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Fast Travel
asdar
Member UncommonPosts: 662
I'm hoping that EQ has limited fast travel. I think the perfect system is one or two classes with TP, boats for rent that cost, and boats for free that only leave at intervals. If the world is huge, then I'd add in some kind of spires for travel between the largest areas. Mounts for sure for land travel. I also like bind recall for all players with a long cast and cycle time.
I'm really against free fast travel to everywhere, or even to places you've already been. I hope that people want to fight in an area so that you recognize other players in your area because you've seen them before.
Asdar
Comments
agreed. Slow travel is my preference.
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I completely agree with this...
I would like to have the original model of travel from EQ1.
1. Wizard spires (wizards can port ppl at higher levels)
2. Druid rings (Druids can port ppl at higher levels)
3. Regular SOW for faster run speed.
4. Possibly add mounts for slightly faster movement than SOW, but should be expensive. (Player controlled mounts)
5. HUGE NONO!!! to any form of Taxi services. (example... Griffin towers in EQ2, stables EQ2.. etc, etc...)
In reference to number "4" (the player controlled mounts, part) and "5" (a form of taxi service but make it run by players) why not make these part of the game either independantly or all inclusive under same professsion?
In regards to number "5" for example, a person chooses that they want to spend their time or efforts to make some coin by taxi-ing people in game. Make it a profession that has to be leveled up and call it "chauffeuring" profession or something. The person that has this profession has the ability to tame mounts (allowing a saddle to be placed on them and be ridden). A "chauffeur" could actually raise and care for newborn animals (making the young aged animals the only ones that are capable of being captured and trained) until they grow to a certain age where they can be saddled and taught to allow characters to sit on them (kinda like breaking a horse). As a "chauffeur" they cast their "Tame snarling buffalo" ability (and they are the only ones that can cast this ability on an animal) and now the animal can have a saddle placed on it and ridden as a mount. In "chauffeuring," ya start (let's say) by training giant turtles (maybe they can go like 10-15%, or whatever, faster than peoples run speed). Then once you've mastered "taming the giant turtles" ability, you are now able to skill into "taming wild boars" ability (maybe they can go like 20-25% increase in speed) and so on and so on until you have trained up to tame the faster mounts (like horses or whatever they may be). Heck you could really go deep into this and make it so the mounts can have actual stats that you could boost and specifically help them train up so they can run faster and farther or whatever; allowing you to train them like a cross fit instructor. Make the mount BOE once the player sits on it so now it's exclusively theirs.
You could potentially make it overlap with other crafting professions. For example like a weaponsmith or something that makes specific traps to capture specific animals for training and raising. This in turn would give other skills/professions a chance to connect; for example gathering or harvesting to obtain the mats to make the traps. Make traps tradeable so people have the ability to capture and raise their own animal (with player made traps) and they can bring it to a "chauffeur" (who spent his or her time leveling that profession up) to tame the animal for them so they later can put a saddle on it. when it's full grown. Now people have a connection to their own mount that they caught, trained, and raised themselves.
Next, have it so the mounts need to be fed by player made foods while you're raising it and even once it's full grown (perhaps adding bonus food to make the animal grow faster or train their stats quicker...or whatever). Now you've made it so people who enjoy the cooking skill have a purpose to connect them with "chauffeuring" and where they can turn a profit from their craft. This also makes it so the cooking skill relies on the gathering or harvesting skills to get the ingredients needed to make the mount foods.
Maybe even make it so you could trade animals that are already captured in a trap by somebody else. Or they can perhaps purchase a mount that's already been captured, raised, and tamed by a "chauffeur" for those that dont have an animal that they captured that's ready to be tamed quite yet and need a starter mount while they are raising their own captured animal. The trap makers need mats from the gathers and harvesters of the mats and the "chauffeur" tames (possibly also raises and trains) the animals. They all turn a profit from their individual skillsets and become a part of the game economy. I can see the global trade chat now: "WTB black horse trap. PST" or "WTB Norrathian Bamboo Stalks to make traps. PST" or "LF a Chauffeur to tame my Spiked Wildabeast pup. PST."
