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I've seen a lot of griping on this board about teleportation. Personally, I just don't understand this and I wanted to see where the general opinion of the folks on this board fell, so I made this poll/discussion.
The main gripe I see with teleportation is that it breaks immersion. I see the argument here, but I really disagree with it. The most immersive, sandboxy game I ever played was UO. UO is frequently held up as the "height" of sandbox MMO gaming. But UO had the MOST PERMISSIVE teleportation system in any game...ever. You could literally mark a rune for ANY SPOT in the game and then teleport there. There was no limit to the amount of runes you have, and you could freely exchange them with other players.
So my argument is that if UO, widely recognized as one of the great immersive sandbox games, had extremely permissive teleportation, then why will having teleportation break immersion in GW2? I really think UO would have not been nearly as good as it was if you couldn't teleport. Traveling the world would have taken forever and been extremely dull.
Feel free to post your arguments for or against teleportation.
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Comments
Neutral.
I'm going to use it when I have to get somewhere quick or when I need to go somewhere far and I'm fine just running out into the world if I feel like it or if I'm going somewhere close by.
This isn't a subscription based MMO. The devs have no need to slow us down and drag out our playtime to keep us paying.
Definitely in favor. One good comparison to make is Rift vs. WoW. I would ten times rather have the portal system in Rift than the flight path system in WoW. Also, when your open world areas are focused strictly on PvE there is no reason not to have some form of teleportation.
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I voted neutral. On the one hand it's just very easy and you still have to find the waypoints before you can teleport there so you still have to explore. On the other hand I really liked the transport system of WoW (one of the few things I liked about the game). In the end though, transportation, to me, is such a small part of the game. If the gameplay is great, the lore is good, the world feels alive etc then I don't really care much, if at all.
In favor: Teleport immersion > Mounts immersion imo.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I am an old GW1 player. I don't really feel that fast travel makes a game less massive than games without it. besides...who actually pays attention while using transportation in...say...WoW for example.
oh...and it has a good lore explanation.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I'm neutral. While I'm not keeping a close eye on GW2, I do follow it casually and one thing that I'm worried about is not so much the teleportation, but that they will refrain from having mounts because of teleportation. I tend to believe all MMO's should offer three varieties of non-foot travel - Instant, Fast (usually flight of some sort) and normal (mounted). Sadly, I worry GW2 will only offer one. What is the point of a persistent world if there is only one way to wander around in it?
it worked in GW1 , so whats the fuzzs
I'm not anti-mount by all means but what is the point of having several ways to wander around in it?
That's a good point. And come to think of it I never felt like I needed or wanted a mount in GW. In fact, I simply never thought about using a mount in that game at all until now, despite the fact that I've had a mount in virtually every other fantasy MMO I've played.
Plus, if you don't have mounts you can make smaller zones feel bigger, which should mean less development time.
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Options. If i want to just go for a ride on a mount why not? If the artists are going to spend the time to make a persistent world, than give me the option to enjoy that in a variety of ways. Mounts give me an option that isn't as slow as walking/running, but still gives me time to enjoy the world. Flying mounts gives me a little faster travel, but I get to see the world from another perspective (again more enjoyment of the art teams time and effort) and instant teleportation is utilitarian, if I've only got 30 mins to play then great I can teleport where I need to and get in the game fast.
Mounts can also he a status symbol depending on how they are handled, and that gives players an incentive to play the game to work towards something.
GW1 was a failure as an MMO (unless MMO stands for Minimal multiplayer online), since it was all about zoning. This game promises to be better in that regard but instant travel takes away a lot of the lustre.
I miss the option 'in favor, if available sparsely'.
Teleporting from one city to another or other hotspot locations you discover like in GW, I've no problem with it. However, the enormous abundance of teleport locations as seen in the demo where a teleport spot was there with only 10-20s running distance between them, that I find extreme.
So I'm hoping that was only for the demo.
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GW1 was very succesful as a competitive online roleplaying game. Arenanet never called it an MMO, only a CORPG. Your problem is that you define an MMO and it's succes by it's amount of zoning and it's manner of transportation.
Having more options in and of itself is not enough reason. It takes developement time and thus it takes money. You could include a zebra race which was mechanically exactly the same as humans and had pretty much the same lore but which just looked different only to give options. Would it be worth it? Not a chance. Sure, instead of a zebra you could include a REALLY REALLY cool looking race but would that be worth it? Nope.
Aside from some basic specs on speed a mount system is not a taxing developmental investment. In fact, the majority of it is art assets, the teams working on code for a new race are much bigger than those required to make a few basic mounts.
That aside, you've still not answered the question of why you have a persistent world if your only methods of exploring it are on foot or instantly?
I'm not against teleportation, I'm against it as a sole means of transport, which is what it seems to be in GW2. While I might be a minority, I can say that without mounts (even as a later addition to the game) I probably won't by GW2.
Did you see them use those spots for teleporting? If not, are you really sure they were for teleportation and not resurrection?
Do you have a link to the demo you're talking about?
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The first purpose of persistence has to do with meeting other players, with the feeling that all people of your server are part of the same world instead of having your own little lonesome world as it was in Guild Wars 1. This is a major part of GW2's Dynamic Events because those resolve around ad hoc grouping.
