Goblin Squad Member
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I read the thread about how mounts will ruin the game, and it dawned on me that he wasn't arguing that mounts would ruin the game so much as fast travel. I actually have to agree that instantaneous fast travel would be detrimental to how GW has prosed to design the game (a.k.a. with travel times for selling goods and whatnot).
So I got to thinking of how we can have a travel system that allows people to get from point A to point B without having to run/walk/ride all the way, because lets face it: no want wants to have to manually direct a character across a continent that is supposed the size of Asia. I came up with the collowing concept:
Travel Hubs
There will be 2 kinds of travel hubs: ports and caravan posts. These are the places that ships/caravans pull into to seek new cargo and passengers. Going into a travel hub will bring up a list vehicles appropriate to the hub and their itineraries.
Itineraries
This is where things really start to come together. Each ship/caravan will have its own itinerary. These will indicate when they will arrive at the given hub, as well as when they leave and when they arrive at other hubs. When your character choose to board a ship/caravan, they will be presented with a list of destinations and associated gold costs.
From here, they simply select their chosen destination and their character will automatically board the ship/caravan or wait until it arrives and then board it. Once on board a ship, you will still have access to all chat functions, but your avatar itself will be largely unavailable.
Now here is where the kicker comes in: The ship/caravan travels in real time. It will stop at each hub along the way, and will deduct the gold cost of transport as it arrive at each hub. At any time a player may choose to get off at an earlier hub instead of completing the full journey, and they will have already paid the cost for traveling to that location.
The player may log off their character at any time during this process once they have chosen a ship/caravan and a destination. Their character will automatically board, travel, and get off as they have chosen while they are offline or playing another character. This does mean that the player MUST be able to afford the full cost of the journey in order to select it.
Benefits
1) Maintains the "big world" feel that is integral to the setting GW has set out to create.
2) Provides a way to "autopilot" travel across the world, which is necessary in my opinion to prevent players from never leaving their home country.
3) Still associates a cost with travel and maintains the realism of travelling cast distances.
4) Doesn't lock players out of any interaction or punish them if they accidently click to travel to a hub much farther away than they intended.
Downsides
1) No instant travel means that forming groups will have to be coordinated in advance.
2) Placement of travel hubs by developers can artifically "force" players to congregate in certain areas (maybe have a way for players to build their own hubs or ships/caravans?).
3) Ability to implement difficulties during travel will be hard since players will likely not be online during travel.
Closing
I think this is a great way to maintain the feel that GW is looking for in having a large game world. Instant travel may still be available (I'm looking at you wizards), and players may be able to create their own itineraties via spells like Wind Walk.
The primary goal is to allow a way for players to travel from A to B without having to be online constantly guiding their character, and without said travel being instant. If anyone has any additional ideas or comments, please post em!
Also, if I seem unclear on anything, let me know so I can clarify it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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fast travel in PfO will not be instantaneous or will be risk free.
Basically you will ride a mount that you dont control from A to B. However during this time you can be hunting/mugged and knocked off your horse, so its not a safe way to travel. this was from the kickstarter countdown q and a.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Downsides? I think those aren't really downsides.
1) Yes, and I think that's not a downside, but a different style of playing. With companies building cities, economy and trade, strategy, politics - those are things we don't usually see in an MMO. And those things wouldn't work (or at least they wouldn't be fun) if achieved too easily. While planning ahead and stuff like that is not a core feature in other games, it could be different here. In WoW you just want to raid a certain dungeon (or however that works)- here you will have a greater picture. It's not just a raid, it's maybe a whole military movement or a trading rush. This is, of course, quite difficult, or say complicated, but that's not a bad thing - it's the thing people want from PFO.
2)Yes, certain players absolutely should congregate in certain areas. Your feature, or say downside, provides a lot of strategy for warfare and trade. Maybe there are big trading cities built around such hubs whilst travel to cities that are famous for its resources are a bit more difficult to reach. That's an exciting idea that absolutely supports the big world feel and the natural feel of an economy.
3)Since they have to, the will be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmmm. If the process of stopping at all these hubs makes this process actually end up working out slower than traveling across the map manually I could support this.
Using fast travel to move your army away from home is A LOT less appealing if it takes a long time to do even if you can be semi-afk (there but not paying close attention unless you hear the sounds of an attack.) the whole time.
Include the option for bandits or soldiers to stop the caravan/boat and rob or inspect the passengers and I'm almost a supporter.
I would still prefer for there to be player driven caravans/boats that allow for passengers, and have this service to mainly be player-run. The NPC option should be very expensive after your first useage at least.
I know when my alliance on Darkfall owned an island where we controlled the only city (When SWARM controlled Seelie for those of you who actually played DF) I had a TON of fun taking alliance members between our island and the mainland on my boat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Caedryan
1) A large number of players take the ability to form a group in a MMO on the fly for granted. A lack of instant travel is a break from the norm and will require players to adjust how they do things. Keep in mind that, even in Eve Online, travel between far away points is still relatively quick. You can travel 30 jumps in under half an hour if you do so manually in a fast ship. This system would, ideally, be much slower than that.
2) The downside that is unless a way is provided for players to organically create the hubs, it would be the developers artifically creating the trade centers. This would draw away from the full player sandbox that they are attempting to create.
3) If you read the full post, you will note that I mentioned that part of the goal was to allow players to travel w/o having to pay attention all the time.
@Andius
Yes, the goal would be for it to be slower than riding a horse on your own from point A to point B, but allow you to do so w/o having to manually steer the horse the entire way.
This form of fast travel would not be available for moving massed troops, only single characters or their parties.
Adding inspections and bandit attacks would be trickier, but possible if you made the whole system player-driven. You could have the caravan driven by a player, who can hire guards, and the driver and his guards would be the ones defending the caravan (and the players "sleeping" inside).
Addendum
This concept would perhaps be best implemented for travel between maps if/when GW creates regions beyond the initial starting area.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps there shouldn't really be a "fast travel" option as such with hubs in cities, but more of an "auto-route". Where-in you can set your character to head toward a location, given that you have already explored it. You can choose to move "as the crow flies", or follow an established road. The former would avoid bandits waiting in ambush along the road, but be more likely to encounter monsters.
Any mass conveyance option (caravan or ship) should be player-run, give preference to merchants with cargo and be much slower than walking. A player could run a smaller passenger carriage, but it should be exorbitant and be marginally faster than walking, slower than running.
Any sort of "auto" movement can be interrupted by NPC or PC bandits/monsters. I hope the developers have a default combat system in the case where we are set upon while AFK...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the absolute best way of doing this would be to have hubs in every major NPC city as well as hubs that can be built in player cities or even at ports and inn's not attached to a city. There should be periodic highly expensive trips between major NPC hubs. Players should also be able to advertise passage at any hub. There will be a menu you can look at to see all caravans, prices, safety rating (Based on % of passengers who book travel with this individual who make it to the hub they paid to reach.), speed rating (Based off the time it takes drivers to get from hub to hub vs. average travel time between those hubs.), and reputation.
Of course players with boats and caravans can take them anywhere but only travel between hubs would count as official contracts.
This would also allow for official caravan guard/escort contracts with real meaningful data.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they use fast travel people will be bypassing all the smaller settlements, starving them of trade. Might be bettr to not have fast travel until the player is of a level appropriate to farther places.
Consider all th small towns that used to exist about 30 miles apart. 30 miles was a days journey by horse, so communities sprang up thirty miles apart. With the advent of the highway system and fast automobiles those small towns began to wither and depopulate, starved of the trade overnight stays bring.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they use fast travel people will be bypassing all the smaller settlements, starving them of trade. Might be bettr to not have fast travel until the player is of a level appropriate to farther places.
Consider all th small towns that used to exist about 30 miles apart. 30 miles was a days journey by horse, so communities sprang up thirty miles apart. With the advent of the highway system and fast automobiles those small towns began to wither and depopulate, starved of the trade overnight stays bring.
Very good point. I still like the idea of hubs built by players that player run caravans can set contracts to go between though. Other than the obvious of allowing small player settlments to have hubs as well, what kind of ideas can you think of to get players to visit smaller hubs as they pass by? Perhaps a temporary speed boost that lasts for X minutes after leaving a hub?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Very good point. I still like the idea of hubs built by players that player run caravans can set contracts to go between though. Other than the obvious of allowing small player settlments to have hubs as well, what kind of ideas can you think of to get players to visit smaller hubs as they pass by? Perhaps a temporary speed boost that lasts for X minutes after leaving a hub?If they use fast travel people will be bypassing all the smaller settlements, starving them of trade. Might be bettr to not have fast travel until the player is of a level appropriate to farther places.
Consider all th small towns that used to exist about 30 miles apart. 30 miles was a days journey by horse, so communities sprang up thirty miles apart. With the advent of the highway system and fast automobiles those small towns began to wither and depopulate, starved of the trade overnight stays bring.
I only support a player-driven solution such as your previously mentioned player run carts/caravans with the options for passengers...all attackable/ambushable.
But, to answer your question above, have the chance of being ambushed increase the longer you have been away from a hub, any hub. Even if all ambushes are player driven, have the caravans attack radius (the range at which PvP bandits can see them and work to actively intercept them) slowly increase the longer said caravan has been away from a hub. This can simulate drowsiness or weariness.
This solution also has real world analogies where inns and towns were spaced in such a way that the average traveler could find safety before nightfall (when the bandits and predators come out). While GW has decided to pass on the meaningful darkness (of night), the effects of long travel can still be made meaningful in such a way to encourage logical placement of inns/towns (hubs) so the average traveler can arrive and recover their alertness (minimize their range of visibility to bandits) in minimal intervals. It will also encourage taking routes that are so managed, even if longer than more direct but less managed routes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So it seems to me that the proposed ideas in this thread would make fast travel a worse option than having no fast travel at all in the game. Is this an accurate assumption?
Not really... they just change the benefits of it a lot. From being fast to simply being a method of moving while semi-afk. Think like the ships/blimps/trams of WoW but very slow moving.
There are benefits to using that system. Speed isn't one of them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So it seems to me that the proposed ideas in this thread would make fast travel a worse option than having no fast travel at all in the game. Is this an accurate assumption?
Sorry i removed my post earlier because I lost interest in the question. but anyway.
The ways it is portrayed here the downsides would greatly outnumber the benefits.
And I think that this would be a huge burden on the economy that is as you remember at least 99% player run.
Also the WoW example really does not fit here because safety is a given in WoW, it is not in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So it seems to me that the proposed ideas in this thread would make fast travel a worse option than having no fast travel at all in the game. Is this an accurate assumption?Sorry i removed my post earlier because I lost interest in the question. but anyway.
The ways it is portrayed here the downsides would greatly outnumber the benefits.
And I think that this would be a huge burden on the economy that is as you remember at least 99% player run.
Also the WoW example really does not fit here because safety is a given in WoW, it is not in PFO.
I'm about to write a post on tying the trade system and the fast travel system together that I really think will make clear the benefits of such a system, and provide a bit of in-sight as to why it makes this form of fast travel one of the SAFER travel methods. It also provides a system for stow-aways with meaningful benefits and consequences. ;)
Andius, I'm in total agreement with you. But, I think Papaver brought up the biggest problem, Wow. It's become so I ingrained to have a mount, as the poll showed that sadly I think too many people would flip out if they tried to limit mounts. I hate to say it but I don't think logic can win out when facing the "right" to have a mount that Wow solidified within the MMO player base.
As far as the OP's river transit system, I like the idea and it would add a whole new dimension to the game if they added player owned boats as well. Development time though might push the addition back a ways but I would Love to see boats attacked by water dwelling creatures too! <wg>.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I had a thought for the deployment of fast travel that runs along a different line. While the ideas above may be great once PFO's world grow significantly, for not I am not sure of the need for it to be implemented. My idea was more dealing with roads, the basic road, or dirt path is just a means of easy navigation from one place to another, but player settlement must upgrade to paved roads to allow fast travel through their territory. This will give some benefits for the movement of goods, armies, in addition the possibility to charge a toll to use your fast travel roads. Also this idea will limit fast travel to area's that are already fairly settles, and its growth is driven by the players. So that fast travel is not to common place and doesn't lead every you want to be. Keeping the wilderness feel to the wilds, and taking away some of the tedium of traveling more settled lands.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just a few thoughts on "why"...
