But just as the real world, travel to another city by auto takes a good bit of time, and to travel across the country, days. Of course we have fast travel options such as jets, but those come at a cost, they are expensive and we can't take all of our belongings with us. Of course the super rich (who there are very few of) can afford their own personal jet, but for the average Joe, you're going to have to deal with the limitations and plan your strategy around them.
I think you may be losing sight of the fact that these are games, not chores. It could be that I'm simply not seeing where you're coming from, so help me out here.
A player wants to join his friends for an activity (dungeon run, player venue, guild meeting, etc) in EQN. What do you see as the value to the player of monetary or time blockers to them doing so?
If a player wants to do any of those activities, then they should take whatever actions are necessary to make sure those are possible. This might include starting the journey early, making sure to stay geographically located near their friends, and heavens forbid, if their friends are not nearby, consider grouping up with other people they don't know as it would be more convenient.
Games in fact are a series of chores, though I would prefer to call them challenges and it can be part of the game play to learn how to work through and around them.
In regards to your other post, I can't agree that it is the developers job to ensure that the players are always having maximum fun at all times, sometimes you need to put in your effort to reap the rewards, and games are no different.
It's OK to make them work for it, and at times even have them bitch about having to do so.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Originally posted by Loktofeit I think you may be losing sight of the fact that these are games, not chores. It could be that I'm simply not seeing where you're coming from, so help me out here.
A player wants to join his friends for an activity (dungeon run, player venue, guild meeting, etc) in EQN. What do you see as the value to the player of monetary or time blockers to them doing so?
I think it is just a different view on what a MMORPG is. To me a MMORPG isn't just a game. It is a world that I can live in and a community I can interact with. The newer lobby games feel like 'just a game' when they could be so much more. Fast travel is ok as long as it is used sparingly. Fast travel like in GW2 or what WoW has become is a world killer though. They insinuated that it won't be a full travel web like WoW. If I can say take a transport from major city to major city and have to travel from there I'm totally fine with that.
I'm also excited by his mention of being in the reaches exploring some new procedurally generated content and having a friend want to join. If they use a lot of this in the game it will be so much better than the static games we have now.
MMo's are not just another form of entertainment. They Can be / Have been / Should be something deeper.
You should not just dungeon crawl trough an MMO you might asswell remove the entire world then put us all in a lobby and make it Diablo-3 but in a wow format. Fairly lame right? its exactly what we are doing nowadays tho.
tell me so you come online you hook up with your friends and your all in the same city you want to do a dungeon (open non instanced) so you set out to it. you take a fly path for 5 mins because your in the capital (you could have made camp in the town near the dungeon but lets say your in the capital) you end up in that town and then you have to mount up or run with a speedbuff along some trail or in the wilderness for 10 mins. so your total travel time 15 mins how much would that hurt in your 3 hour evening? not alot does it?
It's 15 minutes that my players aren't enjoying the content of the game.
You might even come across intresting things like players in need of help being overun by their mobs etc.
5 times out of 10 i did something completely diffrent from what we set out to do back in the day. and you know what? that was FUN. alot of fun. yes we did not grind for that day but we had fun doing whetever else we did.
Harsh travel times are so very much exaggerated....
If the person's goal is getting to their friends, getting overrun by mobs isn't necessarily fun, rather an obstacle not only to that person, but their friends who are waiting for him.
Each time someone pitches long travel, they almost always bring up the activities that happen along the way, which makes me think they really don't want long travel times but rather more unpredictable occurrences in their gaming to liven it up.
You've hit the nail on the head here I think. Long travel times where nothing can ever change (usually true in PVE games) are pretty pointless I agree, and other than to see the world (which you only need to do once or twice) there isn't a whole lot of point to it.
Which is why in PVP centric titles such as EVE, where you can be surprised (unpleasantly in most cases) even in "safe" zones it makes more sense to employ such mechanics.
But what you have to be careful of is the lure of wanting to make everything so efficient that all you end up with is a LFD tool and a bunch of instances that you travel to and back from. That might make for a great game, but doesn't make much of a virtual world which is what I'm always looking for. (yes, Narius, we know you hate that sort of gameplay)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You've hit the nail on the head here I think. Long travel times where nothing can ever change (usually true in PVE games) are pretty pointless I agree, and other than to see the world (which you only need to do once or twice) there isn't a whole lot of point to it.
Which is why in PVP centric titles such as EVE, where you can be surprised (unpleasantly in most cases) even in "safe" zones it makes more sense to employ such mechanics.
But what you have to be careful of is the lure of wanting to make everything so efficient that all you end up with is a LFD tool and a bunch of instances that you travel to and back from. That might make for a great game, but doesn't make much of a virtual world which is what I'm always looking for. (yes, Narius, we know you hate that sort of gameplay)
And it is what seems to happen to the "end game" in most mmos once they add this type of travel. You either end up framing mats/dailies etc or you're sitting in town waiting for the game to match you. The world may as well not exist.
It does seem to be one of those catch 22 things. No fast travel can be very frustrating to do anything in a group, but adding it can make the world seem small and pointless.
