travel system the game ends up having.
In short, I'd be in favor of a system that allows for limited fast travel, but one that isn't so powerful that it negates the need to actually still travel some distance overland to reach your destination. The journey and the exploration are what it's all about!
Ghroznak said:It is also important to remember that fast travel was not very available early on in Everquest. Over time though as more players joined the game and more players started "port alts" either for convenience of having teleports, for the convenience of being able to solo (as druids often did) or the convenience of making 'easy money' the teleports became very, very available to everyone.
Teleports in Everquest would have been fine if there were only a few around who could do it now and then.
But in an MMO setting there is never 'just one' or even 'just a few'. In an MMO, especially when you start looking at it in the long term, the phrase 'everyone' is more fitting. Everyone will end up having port-alts. Everyone will end up having alts that can solo. Everyone ends up having unlocked all the port-locations (if they are locked behind a 'must visit once' system).
I'm not saying no to ALL fast travel, but I am acutely aware of what a slippery slope it is and how quickly it can go from 'just a few' to 'everyone' when it comes to availability.
- One teleport location per continent.
- Make teleports costly (require expensive consumables and/or items that can only be acquired through hunting, gathering or crafting, e.g. No-Trade items that drop off elementals or demons or some such). I mentioned this in early reply.
- Make teleports risky (may not land in the intended location, but somewhere random). I mentioned this in early reply.
This will make teleportation available if you REALLY REALLY gotta use it, but the preferred and more sensible option would be to go on foot or by horse.
It is something that should be available to everyone eventually (everyone can attune so they can be ported that is, not everyone can port themselves). It fights the tedium for ALL players. People keep talking about ports/fast-travel ruining a big world or dumbing down exploration but I just don't see it.
At a certain point everyone is going to say "Okay VR I get it, the world is huge. Do I really have to spend an hour and a half running across the world yet again just to get to the social/cooperative/challenging content this game is really about?" On top of that traveling is NOT the same as exploring and for many players traveling isn't particularly engaging or interesting, it's an exercise of: point character in the right direction, hit auto-run, then watch Netflix. If someone curious about Pantheon hops on Twitch to watch a streamer and they are afk running for 45 minutes it's not going to look good. I know I know, "niche" game etc, but there is a balance to be struck.
Likewise: Making teleports costly is a bad idea. That cost is going to be passed onto those in need of ports, NOT the class that can teleport. It also makes it much harder to find kind porters who will give out free ports for things like corpse runs or just the hell of it. Also RNG porting dangers I can see cause a whole mess of issues with players getting ported in on groups of mobs that kill them before they finish loading or as soon as they load up.
"It's the risk you take!" Okay...but why? "Because some people out there really want you to finish season 2 of Stranger Things."
Zorkon said:In 1999 EQ I played a Wizard to max level. I was on Inorruuk server, Raid ready and one of the first few to get my epic. My porting rules were as follows
Donations accepted, if offerd, never solicited.
For players with rag tag armour, (no epic yet) offered donations were refused.
Undesirable players that had made a name for themselves as assholes on the server were refused or charged dearly.
These guidelines were commonplace for all the other wizards I knew (hung with about 4 or 5)
So when people speak that they couldn't find ports, that they got charged dearly for ports, I have to question if there is more to that story. And why do they want to supercede that community building mechanic.
#reputationmatters
That's kind of the whole deal with the players policeing themselves isn't it?
As I remember it to be myself Zorkon. Thanks, really, for sharing this!
Iksar said:Ghroznak said:It is also important to remember that fast travel was not very available early on in Everquest. Over time though as more players joined the game and more players started "port alts" either for convenience of having teleports, for the convenience of being able to solo (as druids often did) or the convenience of making 'easy money' the teleports became very, very available to everyone.
Teleports in Everquest would have been fine if there were only a few around who could do it now and then.
But in an MMO setting there is never 'just one' or even 'just a few'. In an MMO, especially when you start looking at it in the long term, the phrase 'everyone' is more fitting. Everyone will end up having port-alts. Everyone will end up having alts that can solo. Everyone ends up having unlocked all the port-locations (if they are locked behind a 'must visit once' system).
