Interesting - so just because you don't define something to be difficult, it must not be!
Wrong. If you are at least even partially competent and/or literate, then you can distinctly see that the majority consensus on this subject is partial towards limited to no fast travel. You don't see people proclaiming "I want no fast travel because I like tedious and inconvenient game design!", they say it because these people find challenge and excitement in it.
I couldn't really care less what your definition of "real suggestions" are. If you want to go play a game that holds your hand with every design, there are plenty out there right now. Just because you spout that a certain design is "tedious" or "inconvenient" doesn't make it so for others. Would you also say that exclamation points and question marks are necessary for questing to not be "tedious"? How about quest helpers - since finding out things on your own is just so inconvenient and "superficial"? Maybe dungeon finder queues too?
In fact, how about scrap any sort of questing, travel, and monster killing altogether and just instantly get rewarded for clicking on an npc. That would keep players away from any "tedious" or "superficial" tasks, right?
No it is about redefining and changing the meaning of what is difficult and challenging content. Got nothing to do with how i feel. How many of you can actually say with a straight face that travelling for an hour from point A to be is challenging after doing its for 100th time?
The challenge should be in the activity itself for example it is not challenging if you it takes 2 hours to kill a BOSS with huge HP pool..but it is challenging if that boss has skills and tactics which makes the fight a challenge.
Rest of your post is just trying to put words into my mouth so i am going to ignore that.
I'm not putting any words in your mouth, that is completely the basis of your logic.
Your same argument can made against virtually any game design, provided that you just make the claim that a particular design is just "tedious" and not challenging at all. Some people may find killing monsters being tedious, others may find questing to be tedious. The idea that something taking a long period of time isn't difficult is subjective.
Would a 12 hour work day be less "challenging" if it was reduced down to five minutes? I would think so. The same concept can be applied to MMO's. The reason many boss fights take so long is because it makes the encounter much more physically and mentally challenging. Although running from point A to point B isn't as physically taxing as working a real job, it still takes a considerate amount dedication and patience. And if you don't see any sort of challenge in that, then I'd say it's about time to reevaluate your logic.
I don't find longer travel time challengeing I find it a annoying time sink.
and making something as taxing as a real job, is not making it challengeing it makes it annoying I come home to play games and relax and have fun not do a second job.
I enjoy a good challenge in a game I don't enjoy, time sinks, when a boss fight is nothing but a massive hit point pool and a wash and repeat attack pattern, its not a challenge its a annoyance.
P.S. compareing work to gmaeing is silly, for most people work isn't challengeing at all, its a time sink that geet your paid, some enjoy it some don't, most don't find it challengeing. using it as a comparison to gameing makes no sence.
You people really just don't get it lol. What you find tedious, many people find enjoyable. The reason this thread exists is because there are many people out there who don't want to be spoon fed with "convenient" game designs.
I've already made my point that this sort of logic can be applied to almost any design within a game, so spouting the same thing over and over really isn't going to convince people to think like you.
Interesting - so just because you don't define something to be difficult, it must not be!
Wrong. If you are at least even partially competent and/or literate, then you can distinctly see that the majority consensus on this subject is partial towards limited to no fast travel. You don't see people proclaiming "I want no fast travel because I like tedious and inconvenient game design!", they say it because these people find challenge and excitement in it.
I couldn't really care less what your definition of "real suggestions" are. If you want to go play a game that holds your hand with every design, there are plenty out there right now. Just because you spout that a certain design is "tedious" or "inconvenient" doesn't make it so for others. Would you also say that exclamation points and question marks are necessary for questing to not be "tedious"? How about quest helpers - since finding out things on your own is just so inconvenient and "superficial"? Maybe dungeon finder queues too?
In fact, how about scrap any sort of questing, travel, and monster killing altogether and just instantly get rewarded for clicking on an npc. That would keep players away from any "tedious" or "superficial" tasks, right?
No it is about redefining and changing the meaning of what is difficult and challenging content. Got nothing to do with how i feel. How many of you can actually say with a straight face that travelling for an hour from point A to be is challenging after doing its for 100th time?
The challenge should be in the activity itself for example it is not challenging if you it takes 2 hours to kill a BOSS with huge HP pool..but it is challenging if that boss has skills and tactics which makes the fight a challenge.
Rest of your post is just trying to put words into my mouth so i am going to ignore that.
I'm not putting any words in your mouth, that is completely the basis of your logic.
Your same argument can made against virtually any game design, provided that you just make the claim that a particular design is just "tedious" and not challenging at all. Some people may find killing monsters being tedious, others may find questing to be tedious. The idea that something taking a long period of time isn't difficult is subjective.
Would a 12 hour work day be less "challenging" if it was reduced down to five minutes? I would think so. The same concept can be applied to MMO's. The reason many boss fights take so long is because it makes the encounter much more physically and mentally challenging. Although running from point A to point B isn't as physically taxing as working a real job, it still takes a considerate amount dedication and patience. And if you don't see any sort of challenge in that, then I'd say it's about time to reevaluate your logic.