I like world size to mean something. Fast travel tends to compromise that. Lack of it opens up possibilities for gameplay elements like speed classes, mounts, and even special abilities like teleportation to have more meaningful impact.
Of course, every game is different and I would think wait and see is the best policy to use when determining if fast travel can be done in a fashion that doesn't compromise the above.
You can still make a world feel large i spose even with some fast travel, if it was like a hour or 2 of running between fast travel point you can still make the world feel large cause to get to points furthest from fast travel point it still be 30-60mins running i think thats a good medium i spose from no fast travel to to much fast travel. People who cant log on for long still have those places semi close to Fast travel points but those who wanna venture deeper into the wilderness and go on an adventure can still do so.
You can still make a world feel large i spose even with some fast travel, if it was like a hour or 2 of running between fast travel point you can still make the world feel large cause to get to points furthest from fast travel point it still be 30-60mins running i think thats a good medium i spose from no fast travel to to much fast travel. People who cant log on for long still have those places semi close to Fast travel points but those who wanna venture deeper into the wilderness and go on an adventure can still do so.
And that's the grey area that many people don't want to believe exists. I agree that done right, limited fast travel could still preserve the sense of scale for a world, as you described.
While i tend to dislike FT, i think one thing to consider is that it's implementation is often poor because it is ranked on to a game that wasn't designed for it. In a game built with the inclusion of FT in mind, i would be willing to put aside my bias and give it a go.
no loktofiet. those 15 mins are spent chatting with your group socializing and in those 15 mins you could come acrros a ton of diffrent things.
It's not you getting overun its other people. you decide to help them out tip the scales. anyone would in a game with a harsh death penalty. dying would be a sin. youd like the be helped out in that situation asswell.
and yes we want more unpredictability.
instanced dungeon grinding is the most boring thing ever. you do the same thing the entire time. I can still dream all of WoW's dungeons i know the fastest way to get trough when to use heroic leap or charge when to taunt etc. That my friend becomes a chore.
i still don't get why people would rather "grind"an instanced dungeon then "grinding"and open dungeon where alot more random things can occur.
Are we still talking about EQN here?
obviously not as EQnext will be littered with fast travel.:)
Isn't littering EQNext with fast travel going against SOE saying that they wanted people to stumble upon "events"? Events for lack of a better word for the Storybrick spontaneous content the game is supposed to have. They even said that the game wasn't supposed to get quest markers or alerts to tell players something is happening. Stuff is supposed to be random, because of Storybricks again. I also remember them saying that content was going to move around (procedurally re-created every X days). Basically, EQNext shouldn't be littered with fast travel.
Too much fast travel will render most of the content they talked about unused, because most MMO players are actually farmers/grinders only interested in farming/grinding what they think is the most rewarding thing all day long, see what GW2 has become for a very good example of this taken to the extreme. I can't believe people actually find this fun...I like GW2, I totally hate how players play it.
MMORPGs used to be about adventuring, socializing and exploring. Now they are just "get to the next attraction as fast as possible (friends optional) and complete it as fast as possible so I can maximize whatever I'm trying to do", aka they are no different than a lobby-games. They bring 0 reason to talk to people outside of your guild/friendlist because travel is trivialized, 0 reasons to go in an adventure because most rewarding activities are usually close to travel port for easy access and no reasons whatsoever to explore because it's not rewarding.
The EQNext round table are just making think that SOE is only interested in merging Minecraft with GW2, which is to say: a lobby-game with destroyable environment, not the hardcore sandbox first claimed (hell Georgeson even said he wasn't making a massappeal game a few months ago). I can't wait for the next round table about the death penalty, they are probably going to announce a small "repair" fee...
You simply cannot have a world that feels huge and allow players to play with their friends quickly when they want to. In the example given by the designer he was playing EQ and wanted to play with a friend. It took him ages to get to his friend and that made the world a huge place. But they also want to "incentivise" players to play together so they want to put fast travel into the game.
Its either or, you can't design both into your game. They talk about discovering teleport points and only then being able to use them. But with satellite style MMO maps and direction arrows it won't seem like a huge world. Time is key, if it does not take long to move from one city to another the world will seem small.
That's the great thing about choice, you can choose to take the long road or you can choose to take the short road. There is nothing stopping you from taking the long road other than sheer laziness and that's your problem, not the game design. I strongly believe in gamers being able to play an MMO their way without forcing other play styles to give up what they want out of a game.
Originally posted by sanshi44 You can still make a world feel large i spose even with some fast travel, if it was like a hour or 2 of running between fast travel point you can still make the world feel large cause to get to points furthest from fast travel point it still be 30-60mins running i think thats a good medium i spose from no fast travel to to much fast travel. People who cant log on for long still have those places semi close to Fast travel points but those who wanna venture deeper into the wilderness and go on an adventure can still do so.
And that's the grey area that many people don't want to believe exists. I agree that done right, limited fast travel could still preserve the sense of scale for a world, as you described. While i tend to dislike FT, i think one thing to consider is that it's implementation is often poor because it is ranked on to a game that wasn't designed for it. In a game built with the inclusion of FT in mind, i would be willing to put aside my bias and give it a go.