For those of us with LESS time to play than others, if I login and my brother is logged in and is "one hour" away from me, we cannot game together tonight.
That is an issue for casual gamers. I want to be able to login and see a friend is on the system and be able to hook up and go do stuff tonight. If I am only on for an hour or two (or three...you know how that goes) I don't want to spend MOST of the time traveling.
Yes, we would "end up" probably staying in the same area because of that, but that gets boring too if we all have to stay in the same hex for fear I will be an hour away exploring when a buddy jumps in for 30 minutes between supper and putting the kids in bed.
So, I LOVE the concept of making it more real, but I also have a vested interest as a casual gamer, in the ability to quickly find and game with my buddies.
EDITED to say at the very least, if I could login for 5 minutes at 4:30pm and have my character start moving to XYZ so that when I login again at 6pm and I am there... that sorta works. We could sorta make that work.
I login at 6pm and find out I was "ambushed" on the way and lost xx gold, but I am still there... I am ok with that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just a few thoughts on "why"...
For those of us with LESS time to play than others, if I login and my brother is logged in and is "one hour" away from me, we cannot game together tonight.
That is an issue for casual gamers. I want to be able to login and see a friend is on the system and be able to hook up and go do stuff tonight. If I am only on for an hour or two (or three...you know how that goes) I don't want to spend MOST of the time traveling.
Yes, we would "end up" probably staying in the same area because of that, but that gets boring too if we all have to stay in the same hex for fear I will be an hour away exploring when a buddy jumps in for 30 minutes between supper and putting the kids in bed.
It's less boring than you think. This is just the way sandboxes work. You establish a home, and you rarely move it, if ever. If you want to be a nomadic adventurer than you just have to accept that you won't be in the same place as your friends when they log on. And also that all the items you have gathered throughout your travels are probably scattered throughout various storage vaults throughout the Crusader Road.
Establishing yourself in a local area means you are tied into a community, who are generally all in the same area, and that your items are all stored close-by in a place that is easy for you to access.
So you can be a lonely and highly nomadic adventurer, or you can be a farmer/buisness-owner/member of a militia in a established community that generally sticks to a set area.
Personally, I establish myself in a community, then sometimes go on adventures. Generally as part of a group.
What you don't realize is if you want it another way, then you are already arguing a lost cause. Localized banking, and territory control, are the main causes of this. They are confirmed features. So if you go with a system like this it's just a crappy half and half system if you add travel that is too fast or long range teleportation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For simplicity, since the river is out of the way and ocean travel is not yet available, I'mg going to simply my references to "Hub" and "Caravan" instead of "Hub/Port" and "Ship/Caravan."
Collection of Proposed Changes
1) Players are the ones who build hubs and caravans instead of having developers place them. This would put logistics squarely in the hands of the players.
2) Each caravan would require a driver and, potentially, guards. Also, large enough caravans may require additional players or hirelings to maintain.
3) During travel, NPC or PC bandits can attack the caravan. Victory would force the driver, guards, and passengers to pay the bandits a % of their carried wealth based on how decisive their victory is. Failure would cause the bandits to forfeit gear and/or be captured to be turned into proper authorities.
4) Passengers who are online during a bandit attack can defend the caravan along with the driver and guards, though they are free to negotiate a reduction in travel costs if they do so.
5) To support the logistics side of things, craftsmen/merchants could use another player's caravan to transport their goods. This would be at the risk of bandits stealing a portion of it . . .
6) Provide a rating system for caravans. This can be a general approval rating, or be broken down into Speed, Safety, and Reliability, or simply allow player word of mouth to speak for itself.
Did I miss anything?
PS: I really wish I could edit these into my original post . . .
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Goblin Squad Member
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Keep in mind that complexity, while potentially a good thing, should be minimal when possible. The fewer things the player has to keep track of, the easier the system is to code and use. For those that don't watch Extra Credits, "elegance" is one of the primary goals of a game designer. To achieve it requires you to get the most depth possible with the least complexity possible.
Ultimately, the concept here is to create a system where players can move about while offline/AFK. GW has indicated that they want the world to feel big, and instant travel would almost completely negate that. A queued AFK transportation system seems to offer the best of both worlds, giving players mobility while still requiring forethought on where they intend to be.