Then we move on to the armor crafter who makes the saddles to ride these mounts. Have it so the mounts must have saddles (that are made by the armor crafters) in order to be ridden. Make it so certain saddles only allow you to ride specific mounts. Now you've made it so people who enjoy the armor crafting profession have a purpose to connect them with "chauffeuring" and where they can turn a profit from their craft by selling saddles. Have it where the saddles can be augmented by gemcrafters to add bonus stats to perhaps raise the length a horse can be ridden or faster mounting dismouting or add to the base stats of the horse...whatever. This also makes it so the armor crafting skill relies on the skinning or harvesting skills to get the mats needed to make the saddle and now even mining augments for gemcrafting.
Now people would need to go to the "chauffeur" if they wanted to tame the animal they raised, purchase a mount that's already tamed, or rent one out to be used as a taxi service (make a cast ability or something that's chauffeur specific like "cast 1hr rental saddle") that they put on one of their tamed animals. The rental saddle has say a one hour timer on it, and once the timer expires, the saddle disappears (going back into the chauffeur's inventory) and kicks the player off the mount; at which point the mount runs back to its owner. Or if the player brings their own saddle to use on the chauffeur's mount, their saddle can only stay on the rented mount for however long the rental period was and the player gets kicked off the mount upon expiration of the cast ability (and the player owned saddle goes back into their inventory). Can even make different timed rental saddle cast abilities the chauffeur can have at his disposal; one hour saddle, three hour saddle, twelve hour saddle...etc. There's a ton of possibilities here.
Perhaps not a perfect system here (since i only was thinking spur of the moment and didnt plan the whole thing out) with kinks that need to be worked out but it's a foundation for an idea. Anyways, you get the picture. Endless possibilities here that allow people to be a part of the game economy and give their profession/skill a purpose. Everyone gets a mount sooner or later and now you've just involved the entire community for this aspect of the game instead of just handing over your gold coins to a stable master or griffon tamer. You've also inspired another way to allow the community to speak with and meet each other as well as immersing you into the game a bit more by making your mount feel like it's your own and an extension of your toon. Just my two copper peices.
Really? LOL!
Seems more like 10pp to me.
Anyways, it's not a bad idea, but I think the mounts need to have a life cycle. If you don't feed them or something, they die. (Similar to the plant from EQ2) Because the profession needs a business, and since there wont be just 1 of these guys running around and taming animals, there needs to be a safe switch. (Mount deaths from starvation, age, combat, etc...) Just to make sure more mounts can be sold to each individual that already had bought one before.
Also, this profession needs some fighting capabilities. Somewhere between a Ranger and a Beastlord. Just because I don't think these guys want to only tame animals day in and day out, to make them into mounts.
I agree with the OP %100. Nothing kills immersion like being able to travel across the world instantly whenever you want. The journey is just as important as the destination IMO. I have fond memories of sitting on the boat in EQ. Having vast distances that require actual time to cover adds a lot to the experience.
I have the same feeling about dungeons. Call me crazy, but I think you should have to actually venture to a dungeon in order to run it. And if you die, you need to run back! I know it sounds weird, but catastrophic wipes and epic corpse runs are part of the experience.
While I agree with the OP as limited fast travel does add a sense of depth. I just ask if any of you have played GW2 with there waypoint system. While it does take away from the immersion. It is very convenient. I am guilty of using it. Where as I could just choose not to.
So this brings up the argument of convenience vs immersion. If they did put in alot of ways to travel. Would you use them ?
i suppose if they don't give the option well then there is always that.
most worlds these days do feel awfully small in comparison to even early EQ1 Norrath before even kunark. This did have alot to do with the fact it took time to travell.
conveniance vs immersion. That will be a hard fought battle for sure.