I'm not saying no to ALL fast travel, but I am acutely aware of what a slippery slope it is and how quickly it can go from 'just a few' to 'everyone' when it comes to availability.
- One teleport location per continent.
- Make teleports costly (require expensive consumables and/or items that can only be acquired through hunting, gathering or crafting, e.g. No-Trade items that drop off elementals or demons or some such). I mentioned this in early reply.
- Make teleports risky (may not land in the intended location, but somewhere random). I mentioned this in early reply.
This will make teleportation available if you REALLY REALLY gotta use it, but the preferred and more sensible option would be to go on foot or by horse.
It is something that should be available to everyone eventually (everyone can attune so they can be ported that is, not everyone can port themselves). It fights the tedium for ALL players. People keep talking about ports/fast-travel ruining a big world or dumbing down exploration but I just don't see it.
At a certain point everyone is going to say "Okay VR I get it, the world is huge. Do I really have to spend an hour and a half running across the world yet again just to get to the social/cooperative/challenging content this game is really about?" On top of that traveling is NOT the same as exploring and for many players traveling isn't particularly engaging or interesting, it's an exercise of: point character in the right direction, hit auto-run, then watch Netflix. If someone curious about Pantheon hops on Twitch to watch a streamer and they are afk running for 45 minutes it's not going to look good. I know I know, "niche" game etc, but there is a balance to be struck.
Likewise: Making teleports costly is a bad idea. That cost is going to be passed onto those in need of ports, NOT the class that can teleport. It also makes it much harder to find kind porters who will give out free ports for things like corpse runs or just the hell of it. Also RNG porting dangers I can see cause a whole mess of issues with players getting ported in on groups of mobs that kill them before they finish loading or as soon as they load up.
"It's the risk you take!" Okay...but why? "Because some people out there really want you to finish season 2 of Stranger Things."
Removing whatever players considered "chores" is exactly what made Wow what it is now. Everyone consider something a chore in a game, but that's because it is challenging either in timeframe, difficulty or assiduity that the what it will give you is valuable. If you cut down any considered "Timesink" in the game, there are many, many other games already at this point.
Some will consider travelling a chore, some will consider beeing LFG a chore, some will consider beeing in need of a group a chore, some will consider levelling a chore, etc.. etc...
But thoses chores are the ties binding the game together, and making it tend to game where you get what you want, when you want it, will only result in failure since other games already did that and are running/dieing right now.
You could require quests with dropped items as part of the Totem process for a portal location. That would expand the timeline and eliminate a one day sightseeing trip to get all your locations done. But please make the drops more common than rare. We will already have a hard enough time finding and fighting to the location, if they are in dangerous areas, and we don't need the added wait time of four hours to get our Totems. Like an hour max for a whole group to get Totem Quest items at a location. Around a ten min drop rate sounds fair enough depending on how many items are required. So in a playtime of two to four hours you could get a fair amount of Totem quests done. I think the portal Totem process should be a lot more involved than just grabbing a rock and moving on.
Again. All you're doing is taking things to the extreme. Noone is asking for instant teleportation. Noone is asking to be able to fly across the world the second you create a character.
By making exploration and level cap requirements for "flight paths" you still get the benefit of naturally leveling up and traveling while not being able to cheese it by running to all "flightpaths" on a level one.
You can also limit the "flightpaths" to only certain areas or zones. There is still travel to be had on foot. A flight path only drops you off at 1 location. It can still easily take you 10 mins to run to a dungeon after riding a donkey for 8 minutes.
And let's not kid ourselves. Nobody ran thru the karanas looking at everything in sight and being in awe (at least not after doing it for the 5th time) we all pointed ourselves and autoran. And in some cases if the level gap was large enough could literally walk afk with hardly any fear of dying. That's not creating something meaningful. Its creating a tedious chore that nearly noone wants to do.
Porygon said:Its creating a tedious chore that nearly noone wants to do.
I think we're just going to disagree there, which is fine. I don't consider it tedious or a chore; and like you are sure that "nearly noone" wants it, I am sure that a bunch of people do want it.
(Crossing the plains of karana was and is awesome for more reasons than I could write in an hour - and, really, as if any pantheon zone is going to be anything like that.)
Tralyan said:/who all Dial
Look at the list, pick one, send a Tell.
/Tell "Howdy , trouble you for a port from WC to EJ for 20p?"
/Reply "Omw after dropping this other person off!"
/Tell "Thanks!"
And that's it. They don't have a set price, and they advertize in every zone they're in while also doing CR teleports for free.
Now, Dispo, what boggles my mind is how you don't think this is the greatest thing ever. I GET that it's dam near automatic on P99, but the fact that players created a virtual taxi guild is like the friggin' definition of "emergent gameplay"
It's boggles my mind that it boggles your mind :)
And since when is any emergent gameplay automatically good and healthy for MMOs no matter what? Especially when it alters the nature of something so fundamental and impactful as fast travel.
The appearance of an organised 'taxi' guild makes teleportation so commonplace and trivial it's easier to get around than with other modern MMO teleportation methods that most people in this forum would cite as part of the evil quality of life improvements that have ruined the genre, no?
Unless, of course, you aren't on the same timezone as the server or don't have much money, in which case it's often extremely frustrating, because other emergent behaviours have evolved around one so fundamental as the way fast travel works (Like trade only happening in East Commons. Can't get there? Pretty much can't trade).
So it's often way too convenient and sometimes extremely frustrating.
And no, P99 is not how it worked in Classic EQ, but do you think there won't be a Dial-A-Port guild in Pantheon right quick when it's proved to make a ton of money in P99?
I suppose we just have different perspectives. Sometimes after the fifth time of running or even more Ill discover something new that I’ve never even seen before and that’s what is exciting for me.
But I do understans the part of running through a zone that has no challenge to you anymore would indeed be quiet tedious, notice I did not say chore.
Tralyan said:ANYTHING that can be done by the players instead of NPC's, should be.
Quoting this seperately as it's a different point.
There are a ton of NPCs doing things that players don't need to be doing else there would be no NPCs offering training, selling basic supplies, buying trash loot, etc.
There are automated things that would be boring to do manually, like eating food.
It should probably require another character to help you put on plate armor. No? No.
Also, saying it shouldn't be restricted to two classes of twelve doesn't mean it should be easy or automated. If all classes could do it, your example with the giant attack would still have happened, but it could have been either of you desperately trying to get the teleport done while the other holds off the giants. In fact, even if it were automated, if the process to prepare a teleport required time to action you could have had the same thing occur.
In a previous post I suggested it could require collecting local resources every time you want to port. Want to use a druid ring? Go get some fresh mistletoe. Some low level character could make a living collecting mistletoe for people wanting to port - surely that would be even better social interation - but the important thing is I could choose to do it myself if I couldn't afford his services or had the time myself or if he wasn't there that day.
I don't mean to be dismissive, but I really think you're justifying the status quo with nolstalgia.
Why druids? Why wizards? Why spells? Why instant teleports?
Unless you're a druid who is planning on setting up Dial-A-Port in Pantheon, I'm not sure why people are so upset at the prospect of druids/wizards not having it how it was in EQ.
Porygon said:Again. All you're doing is taking things to the extreme. Noone is asking for instant teleportation. Noone is asking to be able to fly across the world the second you create a character.
By making exploration and level cap requirements for "flight paths" you still get the benefit of naturally leveling up and traveling while not being able to cheese it by running to all "flightpaths" on a level one.
You can also limit the "flightpaths" to only certain areas or zones. There is still travel to be had on foot. A flight path only drops you off at 1 location. It can still easily take you 10 mins to run to a dungeon after riding a donkey for 8 minutes.
And let's not kid ourselves. Nobody ran thru the karanas looking at everything in sight and being in awe (at least not after doing it for the 5th time) we all pointed ourselves and autoran. And in some cases if the level gap was large enough could literally walk afk with hardly any fear of dying. That's not creating something meaningful. Its creating a tedious chore that nearly noone wants to do.
