jadaski said:Porygon said:
How this relates to Pantheon is that I can see high level zones becoming the "big city" while low level zones depopulate to the point where they aren't even small towns anymore; they have depopulated into ghost towns. Since I would argue that after a certain point the high level zones will become more populated than they need to be for a healthy social experience in those zones, encouraging players to spread out instead of congregating in endgame areas will help reduce the problem of a top heavy server, as more "small towns" naturally form around the world, instead of high level zones housing nearly all of the population. This won't immediately help low level players find same level groupmates, since the players lured away from high level zones will be too high level to group with them (without trivializing the game). However, it will at least provide people to talk to, to fill in their social network, and may entice high level players to level an alt to help a newfound lowbie friend, whereas before that high level player would only associate with similarly leveled players and would have little social impetus to reroll.
I would not call a dispersal of the population "segregation" any more than I am segregated from my neighboring town. If I have to drive 20 minutes to reach a friend in another town (which I do all the time in real life), am I segregated from him? For me it's a hassle, but not an insurmountable obstacle. Should we all move to large cities because living in small towns are a more intensified form of segregation? In the end, there will still be plenty of people in high level zones regardless of how many move to other zones. I'm personally far more worried about low level zones becoming ghost towns than I am about a dispersal of the population away from endgame zones. Local banks seems like a natural remedy for alleviating top heavy server populations, and a far less disruptive one than the tech that modern MMOs use to make low level zones seem populated.This brings up a number of questions. How many friendly NPC towns will exist in Pantheon? How are they going to be positioned on the map? How large is the map? How dangerous is it to travel from any given city to another?
Also, what was it like later in EQ's life; were lowbie zones sufficiently populated? Hell, what is it like now on old, existing EQ servers? (It should be noted that I've never played EQ.)
Edited for a more logical structuring of the second and third paragraph.Great post! In Eve Online there are swathes of empty systems, barely inhabited and areas with extremly frenetic activity. Taxation and resource allocation may help in keeping low level areas vital. Maybe get rid of the whole idea of low level areas by having content for all levels in most areas.
MauvaisOeil said:That's only presuming travelling won't be faster at higher levels. I can't argue it will be the case, but what IF it was ? Inventory is usually expanding with levels and goodies avaliability, what if walking or mounting did increase as you level thought things like "wilderness knownledge" "Riding skills" etc ... ?
Thoses things would cut off the time you take to go from X city to Y city, and while not aleviating the restriction of local banks, it would reduce the time you need to access your wares by going to another city.
I agree with this, i have such stated different ideas to evolve fast travel oppurtunities as you level up (which is typically met with pitch forks and torches) While leveling i understand the restrictions, but once youre max level and have already visited different locations, i dont see the issue with creating ways to speed up getting from one place to the other. The only reason i say that this idea has no place, is because youre already making travel tedious. Theres no reason to make other aspects of the game ALSO tedious because of that.
Now if travel becomes easier at a higher level, i have 0 issues with having regional or local banks. I just dont see the need for both.
Porygon said:I agree with this, i have such stated different ideas to evolve fast travel oppurtunities as you level up (which is typically met with pitch forks and torches) While leveling i understand the restrictions, but once youre max level and have already visited different locations, i dont see the issue with creating ways to speed up getting from one place to the other. The only reason i say that this idea has no place, is because youre already making travel tedious. Theres no reason to make other aspects of the game ALSO tedious because of that.
Now if travel becomes easier at a higher level, i have 0 issues with having regional or local banks. I just dont see the need for both.
Most things in any game become tedious if it is done enough. I have noticed in many MMOs that incorporate a fast travel system the content tends to turn into fetch type quests where you are going back and forth a lot. Now that is tedious. I like the idea of it taking a while to travel between cities because after you finally arrive you really feel like you are at some distant place. Ideally, travel would take enough time so that when I decide to cross the continent to another city I will plan to stay in that area for a few play sessions.
Fast travel is one of the main things that killed the mmo genre for me. I hope it is very limited in Pantheon, at all levels.
Best,
Pilch
Kastor said: Overall I dont like this idea... maybe it's because I like to travel and explore?? Not saying anything about anyone else. Just thinking how much of a pain in the butt this would be. Especially with having travel times higher/longer. It would even be a huge pain with instant travel to the different banks and cities. Maybe... maybe different banks per continent. But you would see a 3rd party addon immediately get made for this and list all your items and currency and their locations.
I have to agree. This will be a major pain in the ass. Are you going to be able to Mail stuff to an alt? what if I want to give my ALT 1000 gold? but since it's another race, I can't give characters on my Own account money that I made?