I dislike FT aswell, the best FT system i found was EQ1 where you had boats to take u from continent to continent (which was instant either was up to a 10 min wait for the boat then a 10-20 min boat tide on the way that made stops at islands alonmg the way) and the player portal spell which took u some places was still a bit of a run usualy from the portal location to where u wanted to go usualy. I would like to go back to this system but it seems to me alot of people have been spoiled over the years and could be thrown back into a situation like this atleast not straight away. This is where my suggestion came into play for those people who want exploration again they will have it maybe not quite as grand as in the old games but its still there, while those who cant play for long or dont wanan run a distance to do somthing can still do that and if they ever feel like and exploration they still have the option to do so time to time and venture out into the unknown. I think its a gread middle ground of the new game travel system and the older ones.
Originally posted by xeniar just add flight path's and stagecoaches (not too many) and they would be fine. Teleporting is an abomonation. should only be able to be cast by extremely powerfull wizards. akak not the playerbase.
And then you have people with a real life, who only have a 2 or 3 hs a day to play with friends, even when the game have a gorgeous world, they dont want to lost 2 hr travelling from one point to another to find a friend, or actually play the game.
yes and you already have a million of mmo's out there wich apearantly your not playing.
Let me and others around here have mine, you already have yours.
Not every game has to be catered around your convienience, you already have been catered for.
Nor you. I think you should take your own advice and pick one of the millions of MMO's catered for you.
problem is there arnt any. There are no MMO's with rulesets of old. Because the dumb masses get their panty's in a bunch because mob x is too hard for them.
Trust me if there where such games (and yes in know EQ is there but its changed beyond what it was to cater new folks etc) i would be playing it. Alot of people here on this board want a NEW (the eye wants something asswell) game with old rulesets. and trust me compared to the millions of themeparks youl like it.
I probably would like it.
However, no triple AAA game forces you to use these LFG port to dungeon tools. If you could find a few like minded individuals who play like you I'm sure you would find it rather enjoyable.
Originally posted by Scot Take a look at the round table video.You simply cannot have a world that feels huge and allow players to play with their friends quickly when they want to. In the example given by the designer he was playing EQ and wanted to play with a friend. It took him ages to get to his friend and that made the world a huge place. But they also want to "incentivise" players to play together so they want to put fast travel into the game.Its either or, you can't design both into your game. They talk about discovering teleport points and only then being able to use them. But with satellite style MMO maps and direction arrows it won't seem like a huge world. Time is key, if it does not take long to move from one city to another the world will seem small.
That's the great thing about choice, you can choose to take the long road or you can choose to take the short road. There is nothing stopping you from taking the long road other than sheer laziness and that's your problem, not the game design. I strongly believe in gamers being able to play an MMO their way without forcing other play styles to give up what they want out of a game.
I understand and respect your point. However, one potential problem with that is feature leak. When you include a feature, it affects other gameplay systems. The inclusion of FT seems like a game it or leave it thing, but when world are designed with the ability to warp around them, this often affects the content found in between these warp points and the overall direction of content development. This is more an issue of lazy development, to be fair, but it is with looking at.
Players will always take the easy option, you can't give them an easy option and expect them not to take it sometimes when they feel like having a stroll. And am I going to say to my guildmates, "I know there is a teleport, but lets just run there its only 5mins". That's where we are today even 5 minutes is too long if you can do it with the click of a button.
I am not against teleports by the way its just how many a MMO has. If they do the 'must find teleport point first to use it' that's a start. But look at GW2, move forward for 2mins and you bump into another teleport point.
To make a MMO world seem big you need to keep the number of teleport points low. Its a tricky equation, especially if you have to factor in mounts.
It's in vogue to bash WoW but I think WoW had a pretty good solution to fast travel.
You couldn't fast travel anywhere without first discovering a flight point on foot, which was a satisfying mini-quest in itself.
Then, even with flight points it could take over 10 minutes to fly the length of a continent which forced you to respect the geography.
Travelling between continents required waiting boats like in the old EQ.
It's actually EQ2 that has the most dumbed-down fast travel now. You just click the globe in any population center and insta-teleport to any other population center. The boats are completely obsolete.
But one thing the pro-fast travel crowd is cheating on is the "just make it a choice" argument.
MMO's are social games, nobody wants to nerf his own advancement while others zoom past him. Thus a "make my life harder than everyone else's" button is not a solution.
Players will always take the easy option, you can't give them an easy option and expect them not to take it sometimes when they feel like having a stroll. And am I going to say to my guildmates, "I know there is a teleport, but lets just run there its only 5mins". That's where we are today even 5 minutes is too long if you can do it with the click of a button.
What is the value to your guildmates of that five minute run? Maybe if you explain to them what you perceive is the benefit to them or their characters they might get on board with the idea of a task that they probably perceive as a pointless five minute delay of their fun.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Scot Players will always take the easy option, you can't give them an easy option and expect them not to take it sometimes when they feel like having a stroll. And am I going to say to my guildmates, "I know there is a teleport, but lets just run there its only 5mins". That's where we are today even 5 minutes is too long if you can do it with the click of a button.