See there? I love everything ya put there in the first paragraph (aging, starvation, death). Kind of on the fence about making this into a class like you're suggesting in the second half of your post though since the person would now have to committ to that class. I think maybe better as a profession to allow anyone to be able to take this up. Otherwise, one specific class has the market on mounts and now you're committed to be this class and fight as it also. You would almost be forced to have the other classes be profession specific also (only warriors can be miners, only enchanters can be gemcrafters...that sort of thing). I think maybe leaving it a profession allows the player to pick this as a craft while still be able pick what they want to fight as (making their choices more flexible). Well done, Storm. You have added onto it and come up with some great ideas!
Hehehe, kinda like the profession Bio-Engineer from SWG.
Not bad, now you just gotta poke the bear. (SOE) And make sure you poke it really hard so that it takes notice of you, lol.
EDIT: Actually, Bio-Engineer/Creature Handler combo is what I think it was. It was a long time ago.
I for one hope that their are many different types of travel so that going from one place to another doesn't feel like a huge time sink the 100th time you go there. I started playing everquest in 1999 and while I can certainly appreciate the feeling of nostalgia one gets when thinking back to "the good old days" of traveling, I think the ship has sailed when it comes to limited options of travel.
In today's market you should give your players more options not less. You don't want to use the teleport system? No problem don't use it. Don't punish other people who might only have an hour or so to play and don't want to spend half of that time traveling somewhere to get a goal accomplished.
There hundred of games that offer conviences, however there very little which offers immersion and there also a large market for players looking for immersion i would think it would be best for SOE to focus on immersion over convience seeing there already a flooded market for that.
Also i loved the old EQ style of travel, people need to learn to slow down sometime and enjoy the journey and not just rush all over the place missing out on everything.
I would also like to see no instances in EQnext cause thats another thing that completly destroys immersion for convience in today games.
There is no sense in forcing people to spend time travelling after the 100th time.
No, appeasing you, the minority, is not worth it, and you're talking to what is generally a "hardcore" gamer since I've won video game tournaments and competed and such.
You know, road trips are nice in real life sometimes. But I'm not going to take the same road trip twice unless I have to, I'll just take an airplane for convenience. See what I mean?
You can't force someone to take the exits and look around. They just want to stay on the freeway and get to where they want to be.
I think WoW does its exploration just fine, however the sharding of servers I am impartial to. I still sensed adventure on WoW, even when leveling up through the Mists of Pandaria zone. I was like "Oh, wow, this is cool"
Lol make people pay real money for fast travel, like you would an airplane. After all it is going the pay to achieve things faster route most likely.
+1
The fast travel system in GW2 (plus no mounts) helped ruin the game for me personally.
But Im guessing you still used it while you played? You could have always opted not to.
i think having teleport points kind of like what Vanguard had, mixed with a system like early EQ1 had would be best. The spires of Norrath are iconic.
Totally true, I agree I could have not used them. But, for me, the fact they were there and others used them broke immersion for me a bit. This is just a small example of by gripes with the game, but that's not a discussion for this thread.
To be honest, I think there is too much focus on slow travel. There are so many other things that needs to be right, that are much more important. Sure it is nice to have and give a real world feel, but a limited form of fast travel I am in favor of.
Eq had fast travel from the beginning anyways, it was called druid and wizard gates and everyone used it - Including YOU.
In vanguard there were at first no fast travel, but that meant I could not join my friends on another continent because it took litterally 1 hour to run there. Later it got a few gates on each continent, now you could be there in 20 mins but still not effordless.
What I want are mechanics that makes sense, and that you have to make an efford to use. Running from Feydark to Commonlands for a group arriving 40 mins later was not fun, but to open map and click a waypoint (like gw2) and be instantly there is stupid too.
I kindda liked how WoW did it, two people had to travel with griffons for 5-10-15 mins to a dungeon but once there they could summon someone else at the entrance. It required some efford and travel and running, a good compromise .. for WoW.
Anyways.. forced pauses in combat, much more important.. makes people talk, travelling is after you done it 100 times is a timezink.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
"gettting there is half the fun" Holds true irl, holds true in mmos.
Less immersion breaking carebear -phasing- instanced- cutscene- fast travel game machanincs, more virtual world k thx.