You guys can like this all you want. I hate it. It serves no purpose. Local AH's.. don't like it, but whatever, local only banks? straight sucks. Needing to go GET gear for a raid means, night one will be people going all over the world gathering their Cold resist armor and a 2nd night to actually start the raid....
Looks like my main will be a wizard simply because they can port. not because I want to be a wizard.... pretty lame ...
You could play druid. They can port too :)
But whichever you decide, I'd love to bum a ride!
Parascol said:You could play druid. They can port too :)
But whichever you decide, I'd love to bum a ride!
lol sure thing. Just yell taxi and ill swing by and port ya.
Honestly, I don't like the idea (of a local only bank), but whatever. I'm game. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds and I actually don't mind being a wizzy. I will just make a Dire Lord alt as well.
Pilch said:Fast travel is one of the main things that killed the mmo genre for me. I hope it is very limited in Pantheon, at all levels.
Most games nowadays have fast travel from nearly every zone you visit (ala wow flight paths).
I think there's a way to incorporate fast travel but also make it meaningful.
Require max level. That way while leveling your travel decisions make a huge difference.
Require that you explore a majority of the world, that way you're not just taking away the sense of accomplishment and exploration that comes with slower moving games.
Hell, make it a quest that will allow you to purchase a caravan from town a to town b to town c at a much greater speed than normal.
I'm fine with 0 fast travel from continent to continent but there should be some form of travel for me once I've explored the entire world and have no need to travel 5 mins through the level 10 starting zone.
Flapp said:Parascol said:You could play druid. They can port too :)
But whichever you decide, I'd love to bum a ride!
lol sure thing. Just yell taxi and ill swing by and port ya.
Honestly, I don't like the idea (of a local only bank), but whatever. I'm game. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds and I actually don't mind being a wizzy. I will just make a Dire Lord alt as well.
Well, you could always make your Direlord main if that is what you truly want to play and then make a wizard backup in case you really find the travel too cumbersome?
Just some food for thought!
Porygon said:
Most games nowadays have fast travel from nearly every zone you visit (ala wow flight paths).
I think there's a way to incorporate fast travel but also make it meaningful.
Require max level. That way while leveling your travel decisions make a huge difference.
Require that you explore a majority of the world, that way you're not just taking away the sense of accomplishment and exploration that comes with slower moving games.
Hell, make it a quest that will allow you to purchase a caravan from town a to town b to town c at a much greater speed than normal.
I'm fine with 0 fast travel from continent to continent but there should be some form of travel for me once I've explored the entire world and have no need to travel 5 mins through the level 10 starting zone.
Good points. I think you are right that there could be improvements to fast travel, where it still makes the world feel large. I do like the idea of a quest, if it was a difficult quest, that allowss you to some sort of fast travel to different parts of the world. Maybe through a raid the boss can drop a shard that allows you to teleport to a certain place, then the shard would take a set amount of time to recharge.
Pilch said:Porygon said:
Most games nowadays have fast travel from nearly every zone you visit (ala wow flight paths).
I think there's a way to incorporate fast travel but also make it meaningful.
Require max level. That way while leveling your travel decisions make a huge difference.
Require that you explore a majority of the world, that way you're not just taking away the sense of accomplishment and exploration that comes with slower moving games.
Hell, make it a quest that will allow you to purchase a caravan from town a to town b to town c at a much greater speed than normal.
I'm fine with 0 fast travel from continent to continent but there should be some form of travel for me once I've explored the entire world and have no need to travel 5 mins through the level 10 starting zone.
Good points. I think you are right that there could be improvements to fast travel, where it still makes the world feel large. I do like the idea of a quest, if it was a difficult quest, that allowss you some sort of fast travel to different parts of the world. Maybe through a raid the boss can drop a shard that allows you to teleport to a certain place, then the shard would take a set amount of time to recharge.
Porygon said:
Most games nowadays have fast travel from nearly every zone you visit (ala wow flight paths).
I think there's a way to incorporate fast travel but also make it meaningful.
Require max level. That way while leveling your travel decisions make a huge difference.
Require that you explore a majority of the world, that way you're not just taking away the sense of accomplishment and exploration that comes with slower moving games.
Hell, make it a quest that will allow you to purchase a caravan from town a to town b to town c at a much greater speed than normal.
I'm fine with 0 fast travel from continent to continent but there should be some form of travel for me once I've explored the entire world and have no need to travel 5 mins through the level 10 starting zone.
Good points. I think you are right that there could be improvements to fast travel, where it still makes the world feel large. I do like the idea of a quest, if it was a difficult quest, that allowss you some sort of fast travel to different parts of the world. Maybe through a raid the boss can drop a shard that allows you to teleport to a certain place, then the shard would take a set amount of time to recharge.