What is the value to your guildmates of that five minute run? Maybe if you explain to them what you perceive is the benefit to them or their characters they might get on board with the idea of a task that they probably perceive as a pointless five minute delay of their fun.
Unless the developer has included naught but shrubs and low level mobs in the area the run takes place in because they know everyone will just fast travel to devour content as fast as they can. Then you have nothing to say to those guildmates.
Players will always take the easy option, you can't give them an easy option and expect them not to take it sometimes when they feel like having a stroll. And am I going to say to my guildmates, "I know there is a teleport, but lets just run there its only 5mins". That's where we are today even 5 minutes is too long if you can do it with the click of a button.
What is the value to your guildmates of that five minute run? Maybe if you explain to them what you perceive is the benefit to them or their characters they might get on board with the idea of a task that they probably perceive as a pointless five minute delay of their fun.
Unless the developer has included naught but shrubs and low level mobs in the area the run takes place in because they know everyone will just fast travel to devour content as fast as they can. Then you have nothing to say to those guildmates.
In another thread we came up with a possible solution. When you do a fast travel how about a mini game that has you traveling to your destination? So you could be riding down the Horde on land or sinking their ships as you cross the sea. Your travel "instance" would be joined by anyone who happened to be travelling at the same time as you. Your guild mates could join in the travel straight of if they accept your request to initiate group travel. This would not be PvP of course, I do want players to get where they want to go, but give them the feeling they have travelled a long distance.
If there had been fast travel in Lord of the rings, Frodo could have just instantly travelled to mount doom and thrown the ring into the fire without even getting attached to it. The book could have been a few pages though.
Throwing the ring into the fire was just a trivial task, the journey to get to Mordor was the adventure: friends were made, enemies had to be defeated, places discovered, people helped and was helped, wars were even fought. Thank you Tolkien for not including fast travel in LOTR.
I don't know when a quest turned out to be a 10 minutes task, but it doesn't leave room for the RPG part.
There is nothing wrong with fast travel between the largest hubs in a game. YOu don't want to have instant jumps like GW2 and you don't want to have every single quest hub have its own travel point like WoW has become. There is certainly a middle ground here and it sounds like that is what they are going to take.
Originally posted by Leemado If there had been fast travel in Lord of the rings, Frodo could have just instantly travelled to mount doom and thrown the ring into the fire without even getting attached to it. The book could have been a few pages though.
For the reader, there was fast travel, unless you're suggesting you have a copy where every ten pages there a two page section of
"And then they walked and walked, and they walked some more. Ooooh... how they walked, and verily they didst enjoy walking, as they walked on and on to their next adventure, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking some more. Much walking was there to be had, as the destination was far and the day was long, so they walked and walked, and walked some more.
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking..."
For the reader's enjoyment, Tolkein skipped over the bland moments of endless nothing to jump the reader straight to something happening.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
While I understand the argument of some of the posters here, I disagree with them.
I myself started playing MMO's when I was around 14, first MMO was FFXI. you wanted to talk about a hard MMO... and time consuming, that was it. But it was fine.. I had 5-9Hrs a day to play..and who cared how long it took.
But now I'm in my mid 20's, have a full time job, married and a couple of kids.. I would be the prime model for a "casual gamer"
But yet... I am not. Sure I only have MAYBE a couple of hrs each night to play a MMO, but does that mean I want my experience to be watered down and easy? Hell no!
One thing I started doing recently is I found a legal private wow server (wow-one.com) and started playing it with a couple of friends... it would be the "perfect" model for a casual gamer, leveling is increased x14 so you can hit 70 in just a couple of days no problem..
Flight paths are already discovered so you don't need to explore, you can use your "hearthstone" every 5 minutes...
If there was EVER going to be a MMO where you could hop on for 20 minutes and get something done, this would be it....
But after a couple of weeks... it really came down to this
-Burn through leveling -> get to endgame content -> raid a few raids..
There is/was no storyline that anyone cared about, it was all about racing to the end to get the best gear... And it was boring as hell! this isn't a mmoRPG, its farmvill 2.0
So what do I really want? sure I don't want to have to spend 30 minutes getting somewhere, but at the same time, I do feel like fast travel is a experience cheapening device, used by the lazy.. that have softened gamed, some of which used to be great storytellers.
Solutions?
here are a couple that I have thought of..
1st.
Get rid of leveling zones, as a player why should I start in a main city and then have to go up to 10 zones away to find my level 50 content?
Imagine a giant surrounding area around a main city, right in front of the gates and along the main road you had 1-10lvl content, over on the east edge of the zone you had a camp or two of trolls that were meant for lvl 30-40, near the main road there was a mineshaft that was a open world lvl 40 dungeon, which sometimes had mobs that leaked out and attacked the lowbie lvl 30 area.. etc. etc.. and this isn't the only zone, the surrounding zones have lvl 20-60 content.