The way mmo's were: Community, Exploration, Character Development, Conquest.
The way mmo's are now : Cut-Scenes,Cut-Scenes, solo Questing, Cut-Scenes...
www.CeaselessGuild.com
Travel in EQ1 wasn't really that slow. The faster traveling (druid and wiz gates) was cooperative, which I think added to the game. With SoW, and gates, travel was pretty speedy, unless you were going to the other side of the world without a player gate.
There were plenty of ways to keep travel times down, liking binding near your hunting spots so you wouldn't have long run backs.
Even when they added in the pok books, people still had to run a bit.
Every now and then there were a few really long treks, if I didn't bother to get a gate, but I had the same kind of treks in WoW. Before they changed it, the trip from darnassus to stormwind probably was about the same going from halas to freeport, if not gfay.
For fast travel, I'd like to see player run travel, for greater coop and immersion (druid, wiz), and speed spells like SoW. Mounts are fine, really the same thing as SoW, but I always liked the super fast running speed instead of mounts lol. It was always nice casting SoW on self outside the dungeon and having its benefit for the next 30+ minutes inside, while with a mount, you can't use inside.
I don't really disagree with you kjempff on the point that there are much more important issues. This was just one I was thinking of.
Here's what I like the most about certain classes having TP. It gives incentive to make friends. I know that sounds crazy especially to people that have friends that play, and I have a few that will, but still I think just saying hi to your druid/wizard friend is worth something. I can't tell you the number of times I got into fun that started with me asking a friend for a TP.
I guess for me I'd like to extend this 'need' across the classes. In EQ Clerics rez'd so they were needed, Wizards and Druids TP'd and later in some cases Necro's coffin'd people out. It's probably stretching it a bit to include necros.
I wouldn't mind at all seeing traps that needed rogues or SK's maybe, or some other class based skill that you would want to have around for other reasons than combat. That class need is something I miss. While I don't love the trinity, I do want classes of some kind and for diverse groups to be better than stacked groups.
Asdar
Summoning Stones in WoW was a good idea, bad in execution. I was in a lot of groups where we had to /roll and the lowest 2-3 had to go the stone. And if the other faction had more than you at the summoning stone, you had to be like "sorry, you need to get here on your own"
Take off your nostalgia glasses, and it was a pain in the ass in EQ1 after the first time. I personally dont mind how WoW does it. I liked Mists of Pandaria zones and the scenery and still appreciated it even with waypoints. Who is Everquest Next's target audience? The common MMO fan + EQ vets most likely. EQ vets are older now. Probably in their 20+. A lot of them have real life obligations. And then the common MMO fan, which have certain expectations + a semi young crowd that is used to be being gifted everything for free. You NEED aspects of your MMO that you can hop on, play for 45 minutes or an hour, and leave. If it takes 45 minutes to get to where you want to be, then they will not bother getting on. And we all know how it goes with MMO. Not getting on one day leads to not getting on during the week, and slowly you're quitting the game and submitting to the idea that yo're not going to play it.
I will not be surprised at all if there is some sort of LFG system in Everquest Next. They said their company is dependant on the success of this game, and its too much to challenge the casual fanbase. You HAVE to appease them in ways.
The way you launch a game is you suck up to the hardcore players, make sure there is end-game content for them. They are a powerful vocal minority -- They will HATE your game from the forums and game within, and whether you want to believe it or not, it changes a casuals experience or even makes them adopt the same mentality. Have content ready for max level, then work on more content to flow in. If your end game is good, popular streamers will advertise your game on their social media and their stream and get new people to play. Hardcore players will fight for your game if its a good game, even if the population suffers.
With an MMO nowadays, 3-6 months is too long to wait for new content. People slowly fickle out of the game, or just log in for new content day. Obviously make sure the leveling is awesome, but a common flop for recent MMOs is lack of end-game content. Promising it isnt enough. You have to have it AT LAUNCH or 2 weeks into it. You cant launch the game THEN start end-game content, the game moves faster than your company produces.