I don't find longer travel time challengeing I find it a annoying time sink.
and making something as taxing as a real job, is not making it challengeing it makes it annoying I come home to play games and relax and have fun not do a second job.
I enjoy a good challenge in a game I don't enjoy, time sinks, when a boss fight is nothing but a massive hit point pool and a wash and repeat attack pattern, its not a challenge its a annoyance.
P.S. compareing work to gmaeing is silly, for most people work isn't challengeing at all, its a time sink that geet your paid, some enjoy it some don't, most don't find it challengeing. using it as a comparison to gameing makes no sence.
You people really just don't get it lol. What you find tedious, many people find enjoyable. The reason this thread exists is because there are many people out there who don't want to be spoon fed with "convenient" game designs.
I've already made my point that this sort of logic can be applied to almost any design within a game, so spouting the same thing over and over really isn't going to convince people to think like you.
Ahh i see the problem here. You think we are trying to convince you or others here. Only because people are passionate about what they think about particular point doesn't mean they are trying to convince you.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Interesting - so just because you don't define something to be difficult, it must not be!
Wrong. If you are at least even partially competent and/or literate, then you can distinctly see that the majority consensus on this subject is partial towards limited to no fast travel. You don't see people proclaiming "I want no fast travel because I like tedious and inconvenient game design!", they say it because these people find challenge and excitement in it.
I couldn't really care less what your definition of "real suggestions" are. If you want to go play a game that holds your hand with every design, there are plenty out there right now. Just because you spout that a certain design is "tedious" or "inconvenient" doesn't make it so for others. Would you also say that exclamation points and question marks are necessary for questing to not be "tedious"? How about quest helpers - since finding out things on your own is just so inconvenient and "superficial"? Maybe dungeon finder queues too?
In fact, how about scrap any sort of questing, travel, and monster killing altogether and just instantly get rewarded for clicking on an npc. That would keep players away from any "tedious" or "superficial" tasks, right?
Try not to use "majority consensus" from forum goers in regards to this subject as factor for any sort of real consensus, given the forum we are on and how nostalgicly addicted most here are to EQ1 we are highly subject to selection bias.
Everyone wants some form of non real travel for convience this arguement is simply about "how much". Since you used a strawman arguement, let me. How about we slow travel down so that its closer to real-life medieval travel times and it takes players real-time months to travel from Qeynos to Freeport. Hoping on a boat should should confine the players avatar to a boat stateroom for 2 full weeks as the boat makes its journey. No player teleportation as that would ruin the "experience" and acheivement of such a epic journey. I am sure there is at least one MMO veteran who thinks this is "how it should be".
Clearly everyone wants some form of fast travel. Be it unrealistically small zones, teleportation, overly fast mounts that never tire, etc. What is being argued here how much and that is a factor of playstyle and tolerance to tedium.
My first journey from Freeport to Qeynos to meet up with a friend was very epic, I won't deny it. But I would sacrifice it in a second to avoid the mind numbing tedium of having to repeat that same journey 100 times, or the dozens of times I missed out on grouping with real-life friends because I couldn't make the journey in less than a half hour. Those downsides "to me" were so penalizing that it made EQ a chore and completely unfun and added nothing to the experience.
What most people seem to forget in the everlasting bashing of WoW and EQ2 was that those games and their mechanics were a reaction (arguably maybe an over-reaction) to the punishingly unfun mechanics that EQ had inflicted on the MMO community. Has pendulum swung to far? Maybe... but I know I never want to go back to how unfun those initial EQ mechanics were.
The first time I ran from Greater Faydark to Halas was an epic 6 hour journey, and this was only to bring 10p to a shaman I rolled. How many times have I not ran for 45 minutes to a group only to hear "it fell apart", and then get a invite for another group halfway across the world. As much as tedious travelling adds to Immersion, it just doesn't justify the pain of all those "wasted" hours - In a game where grouping is needed, these long travel times were not doing anything good. Gating people around were big business and no doubt it added to the variety of roles to pick up, but finding a gater was not always easy. Infact the only reason I started boxing (which some people don't like) was to be able to transport my ass around, but then why not also play that character aswell ?.
Anyways, I am all for some kind of transportation system with some limitations. I hate instant click travel as i Gw2, it has to take some efford to travel, but not crossing and entire continent on autorun that takes 30 minutes. WoW griffon transportation system is not bad, and it also show the world while You fly so You are not completely disconneted (a land/abort option would have rocked). Vanguard was nice (Ill get a beating for this opinion) once they put in the continent portal system, not too intrusive but it allowed for getting to a group the same day. Also the luclin gates I liked, it was also a limited gating system with 15 minutes cooldown.
So a limited gate system preferably with timed transports (5 mins) combined with quick ferries and "griffon like" rides I think would be a good compromise. As a rule of thumb I would say travel that takes more than 25 minutes starts to get silly and not adding anything good to the game. 5-10 mins for shorter travel, 15-20 mins to change continents.
Interesting - so just because you don't define something to be difficult, it must not be!
Wrong. If you are at least even partially competent and/or literate, then you can distinctly see that the majority consensus on this subject is partial towards limited to no fast travel. You don't see people proclaiming "I want no fast travel because I like tedious and inconvenient game design!", they say it because these people find challenge and excitement in it.
I couldn't really care less what your definition of "real suggestions" are. If you want to go play a game that holds your hand with every design, there are plenty out there right now. Just because you spout that a certain design is "tedious" or "inconvenient" doesn't make it so for others. Would you also say that exclamation points and question marks are necessary for questing to not be "tedious"? How about quest helpers - since finding out things on your own is just so inconvenient and "superficial"? Maybe dungeon finder queues too?
In fact, how about scrap any sort of questing, travel, and monster killing altogether and just instantly get rewarded for clicking on an npc. That would keep players away from any "tedious" or "superficial" tasks, right?
Try not to use "majority consensus" from forum goers in regards to this subject as factor for any sort of real consensus, given the forum we are on and how nostalgicly addicted most here are to EQ1 we are highly subject to selection bias.
Everyone wants some form of non real travel for convience this arguement is simply about "how much". Since you used a strawman arguement, let me. How about we slow travel down so that its closer to real-life medieval travel times and it takes players real-time months to travel from Qeynos to Freeport. Hoping on a boat should should confine the players avatar to a boat stateroom for 2 full weeks as the boat makes its journey. No player teleportation as that would ruin the "experience" and acheivement of such a epic journey. I am sure there is at least one MMO veteran who thinks this is "how it should be".
Clearly everyone wants some form of fast travel. Be it unrealistically small zones, teleportation, overly fast mounts that never tire, etc. What is being argued here how much and that is a factor of playstyle and tolerance to tedium.
My first journey from Freeport to Qeynos to meet up with a friend was very epic, I won't deny it. But I would sacrifice it in a second to avoid the mind numbing tedium of having to repeat that same journey 100 times, or the dozens of times I missed out on grouping with real-life friends because I couldn't make the journey in less than a half hour. Those downsides "to me" were so penalizing that it made EQ a chore and completely unfun and added nothing to the experience.
What most people seem to forget in the everlasting bashing of WoW and EQ2 was that those games and their mechanics were a reaction (arguably maybe an over-reaction) to the punishingly unfun mechanics that EQ had inflicted on the MMO community. Has pendulum swung to far? Maybe... but I know I never want to go back to how unfun those initial EQ mechanics were.
The opinions of EQ players are actually quite determining, since SOE is obviously wanting to create a game that is appealing toward them, among others.
I'm not exactly sure how you interpreted my response as a "straw man" argument, as it was directly in line with the basis of his argument. The position is quite clear: he, and you it seems, want a fast-travel system. This discussion is clearly based around the assumption that this sort of design is "tedious", and this same logic can be applied to basically as sort of design, right? There is nothing superficial nor distorted about my examples, as they are clear examples of simple game designs, just like travel. The point is that all these opinions are subjective, and making a claim that one design can be more tedious than another isn't going to be very convincing.
I'm not arguing against any fast-travel system. I agree with you that we need some form of it to keep the game from being completely lifeless. The point that I and many others are trying to make is that there needs to be enough limitation of it so that the world can still feel large. There just needs to good middle ground that appeals toward both sides, and unfortunately the recent MMO trends have been more in favor of fast-travel.
Interesting - so just because you don't define something to be difficult, it must not be!
Wrong. If you are at least even partially competent and/or literate, then you can distinctly see that the majority consensus on this subject is partial towards limited to no fast travel. You don't see people proclaiming "I want no fast travel because I like tedious and inconvenient game design!", they say it because these people find challenge and excitement in it.
I couldn't really care less what your definition of "real suggestions" are. If you want to go play a game that holds your hand with every design, there are plenty out there right now. Just because you spout that a certain design is "tedious" or "inconvenient" doesn't make it so for others. Would you also say that exclamation points and question marks are necessary for questing to not be "tedious"? How about quest helpers - since finding out things on your own is just so inconvenient and "superficial"? Maybe dungeon finder queues too?
In fact, how about scrap any sort of questing, travel, and monster killing altogether and just instantly get rewarded for clicking on an npc. That would keep players away from any "tedious" or "superficial" tasks, right?
No it is about redefining and changing the meaning of what is difficult and challenging content. Got nothing to do with how i feel. How many of you can actually say with a straight face that travelling for an hour from point A to be is challenging after doing its for 100th time?
The challenge should be in the activity itself for example it is not challenging if you it takes 2 hours to kill a BOSS with huge HP pool..but it is challenging if that boss has skills and tactics which makes the fight a challenge.
Rest of your post is just trying to put words into my mouth so i am going to ignore that.
I'm not putting any words in your mouth, that is completely the basis of your logic.
Your same argument can made against virtually any game design, provided that you just make the claim that a particular design is just "tedious" and not challenging at all. Some people may find killing monsters being tedious, others may find questing to be tedious. The idea that something taking a long period of time isn't difficult is subjective.
Would a 12 hour work day be less "challenging" if it was reduced down to five minutes? I would think so. The same concept can be applied to MMO's. The reason many boss fights take so long is because it makes the encounter much more physically and mentally challenging. Although running from point A to point B isn't as physically taxing as working a real job, it still takes a considerate amount dedication and patience. And if you don't see any sort of challenge in that, then I'd say it's about time to reevaluate your logic.
I don't find longer travel time challengeing I find it a annoying time sink.
and making something as taxing as a real job, is not making it challengeing it makes it annoying I come home to play games and relax and have fun not do a second job.
I enjoy a good challenge in a game I don't enjoy, time sinks, when a boss fight is nothing but a massive hit point pool and a wash and repeat attack pattern, its not a challenge its a annoyance.
P.S. compareing work to gmaeing is silly, for most people work isn't challengeing at all, its a time sink that geet your paid, some enjoy it some don't, most don't find it challengeing. using it as a comparison to gameing makes no sence.
What you are suggesting here is there is no comparison to RL work in an MMORPG.
I would point out quite the opposite. In real life you may
level 1:::: "work" in school studying things you find tedious to get to the point of
level 15::::"graduating" feeling of accomplishment. Ready to take on the world.
level 23:::::"work" doing something that generates income to upgrade your life and decorate your house etc.
level 32::::"work" you have earned enough to construct/buy your first home and start family.
level 47::::"working" towards a period when your investments will be self sustaining and you can do whatever you want.
level 50::::"done with work" now just have fun and chill a bit, living off your wares, working for fun.
In this breakdown I have attempted to point out how similar MMORPG's resemble real life.
To go even further...this game will be a sandbox. Sandbox games are even more player driven and closer to real life than my above examples.
Most players enjoy sandbox games because they can literally build and protect their own little part of the game world and share in small player built communities with other players. This whole process requires lots of what you might call "tedious" time building your avatar skills up in various ways that allow you to get better over time to the point that you are a full participant in your local area and maybe beyond.
If you introduce the instant low cost portals from every WoW clone into EQ, they should be build by an organization of players with different specializations, each putting in time and energy to make this portal. Once completed they would also need other player built portals to connect to. These would (similarly to other in game sandbox items) be able to be destroyed by siege mechanics or other such player driven forces. This way the fast travel routes may change as the game progresses and new secret portals might be created and either stumbled upon or told by other players.
This is the only instant travel I could get behind besides certain class spells and boats between continents or a space portal if they make Luclin again. Also flying zeplins are ok since the gnomes made them.
I like and miss the, you want fast travel, pay a player character to port you. I loved playing a porting class (Druid) and the importance they had. This was one of the reasons communities are no longer what they once were.
Do all you haters of "quick travel" walk everywhere? NO bikes, busses, cars, trains, planes?
I play games to "get away from RL for a bit". Spending 2 hours walking in game is a waste of time to me. Good for RP, but who does that anymore?
Players should still have faster travel spells "spirit of wolf" which is faster than you could ride a bike.
Bus, car, train,plane these are all modern day, but in mythical EQ times boats, zeplins.
Also player made portals, or player marked rune stones with destinations and number of charges. These would be much faster than a car, train, plane. It's more about player economy and less about the game actually automatically providing the "easy mode" auto blink to any of 30 locations since you visited them once.
I am with the no fast travel group on this. I only had a few hours to play due to job and wife even back during EQ and now with kids it is not like my time has increased. My thing is I miss the old world adventure for my 2 or 3 hours. Let me plan the multiple day trip. I remember the first time in EQ I saw an Erudite and a Wood Elf in Qeynos it was exciting. Fast travel exists just to let you port from loot pile to loot pile and makes the world useless. I don't mind the boats as i made many a new friend on them or even allow portals in major cities that cost a steep fee with a cooldown and all honesty not even sure I would want that.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
My gf and I agree that flying mounts while leveling and porting to duneons in WoW really hurt it.
It became too easy to pick up quest, mount fly up, land exactly where you needed to be, do your quest, mount and fly back. After all these yeas of MMOing, making players take the time to traverse the world gives it a sense of space and distance.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
That should not be blamed on fast travel, but on players becoming more antisocial over the years. An example of this would be the main faction cities in games. Many games make it where you have to return to these cities over and over for crafting, auction houses, ect., and yet while doing these things I rarely see people interacting with each other even though they all are standing around. Like with Tera which makes it so that people have to share campfires to regenerate health. There will be groups of people standing around for minutes at a time and yet still most of the time people are not chatting, not even on RP servers. Or in other games while camping dungeons looking for groups, or camping elite mob respawn points...still I'm more surprised when I do see people chatting because it is not the norm.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
That should not be blamed on fast travel, but on players becoming more antisocial over the years. An example of this would be the main faction cities in games. Many games make it where you have to return to these cities over and over for crafting, auction houses, ect., and yet while doing these things I rarely see people interacting with each other even though they all are standing around. Like with Tera which makes it so that people have to share campfires to regenerate health. There will be groups of people standing around for minutes at a time and yet still most of the time people are not chatting, not even on RP servers. Or in other games while camping dungeons looking for groups, or camping elite mob respawn points...still I'm more surprised when I do see people chatting because it is not the norm.
People are not just more antisocial all of a sudden. Any need to socialize has been removed from the modern MMO. They've streamlined everything until you no longer need to communicate, cooperate or strategize. Everything HAS to be as fast paced as possible (instant gratification), so theres never any downtime in games and that cuts out any socializing coming from there. No body has to rely on each other for travel, protection, buffs, ports or help at all, so there goes that interaction. The lack of community is the product of online multiplayer games that functionas a single player game for the majority of the playerbase.
I played Tera for 3 weeks, and though I stopped at quest hubs to group and socialize, nobody was interested in stopping. When I'd randomly invite people to the group, it was as if they weren't even grouped with me. They worked independently like I wasn't even there. I did several instances and not once was there any communication except for people bitching at other people because they "shouldn't have rolled need" on items. The sad thing is, I enjoyed these angry transactions in the group because it was the first time I felt like I wasn't playing with bots.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
That should not be blamed on fast travel, but on players becoming more antisocial over the years. An example of this would be the main faction cities in games. Many games make it where you have to return to these cities over and over for crafting, auction houses, ect., and yet while doing these things I rarely see people interacting with each other even though they all are standing around. Like with Tera which makes it so that people have to share campfires to regenerate health. There will be groups of people standing around for minutes at a time and yet still most of the time people are not chatting, not even on RP servers. Or in other games while camping dungeons looking for groups, or camping elite mob respawn points...still I'm more surprised when I do see people chatting because it is not the norm.
People are not just more antisocial all of a sudden. Any need to socialize has been removed from the modern MMO. They've streamlined everything until you no longer need to communicate, cooperate or strategize. Everything HAS to be as fast paced as possible (instant gratification), so theres never any downtime in games and that cuts out any socializing coming from there. No body has to rely on each other for travel, protection, buffs, ports or help at all, so there goes that interaction. The lack of community is the product of online multiplayer games that functionas a single player game for the majority of the playerbase.
I played Tera for 3 weeks, and though I stopped at quest hubs to group and socialize, nobody was interested in stopping. When I'd randomly invite people to the group, it was as if they weren't even grouped with me. They worked independently like I wasn't even there. I did several instances and not once was there any communication except for people bitching at other people because they "shouldn't have rolled need" on items. The sad thing is, I enjoyed these angry transactions in the group because it was the first time I felt like I wasn't playing with bots.
Its a joke.
True, I completely agree. But also, people seem to enjoy this more streamlined approach. They don't want to interact, they just want to max level as fast as possible and stopping to chat with others slows this down considerably. This includes helping others and having more useful crafting. Just try not having an auction house in a game and see the forums filling up with complaints about people having to take the time to go to other players to get the items they need. So I can't blame the games completely on that either.
My gf and I agree that flying mounts while leveling and porting to duneons in WoW really hurt it.
This is why for the last two expansions WoW has made it no flying til max level.
I have a feeling if they could do it all over again they would never have added flying mounts.
As for fast travel, EQOA did it right with the stable system. Fast travel is completely ok as long as you have to earn it by going there first, there arent excessive travel points, and there is a logical explanation for it (unlike GW2)
Originally posted by jdnyc Costly and rare fast travel for me.
This would be the best compromise IMO. I like both forms of travel, especially when I first get my mount, I enjoy just riding all over the place. But in games where the quests are more grindy, after a while I really begin to hate having to go back and forth to different zones, seeing the same things, and fighting the same mobs on route, over and over again.
I think the fast travel system Rift uses is one of the best. It has porticulums, but there are usually only 1 or 2 per faction per zone so it takes a bit to get to them depending on where you're questing at.
Personally, I believe that the larger and more open the world, then the slower the travel should be.
When I used to play Star Wars Galaxies, for example, my home town was Bestine on Tattoine. I rarely left the area around there simply because there was so much to do and because the landscape was so large.
I remember it took me three hours to take a shuttle to Mos Eisley (?) and then walk to the Ewok village so I could see the giant crawler there.
Going off planet took time and was a real adventure.
I think developers now believe that that kind of exploration experience is not what today's players want.
Personally, I believe that the larger and more open the world, then the slower the travel should be.
When I used to play Star Wars Galaxies, for example, my home town was Bestine on Tattoine. I rarely left the area around there simply because there was so much to do and because the landscape was so large.
I remember it took me three hours to take a shuttle to Mos Eisley (?) and then walk to the Ewok village so I could see the giant crawler there.
Going off planet took time and was a real adventure.
I think developers now believe that that kind of exploration experience is not what today's players want.
The travel system for SWG was perfect for it. It fit the world perfectly, which really is the #1 concern for any kind of travel.
Which is the issue with the PoK stones. Fast travel in the land of Norrath seems very logical, because if wizards and druids can do it, why couldnt we channel it into an object. However, it wasnt handled very well in this case.
The other fast travels systems though (Magus, PoD, spires) all made sense
I personally think EQ1 had the right amount of fast travel. Many expansions would give you fast travel to the first zone, but you were on your own after that. they should have handled the stones better though.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
That should not be blamed on fast travel, but on players becoming more antisocial over the years. An example of this would be the main faction cities in games. Many games make it where you have to return to these cities over and over for crafting, auction houses, ect., and yet while doing these things I rarely see people interacting with each other even though they all are standing around. Like with Tera which makes it so that people have to share campfires to regenerate health. There will be groups of people standing around for minutes at a time and yet still most of the time people are not chatting, not even on RP servers. Or in other games while camping dungeons looking for groups, or camping elite mob respawn points...still I'm more surprised when I do see people chatting because it is not the norm.
Fast Travel is a symptom for sure and all it does is PROMOTE anti-social behavior. Make EQN like EQ was when it comes to travel and fast travel (yes, there were classes that could teleport you) will result in players actually communicating with other again! Shocker I know.
Everyone just needs to relax until AUG 2nd. At that point we will/should know more. I just hope the information is more along the lines of EQ mechanics than those the current WoW generation of gamer want.
Mounts & Mass Transit of all types, sizes, and shapes should be the reliable method of travel and faster traveling mounts/mass transit does make sense.
Whats the point of having a big world if you can just blip here and there anytime you feel like it?
This isn't Star Trek folks; so immersion is lost with any kind of Teleportation.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
That should not be blamed on fast travel, but on players becoming more antisocial over the years. An example of this would be the main faction cities in games. Many games make it where you have to return to these cities over and over for crafting, auction houses, ect., and yet while doing these things I rarely see people interacting with each other even though they all are standing around. Like with Tera which makes it so that people have to share campfires to regenerate health. There will be groups of people standing around for minutes at a time and yet still most of the time people are not chatting, not even on RP servers. Or in other games while camping dungeons looking for groups, or camping elite mob respawn points...still I'm more surprised when I do see people chatting because it is not the norm.
Fast Travel is a symptom for sure and all it does is PROMOTE anti-social behavior. Make EQN like EQ was when it comes to travel and fast travel (yes, there were classes that could teleport you) will result in players actually communicating with other again! Shocker I know.
Everyone just needs to relax until AUG 2nd. At that point we will/should know more. I just hope the information is more along the lines of EQ mechanics than those the current WoW generation of gamer want.
eh, I dont think this is that big of a factor.
The number one reason for people being more antisocial imo is the rise of voice chat. people stick to their ventrilo channel and cant be bothered to type and only communicate with the portion of their guild that is in the channel.
Comments
You people really just don't get it lol. What you find tedious, many people find enjoyable. The reason this thread exists is because there are many people out there who don't want to be spoon fed with "convenient" game designs.
I've already made my point that this sort of logic can be applied to almost any design within a game, so spouting the same thing over and over really isn't going to convince people to think like you.
Ahh i see the problem here. You think we are trying to convince you or others here. Only because people are passionate about what they think about particular point doesn't mean they are trying to convince you.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Try not to use "majority consensus" from forum goers in regards to this subject as factor for any sort of real consensus, given the forum we are on and how nostalgicly addicted most here are to EQ1 we are highly subject to selection bias.
Everyone wants some form of non real travel for convience this arguement is simply about "how much". Since you used a strawman arguement, let me. How about we slow travel down so that its closer to real-life medieval travel times and it takes players real-time months to travel from Qeynos to Freeport. Hoping on a boat should should confine the players avatar to a boat stateroom for 2 full weeks as the boat makes its journey. No player teleportation as that would ruin the "experience" and acheivement of such a epic journey. I am sure there is at least one MMO veteran who thinks this is "how it should be".
Clearly everyone wants some form of fast travel. Be it unrealistically small zones, teleportation, overly fast mounts that never tire, etc. What is being argued here how much and that is a factor of playstyle and tolerance to tedium.
My first journey from Freeport to Qeynos to meet up with a friend was very epic, I won't deny it. But I would sacrifice it in a second to avoid the mind numbing tedium of having to repeat that same journey 100 times, or the dozens of times I missed out on grouping with real-life friends because I couldn't make the journey in less than a half hour. Those downsides "to me" were so penalizing that it made EQ a chore and completely unfun and added nothing to the experience.
What most people seem to forget in the everlasting bashing of WoW and EQ2 was that those games and their mechanics were a reaction (arguably maybe an over-reaction) to the punishingly unfun mechanics that EQ had inflicted on the MMO community. Has pendulum swung to far? Maybe... but I know I never want to go back to how unfun those initial EQ mechanics were.
The first time I ran from Greater Faydark to Halas was an epic 6 hour journey, and this was only to bring 10p to a shaman I rolled. How many times have I not ran for 45 minutes to a group only to hear "it fell apart", and then get a invite for another group halfway across the world. As much as tedious travelling adds to Immersion, it just doesn't justify the pain of all those "wasted" hours - In a game where grouping is needed, these long travel times were not doing anything good. Gating people around were big business and no doubt it added to the variety of roles to pick up, but finding a gater was not always easy. Infact the only reason I started boxing (which some people don't like) was to be able to transport my ass around, but then why not also play that character aswell ?.
Anyways, I am all for some kind of transportation system with some limitations. I hate instant click travel as i Gw2, it has to take some efford to travel, but not crossing and entire continent on autorun that takes 30 minutes. WoW griffon transportation system is not bad, and it also show the world while You fly so You are not completely disconneted (a land/abort option would have rocked). Vanguard was nice (Ill get a beating for this opinion) once they put in the continent portal system, not too intrusive but it allowed for getting to a group the same day. Also the luclin gates I liked, it was also a limited gating system with 15 minutes cooldown.
So a limited gate system preferably with timed transports (5 mins) combined with quick ferries and "griffon like" rides I think would be a good compromise. As a rule of thumb I would say travel that takes more than 25 minutes starts to get silly and not adding anything good to the game. 5-10 mins for shorter travel, 15-20 mins to change continents.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
The opinions of EQ players are actually quite determining, since SOE is obviously wanting to create a game that is appealing toward them, among others.
I'm not exactly sure how you interpreted my response as a "straw man" argument, as it was directly in line with the basis of his argument. The position is quite clear: he, and you it seems, want a fast-travel system. This discussion is clearly based around the assumption that this sort of design is "tedious", and this same logic can be applied to basically as sort of design, right? There is nothing superficial nor distorted about my examples, as they are clear examples of simple game designs, just like travel. The point is that all these opinions are subjective, and making a claim that one design can be more tedious than another isn't going to be very convincing.
I'm not arguing against any fast-travel system. I agree with you that we need some form of it to keep the game from being completely lifeless. The point that I and many others are trying to make is that there needs to be enough limitation of it so that the world can still feel large. There just needs to good middle ground that appeals toward both sides, and unfortunately the recent MMO trends have been more in favor of fast-travel.
What you are suggesting here is there is no comparison to RL work in an MMORPG.
I would point out quite the opposite. In real life you may
level 1:::: "work" in school studying things you find tedious to get to the point of
level 15::::"graduating" feeling of accomplishment. Ready to take on the world.
level 23:::::"work" doing something that generates income to upgrade your life and decorate your house etc.
level 32::::"work" you have earned enough to construct/buy your first home and start family.
level 47::::"working" towards a period when your investments will be self sustaining and you can do whatever you want.
level 50::::"done with work" now just have fun and chill a bit, living off your wares, working for fun.
In this breakdown I have attempted to point out how similar MMORPG's resemble real life.
To go even further...this game will be a sandbox. Sandbox games are even more player driven and closer to real life than my above examples.
Most players enjoy sandbox games because they can literally build and protect their own little part of the game world and share in small player built communities with other players. This whole process requires lots of what you might call "tedious" time building your avatar skills up in various ways that allow you to get better over time to the point that you are a full participant in your local area and maybe beyond.
If you introduce the instant low cost portals from every WoW clone into EQ, they should be build by an organization of players with different specializations, each putting in time and energy to make this portal. Once completed they would also need other player built portals to connect to. These would (similarly to other in game sandbox items) be able to be destroyed by siege mechanics or other such player driven forces. This way the fast travel routes may change as the game progresses and new secret portals might be created and either stumbled upon or told by other players.
This is the only instant travel I could get behind besides certain class spells and boats between continents or a space portal if they make Luclin again. Also flying zeplins are ok since the gnomes made them.
Do all you haters of "quick travel" walk everywhere? NO bikes, busses, cars, trains, planes?
I play games to "get away from RL for a bit". Spending 2 hours walking in game is a waste of time to me. Good for RP, but who does that anymore?
Players should still have faster travel spells "spirit of wolf" which is faster than you could ride a bike.
Bus, car, train,plane these are all modern day, but in mythical EQ times boats, zeplins.
Also player made portals, or player marked rune stones with destinations and number of charges. These would be much faster than a car, train, plane. It's more about player economy and less about the game actually automatically providing the "easy mode" auto blink to any of 30 locations since you visited them once.
how about no pvp servers at all?
thanks.
I disagree completely. I see this opinion on these forums a lot and it makes no sense. How is immersion lost? It has been the nature of humans through the ages to make traveling from point to point as fast as possible. Starting with creating roads, domesticating mounts, creating carts, carriages, trains, bikes, cars, planes, and the faster modes of these. So I fail to see how in MMOs where magic and things are readily used, why the idea of people using magic to make travel faster is immersion breaking. From my standpoint it makes a heck of a lot more sense than orcs wearing armor and wolves dropping loot.
My gf and I agree that flying mounts while leveling and porting to duneons in WoW really hurt it.
It became too easy to pick up quest, mount fly up, land exactly where you needed to be, do your quest, mount and fly back. After all these yeas of MMOing, making players take the time to traverse the world gives it a sense of space and distance.
No fast travel at all, ever. No teleporting.
Somewhere on one of the vast number of EQN feature threads (that are all speculation and opinion until August 2nd), there was a point made that instant travel does take away the opportunity for players to interact. The traveler runs up, clicks an object and poof, they are elsewhere. There's no time for them to interact with the people standing around that object, no time to talk, no time to buy something and no time to hear the bard perform. Lack of downtime, like waiting for a boat, waiting for mana / health, allows players to avoid the social aspects of the MMORPG, taking the point of the MM out of the product.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
That should not be blamed on fast travel, but on players becoming more antisocial over the years. An example of this would be the main faction cities in games. Many games make it where you have to return to these cities over and over for crafting, auction houses, ect., and yet while doing these things I rarely see people interacting with each other even though they all are standing around. Like with Tera which makes it so that people have to share campfires to regenerate health. There will be groups of people standing around for minutes at a time and yet still most of the time people are not chatting, not even on RP servers. Or in other games while camping dungeons looking for groups, or camping elite mob respawn points...still I'm more surprised when I do see people chatting because it is not the norm.
People are not just more antisocial all of a sudden. Any need to socialize has been removed from the modern MMO. They've streamlined everything until you no longer need to communicate, cooperate or strategize. Everything HAS to be as fast paced as possible (instant gratification), so theres never any downtime in games and that cuts out any socializing coming from there. No body has to rely on each other for travel, protection, buffs, ports or help at all, so there goes that interaction. The lack of community is the product of online multiplayer games that function as a single player game for the majority of the playerbase.
I played Tera for 3 weeks, and though I stopped at quest hubs to group and socialize, nobody was interested in stopping. When I'd randomly invite people to the group, it was as if they weren't even grouped with me. They worked independently like I wasn't even there. I did several instances and not once was there any communication except for people bitching at other people because they "shouldn't have rolled need" on items. The sad thing is, I enjoyed these angry transactions in the group because it was the first time I felt like I wasn't playing with bots.
Its a joke.
True, I completely agree. But also, people seem to enjoy this more streamlined approach. They don't want to interact, they just want to max level as fast as possible and stopping to chat with others slows this down considerably. This includes helping others and having more useful crafting. Just try not having an auction house in a game and see the forums filling up with complaints about people having to take the time to go to other players to get the items they need. So I can't blame the games completely on that either.
This is why for the last two expansions WoW has made it no flying til max level.
I have a feeling if they could do it all over again they would never have added flying mounts.
As for fast travel, EQOA did it right with the stable system. Fast travel is completely ok as long as you have to earn it by going there first, there arent excessive travel points, and there is a logical explanation for it (unlike GW2)
This would be the best compromise IMO. I like both forms of travel, especially when I first get my mount, I enjoy just riding all over the place. But in games where the quests are more grindy, after a while I really begin to hate having to go back and forth to different zones, seeing the same things, and fighting the same mobs on route, over and over again.
I think the fast travel system Rift uses is one of the best. It has porticulums, but there are usually only 1 or 2 per faction per zone so it takes a bit to get to them depending on where you're questing at.
Personally, I believe that the larger and more open the world, then the slower the travel should be.
When I used to play Star Wars Galaxies, for example, my home town was Bestine on Tattoine. I rarely left the area around there simply because there was so much to do and because the landscape was so large.
I remember it took me three hours to take a shuttle to Mos Eisley (?) and then walk to the Ewok village so I could see the giant crawler there.
Going off planet took time and was a real adventure.
I think developers now believe that that kind of exploration experience is not what today's players want.
The travel system for SWG was perfect for it. It fit the world perfectly, which really is the #1 concern for any kind of travel.
Which is the issue with the PoK stones. Fast travel in the land of Norrath seems very logical, because if wizards and druids can do it, why couldnt we channel it into an object. However, it wasnt handled very well in this case.
The other fast travels systems though (Magus, PoD, spires) all made sense
I personally think EQ1 had the right amount of fast travel. Many expansions would give you fast travel to the first zone, but you were on your own after that. they should have handled the stones better though.
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Fast Travel is a symptom for sure and all it does is PROMOTE anti-social behavior. Make EQN like EQ was when it comes to travel and fast travel (yes, there were classes that could teleport you) will result in players actually communicating with other again! Shocker I know.
Everyone just needs to relax until AUG 2nd. At that point we will/should know more. I just hope the information is more along the lines of EQ mechanics than those the current WoW generation of gamer want.
eh, I dont think this is that big of a factor.
The number one reason for people being more antisocial imo is the rise of voice chat. people stick to their ventrilo channel and cant be bothered to type and only communicate with the portion of their guild that is in the channel.