That way its still dangerous to walk along the road, its still worth it to explore a whole zone, even if you would have normaly "outleveled" it.. you can still interact with level 15 players if you are a level 40..
2.
Getting rid of quest hubs, you have no idea how much this bothers me. Think of it this way, yeah I want fast travel.. "if I have to go 3 zones away to kill 4 raptors get their heads and then come back... just for 1000k XP and 2gold.... you better believe I want fast travel.."
^^And I agree with that... who wants to run back and forth to quest hubs for crappy turn in quest?
now would fast travel be as valueble if you wandered around the world, randomly finding quest, and that quest was out in the middle of no where?
"I'm wandering around the woods farming some alderwood for my carpentry skill, and I happen apon a run down old cabin, after investigating I realize there are fresh prints on the ground,
hmmm look like Trolls.. well from a few days ago I remember there being a troll camp just due south, so I huff it down there, sure enough they had kidnapped a old couple. the husband half eaten and slow roasting above the fire pit, the wife tied up off in the corner, the trolls look to be level 25ish.... so I can take them, I clear out the camp and rescue the woman, who was weary, but thankful for the rescue.
I deliver her to the nearest village, where she has family. She doesn't have much, but she rewards me with her husbands old sword. which has (X) stats etc..etc.."
And from then on in that village, some of the npcs knew you has the "hero" who rescued that woman.
Maybe these are the delusions of an old gamer... but I wish we actually had storylines in our games now days. Instead of a McDonalds XP-race-mcgrill.
Originally posted by Leemado If there had been fast travel in Lord of the rings, Frodo could have just instantly travelled to mount doom and thrown the ring into the fire without even getting attached to it. The book could have been a few pages though.
For the reader, there was fast travel, unless you're suggesting you have a copy where every ten pages there a two page section of
"And then they walked and walked, and they walked some more. Ooooh... how they walked, and verily they didst enjoy walking, as they walked on and on to their next adventure, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking some more. Much walking was there to be had, as the destination was far and the day was long, so they walked and walked, and walked some more.
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking..."
For the reader's enjoyment, Tolkein skipped over the bland moments of endless nothing to jump the reader straight to something happening.
Except I'm not the reader... I am the main character of my story. We are still talking about mmoRPGs here, the journey should be a great deal of the story. But of course, the game has to be designed so interesting things can happen to you in the way. It's not the walking part that makes it interesting but the things you can find in the way.
Besides, I also don't pretend that the world should be "walked". Horses and maybe other kind of mounts (in fantasy games) should be the way to go, ships between continents, etc. The important part is that you do have to go through the world so you can find adventures and so you don't loose the feeling you are in a virtual "WORLD". Otherwise it really is a multiplayer game with levels where you can find other people doing the same thing you are.
Originally posted by Leemado If there had been fast travel in Lord of the rings, Frodo could have just instantly travelled to mount doom and thrown the ring into the fire without even getting attached to it. The book could have been a few pages though.
For the reader, there was fast travel, unless you're suggesting you have a copy where every ten pages there a two page section of
"And then they walked and walked, and they walked some more. Ooooh... how they walked, and verily they didst enjoy walking, as they walked on and on to their next adventure, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking some more. Much walking was there to be had, as the destination was far and the day was long, so they walked and walked, and walked some more.
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking..."
For the reader's enjoyment, Tolkein skipped over the bland moments of endless nothing to jump the reader straight to something happening.
Except I'm not the reader... I am the main character of my story. We are still talking about mmoRPGs here, the journey should be a great deal of the story. But of course, the game has to be designed so interesting things can happen to you in the way. It's not the walking part that makes it interesting but the things you can find in the way.
Besides, I also don't pretend that the world should be "walked". Horses and maybe other kind of mounts (in fantasy games) should be the way to go, ships between continents, etc. The important part is that you do have to go through the world so you can find adventures and so you don't loose the feeling you are in a virtual "WORLD". Otherwise it really is a multiplayer game with levels where you can find other people doing the same thing you are.
"But of course, the game has to be designed so interesting things can happen to you in the way."
So you agree that no one wants to travel. What you're asking for is more unpredictable events while you're playing. That's fine, and i even suggested such earlier. Look, I don't doubt that somewhere out there is someone that wants to feel exploration every single time they walk between the same two points for months on end. Most people however aren't goldfish, and after a few times back and forth in the same area, they just want to get to the people they are supposed to meet or the task they want to complete.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Leemado If there had been fast travel in Lord of the rings, Frodo could have just instantly travelled to mount doom and thrown the ring into the fire without even getting attached to it. The book could have been a few pages though.
For the reader, there was fast travel, unless you're suggesting you have a copy where every ten pages there a two page section of
"And then they walked and walked, and they walked some more. Ooooh... how they walked, and verily they didst enjoy walking, as they walked on and on to their next adventure, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking some more. Much walking was there to be had, as the destination was far and the day was long, so they walked and walked, and walked some more.
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking..."
For the reader's enjoyment, Tolkein skipped over the bland moments of endless nothing to jump the reader straight to something happening.
Not true.