EDIT: sorry for the repeat comments. Just noticed I was hitting "quote" and not edit. It's still early!
Regarding fast travel:
1. I'm generally against it. Enjoy the ride, guys, and if they implement it well enough there will be content for you on every trip, regardless of your level.
2. Druid circles/wizzie portals I'm assuming allow the transport of your party, not large amounts of goods. Druids will be deep in the woods, connecting to another circle deep in another wilderness. wizzies up in a tower or something connecting to another arcane location. Neither case is generally accessible from large cities, nor powerful enough to transport large caravans.
3. In the caravan system I mentioned above, you could have both and they wouldn't compete with each other. Transport your party around for exploring using wizzies/druids, but to transport goods, you need to use caravans or walk the whole way with fewer items.
4. If you want to send money to someone, it goes via caravan at a cost or you can leave it for them at a specific bank and they can pick it up.
5. You can join the caravan/merchant ship, perhaps, as a form of fast travel but you need to defend it from raiders/pirates.
While Porygon and I are generally in agreement on this topic - I do not think that making fast travel available at maximum level is at all a good idea.
1. Most importantly - it gives an incentive to speed-level and bypass content to get the convenience of fast travel. If I am level 40 and level-cap is 50 I may focus on nothing but the fastest xp per minute for the last 10 levels so that I can move around faster. Some people will push to level cap for many reasons, such as raiders that feel that everything in the game is merely a barrier to the only thing that matters - level-cap raids. I myself may speed-level a character for very different reasons - to have a good money-maker to support a large and growing family of alts. My point isn't that speed leveling is evil - my point is that it is not something we want the design of the game to encourage. Core objectives are a large world and slow progress.
The law of unintended consequances comes to mind - Porygon's intent may have been solely to make life easier at level-cap but it would have a large impact on how we actually play at lower levels.
2. Given the choice between excessive fast travel and none at all I will unhappily pick none at all as the lesser of the evils.
3. I continue to believe that rather than dogmatically say "no fast travel" it would be wiser to say "no fast travel in areas where that would make the world seem smaller and more trivial". Going slowly where we face no challenge, have nothing to accomplish, and have seen the terrain dozens of times falls to me on the unnecessary tedium rather than large world side of the ledger. But the character's level isn't the key factor here. A level 20 going for the 50th time between starting area crafting hub and starting area trading hub (assuming different locations for each) would face the same issue.
4. While I liked few things about FFXIV I prefer its approach to opening up fast travel area-by-area after one had done almost all of what there was to do over the idea of tying it to character level. But better NO fast travel if it doesn't meet the basic criteria of being over areas the character has often traversed and where it faces no challenge or opportunity.
dorotea said:4. While I liked few things about FFXIV I prefer its approach to opening up fast travel area-by-area after one had done almost all of what there was to do over the idea of tying it to character level. But better NO fast travel if it doesn't meet the basic criteria of being over areas the character has often traversed and where it faces no challenge or opportunity.
In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.
Pilch said:dorotea said:4. While I liked few things about FFXIV I prefer its approach to opening up fast travel area-by-area after one had done almost all of what there was to do over the idea of tying it to character level. But better NO fast travel if it doesn't meet the basic criteria of being over areas the character has often traversed and where it faces no challenge or opportunity.
In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.
You're right, but to be fair, almost every other game with unlockable fast trave/teleport options falls into this trap as well.
My personal opinion on fast travel in Pantheon is that we probably shouldn't have any teleports at all, and only have options such as mounts or spells to speed up movement across zones. I already know that the game will offer more than that, which worries me because I feel like it's a slippery slope - but I also understand the desire to allow players to meet up with each other quickly so they can do some adventuring as well.
>In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.<
I agree - maybe I wasn't clear. I was referring to the system of flying travel within a zone where you had to learn the air currents before you could fly in that zone. Which meant essentially finish the zone.
I don't like that system either but I like it *more* than having the ability to travel gated by level.
As I hopefully was more clear on - I think fast travel should be limited to a small number of routes where slow travel is just annoying not world-expanding. Without opening faster travel up at level cap.
Flapp said:Parascol said:You could play druid. They can port too :)
But whichever you decide, I'd love to bum a ride!
lol sure thing. Just yell taxi and ill swing by and port ya.
Honestly, I don't like the idea (of a local only bank), but whatever. I'm game. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds and I actually don't mind being a wizzy. I will just make a Dire Lord alt as well.
Here's a crazy Idea. Maybe you could just invite a Wizard to group with you. it's intirely possable they will be looking for a Tank as well.
dorotea said:>In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.<
I agree - maybe I wasn't clear. I was referring to the system of flying travel within a zone where you had to learn the air currents before you could fly in that zone. Which meant essentially finish the zone.
I don't like that system either but I like it *more* than having the ability to travel gated by level.
As I hopefully was more clear on - I think fast travel should be limited to a small number of routes where slow travel is just annoying not world-expanding. Without opening faster travel up at level cap.
I get what your saying, and I know you are against fast travel per your previous posts. I just wanted to share my thoughts on FFXIV. I loved FFXI so much, FFXIV was a crushing blow for me lol. Yes, when HW released the air currents were a good way to make you earn that flying ability, you are right about that.
Pilch said:In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.
FFXIV's fast travel system wouldn't be so bad if the zones were connected in ways that made sense instead of being tiny, isolated patches. When you go from zone to zone, you oven are technically crossing huge swaths of land in that loading screen, and the zone and map design don't make this clear at all. That makes it very different to maintain a cohesive sense of the world. Even the maps suffer from this, as there's no way to look at a map with every zone connected as it should be.
What's more, FFXIV's quests suffer from the worst case of fetch quest I've ever seen. Oh, I'm getting sent back to the Waking Sands AGAIN... There are literally quests you pick up in one place that are just "Go here and tell Person X I'm doing Y and then come back to me", where Person X is four zones away but it shouldn't even matter because don't they all have linkpearls anyway?? Ugh! (Lol I hate the quests in FFXIV, if you can't tell. xD)
FFXIV's world is hyper-instanced (instances within instances within instances within...), which also doesn't help matters.
I hated the world layout, map design, and travel in that game. >_<
Pilch said:In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.
As someone who doesnt mind "fast travel" i will absolutely agree. I would never call out for instant teleporting, its just silly. I much more prefer "slow" fast travel in the form of flight paths or caravans that will take you from one place to another.
Seems like it's just a decision that will make the game a bit more tedious. If there are only local banks and everytime I go somewhere new I have to do a mule run then it's just one more boring piece of the game that I'll get tired of doing.
Now, if there's a mechanic to allow me to transfer items for a fee and for some processing time then I could be interested. So if I'm in area A and I've completed the quests and want to move to area B I go to the bank, click on "ship all", pay my fee, and it will take 24hrs for the delivery stork to fly everything to the new bank. If I need something sooner then I take a few things on my person before moving.
Heck, this could even be turned into a player quest where players are contracted to do the shipping so it could arrive sooner if I pay an extra fee for player shipment. If no player picks it up then I get refunded the additional fee after the 24hrs has elapsed.
Naunet said:
What's more, FFXIV's quests suffer from the worst case of fetch quest I've ever seen. Oh, I'm getting sent back to the Waking Sands AGAIN... There are literally quests you pick up in one place that are just "Go here and tell Person X I'm doing Y and then come back to me", where Person X is four zones away but it shouldn't even matter because don't they all have linkpearls anyway?? Ugh! (Lol I hate the quests in FFXIV, if you can't tell. xD)
Oh I dislike the FFXIV quests also! Especially those from ARR.
Porygon said:Pilch said:In my opinion, FFXIV has the worst fast travel system of any game I have played. That game is a big part of why I'm so against a fast travel of any kind. Everyone teleports everywhere, very few people even know how the zones connect to each other anymore, myself included. Compared to FFXI, where I can remember small details and routes of every zone in the game pretty much.
As someone who doesnt mind "fast travel" i will absolutely agree. I would never call out for instant teleporting, its just silly. I much more prefer "slow" fast travel in the form of flight paths or caravans that will take you from one place to another.
right, I could see some sort compromise being made for fast travel of that sort.
I could totally get behind airships from city to city like in FFXI. Those were awesome, and I loved seeing the continents from the air!
Porygon said:As someone who doesnt mind "fast travel" i will absolutely agree. I would never call out for instant teleporting, its just silly. I much more prefer "slow" fast travel in the form of flight paths or caravans that will take you from one place to another.
Agreed. This is what I have in mind when I consider what "fast travel" might be like in Pantheon - certainly not teleporting around all over the place.
EVE Online was like this and it really made gameplay, uhm, punishing if you did not plan and place things appropriately. But I would argue that this same consequence helped to make the universe of EVE appear very large and more realistic. And that was a good thing. It placed an emphasis on planning and utilizing logistical decisions that supported effective gameplay. I think this idea can crossover to the fantasy realm too.
I'm playing ESO right now and I have to say that it is the craziest thing to see bankers and merchants chasing after their PC owners like pets all over Tamriel. :)
It's like....having an ATM card while you kill dragons. Strange.