The main problem is, is simply human nature. While a task is interesting and engaging at first, with repetition comes boredom and a lack of interest. However, is the task itself the cause ? Not at all. Levelling is something enjoyable, once, twice, even thrice. What about after ? I level 8 characters in FFXIV up to level max, doing the same and same things I enjoyed once at first, and then I just ran them like a robot in a very short timeframe. Should levelling alt be made easier once you have a main levelled because you've already made it once ? Should low level mobs farming be trivialized because it's boring to run from mob to mob and one shot them for crafting ingredients ?
Even if travelling was tedious in EQ, I enjoyed it, not because it was engaging once levelled, but because it made sense in my travelling routine . During luclin I travelled to the twillight sea every other evening just to see the sky there, even if it took me (as a rogue with no mount and only jboots) a few hour going to and from.
Of course travelling loose some sense when you can easily cross low level zones, that's why you were faster and you had to go to the edges of the known world for your adventures. And that's why a shinning paladin with a fiery avenger on a mount, crossing the karanas/commonlands, was an epic sight even if he didn't stop. And maybe if you were in danger, the guy would drop off and land a stun on your mob with a heal on you and saved you day.
Faster travels, less players crossing paths, seems like an unlikely cheap move to me. (I'm not against static portals for some classes and destination, I just want them limited because of where they are, and what they require as classes/cooldowns/components/etc)
eldrun said:I suppose we just have different perspectives. Sometimes after the fifth time of running or even more Ill discover something new that I’ve never even seen before and that’s what is exciting for me.
But I do understans the part of running through a zone that has no challenge to you anymore would indeed be quiet tedious, notice I did not say chore.
We're not so different. I wouldn't use that port unless I was in a hurry or I felt I had thoroughly explored the route.
Hoping for something to have changed after I've been through it thoroughly several times might be a bit much though hehe.
And that's why a shinning paladin with a fiery avenger on a mount, crossing the karanas/commonlands, was an epic sight even if he didn't stop. And maybe if you were in danger, the guy would drop off and land a stun on your mob with a heal on you and saved you day.
While that is awesome, it doesn't even have to be so grandiose. Just running into or spotting other travelers, groups at work, people doing whatever while you travel is what makes a server feel like a community - we all remember names from our EQ days, names of the people who shared our servers, because we saw them all over. Zones are so much more alive when you see other folks on the road. I fear that a fast-travel system that is too easy will diminish this much like flying mounts do.
Which doesn't mean we can't have fast travel. Just gotta find that sweet spot.
Raine said:And that's why a shinning paladin with a fiery avenger on a mount, crossing the karanas/commonlands, was an epic sight even if he didn't stop. And maybe if you were in danger, the guy would drop off and land a stun on your mob with a heal on you and saved you day.
While that is awesome, it doesn't even have to be so grandiose. Just running into or spotting other travelers, groups at work, people doing whatever while you travel is what makes a server feel like a community - we all remember names from our EQ days, names of the people who shared our servers, because we saw them all over. Zones are so much more alive when you see other folks on the road. I fear that a fast-travel system that is too easy will diminish this much like flying mounts do.
Which doesn't mean we can't have fast travel. Just gotta find that sweet spot.
I agree.
I'd kinda prefer the horse travel in LoTRO. As long as you had been to the destination you could probably hire a horse to get there (though I'd prefer perhaps some faction work and a quest to 'attune'). The horse ran the route and couldn't be steered, but it wasn't so fast that you couldn't see other players on or near the road and, importantly, you could jump off, mid-route if you wanted if you saw a friend or a stranger to help or just noticed something interesting you hadn't seen before.
You could also just go AFK if you wanted (though there was some small risk of the horse being waylaid in some areas, I believe) and when you came back you'd be standing at the stables at the destination.
If, in Pantheon, they had horse routes like that inland and boats (that worked better than EQ) for intercontinental, I'd be happy.
disposalist said:The appearance of an organised 'taxi' guild makes teleportation so commonplace and trivial it's easier to get around than with other modern MMO teleportation methods that most people in this forum would cite as part of the evil quality of life improvements that have ruined the genre, no?
Well no, not really. While it does indeed make travel a heck of a lot easier, it still doesn't hold a candle to travel in other games like WoW or LOTRO. You're still limited by platinum. You still have to think more judiciously about your travel options. In LOTRO, I could cast a self only teleport to Lorien to turn in a quest, visit the stables to fast travel to Bree to visit the auction house, visit the stables from there to fast travel to Rivendell to work on tradeskilling, then click the instant dungeon teleporter that'll take me to the small-raid instance. This could all easily take less than 20 minutes and I just teleported almost the entire length and breadth of the known world at the time. 4 "fast travel" teleports, 3 different cities, and joining a raid in 20 minutes. That's the evil quality of life improvement that ruined the genre.
If I were to do that in P99 with my level 42 paladin, paying the appropriate amount of plat per teleport to visit 3 cities and a raid, not only would that cost me WAY more platinum than I would be willing spend, but it would also take a whole heck of a lot more time, seeing as the rings and spires aren't situated inside the cities and running is still required. There is just no comparison.
disposalist said:And no, P99 is not how it worked in Classic EQ, but do you think there won't be a Dial-A-Port guild in Pantheon right quick when it's proved to make a ton of money in P99?
I sincerely hope so, but I doubt it. At its inception, I have a hard time believing your average player could afford whatever fee was set by the community for ports, in the same way that people couldn't at the beginning of Everquest. But even if that wasn't the case, i still find this system much more preferrable than it being automated by NPC's and other static objects.
disposalist said:Quoting this seperately as it's a different point.
There are a ton of NPCs doing things that players don't need to be doing else there would be no NPCs offering training, selling basic supplies, buying trash loot, etc.
There are automated things that would be boring to do manually, like eating food.
It should probably require another character to help you put on plate armor. No? No.
Aside from the silly reductio ad absurdum you used, yes, yes I do think it would be excellent if some day players in MMO's could even be part of the trainning and selling process that's handled now by the NPC's.
As for the rest, I absolutely DO have some nostalgia going on here. I have fond memories of friends I've met just as a result of travelling, and experiences I had. I would like that again. It's exactly those memories and experiences from the "good old days" that a whole heaping hell of us are even on these forums.
And no, I never played a Druid or a Wizard. As I mentioned in my previous post, even if I DID agree with all of your points you've made so far I'd still be against automated fast travel because, (quoting myself), "even if that kind of stuff only happens to 5% of the entire server population, I think that 5% is more than enough to justify it." Because when I weigh the experiences and friends next to the tedium and frustration, the experiences and friends win every single time.
We just may have to agree to disagree with each other here, as it seems obvious we simply view some fundamental things with different perspectives.
"silly reductio ad absurdum"? Hehe. Dude. You said "ANYTHING [in caps!] that can be done by the players instead of NPC's, should be". I figured I was safe with a little extremity in the response ;^)
Tralyan said:We just may have to agree to disagree with each other here, as it seems obvious we simply view some fundamental things with different perspectives.
Nah, I don't think we do really. I desperately want to get back to challenging content and the need for grouping and social interaction. I would happily put up with some of what I consider boring to get all the stuff I like. Hell, I play P99 now rather than GW2 or WoW or LoTRO or ESO or even current EQ. I'm proud to have done some of the excruciatingly long camps for epic parts, etc.
I'm just discussing while I wait for Pantheon ;^)
I simply don't see why 2 classes of 12 should get the monopoly on something so fundamental and powerful and I don't see paying other players to click a button and them sometimes not being around as a good way to make normal travel a viable alternative.
Not all old-school mechanics were perfect. Not all modern MMO mechanics are evil. If we can't discuss what's in-between and accept that there's some opinion in there as to what is good/bad not just 'fact' *then* we will have to agree to disagree.