If you would skip the walking. you would go from A the shire to point B wich is mordor and cast the ring into the fires of mount doom was it?
the rest of the story consist of yes walking and shit happened during the walking.
Originally posted by Leemado If there had been fast travel in Lord of the rings, Frodo could have just instantly travelled to mount doom and thrown the ring into the fire without even getting attached to it. The book could have been a few pages though.
For the reader, there was fast travel, unless you're suggesting you have a copy where every ten pages there a two page section of
"And then they walked and walked, and they walked some more. Ooooh... how they walked, and verily they didst enjoy walking, as they walked on and on to their next adventure, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking some more. Much walking was there to be had, as the destination was far and the day was long, so they walked and walked, and walked some more.
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking..."
For the reader's enjoyment, Tolkein skipped over the bland moments of endless nothing to jump the reader straight to something happening.
Not true.
If you would skip the walking. you would go from A the shire to point B wich is mordor and cast the ring into the fires of mount doom was it?
the rest of the story consist of yes walking and shit happened during the walking.
So they fight a ringwraith and then turn a round and BAM spider then BAM orcs then... have you even read the books?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
If a player wants to do any of those activities, then they should take whatever actions are necessary to make sure those are possible. This might include starting the journey early, making sure to stay geographically located near their friends, and heavens forbid, if their friends are not nearby, consider grouping up with other people they don't know as it would be more convenient.
Games in fact are a series of chores, though I would prefer to call them challenges and it can be part of the game play to learn how to work through and around them.
In regards to your other post, I can't agree that it is the developers job to ensure that the players are always having maximum fun at all times, sometimes you need to put in your effort to reap the rewards, and games are no different.
It's OK to make them work for it, and at times even have them bitch about having to do so.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think it is just a different view on what a MMORPG is. To me a MMORPG isn't just a game. It is a world that I can live in and a community I can interact with. The newer lobby games feel like 'just a game' when they could be so much more. Fast travel is ok as long as it is used sparingly. Fast travel like in GW2 or what WoW has become is a world killer though. They insinuated that it won't be a full travel web like WoW. If I can say take a transport from major city to major city and have to travel from there I'm totally fine with that.
I'm also excited by his mention of being in the reaches exploring some new procedurally generated content and having a friend want to join. If they use a lot of this in the game it will be so much better than the static games we have now.
You've hit the nail on the head here I think. Long travel times where nothing can ever change (usually true in PVE games) are pretty pointless I agree, and other than to see the world (which you only need to do once or twice) there isn't a whole lot of point to it.
Which is why in PVP centric titles such as EVE, where you can be surprised (unpleasantly in most cases) even in "safe" zones it makes more sense to employ such mechanics.
But what you have to be careful of is the lure of wanting to make everything so efficient that all you end up with is a LFD tool and a bunch of instances that you travel to and back from. That might make for a great game, but doesn't make much of a virtual world which is what I'm always looking for. (yes, Narius, we know you hate that sort of gameplay)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
And it is what seems to happen to the "end game" in most mmos once they add this type of travel. You either end up framing mats/dailies etc or you're sitting in town waiting for the game to match you. The world may as well not exist.
It does seem to be one of those catch 22 things. No fast travel can be very frustrating to do anything in a group, but adding it can make the world seem small and pointless.
Of course, every game is different and I would think wait and see is the best policy to use when determining if fast travel can be done in a fashion that doesn't compromise the above.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
And that's the grey area that many people don't want to believe exists. I agree that done right, limited fast travel could still preserve the sense of scale for a world, as you described.While i tend to dislike FT, i think one thing to consider is that it's implementation is often poor because it is ranked on to a game that wasn't designed for it. In a game built with the inclusion of FT in mind, i would be willing to put aside my bias and give it a go.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
Isn't littering EQNext with fast travel going against SOE saying that they wanted people to stumble upon "events"? Events for lack of a better word for the Storybrick spontaneous content the game is supposed to have. They even said that the game wasn't supposed to get quest markers or alerts to tell players something is happening. Stuff is supposed to be random, because of Storybricks again. I also remember them saying that content was going to move around (procedurally re-created every X days). Basically, EQNext shouldn't be littered with fast travel.
Too much fast travel will render most of the content they talked about unused, because most MMO players are actually farmers/grinders only interested in farming/grinding what they think is the most rewarding thing all day long, see what GW2 has become for a very good example of this taken to the extreme. I can't believe people actually find this fun...I like GW2, I totally hate how players play it.
MMORPGs used to be about adventuring, socializing and exploring. Now they are just "get to the next attraction as fast as possible (friends optional) and complete it as fast as possible so I can maximize whatever I'm trying to do", aka they are no different than a lobby-games. They bring 0 reason to talk to people outside of your guild/friendlist because travel is trivialized, 0 reasons to go in an adventure because most rewarding activities are usually close to travel port for easy access and no reasons whatsoever to explore because it's not rewarding.
The EQNext round table are just making think that SOE is only interested in merging Minecraft with GW2, which is to say: a lobby-game with destroyable environment, not the hardcore sandbox first claimed (hell Georgeson even said he wasn't making a massappeal game a few months ago). I can't wait for the next round table about the death penalty, they are probably going to announce a small "repair" fee...