You want mounts which do the exact same thing as walking/running except that it looks different and is slightly faster, why?
Teleporting for PvE is fine.. don't care either way.
teleporting for WvWvW PvP would be bad though. I want it to feel like a war not an arcade game. Part of war is logistics, feinting and misleading your enemy. I don't want armies to be able to pop from objective to objective. It should be fully disabled in The Mist.
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GW1 had persistant "outposts", they could have easily developed a sequal that elaborated on this kind of system without needing to develop a fully persistent world that is travelable. They didn't. If travel is an option than so too should be methods of travel.
Mounts as I stated can be status symbols, (hey look I did these really cool things and got this as reward or earn enough money/prestiege to buy it). They also become part of the avatar, like a new piece of armor or a new weapon they are part of your character's overall "look". Running/walking usually doesn't add anything to the avatar or the character, and rarely is a status symbol. All of these things are incentives to get players to do various things to earn them, which adds to the overall desire to play the game. Granted GW2 us not a subscription based game, but if I'm inclined to keep playing I'm inclined to buy the expansion which is a big part of GW's revenue method.
Instant travel teleportation is simply utilitarian, and while that is wonderful and I think necessary for a good game to appeal to more people, it adds nothing to the game other than function. These games are more than just function, if it were simply function we wouldn't care about armor look or race aesthetics we would all be human and with a variety of different stats and wear cardboard armor with a variety of different stats. Mounts and flying mounts add function as well as aesthetics.
Not in favor.
To me, it has nothing to do with immersion. The UO example more than shows that having such a system can work easily and still be immersive.
For me, it's more about community. The faster you get to where you're going, and the more determined you are to get there, the fewer people you will encounter along the way.
Seeing the same people frequently lets players become more comfortable around each other. Most players start without any intention of actually making new friends. It happens anyway in games where players encounter each other frequently enough.
In GW2, let's say you step out of the town to consider where to go next. You don't exactly have any place in mind yet. You're still deciding. The first thing you're likely to do is open your map. With the current travel system, once you decide, you simply click where to go, and bam, you're there. This is nice and convenient. However, had you been required to walk, you might have passed by an event where a player you had played with before was participating. You might see the event and the player and think, "Oh, I remember that guy. I'll go help him out." With fast travel, you never might have even seen the event.
On the other hand, if you're already trying to meet up with a friend, the faster travel options are favorable. So it's sort of a trade-off, really.
Is this a game breaker? No, not by any means. Am I afraid players will be unfriendly as a result of it? No, not really. Is the convenience worth it? I can't say yet. What I can say, though, is that playing with your friends is great, but making new friends keeps games alive for longer.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
^This^, I agree with. I'm all in favour of teleporting, the demo just showed far too many way points and I just hope that in the release game they'll limit waypoints to: cities, camps, towns, villages & outposts. Also another thing I noticed in the demo was how players could teleport during combat, which could spell many problems. So along with the limits I stated earlier, they should make it so that you cannot teleport in combat and within 30 seconds of combat; which also means that when you are "defeated" you'll have to wait 30 seconds to teleport and within that time someone will have the chance to rez you.
ArenaNet really needs to work on the limitations of teleporting, because as it is in the demo, it's just easy to exploit and annoy people who are trying to rez you.
ArenaNet really needs to work on the limitations of teleporting, because as it is in the demo, it's just easy to exploit and annoy people who are trying to rez you.
Well, the death penalty in GW2 is that you are forced to teleport, so by teleporting during combat, it's more like you're simply killing yourself.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
I'm an explorer at heart, so I don't need to have game mechanics in place that force me to do what I already enjoy. I like options. If I feel like exploring, I will. If I don't, I'll teleport. I'm getting a little irritated with hardcores who bitch about teleportation, because they want everyone to be forced to run to adventuring areas. Anyone who derives pleasure from mechanics that are detrimental to other gamer's play styles have greater issues at hand than some lame excuse about immersion. No one is stopping them from running from place to place if they choose to.
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I think most people dont realize you actualy have to discover the waypoints before useing them. You cant just log in as a char and port right over tot he temple of aeges as a level 1, you would have to discover it.
Another thing, Hardcore explorers need to realize that alot of people dont like exploring threw worlds. I do understand the immersion behind exploring and i love it myself, but its not fun when your sitting at 1 end of a world and decide to group with a buddy then have to wait an hour for him to catch up to me to do something.. thats not fun! and thats why anet has the teleportion system. To keep things moving and to alow players to keep having fun, They want to make a game thats FUN, and fromt he demos.. Wellt hey did a fine job of it.
To the OP: I fully support the teleportaion system. While ill be exploring most of the game on foot and disovering secret corners and such, ill be using that telpeorter alot after ive explored the area
No, teleporting in-combat simply means that you're escaping death and death in a game like GW2 isn't meant to punish players ike in other games, it's meant to teach players and provide a little downtime as you make your way back. And what if the same thing was possible in W v W v W; a player could just port back to their home fortress, before losing the fight (similar to an issue in Earthrise). Would you still treat it as the player killing themself?