SWTOR actually has many fast travel options. Already at level 14 you get a Sprint ability that greatly increases your running speed out of combat. In addition, there are a ton of taxi stations offering super fast speeder rides littered around at the various mission hubs, making long distance travel easy. At level 25 you get vehicles for another big speed boost.
You also have a Hearthstone feature similar to other games, except you can use it to teleport to any bind station you've been to, rather than restricting you to a single bind point.
As a general rule I'm against liberally being able to teleport around since it takes away from the game world. In MMOs I don't just want a game. I also want a world. The best kind of teleport IMO is a restricted one that makes a lot of sense lorewise (ie. a Teleport spell on a long cooldown versus the inexplicable fast travel in Skyrim).
But then I'm very much an explorer type in these types of games, and love big worlds.
SWTOR actually has many fast travel options. Already at level 14 you get a Sprint ability that greatly increases your running speed out of combat. In addition, there are a ton of taxi stations offering super fast speeder rides littered around at the various mission hubs, making long distance travel easy. At level 25 you get vehicles for another big speed boost.
You also have a Hearthstone feature similar to other games, except you can use it to teleport to any bind station you've been to, rather than restricting you to a single bind point.
As a general rule I'm against liberally being able to teleport around since it takes away from the game world. In MMOs I don't just want a game. I also want a world. The best kind of teleport IMO is a restricted one that makes a lot of sense lorewise (ie. a Teleport spell on a long cooldown versus the inexplicable fast travel in Skyrim).
But then I'm very much an explorer type in these types of games, and love big worlds.
That's because of how most NPCs don't just stand around in the same place. A shame Bethesda is pretty much the only developer that have this type of attention to detail. It seems to have been lost to all other developers since Ultima 7, and that's a damn shame. In SWTOR's defense all other MMOs are the same, though that simply points out a big flaw in the genre and isn't really an excuse.
As a general rule I'm against liberally being able to teleport around since it takes away from the game world. In MMOs I don't just want a game. I also want a world. The best kind of teleport IMO is a restricted one that makes a lot of sense lorewise (ie. a Teleport spell on a long cooldown versus the inexplicable fast travel in Skyrim).
Theres nothing inexplicable about the fast travel in Skyrim. It's pretty much the exact same sort of system movies and books use.
When on one page they're at the city, and then next thing you know they're out in a forest somewhere, you realize that they did a cut, and that they just skipped the boring parts, rather than say... filling hundreds of extra pages of Lords of the Rings with 'Then they walked over this hill. There was a lot of trees. Nothing happened. They kept walking. They took a left at the tree shaped sort of like an old lady. THen a quick right because there was a ravine. Which they walked down. One... step... at a... time....'
Time passes during your fast travel in Skyrim. It's not 'You just teleported', it's 'the game assumes you got from point A to point B, but nothing really interesting happened'. It's the boring travel parts they cut out of every other form of entertainment, ever.
That's because of how most NPCs don't just stand around in the same place. A shame Bethesda is pretty much the only developer that have this type of attention to detail. It seems to have been lost to all other developers since Ultima 7, and that's a damn shame. In SWTOR's defense all other MMOs are the same, though that simply points out a big flaw in the genre and isn't really an excuse.
Though TBH the only difference is just like Skyrim you can't teleport to a way point until it's discovered.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Not so immersive, but 10 times the fun. running or riding the same road over and over again is not fun in my book.
(tough i still think that my first almost naked run from Freeport to Qeynos in EQ was one of the most exciting MMO moments i have ever had, but that was in another place and time)
The thing I have observed is that the "old days" of having to travel great distances by foot were good back then because a) the MMO community was small, and each of us had a smaller likelihood of having a spouse/family member/other loved one or friend playing alongside us, therefore the opportunity and DRIVE was there to meet other people. As a result, you played with whomever was near, and made friends that way.
These days, with the MMO market having expanded, we are more likely to play a game with existing friends, guildies, significant others or other family members, whom we want to stick with, and as a result the drive is not to "play with whoever's nearby" but "play near to the person of our choosing." This is where covering long distances becomes a liability; it is not merely inconvenient and a timesink, but prevents people from playing with the people of their choice. Again, it worked back in the day when the audience was different, but nowadays how many people would want to play with a stranger across the virtual world over their friends? Not many, I'd wager.
As you said, it was another place and time.
I agree with you. No one could understand what mmos used to be unless you were apart of that golden age! And yes mmos have changed so much. Its become an industry over run by casuel mindsets who have a "want now" attitude. People who should be playing Consoles like they used to. Don't get me wrong, i have a life. a very busy one at that. i have a family and a job that times i can work up to 14 hours a day. Still don't mean i want what is offered now. With my busy life. i'd rather it take 3 years to become great in a MMO than 2 weeks real time (4 hours game time).
To stick to the subject. UO has teleporting which is great and isn't anything new or dumbing down MMOs. You have to actually travel to the spot you want. And, if you so chose, you can mark a rune at that spot so after you have adventured your way there, you can anytime after just open your rune book, and teleport straight there. Thats how GW2 should do it. Let players Mark Runes at any spot they want
To stick to the subject. UO has teleporting which is great and isn't anything new or dumbing down MMOs. You have to actually travel to the spot you want. And, if you so chose, you can mark a rune at that spot so after you have adventured your way there, you can anytime after just open your rune book, and teleport straight there. Thats how GW2 should do it. Let players Mark Runes at any spot they want
This isn't terribly different from the waypoints of Guild Wars 2, just that you don't have to open a rune book or mark a rune. You still have to discover the waypoint on foot first, and it costs money to travel to any given waypoint, with increasing costs for teleporting greater distances. AND, if a dynamic event is active right near a waypoint, you won't be able to teleport there anyway, as the point will be considered "contested."
It really isn't hopscotching willy-nilly around the planet the way some might have you believe. And furthermore, as others have pointed out, never traveling the world by foot (after the initial unlock) would defeat much of the purpose of playing GW2 since you'd be missing all the dynamic content in between waypoints.
That's because of how most NPCs don't just stand around in the same place. A shame Bethesda is pretty much the only developer that have this type of attention to detail. It seems to have been lost to all other developers since Ultima 7, and that's a damn shame. In SWTOR's defense all other MMOs are the same, though that simply points out a big flaw in the genre and isn't really an excuse.
Though TBH the only difference is just like Skyrim you can't teleport to a way point until it's discovered.
The video illustrates the issue very well. The great thing about Skyrim is that many NPCs have their daily routines they go by, rather than just standing constantly in the same spot. They go to work, they go home to eat (or to the tavern), and they sleep at night. This makes the world much more immersive than a street where a couple of NPCs are milling about a set patrol route and the rest are just sign posts.
That's because of how most NPCs don't just stand around in the same place. A shame Bethesda is pretty much the only developer that have this type of attention to detail. It seems to have been lost to all other developers since Ultima 7, and that's a damn shame. In SWTOR's defense all other MMOs are the same, though that simply points out a big flaw in the genre and isn't really an excuse.
Though TBH the only difference is just like Skyrim you can't teleport to a way point until it's discovered.
The video illustrates the issue very well. The great thing about Skyrim is that many NPCs have their daily routines they go by, rather than just standing constantly in the same spot. They go to work, they go home to eat (or to the tavern), and they sleep at night. This makes the world much more immersive than a street where a couple of NPCs are milling about a set patrol route and the rest are just sign posts.
The video indicates to me, that GW2 towns will give the same atmosphere that you just described from Skyrim. Cities in GW2 will feel vibrant and alive.
And in both games you first need to discover the teleporting waypoints to be able to jump to them.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
How? Skyrim is leaps and bounds beyond the typical MMO setting displayed in the video.
Well, for one thing, those are just placeholder NPCs, or at least still an early iteration. I think this video where the player explores the Ossan quarter of the city really demonstrates that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yc_HPphDjjI#t=185s It's still really sparsely populated, and while the difference between Krytans and Elonians isn't as black as white as, well, black and white, we're still not yet seeing the style of dress we saw in GW Nightfall.
There's differences between a single player RPG and an MMORPG when it comes to cities. In Skyrim you can have a day night cycle for each NPC because the player has the option of instantly waiting as many hours as they need. It doesn't really make sense in an MMORPG, especially one like GW2 which is trying to remove timesinks. What would be the point of letting a person instantly teleport into the world to get to their friends if they had to wait in the city 10 minutes before they could sell to a merchant? GW2 does have a day/night cycle, and they use it to impact dynamic events (such as triggering when night falls on a graveyard), but I'd be amazed if they didn't have merchants standing around full time.
With cities, especially in MMOs, it's kind of a double edged sword. You want it to feel lively, but at the same time not have it be annoying. These are players that players can potentially hang out in for hours a day, every day if they want. Even Skyrim is not immune to the possibility of overusing dialog. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-took-an-arrow-in-the-knee
To me, the place that GW2 shines is the architecture.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I would have asked that myself, but I was ignoring him.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I gotta say, I was pretty upset with this feature when I first heard it announced. I figured everyone, myself included, would just teleport everywhere all the time even if we didn't want to simply because it was so convenient. And I thought this would be a serious immersion breaker.
Then I played Skyrim, which essentially has the same feature. I found I walked when I wanted to (which was quite often), but occasionally I had to go back and forth across very great distances, and walking would have simply been a cumbersome time sink. I don't care how beautiful the landscape is, 30 minutes of thing but walking gets boring after about 3 minutes. It was also conducive to quest ADD. I would never reach my objective because I would get distracted doing the 100 things I found along the way. My quest log would subsequently inflate to an unmanageable capacity, which I cannot stand.
I was defnitely please to use the teleport feature on numerous occasions, and I consider Skyrim to be one of the most immersive gaming experiences I've had. So there's that.
My only concern now is that if I feel like walking to explore while I'm playing with others who just want to go go go, I will be faced with the choice of either being left behind or playing the game in a way I do not wish. The multiplayer aspect definitely adds another dimension.
hold on you say running and "riding". What exactly are you riding in GW2? There are no mounts in this game unless that has changed? It is going to be like Rift without mounts.
There were certainly always be people who like tedious stuff.
The idea of fast travel versus slow travel is not new to MMOs. It is still a very lively debate in the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games. In these games, we have something called a random encounter. When you travel, you are suppose to have a chance every so many miles of encountering a random pack of animals or monster. That risk of traveling is an inherant part of the game. The problem with it is, if you only have 6 hours of play, what would you rather be doing, exploring a Necromancer's Dungeon or fighting a pack of wolves roaming the countryside. Even worse, what if there was nothing, just 40 minutes of, go this way, now go this way, now stop, now go this way.
What most DMs do is fairly similar to GW 2 and Rift MMOs. The first time you travel somewhere you have to endure travel hazards, howver, instead of just simple animal encounters, you place fun elaborate encounters along the road. Like Skyrim you place odities that can be explored. Thus, even after the first time a player travels, they have a reason to travel the road again for something other than tediom.
Teleporters in Rift work great. You still have to travel dangerous lands to find them. Even after finding them, I still travel certain countries simply to encounter the Rifts. Region wide rifts force you to venture all over the region. I imagine that GW2 will be like this but much better. Having multiple waypoints is great cause if a zone wide dynamic event drops you off pretty far, you at least have a reasonable way to get back. Not to mention, teleporting costs money. I can't tell you how many times i have been down to my last gold in rift and needed to just hoof it.
Star Wars does not have convinenet teleporting. It also does not have an interesting landscape. Two places I go the most, my ship and the intergalstic space station are difficult to get to quickly. Frequently you have to taxi somewhere (or instant teleport). Then walk 3 minutes to the hanger. Get on the ship, endure a 10 second load screen and if i want to go the the space station that's a couple more minutes.
If my wife jumps online, it takes about 15 minutes for us to reach the same location. There is nothing fun about this. I can't understand the design logic. Huge space ports that require 2 load screens to reach your most common area. It is annoying. Especially coming from Rift where every city or region has a teleport yo ucan travel to. The teleports are usually far away from places you have to quest, so there is no need to worry about teleporting from quest to quest.
hold on you say running and "riding". What exactly are you riding in GW2? There are no mounts in this game unless that has changed? It is going to be like Rift without mounts.
The OP is clearly talking about SWTOR's (or any other non-teleportation game's) design because even with faster travel, running or riding over the same ground is boring.
GW2 is Rift without mounts? I'd write about all the differences between GW2 and Rift but even I get tired of composing walls of text sometimes.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I gotta say, I was pretty upset with this feature when I first heard it announced. I figured everyone, myself included, would just teleport everywhere all the time even if we didn't want to simply because it was so convenient. And I thought this would be a serious immersion breaker.
Then I played Skyrim, which essentially has the same feature. I found I walked when I wanted to (which was quite often), but occasionally I had to go back and forth across very great distances, and walking would have simply been a cumbersome time sink. I don't care how beautiful the landscape is, 30 minutes of thing but walking gets boring after about 3 minutes. It was also conducive to quest ADD. I would never reach my objective because I would get distracted doing the 100 things I found along the way. My quest log would subsequently inflate to an unmanageable capacity, which I cannot stand.
I was defnitely please to use the teleport feature on numerous occasions, and I consider Skyrim to be one of the most immersive gaming experiences I've had. So there's that.
My only concern now is that if I feel like walking to explore while I'm playing with others who just want to go go go, I will be faced with the choice of either being left behind or playing the game in a way I do not wish. The multiplayer aspect definitely adds another dimension.
Yeah I never understood why so many people feel like fast travel breaks immersion.
Even way back in UO there was a group of players that scoffed at anyone that frequently recalled to places because they felt like they were "missing the game." Personally, if I have 2 hours to play, I would rather spend it all exploring dungeons, crafting, or doing whatever else I want to do than running across an empty landscape to get to the above.
I thought those guys were crazy back then, and I still do today lol. Fast travel? Yes please .
Originally posted by hikaru77 Lol GW2 fans are just amazing, even the bad things are good for their point of view. The same system in a game like swtor would be a fail for the gw2 fans, you guys are just amazing. Sadly this will be one of the reason about why gw2 will fail, the blind love that the fanboys have.
What is amaing is that you have read this thread (?? doubtful) and yet managed to come to the conclusion that anyone thinks teleportation is bad in SWTOR, yet good in GW2 (as opposed to feeling there is not enough in the former compared to the latter).
Lol GW2 fans are just amazing, even the bad things are good for their point of view. The same system in a game like swtor would be a fail for the gw2 fans, you guys are just amazing. Sadly this will be one of the reason about why gw2 will fail, the blind love that the fanboys have.
Right, because every GW2 fan unanimously feels the same way about every topic; and clearly we've all agreed on this topic as well. Or, you know, you could be reading the opinions of various individuals and fallaciously attributing them universally to broader categories to which they do not necessarily belong.
Also, if you let fanboys (who exist for every bit of entertainment known to man) influence your experience of any game, movie, TV show, book, or sport, you're going to miss out on a lot of enjoyment.
Lol GW2 fans are just amazing, even the bad things are good for their point of view. The same system in a game like swtor would be a fail for the gw2 fans, you guys are just amazing. Sadly this will be one of the reason about why gw2 will fail, the blind love that the fanboys have.
Right, because every GW2 fan unanimously feels the same way about every topic; and clearly we've all agreed on this topic as well. Or, you know, you could be reading the opinions of various individuals and fallaciously attributing them universally to broader categories to which they do not necessarily belong.
Also, if you let fanboys (who exist for every bit of entertainment known to man) influence your experience of any game, movie, TV show, book, or sport, you're going to miss out on a lot of enjoyment.
GW2 fans recognises that Arenanet is making the game they wanted for so long, many things they wished for will be there
Just today when playing SWTOR and a mission send me with my spaceship alongst 5 planets, just to speak people ovethere. I was just raveling and had asingle fight and was busy for over an hour. then i realised even the spaceship is just a timesink. Arnanet is right with the teleporting, traveling the same way over and over again is no fun.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
That's because of how most NPCs don't just stand around in the same place. A shame Bethesda is pretty much the only developer that have this type of attention to detail. It seems to have been lost to all other developers since Ultima 7, and that's a damn shame. In SWTOR's defense all other MMOs are the same, though that simply points out a big flaw in the genre and isn't really an excuse.
Though TBH the only difference is just like Skyrim you can't teleport to a way point until it's discovered.
The video illustrates the issue very well. The great thing about Skyrim is that many NPCs have their daily routines they go by, rather than just standing constantly in the same spot. They go to work, they go home to eat (or to the tavern), and they sleep at night. This makes the world much more immersive than a street where a couple of NPCs are milling about a set patrol route and the rest are just sign posts.
The video indicates to me, that GW2 towns will give the same atmosphere that you just described from Skyrim. Cities in GW2 will feel vibrant and alive.
And in both games you first need to discover the teleporting waypoints to be able to jump to them.
Yea that was my whole point.
I was hoping he would least think about what cali said at first as well.
I was showing him that MMOs are correcting this well least upcoming mmos are, something that everyone misses, it's like common sense, it's going to be ugly for games with Static Worlds and timesinks in the future, no they won't die and no this game won't be a reason.
I mean I'm pretty sure it's hard to admit something you think will fail or heavily dislike has something when it indeed or in fact has it.
Eh well.
Sheesh you clearly tell that even outside of cities it's alive lol. Not from the vid but other videos.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
What people want and what is good for an mmo is not always the same thing. People don't want to do anything for a top level char, people don't want to bother developing their character at all, people don't want to compete with others unless they have the upper hand.
As for the whole principle of proper crafting etc and how games don't even have it anymore because, people don't like anything that requires effort. We'll all be playing pong soon, with double width, stealth paddles.
This right here.
Remove any and all obstacles, inject casual mode FTW.
Your assessment is partly correct. Casuals pay the bills, "hardcore gamers" does not make any game a financial success.
Most casuals are looking for fun and entertainment in a game, not virtual work. That does not equal an "I win button" or any such thing, but spending hours looking for a group or trying not to get ganked or doing an hour long virtual walk is simply "unfun".
No company in their right mind would spend 80% of their ressources working for 20% of their clients. I guess you could rewrite mrw0lf's statement and say: "What hardcore gamers want and what is good for a game is rarely the same thing."
I think GW2 will do just fine.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
I gotta say, I was pretty upset with this feature when I first heard it announced. I figured everyone, myself included, would just teleport everywhere all the time even if we didn't want to simply because it was so convenient. And I thought this would be a serious immersion breaker.
Then I played Skyrim, which essentially has the same feature. I found I walked when I wanted to (which was quite often), but occasionally I had to go back and forth across very great distances, and walking would have simply been a cumbersome time sink. I don't care how beautiful the landscape is, 30 minutes of thing but walking gets boring after about 3 minutes. It was also conducive to quest ADD. I would never reach my objective because I would get distracted doing the 100 things I found along the way. My quest log would subsequently inflate to an unmanageable capacity, which I cannot stand.
I was defnitely please to use the teleport feature on numerous occasions, and I consider Skyrim to be one of the most immersive gaming experiences I've had. So there's that.
My only concern now is that if I feel like walking to explore while I'm playing with others who just want to go go go, I will be faced with the choice of either being left behind or playing the game in a way I do not wish. The multiplayer aspect definitely adds another dimension.
Yeah I never understood why so many people feel like fast travel breaks immersion.
Even way back in UO there was a group of players that scoffed at anyone that frequently recalled to places because they felt like they were "missing the game." Personally, if I have 2 hours to play, I would rather spend it all exploring dungeons, crafting, or doing whatever else I want to do than running across an empty landscape to get to the above.
I thought those guys were crazy back then, and I still do today lol. Fast travel? Yes please .
I do always use teleporters when available... However... I used to actually enjoy the journey to a dungeon or to a flightpath which was a reward for a treaturous journey...
I suppose if the journey is part of the fun, then great if it is just run from point a to point B then teleport away...
That said, there are a few runs that I shall never forget in MMOs that were pain and you got rewarded with a teleport... The one that comes to mind is LavaStorm Eq2 ( before LavaStorm revamp ). The run from LavaStorm to Soleks eye was a terror and one heck of a crazy fun run... and the Naggy runs ! ohh my ! hellish they were but great memories from eq2 for me.
Runs through Nek forrest when the flying fish were bugged at release LOL !
Key is, in those cases the journey really was 1/2 the fun. When you have to get somewhere using the tools of your char or even better groupmates, its a pretty awesome immersive experience imo.
Comments
SWTOR actually has many fast travel options. Already at level 14 you get a Sprint ability that greatly increases your running speed out of combat. In addition, there are a ton of taxi stations offering super fast speeder rides littered around at the various mission hubs, making long distance travel easy. At level 25 you get vehicles for another big speed boost.
You also have a Hearthstone feature similar to other games, except you can use it to teleport to any bind station you've been to, rather than restricting you to a single bind point.
As a general rule I'm against liberally being able to teleport around since it takes away from the game world. In MMOs I don't just want a game. I also want a world. The best kind of teleport IMO is a restricted one that makes a lot of sense lorewise (ie. a Teleport spell on a long cooldown versus the inexplicable fast travel in Skyrim).
But then I'm very much an explorer type in these types of games, and love big worlds.
I also love exploring, but I want to play with my friends whenever I want to and sometimes I just want some quick action due to time constraints.
Yet Skyrim fells much more like world then Swtor.
That's because of how most NPCs don't just stand around in the same place. A shame Bethesda is pretty much the only developer that have this type of attention to detail. It seems to have been lost to all other developers since Ultima 7, and that's a damn shame. In SWTOR's defense all other MMOs are the same, though that simply points out a big flaw in the genre and isn't really an excuse.
Theres nothing inexplicable about the fast travel in Skyrim. It's pretty much the exact same sort of system movies and books use.
When on one page they're at the city, and then next thing you know they're out in a forest somewhere, you realize that they did a cut, and that they just skipped the boring parts, rather than say... filling hundreds of extra pages of Lords of the Rings with 'Then they walked over this hill. There was a lot of trees. Nothing happened. They kept walking. They took a left at the tree shaped sort of like an old lady. THen a quick right because there was a ravine. Which they walked down. One... step... at a... time....'
Time passes during your fast travel in Skyrim. It's not 'You just teleported', it's 'the game assumes you got from point A to point B, but nothing really interesting happened'. It's the boring travel parts they cut out of every other form of entertainment, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqwbS4sMgoY&feature=related
Though TBH the only difference is just like Skyrim you can't teleport to a way point until it's discovered.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
I agree with you. No one could understand what mmos used to be unless you were apart of that golden age! And yes mmos have changed so much. Its become an industry over run by casuel mindsets who have a "want now" attitude. People who should be playing Consoles like they used to. Don't get me wrong, i have a life. a very busy one at that. i have a family and a job that times i can work up to 14 hours a day. Still don't mean i want what is offered now. With my busy life. i'd rather it take 3 years to become great in a MMO than 2 weeks real time (4 hours game time).
To stick to the subject. UO has teleporting which is great and isn't anything new or dumbing down MMOs. You have to actually travel to the spot you want. And, if you so chose, you can mark a rune at that spot so after you have adventured your way there, you can anytime after just open your rune book, and teleport straight there. Thats how GW2 should do it. Let players Mark Runes at any spot they want
This isn't terribly different from the waypoints of Guild Wars 2, just that you don't have to open a rune book or mark a rune. You still have to discover the waypoint on foot first, and it costs money to travel to any given waypoint, with increasing costs for teleporting greater distances. AND, if a dynamic event is active right near a waypoint, you won't be able to teleport there anyway, as the point will be considered "contested."
It really isn't hopscotching willy-nilly around the planet the way some might have you believe. And furthermore, as others have pointed out, never traveling the world by foot (after the initial unlock) would defeat much of the purpose of playing GW2 since you'd be missing all the dynamic content in between waypoints.
The video illustrates the issue very well. The great thing about Skyrim is that many NPCs have their daily routines they go by, rather than just standing constantly in the same spot. They go to work, they go home to eat (or to the tavern), and they sleep at night. This makes the world much more immersive than a street where a couple of NPCs are milling about a set patrol route and the rest are just sign posts.
The video indicates to me, that GW2 towns will give the same atmosphere that you just described from Skyrim. Cities in GW2 will feel vibrant and alive.
And in both games you first need to discover the teleporting waypoints to be able to jump to them.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
How? Skyrim is leaps and bounds beyond the typical MMO setting displayed in the video.
Well, for one thing, those are just placeholder NPCs, or at least still an early iteration. I think this video where the player explores the Ossan quarter of the city really demonstrates that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yc_HPphDjjI#t=185s It's still really sparsely populated, and while the difference between Krytans and Elonians isn't as black as white as, well, black and white, we're still not yet seeing the style of dress we saw in GW Nightfall.
There's differences between a single player RPG and an MMORPG when it comes to cities. In Skyrim you can have a day night cycle for each NPC because the player has the option of instantly waiting as many hours as they need. It doesn't really make sense in an MMORPG, especially one like GW2 which is trying to remove timesinks. What would be the point of letting a person instantly teleport into the world to get to their friends if they had to wait in the city 10 minutes before they could sell to a merchant? GW2 does have a day/night cycle, and they use it to impact dynamic events (such as triggering when night falls on a graveyard), but I'd be amazed if they didn't have merchants standing around full time.
With cities, especially in MMOs, it's kind of a double edged sword. You want it to feel lively, but at the same time not have it be annoying. These are players that players can potentially hang out in for hours a day, every day if they want. Even Skyrim is not immune to the possibility of overusing dialog. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-took-an-arrow-in-the-knee
To me, the place that GW2 shines is the architecture.
Lion's Arch
Rata Sum
Black Citadel
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
What do you mean exactly?
I would have asked that myself, but I was ignoring him.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I gotta say, I was pretty upset with this feature when I first heard it announced. I figured everyone, myself included, would just teleport everywhere all the time even if we didn't want to simply because it was so convenient. And I thought this would be a serious immersion breaker.
Then I played Skyrim, which essentially has the same feature. I found I walked when I wanted to (which was quite often), but occasionally I had to go back and forth across very great distances, and walking would have simply been a cumbersome time sink. I don't care how beautiful the landscape is, 30 minutes of thing but walking gets boring after about 3 minutes. It was also conducive to quest ADD. I would never reach my objective because I would get distracted doing the 100 things I found along the way. My quest log would subsequently inflate to an unmanageable capacity, which I cannot stand.
I was defnitely please to use the teleport feature on numerous occasions, and I consider Skyrim to be one of the most immersive gaming experiences I've had. So there's that.
My only concern now is that if I feel like walking to explore while I'm playing with others who just want to go go go, I will be faced with the choice of either being left behind or playing the game in a way I do not wish. The multiplayer aspect definitely adds another dimension.
hold on you say running and "riding". What exactly are you riding in GW2? There are no mounts in this game unless that has changed? It is going to be like Rift without mounts.
There were certainly always be people who like tedious stuff.
The idea of fast travel versus slow travel is not new to MMOs. It is still a very lively debate in the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games. In these games, we have something called a random encounter. When you travel, you are suppose to have a chance every so many miles of encountering a random pack of animals or monster. That risk of traveling is an inherant part of the game. The problem with it is, if you only have 6 hours of play, what would you rather be doing, exploring a Necromancer's Dungeon or fighting a pack of wolves roaming the countryside. Even worse, what if there was nothing, just 40 minutes of, go this way, now go this way, now stop, now go this way.
What most DMs do is fairly similar to GW 2 and Rift MMOs. The first time you travel somewhere you have to endure travel hazards, howver, instead of just simple animal encounters, you place fun elaborate encounters along the road. Like Skyrim you place odities that can be explored. Thus, even after the first time a player travels, they have a reason to travel the road again for something other than tediom.
Teleporters in Rift work great. You still have to travel dangerous lands to find them. Even after finding them, I still travel certain countries simply to encounter the Rifts. Region wide rifts force you to venture all over the region. I imagine that GW2 will be like this but much better. Having multiple waypoints is great cause if a zone wide dynamic event drops you off pretty far, you at least have a reasonable way to get back. Not to mention, teleporting costs money. I can't tell you how many times i have been down to my last gold in rift and needed to just hoof it.
Star Wars does not have convinenet teleporting. It also does not have an interesting landscape. Two places I go the most, my ship and the intergalstic space station are difficult to get to quickly. Frequently you have to taxi somewhere (or instant teleport). Then walk 3 minutes to the hanger. Get on the ship, endure a 10 second load screen and if i want to go the the space station that's a couple more minutes.
If my wife jumps online, it takes about 15 minutes for us to reach the same location. There is nothing fun about this. I can't understand the design logic. Huge space ports that require 2 load screens to reach your most common area. It is annoying. Especially coming from Rift where every city or region has a teleport yo ucan travel to. The teleports are usually far away from places you have to quest, so there is no need to worry about teleporting from quest to quest.
I
The OP is clearly talking about SWTOR's (or any other non-teleportation game's) design because even with faster travel, running or riding over the same ground is boring.
GW2 is Rift without mounts? I'd write about all the differences between GW2 and Rift but even I get tired of composing walls of text sometimes.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Yeah I never understood why so many people feel like fast travel breaks immersion.
Even way back in UO there was a group of players that scoffed at anyone that frequently recalled to places because they felt like they were "missing the game." Personally, if I have 2 hours to play, I would rather spend it all exploring dungeons, crafting, or doing whatever else I want to do than running across an empty landscape to get to the above.
I thought those guys were crazy back then, and I still do today lol. Fast travel? Yes please
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Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
What is amaing is that you have read this thread (?? doubtful) and yet managed to come to the conclusion that anyone thinks teleportation is bad in SWTOR, yet good in GW2 (as opposed to feeling there is not enough in the former compared to the latter).
Right, because every GW2 fan unanimously feels the same way about every topic; and clearly we've all agreed on this topic as well. Or, you know, you could be reading the opinions of various individuals and fallaciously attributing them universally to broader categories to which they do not necessarily belong.
Also, if you let fanboys (who exist for every bit of entertainment known to man) influence your experience of any game, movie, TV show, book, or sport, you're going to miss out on a lot of enjoyment.
Right, because every GW2 fan unanimously feels the same way about every topic; and clearly we've all agreed on this topic as well. Or, you know, you could be reading the opinions of various individuals and fallaciously attributing them universally to broader categories to which they do not necessarily belong.
Also, if you let fanboys (who exist for every bit of entertainment known to man) influence your experience of any game, movie, TV show, book, or sport, you're going to miss out on a lot of enjoyment.
GW2 fans recognises that Arenanet is making the game they wanted for so long, many things they wished for will be there
Just today when playing SWTOR and a mission send me with my spaceship alongst 5 planets, just to speak people ovethere. I was just raveling and had asingle fight and was busy for over an hour. then i realised even the spaceship is just a timesink. Arnanet is right with the teleporting, traveling the same way over and over again is no fun.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Yea that was my whole point.
I was hoping he would least think about what cali said at first as well.
I was showing him that MMOs are correcting this well least upcoming mmos are, something that everyone misses, it's like common sense, it's going to be ugly for games with Static Worlds and timesinks in the future, no they won't die and no this game won't be a reason.
I mean I'm pretty sure it's hard to admit something you think will fail or heavily dislike has something when it indeed or in fact has it.
Eh well.
Sheesh you clearly tell that even outside of cities it's alive lol. Not from the vid but other videos.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Your assessment is partly correct. Casuals pay the bills, "hardcore gamers" does not make any game a financial success.
Most casuals are looking for fun and entertainment in a game, not virtual work. That does not equal an "I win button" or any such thing, but spending hours looking for a group or trying not to get ganked or doing an hour long virtual walk is simply "unfun".
No company in their right mind would spend 80% of their ressources working for 20% of their clients. I guess you could rewrite mrw0lf's statement and say: "What hardcore gamers want and what is good for a game is rarely the same thing."
I think GW2 will do just fine.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
I do always use teleporters when available... However... I used to actually enjoy the journey to a dungeon or to a flightpath which was a reward for a treaturous journey...
I suppose if the journey is part of the fun, then great if it is just run from point a to point B then teleport away...
That said, there are a few runs that I shall never forget in MMOs that were pain and you got rewarded with a teleport... The one that comes to mind is LavaStorm Eq2 ( before LavaStorm revamp ). The run from LavaStorm to Soleks eye was a terror and one heck of a crazy fun run... and the Naggy runs ! ohh my ! hellish they were but great memories from eq2 for me.
Runs through Nek forrest when the flying fish were bugged at release LOL !
Key is, in those cases the journey really was 1/2 the fun. When you have to get somewhere using the tools of your char or even better groupmates, its a pretty awesome immersive experience imo.