That's the great thing about choice, you can choose to take the long road or you can choose to take the short road. There is nothing stopping you from taking the long road other than sheer laziness and that's your problem, not the game design. I strongly believe in gamers being able to play an MMO their way without forcing other play styles to give up what they want out of a game.
I dislike FT aswell, the best FT system i found was EQ1 where you had boats to take u from continent to continent (which was instant either was up to a 10 min wait for the boat then a 10-20 min boat tide on the way that made stops at islands alonmg the way) and the player portal spell which took u some places was still a bit of a run usualy from the portal location to where u wanted to go usualy. I would like to go back to this system but it seems to me alot of people have been spoiled over the years and could be thrown back into a situation like this atleast not straight away. This is where my suggestion came into play for those people who want exploration again they will have it maybe not quite as grand as in the old games but its still there, while those who cant play for long or dont wanan run a distance to do somthing can still do that and if they ever feel like and exploration they still have the option to do so time to time and venture out into the unknown. I think its a gread middle ground of the new game travel system and the older ones.
I probably would like it.
However, no triple AAA game forces you to use these LFG port to dungeon tools. If you could find a few like minded individuals who play like you I'm sure you would find it rather enjoyable.
That's the great thing about choice, you can choose to take the long road or you can choose to take the short road. There is nothing stopping you from taking the long road other than sheer laziness and that's your problem, not the game design. I strongly believe in gamers being able to play an MMO their way without forcing other play styles to give up what they want out of a game.
I understand and respect your point. However, one potential problem with that is feature leak. When you include a feature, it affects other gameplay systems. The inclusion of FT seems like a game it or leave it thing, but when world are designed with the ability to warp around them, this often affects the content found in between these warp points and the overall direction of content development. This is more an issue of lazy development, to be fair, but it is with looking at.http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
Players will always take the easy option, you can't give them an easy option and expect them not to take it sometimes when they feel like having a stroll. And am I going to say to my guildmates, "I know there is a teleport, but lets just run there its only 5mins". That's where we are today even 5 minutes is too long if you can do it with the click of a button.
I am not against teleports by the way its just how many a MMO has. If they do the 'must find teleport point first to use it' that's a start. But look at GW2, move forward for 2mins and you bump into another teleport point.
To make a MMO world seem big you need to keep the number of teleport points low. Its a tricky equation, especially if you have to factor in mounts.
It's in vogue to bash WoW but I think WoW had a pretty good solution to fast travel.
You couldn't fast travel anywhere without first discovering a flight point on foot, which was a satisfying mini-quest in itself.
Then, even with flight points it could take over 10 minutes to fly the length of a continent which forced you to respect the geography.
Travelling between continents required waiting boats like in the old EQ.
It's actually EQ2 that has the most dumbed-down fast travel now. You just click the globe in any population center and insta-teleport to any other population center. The boats are completely obsolete.
But one thing the pro-fast travel crowd is cheating on is the "just make it a choice" argument.
MMO's are social games, nobody wants to nerf his own advancement while others zoom past him. Thus a "make my life harder than everyone else's" button is not a solution.
What is the value to your guildmates of that five minute run? Maybe if you explain to them what you perceive is the benefit to them or their characters they might get on board with the idea of a task that they probably perceive as a pointless five minute delay of their fun.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What is the value to your guildmates of that five minute run? Maybe if you explain to them what you perceive is the benefit to them or their characters they might get on board with the idea of a task that they probably perceive as a pointless five minute delay of their fun.
Unless the developer has included naught but shrubs and low level mobs in the area the run takes place in because they know everyone will just fast travel to devour content as fast as they can. Then you have nothing to say to those guildmates.http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
In another thread we came up with a possible solution. When you do a fast travel how about a mini game that has you traveling to your destination? So you could be riding down the Horde on land or sinking their ships as you cross the sea. Your travel "instance" would be joined by anyone who happened to be travelling at the same time as you. Your guild mates could join in the travel straight of if they accept your request to initiate group travel. This would not be PvP of course, I do want players to get where they want to go, but give them the feeling they have travelled a long distance.
Throwing the ring into the fire was just a trivial task, the journey to get to Mordor was the adventure: friends were made, enemies had to be defeated, places discovered, people helped and was helped, wars were even fought. Thank you Tolkien for not including fast travel in LOTR.
I don't know when a quest turned out to be a 10 minutes task, but it doesn't leave room for the RPG part.
"Life's a journey not a destination" by Aerosmith
There is nothing wrong with fast travel between the largest hubs in a game. YOu don't want to have instant jumps like GW2 and you don't want to have every single quest hub have its own travel point like WoW has become. There is certainly a middle ground here and it sounds like that is what they are going to take.
For the reader, there was fast travel, unless you're suggesting you have a copy where every ten pages there a two page section of
"And then they walked and walked, and they walked some more. Ooooh... how they walked, and verily they didst enjoy walking, as they walked on and on to their next adventure, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking some more. Much walking was there to be had, as the destination was far and the day was long, so they walked and walked, and walked some more.
