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Running in MMOs
rionkm
Member Posts: 15
This is more like a suggestion. I personality think running to a location can be a bit boring... why can't a game be fun and use all that energy to charge up a special attack or something and not waste all that time just running? Or use all that energy to add more power to weapons or something.
It would be more rewarding. What do you all think?
Comments
You're dead on in your observation.
It's a time sink. A tedious but required activity that makes your pace of gameplay slower, thereby requiring you to spend more hours in the game to achieve something useful.
The reality is that if games didn't have time sinks, you'd be able to complete them fully in a matter of a few weeks. That wouldn't be good for subscriptions. Boring is what we must deal with between doing the things we want to do.
Lets see you bust out your front door, run half a mile at full speed, then whip out an axe and chop down a good sized tree in under 5 swings. omg wtf whoever invented TP is ebil, it's too sloooow! Why not they just give us bots to play for us? Then we can just go watch TV again.
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Well so long as I run out the front door and get rid of all the toxins in my body and warm up alittle, it does the job. It's a game, I'm sure the developers can improve and give us some special power while we run,... so long as the player doesn't fatigue. I'm also sure that a few games have 'auto pliot' aswell to get to their desire location... a solution found in some clients.
Well that's one way to look at it.
For me, travel helps forge the idea of a "world" over just an game where I'm zipping all over the place. Might as well just have a lobby and let me pick from a list which places I want to go.
One of the best things in Lineage 2, at the start, was that people couldn't afford the fast travel so they ran everywhere. So much of the game happened in those journeys.
In any case, if I ever fund and design a game I guarnatee that people will have to travel a bit so if you see "designed by Sovrath" save your money as I like the travel.
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But no game worlds force you to do that any longer. Some people complained who didn't like mmo's so we have instant travel for everyone in most every game, along with most every thing instant. Don't even need a horse any longer, not unless you can pull it out of your pocket before you TP just to look kewl. These used to be mmorpg's not CRPG's, but the line has blurred. Used to even need to find groups to travel, meet new people, but all that world immersion was vanquished.
Yeah, it's just a game now.
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I think you want to make the player feel like they are traveling a great distance without wasting their time traveling.
It is fun to think that you are going on an epic adventure, but padding the travel time between point A and point B doesn't make interesting.
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Agreed, travel mechanics don't exist simply to frustrate the player and increase sub time. They are a vital part of creating an impression of living in a world rather than jumping through a bunch of instances.
People frequently complain in EVE that the travel time is too long. But it serves as a strategic element in the gameplay which players much learn to minimize and use to their advantage when necessary.
Even though EVE has jumpgates, it still can take quite a while to move a long distance and it gives the impression of the EVE universe being quite large, which is all part of the fun IMO.
But to each his own, some folks can't stand travel and want to see it totally gone.
As for powering up a character while they run I suppose that's OK, but you'd have to be careful to make it so that players weren't over-encouraged to spend all their time running to achieve this magic power. (sort of like how DF players macro swim to skill up, sort of a silly mechanic IMO)
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long travel time also makes sense in games with deep and complex economy systems. with fast travel most of the crafting/trading part is flattened on gathering base materials and selling stuff for lowest prices on a server-wide auction system.
with long travel times and limited cargo space, you have many more possibilities to extend the gathering/crafting/trading part (i.e. you might need raw materials from different regions to make some advanced stuff, that will open up a whole lot of new gameplay options)
Long travel times are a rip off. They are put into games by empty suits who want to separate you from your money.
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It's content, but cheap to create content.
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Anyone who ran across one of the continents in VG knows this.
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The first time it's exploring--maybe if the terrain is interesting--the second time it's a commute.
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TRavel times from place to place allows the a more immersive experience. While this may not be important to all players, it is not worthless. HOnestly, I think we have gotten soft when it comes to playing MMOs and ease of travel is one aspect/
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The exception of course is when travel times do not actually add to the immersion of the game.
Immersion is pretty much useless it is boring.
I would much prefer zip to an instance without travelling and get to the good parts faster. The first time finding the dungeon may be fun. The 5th time is a chore.
That is why dungeon finder is so popular in WOW. You don't have to run to dungeons anymore, aside from forming the group for you.
A game like City of Heroes you stop running no later than level 14. Sooner, if you complete the safeguard/mayhem mission and get your temporary travel power. Even WoW, not a hard game to begin with, has made it easier by giving basic mounts at 20.
Although some say it's a timesink, I tend to disagree. Mindless faction grinding, now that is a timesink. Sometimes running helps with the feeling of a larger world. If you look at GW the lands feel awfully small since I can insta-port to any place I been to before. In a way it's to show how your character is growing that he now has a mount/car/ship/whatever to get from Point A to Point B faster.
i don't disagree with you, but after a wile of running back and forth at running speed between two points that are fairly far apart gets dull FAST!
Your answer is.... Asheron's Call.
Once you've leveled your run skill up you run faster then mounted people in other games.
The game is also built around portals. You hop in a portal and instantly pop out in a town across the map. Doesn't take a long time to get anywhere in the game.
I'm sure there alot of solutions of speeding up the process of getting from one location to another... I wasn't aware that there's many MMOs that have different solutions.