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking...
Walking... and walking... and walking..."
For the reader's enjoyment, Tolkein skipped over the bland moments of endless nothing to jump the reader straight to something happening.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
While I understand the argument of some of the posters here, I disagree with them.
I myself started playing MMO's when I was around 14, first MMO was FFXI. you wanted to talk about a hard MMO... and time consuming, that was it. But it was fine.. I had 5-9Hrs a day to play..and who cared how long it took.
But now I'm in my mid 20's, have a full time job, married and a couple of kids.. I would be the prime model for a "casual gamer"
But yet... I am not. Sure I only have MAYBE a couple of hrs each night to play a MMO, but does that mean I want my experience to be watered down and easy? Hell no!
One thing I started doing recently is I found a legal private wow server (wow-one.com) and started playing it with a couple of friends... it would be the "perfect" model for a casual gamer, leveling is increased x14 so you can hit 70 in just a couple of days no problem..
Flight paths are already discovered so you don't need to explore, you can use your "hearthstone" every 5 minutes...
If there was EVER going to be a MMO where you could hop on for 20 minutes and get something done, this would be it....
But after a couple of weeks... it really came down to this
-Burn through leveling -> get to endgame content -> raid a few raids..
There is/was no storyline that anyone cared about, it was all about racing to the end to get the best gear... And it was boring as hell! this isn't a mmoRPG, its farmvill 2.0
So what do I really want? sure I don't want to have to spend 30 minutes getting somewhere, but at the same time, I do feel like fast travel is a experience cheapening device, used by the lazy.. that have softened gamed, some of which used to be great storytellers.
Solutions?
here are a couple that I have thought of..
1st.
Get rid of leveling zones, as a player why should I start in a main city and then have to go up to 10 zones away to find my level 50 content?
Imagine a giant surrounding area around a main city, right in front of the gates and along the main road you had 1-10lvl content, over on the east edge of the zone you had a camp or two of trolls that were meant for lvl 30-40, near the main road there was a mineshaft that was a open world lvl 40 dungeon, which sometimes had mobs that leaked out and attacked the lowbie lvl 30 area.. etc. etc.. and this isn't the only zone, the surrounding zones have lvl 20-60 content.
That way its still dangerous to walk along the road, its still worth it to explore a whole zone, even if you would have normaly "outleveled" it.. you can still interact with level 15 players if you are a level 40..
2.
Getting rid of quest hubs, you have no idea how much this bothers me. Think of it this way, yeah I want fast travel.. "if I have to go 3 zones away to kill 4 raptors get their heads and then come back... just for 1000k XP and 2gold.... you better believe I want fast travel.."
^^And I agree with that... who wants to run back and forth to quest hubs for crappy turn in quest?
now would fast travel be as valueble if you wandered around the world, randomly finding quest, and that quest was out in the middle of no where?
"I'm wandering around the woods farming some alderwood for my carpentry skill, and I happen apon a run down old cabin, after investigating I realize there are fresh prints on the ground,
hmmm look like Trolls.. well from a few days ago I remember there being a troll camp just due south, so I huff it down there, sure enough they had kidnapped a old couple. the husband half eaten and slow roasting above the fire pit, the wife tied up off in the corner, the trolls look to be level 25ish.... so I can take them, I clear out the camp and rescue the woman, who was weary, but thankful for the rescue.
I deliver her to the nearest village, where she has family. She doesn't have much, but she rewards me with her husbands old sword. which has (X) stats etc..etc.."
And from then on in that village, some of the npcs knew you has the "hero" who rescued that woman.
Maybe these are the delusions of an old gamer... but I wish we actually had storylines in our games now days. Instead of a McDonalds XP-race-mcgrill.
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Except I'm not the reader... I am the main character of my story.
We are still talking about mmoRPGs here, the journey should be a great deal of the story. But of course, the game has to be designed so interesting things can happen to you in the way. It's not the walking part that makes it interesting but the things you can find in the way.
Besides, I also don't pretend that the world should be "walked". Horses and maybe other kind of mounts (in fantasy games) should be the way to go, ships between continents, etc. The important part is that you do have to go through the world so you can find adventures and so you don't loose the feeling you are in a virtual "WORLD". Otherwise it really is a multiplayer game with levels where you can find other people doing the same thing you are.
"But of course, the game has to be designed so interesting things can happen to you in the way."
So you agree that no one wants to travel. What you're asking for is more unpredictable events while you're playing. That's fine, and i even suggested such earlier. Look, I don't doubt that somewhere out there is someone that wants to feel exploration every single time they walk between the same two points for months on end. Most people however aren't goldfish, and after a few times back and forth in the same area, they just want to get to the people they are supposed to meet or the task they want to complete.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Not true.
If you would skip the walking. you would go from A the shire to point B wich is mordor and cast the ring into the fires of mount doom was it?
the rest of the story consist of yes walking and shit happened during the walking.
So they fight a ringwraith and then turn a round and BAM spider then BAM orcs then... have you even read the books?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre