PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Granted or negated Wishes => Topic started by: derwoodly on October 04, 2003, 11:12:29 pm
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What are everyone?s thoughts on travel? I believe that the developers have decided against things like teleporting. Right now I think teleporting in PS is not needed. If the world gets substantially larger some sort of magical travel would be good.
I say this because if the towns are far apart and the spaces are generally empty it will add a bit to realism but will not add much to the enjoyment of the game. One square virtual tree begins to look a lot like the next set of pixels real fast. Heh, usually in the amount of time it takes to find the next tree.
I have read a few posts on the subject, and some people do not realize just how much time it takes to travel. Even if it only takes ten minutes of real time to get to where you are going that time can be an eternity if you are on a corpse run. Assuming you have to do such a thing in PS. Some might think I am too lazy, and I am spoiled because I played a teleporting class in EQ. I think I have been spoiled by real life. I am used to traveling at 100kmph or faster. Watching my character walk through town is painful. One of the first keys I find is the run key. I don?t think I am alone on that.
On the other hand flying does sound like it would rock. In EQ I would cast levitate and cheetah speed (or SOW)and run off a hill to get the effect. Real flying would be even better.
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There will be flying creatures for travelling and carrying items in Planeshift if I\'m not completely wrong. But if cities are far from each other a magical way of travelling would be good, no one wants to spend half of their time online moving from place a to place b.
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I am also against the idea that no magic travel will be made available whatsoever... In a game as huge as PS undoubtedly is going to be, if there isn\'t going to be any teleporters (or other means of fast-travelling apart from the flying creatures) the game will be majorly crippled IMO.. the people who actually enjoy walking extreme distances ingame aren\'t a common sort!
If you have ever played daggerfall, or morrowind, imagine having to WALK all around the game area, without any other means to travel than your horse (in daggerfall) and no fast travel being available....! booooooooooooooooring....
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I found that teleporting ruined EQ. So I think that it should be limited. Maybe by having a room in a few cities on each lvl where u could pay to teleport to one of the other cities which have a teleport pad, or a level one above or below yours. This allows quick travel between levels, and quick travel between cities which are far from each other.. At a fairly large price. You have to pay again each time you teleport. I think that this allows people who need to travel far quickly to do so, but because of the cost, make it too expensive to do very often.
Does this make everyone happy?
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\'Sigh\', this \"teleportation\" thing is starting to annoy me.
Read this old thread instead and maybe you understand why teleportation would ruin the game.
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=2382&boardid=11
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Originally posted by Xalthar
If you have ever played daggerfall, or morrowind, imagine having to WALK all around the game area, without any other means to travel than your horse (in daggerfall) and no fast travel being available....! booooooooooooooooring....
Actually, I did walk everywhere in Morrowind... I hated silt striders, and boats were no fun. I have been known to use an Intervention now and then (mainly in combination with mark/recall to carry heavy loads), but not usually.
Teleportation would completely ruin the game. Transportation is supposed to be a hassle for commoners in Yliakum. Now, if you have access to a Pterosaur or a lift, that\'s traveling in style.
Since lifts are mainly owned by merchants, I think the most reasonable way to handle those would be allowing players to use them after completeing a quest (or series of quests) for the merchant. Or by paying some sort of insane toll.
I\'d also like Pterosaurs (or that other one, I forgot its name) to be two seat, allowing people to transport each other.
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Travelling should be a main aspect, seeing all of planeshift, and travelling itself being part of the questing-ness teleporting skips so much, and walking keeps u healthy, teleposters should be fat...
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Originally posted by Grakrim
Actually, I did walk everywhere in Morrowind... I hated silt striders, and boats were no fun. I have been known to use an Intervention now and then (mainly in combination with mark/recall to carry heavy loads), but not usually.
I did that the first time too.. but when I became a vampire the second time I played the game through, it bored the crap out of me.
You are able to \"complete\" Morrowind, you aren\'t able to \"complete\" PS since it\'s ever evolving, so you will be stuck with your own two feet when having to go vast distances. Now I\'m sure I\'ll still play PS if there is no fast travel (I\'m not easily scared) all I\'m saying is that there will be a good chance that no fast travel equals boredom for a whole lot of gamers.. And I\'m sure I\'ll become one of those eventually... (poor me huh :P)
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If there comes a time where it is needed by everybody, I\'m sure that it will be put into PS in some limited form.
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I can\'t figure out why so many of you seem to imagine there be large expanses of nothingness to travel across. I haven\'t really played any other MMORPGs, so I don\'t know if that\'s common there, but I can\'t imagine why the world designers would do something like that. Getting there is half the adventure, so I imagine that there will be plenty of things to deal with on a journey, and plenty of places to find you weren\'t looking for I should hope.
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I dont have to worry ill be rich and have a flying dude faster than you can recite the complete english french spanish german italian chinese japanese and others languages
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Originally posted by Wedge
I can\'t figure out why so many of you seem to imagine there be large expanses of nothingness to travel across. I haven\'t really played any other MMORPGs, so I don\'t know if that\'s common there, but I can\'t imagine why the world designers would do something like that. Getting there is half the adventure, so I imagine that there will be plenty of things to deal with on a journey, and plenty of places to find you weren\'t looking for I should hope.
If you haven\'t played any other mmorpg\'s you wouldn\'t know what you are talking about... Most online games, such as Anarchy, Everquest, Asheron\'s Call 2 and Dark age of Camelot, have VAST and i really mean VAST area\'s of nothingness that you would be forced to traverse were there no teleporters (And guess what, these teleporters are far from abundant, but they ARE there, and that is a great help)
In all of the games mentioned above the landscapes are beautiful to behold the first one or two times you pass them by, just like in real life, and then they become as boring as everyday life... What I\'m trying to say is, that it just gets boring to walk the same distances over and over again, and you will be going to do that, trust me...
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Wanna bet?
*Starts on English*
A
AA
AAA
A & R
AAP
Aardvark
Aardwolf.......... and so on.......
Zymotic
Zymurgy
*French next......*
:D :D
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Originally posted by Xalthar
If you haven\'t played any other mmorpg\'s you wouldn\'t know what you are talking about... Most online games, such as Anarchy, Everquest, Asheron\'s Call 2 and Dark age of Camelot, have VAST and i really mean VAST area\'s of nothingness that you would be forced to traverse were there no teleporters (And guess what, these teleporters are far from abundant, but they ARE there, and that is a great help)
In all of the games mentioned above the landscapes are beautiful to behold the first one or two times you pass them by, just like in real life, and then they become as boring as everyday life... What I\'m trying to say is, that it just gets boring to walk the same distances over and over again, and you will be going to do that, trust me...
Well, maybe that\'s the problem, eh? Instead of using the traditional solution (i.e. teleporters), why not kill the problem at its source: Lack of content! Wouldn\'t you much rather walk to the next town if there was the chance for exciting adventures?
The problem is, that\'s a difficult problem to solve... I think one thing could be our biggest strength and weakness, the volunteer team. Biggest strength because it would be possible to raise a huge dev team, perhaps even the biggest in MMO history; biggest weakness because, well, you know, volunteers.
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Well yeah, and it\'s not like you have to spread content over a vast expanse, just a more moderate region. Skewing realism, in this case, the realistic distance to travel between places in favour of better gameplay should always be taken. These are video games, and logic needs not apply where it is inconvenient. Now obviously there has to be some level of traveling so that the flying creatures aren\'t made worthless, but given the value of those creatures, you even less want to devalue them with teleporting.
And certainly going places is something I don\'t see me doing anyway, I plan to wander wherever I feel, with no particular destination. It would be cool if places weren\'t all known or listed, if they weren\'t official areas, but the world was more a cohesive place that the majority of was not specifically labeled as being one thing or the other. Now obviously the entire world would be desinged with regions in mind for certain things, MOB fighting, player settlements, resource searching, whatever. But if all the gameplay elements had the potential to exist almost anywhere, with only different %\'s of what was where, it would lend to a more natural flow that makes the world feel more whole, as opposed to a bunch of connected levels. Ummm but I guess I\'m wandering into a whole nother\' topic here now...
So while I\'m at it this thing-> :baby: looks like a guy with a little bit of hair and a beardstache instead of a baby.
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Traveling should be done realisticly, this isn\'t going to be EQ, or SOW or .hack where you can buzz around from place to place.
1) What\'s the fun in a quest if it isn\'t a little hard.
2) Who said that the trees would look the same? I hardly doubt that the trees will be sparse, or even too similar to that, don\'t expect the world to be all plains...there is a such thing as mini-deserts due to mountains or large hills, valleys, jungles (with vines), larger, more spectacular trees, small villages of people along the way, not to mention monsters and other hazards which will make a 2-day trek all that much more exciting.
Go hiking one day, and tell me if it is boring. The real world foot-based travel isnt boring in the least, (without the mobs) so why does a fake world have to be boring?
3) Flying....certainly not a common form of flying unless somone puts up a taxi service (which would rock to see two-three levels shrouded in mist at once). And of course the amount for fare would be extravagant, not like a real taxi is cheap.
So, for the sake of another PvP Pk forum is this enough? Can you see how exciting travel can be?
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It\'s clear that teleporting between towns is not very fun in the roleplaying environment sense. There would be more appreciation for the more realistic type of transportation without it.
I think the problem in EQ is that other transports are simply inefficient since you have teleportation. It\'s no fun taking a boat when you can teleport instead. The solution is to provide a variety of transport means ranging from better-than-nothing to very fast... depending on how much a person is willing to pay.
For example:
- Bus-like animals: An enormous beast that quickly drags a cargo full of people. This is a cheap way of travelling fast.... and you can talk to people for fun while travelling. Really poor people can try to balance themselves on top of the animal while it is travelling.
- Mountable pets: These can vary from somewhat slow heavily armored tank-like pets to very fast pets. The people with slow pets should probably take the bus-like animal instead... maybe have the beast go on too.
- Expensive transports: A few giants flying creatures to carry a large box full of people. This is more expensive, but it is very fast so you can travel to another town within a few minutes.
- God-like flight: Remember in Morrowind where you can use a shrine in Vivec that gives you a day of really fast levitation? Maybe a person can pay an npc to bless them with really fast flight for a certain duration.
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I\'m sorry maybe I am not being clear enough, PS isn\'t like EQ...
Please note that it would be very stupid of some one to make the space in between cites a sparse, boring wasteland that you were forced to walk about....Please take into consideration a single shred of adventure? It will be fun and not boring. I have faith, please join me?
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Fanomatic2000 I did read the post on teleportation that you are talking about. That?s why I posted.
From some of the posts it seems some of posters think that traveling will be like hiking, or going to grandmas. The first time you do it that might be the case. The 100th time it will not be so fun. One digital pine tree looks like the next digital pine tree because it is the same pixels! If PS makes make the world so small that it takes only 30 minutes to cross it then after month or so the average player will have covered every square inch of surface. Heck it will not be much bigger than it is now. Where will you put the monsters? In town?
WAIT, don?t assume I am for teleporting! I never said teleporting was the only option. My main motive for posting was to see what everyone thought.
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Ok, lets think real life here.
Airplanes get you all over the place! Like those flying thingies in ps right? Well, the flying thingies aren\'t as fast... 1:49... omg...
Anyway, in ancient times, faraway places were simply inaccessable. The game doesn\'t have to have teleporters; faraway places should simply be ridiculously hard to access. That\'s my opinion. Maybe it\'ll change when I get some sleep....
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Anyway, like I was saying, its not like the only blacksmith will be in so-and-so city or something, again, you have to think real life. In an isolated place, everything they need would have to be right there (not that everything should be isolated, but whatever). If you want something specialized, though, you will have to travel a while, and some places will be richer than others (unless someone brings a lot of money). When in doubt, look to the real world. 1:54... I\'m gonna go post something.
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Hike... going to grandmas... what???
Anyway, now that I think about it, inbetween areas would be a cool place to put bits of randomness. Mostly NPC stuff, like a little camp of NPCs, wandering merchants, things that could bring about unexpected quests and oppurunities. There shouldn\'t really be any place in the world that isn\'t anything. If an area exists soley for walking from one place to another, well... then it shouldn\'t exist, that is pointless. I was pry gonna say more, but Big-O is on in a few minutes, so I gotta go!.... holy crap an \"All Your Base Are Belong To Us\" remix of Zero Wing, just came on... man that\'s hilarious! Um yeah Big-O... bye.
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That was fast.
Yeah, what I said, or maybe not. Anyway, I agree with you. I think. Yeah, definately. I agree entirely. They did something like that sort of in Arcanum. Anybody play Arcanum? You should.
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What I meant by Grandma?s house or hiking is that Hiking or going to grandma?s house (depending on the family) is an event that is not done every day. You pack up a book and a game boy and the two hour trip to grandmas house is not that bad. Even an all day hike can be fun.
Traveling in a MMORPG is not that fun! Sure if have not been there before it is, but most of the time it is something you have to do to in order to group with people, or sell stuff.
Hope that makes it clearer.
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Well, the selling stuff I addressed. Think real life. There are walmarts everywhere. It doesn\'t make sense to have to drive 2 hours to buy groceries, so there are stores all over.
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To be honest, when it comes down to it, I would love the game to have no teleporters, no Rez, and for a top end character to not have much more HP then a newbie player ?the top end guy is only better at avoiding damage?
But that is not how this will be.
To put into perspective, think of your selves as walking everywhere. (in real life).
Now think that you had a back pack that let you hold up to 90 pounds of crap and not affect you much.
Now, some friends of yours call you (send a tell) saying that they are getting together in a few minutes to go to the water park for some fun (dungeon for pillaging) the water park is 20 miles away (realistic distance in PS).
Now, you have a choice?walk/jog that distance. And it will take about 3-6 hours, and by the time you get there?your friends are already tired and going home to sleep.
Now also introduce the fact that there are things ?on your way to the water park? that are trying to kill you?and many of them can, at will.
So as you are almost there?you get teleported back to your starting point ?you got killed? so it might take you 10 or 15 trips?or you have to tag on with a group of people all going in the same direction, for protection, and just waiting on that to happen may take a while, not to mention the security is not guaranteed.
In essence, do the ?no teleport people? really want to play for hours, just to get to the place you want to play?
This is very hard for those who have not played MMORPGS for a while, to understand, but for people who enjoy getting to play with real life friends (or groups that speak the same real life language) we need some rapid transit. In essence I am of the feeling that major point (until you get into high end stuff) in the game should be accessible in 30 minutes. It might mean 4 or 5 transfers, but it should be there. And at worst 45 minutes.
For the high end stuff?I think societal evolution should be in play. You want to be able to get there fast?pay for a teleporter, or a guild office with a teleporter in that location. Guild members and allies use it for free, others for a fee, and enemies or allies of enemies don?t use it at all. Guilds set the fee.
Of course they would need to pay for upkeep, and pay for every new place that can go to it or from it?but clever planers will know how to get to where it best fills their needs.
And in such a way, guilds can have large fortifications in really remote areas, and still be able to get to the main cities with little difficulty?.
Now constructing that fort in the middle of nowhere is another matter completely.
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You didn\'t mention the flying creatures Paxx. Only that walking/jogging should take 3-6 hours.
So if your friends is at the other side of the world I assume he is a high-level player, and therefore would own a flying creature or some other person in the team owns a flying creature.
Instead of walking through the world your buddies can get you with the flying creature which wouldn\'t take painfully long time.
If there is random events along the way like huge monsters that are dangerous for both high and lowlevlers. Perhaps you find secret passages along the way that will lead you to a great adventure? Perhaps you meet both friends and foes along the way, a newbuilt house with a friendly or fiendish inhabitant who wants you to stay for dinner (if the food happen to be you is another thing :) ) And all those campfires you can sit around and tell stories.
Sure, I know that there is a lot of players out there who thinks this is unreal tournament or EQ, and fail to realise that this is a MMORPG and is more about feeling and story than slashing the most monsters.
Half-life 2 is on its way, just have patience :P
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Originally posted by Fanomatic2000
And all those campfires you can sit around and tell stories.
Planeshift is not Furcadia. If you want a graphical chat prgoram with little emphasis on combat, magic, exploration, or adventuring I would recomend America Online ;) (Edit: or Molecular Blue)
Originally posted by Fanomatic2000
Sure, I know that there is a lot of players out there who thinks this is... EQ, and fail to realise that this is a MMORPG
Did I miss something here?
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Originally posted by Fanomatic2000
Sure, I know that there is a lot of players out there who thinks this is unreal tournament or EQ, and fail to realise that this is a MMORPG and is more about feeling and story than slashing the most monsters.
You don\'t sound like you\'ve ever been near a mmorpg.. The people who would actually like sitting around a grafical campfire roasting imaginary sausages, with friends who could disappear in to wide air any minute, are few indeed... I don\'t believe that this game will focus 100% on roleplaying, so the possibility of this game actually becoming anything like that (boring that is) is hopefully extremely low...
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Random events goes against the persistent world concept?except if you are talking random in the sense of?well I at low power just happened to come across a dragon crossing the road as he decided he was hungry.
As far as movement, the flying creatures are currently not in and we are still not sure how they will be implemented, as a generic bus (as the horses in DAOC ) or independent movement. And if we truly animate all of this then we need to go with a very effective LOD system. And we will have that eventually, but until we have Arial combat in a meaningful way it is not going to happen.
But supposing you have flight?well then you need to put your flying creature in a stall, and then move out to where ever it is you are going (unless you want your flyer to be eaten when you get back), not to mention that flyers will not be cheap.
I guess what I am stating is, are you willing to fun/fly/climb for 3 hours to get from place to place. In the example I gave of 20 miles, was a realistic distance, I was not even speaking of changing levels and such?or once we get to the labyrinth?in all the mmorpg?s I have played, I usually spent the first trip on foot (doing it till I figured out how) and then used the rapid form?well in EQ I had gone from Freeport to Quanos and back at least 20 times (No SoW) and that was dedicating some serious time (around 2 hours or more, as long as I did not die)
I really do not think I as an experienced player of MMORPGs would be able to tolerate that again.
As far as secrete passages :-)?in todays internet age, a mmorpg has no secrete passages, only secrete to the people who have not looked online for them.
I figure that before we are in ?beta? most of the maps will already be online?with secrete passages included.
I am not trying to douse your thoughts of what a MMORPG should be, only that you need to really think of what one would be in a huge world and no rapid transit, not to mention starting towns far apart from each other.
Now I do not want commerce to be driven in rapid transit, but small stuff?oh,ya. I am already burnt out on it from EQ and DAOC, I won?t have it here or in any new game I play.
Now it might be rapid only to select places and in a convoluted way?but it will be rapid.
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Originally posted by paxx
I guess what I am stating is, are you willing to fun/fly/climb for 3 hours to get from place to place. In the example I gave of 20 miles, was a realistic distance, I was not even speaking of changing levels and such?or once we get to the labyrinth?in all the mmorpg?s I have played, I usually spent the first trip on foot (doing it till I figured out how) and then used the rapid form?well in EQ I had gone from Freeport to Quanos and back at least 20 times (No SoW) and that was dedicating some serious time (around 2 hours or more, as long as I did not die)
I really do not think I as an experienced player of MMORPGs would be able to tolerate that again.
I am also an experienced player of MMORPGs, and I recall the Freeport <-> Qeynos journey quite well. As do I remember the GFay <-> Steamfont, going through that damed LFay... I hate Brownies...
As for your question, yes, I wouldn\'t mind a 3-hour journey. Some of my fondest memories in MMORPGs are the times I decided to walk instead of tele, even when someone offered to pay the toll for me. Of course, it just so happened alot of those types of adventures occured at a low-level, and, naturally, I got way in over my head (especially as a Gnomish Wizard, not exactly soloing material).
Perhaps those opposed to teleportation are a bit extreme, but I definatly don\'t want teleportation to be an everyday occurance, if it indeed was possible. A balance needs to be found, how do we restrict teleportation while still making it possible? Too much restriction and those players who can teleport won\'t see it as a practical buisness venture, not enough, and no-one will walk...
Considering wizardy-type characters will be responsible for teleportation, the spell should require some difficult-to-acquire spell components? Of course, some of these components should only be available in the general area of your teleportation target. Another type of restriction we could enforce would be a relative inaccuracy of the teleportation spell. The final and best restriction could be no-group teleporting. Each teleport must be made individually, thereby preventing teleports to be used as \"buses\".
Say you cast \"Teleportation - Hydlaa\". In order to cast this spell you need a rare stone you found in a cave near Hydlaa. Also, once you cast the spell, the target could be transported anywhere within, say, 1 or 2 KM of Hydlaa.
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Am I missing something here? Is there some inherit reason the actual terrain amount of the world must be huge? If the world is going to be really big, but most of it is going to be pointless space to walk over, then why should that space exist at all?
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for users to build on.
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Originally posted by Wedge
Am I missing something here? Is there some inherit reason the actual terrain amount of the world must be huge? If the world is going to be really big, but most of it is going to be pointless space to walk over, then why should that space exist at all?
What does the first letter of MMORPG stand for Wedge?
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Wedge,
The empty space is not truly empty space.
In between the cities you wil have forest, deserts, lakes and mountains. If the world is made so it takes only 30 minutes to get from one side to the other every thing will be stacked on top of each other. If you would like to see how this works Try Blademistriss.
Paxx,
I would like to play the MMORPG that you have in your head. Low hitpoits, high skill, PvP, no teleporting. I invision a game where it is simply too dangerous for a lone individual to travel by themselves. Healing should be a lot slower as well. Priests should not be able to rez you instantly. A rez should take a full day to work. If your character dies at low level you should just have to make a new one. However, I don\'t know if it would sell.
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Just keep making it more real until we have a truly alternate reality populated with fantasy elements.
I can\'t wait till \"The Thirteenth Floor\" becomes a reality. I hope I get to see it in my lifetime.
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What does the first letter of MMORPG stand for Wedge?
Massive is a reference too the number of players in the game, i.e. hundreds and thousands as opposed too tens at most in FPS games and such.
Forests, deserts, and blah blah can BE empty space. If they have no level design and are basically open easily navigable expanses, that is empty space. Instead of that, you could make smaller areas, that are designed with multiple risk-reward based paths, meaning that the shorter routes are more dangerous. So the stronger you are in the game, the quicker you can travel around. That way the areas keep variety over time as you are able to explore the different paths, and by the time you can take the hardest paths easily, the time bonus gained from taking these routes makes the requirement of travelling overland not such a hassle anymore.
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What MMORPGs have you played Wedge?
Here is how I imagine traveling would work in Wedges MMORPG. My Kran baker character has to get to Market in Marketville with his pies. I can travel the safe path wich will take about 30 minutes, but the pies for the bake me a pie quest will be cold. But if I take the dangerous path it will only be 5 minutes.
I want the pies to be hot for the quest so I take the Dangerous path. 2 minutes into the trip I run into the One eyed purple flying Kran eater (PKE). This is a very strong monster but it is not real fast. So I run down the road yelling help help. 1 minute later I run into a group of powerful warriors who are fighting a group of bandits that usally mug travelers on the dangerous path. They take one look at the 30 foot long PKE and start running for the market away from the PKE. Now all of us, Warriors, bandits, and PKE are running down the road. The bandits are stabbing the warriors in the back as they run to the market. 1 minute later we run into another group who are fighting the Black knight of Death and it begins attacking as well. One minute later we all arrive at the market and the high level monsters begin killing everyone at the market.
NOW, that dangerous path is not so dangerous because all of the mobs have been killed by guards, and every one travels it untill the monsters all respawn. This works so well that it becomes common practice for a fast character to \"run the gauntlet\" once a day to clear the dangerous path so the low levels can travel it!
Wedge, I hope you can see my point. I am not trying to single you out. You asked a question about why there has to be empty space, and I am just trying to give you some perspective on it. With mosters arround every corner I think the game will have a Warcraft III feel. A mountain you can climb in 2 minutes is not much a mountain is it?
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ROFL! :D
Oh my, I got such a kick out of reading that, thanks derwoodly! :D
\"One eyed purple flying Kran eater\" - very imaginitive
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Yes, Trains are something we have not spoken about, and we will see if we can have a few in CB :-).
But all in all it is not about empty content, it is about content for many different purposes. An area that is for farming and or animal grazing, herb collecting, is not going to be infested with uber demons and little river goblins, it might have a few river goblins. But for most people the place has no use other then to pass.
It is kind of like mining towns. You drive right pass them and noone cares or knows about them other then miners.
I would like an efficient use of space, but at the moment the grandiose factions of the dev team are winning out.
I think having a place about the size of the marrowwind area would be ok to start, but we will be about 9 times the size I think.
As far as teleport system, some regulations should exist and a changing price/ or quick task for a teleport might be the right thing?but in the end I think this game should be playable in 2-4 hour chunks. And if that is not enough to get to where you are going and completing one stage of an average quest, something is wrong.
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What is bad are big *empty* areas, not just big areas. Hopefully we can populate the world such that there is much to see and do between point A and point B, so you don\'t even really think of them as Point A and Point B.
This doesn\'t help when your friends are somewhere and you want to go hunt with them, however. In those cases, exploration isn\'t the main objective but companionship--and we certainly want PS to promote companionship.
Perhaps we need a spell that will summon someone to you, cast by a group of 5 or more, or something like that.
Just a thought,
V
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Sounds good Vengeance.
Thanks Xandria, but I had help, it is a song...
hummm, hummm
It was a one eyed one horned flyin\' purple people eater playing rock-n-roll music out of the horn in his head!
dit dit dit do dit dit dit do dit dit dit de...
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I want the pies to be hot for the quest so I take the Dangerous path. 2 minutes into the trip I run into the One eyed purple flying Kran eater (PKE). This is a very strong monster but it is not real fast. So I run down the road yelling help help. 1 minute later I run into a group of powerful warriors who are fighting a group of bandits that usally mug travelers on the dangerous path. They take one look at the 30 foot long PKE and start running for the market away from the PKE. Now all of us, Warriors, bandits, and PKE are running down the road. The bandits are stabbing the warriors in the back as they run to the market. 1 minute later we run into another group who are fighting the Black knight of Death and it begins attacking as well. One minute later we all arrive at the market and the high level monsters begin killing everyone at the market.
NOW, that dangerous path is not so dangerous because all of the mobs have been killed by guards, and every one travels it untill the monsters all respawn. This works so well that it becomes common practice for a fast character to \"run the gauntlet\" once a day to clear the dangerous path so the low levels can travel it!
What the hell are you talking about? That\'s a hypothetical sitation based on other MMO games gameplay and design. There are soooo many ways something like that could be prevented, if it were even possible in the first place, I don\'t even need to go into it.
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But now that I think about it, I will mention a great way around it. By some means or another, any person going that path is forced into a battle, alone... UNLESS they are in a party, in which case the party may fight the battle together. This way parties of weaker characters can take quicker routes as well, and I\'m always for ways to encourage teamwork. If you had good friends or a bit of money, you could also have stronger members lead weaker folk through the path. Either way it\'s all logical and encouraging to the social aspect of the game.
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Ummm yeah the group porting is a good idea, it should be a spell only usable once a day or something too. That way it could help out with the issues involved of getting a party together at a distant place at the same time, but wouldn\'t be a common method of travel.
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Originally posted by Vengeance
Perhaps we need a spell that will summon someone to you, cast by a group of 5 or more, or something like that.
Can we call it the ?Red Rover? spell?
* As paxxs? memories of kindergarten seep through and he sings ?red rover red rover, send Vengeance right over? ?man I find that truly disturbing.
Can we call it the ?Red Rover? spell? *As paxxs? memories of kindergarten seep through and he sings ?red rover red rover, send Vengeance right over? ?man I find that truly disturbing.
[Edit] the thing that I was thinking of my days in kindergarten I find disturbing, not the spell.
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The Red Rover spell is great idea, but I don\'t know if we should call it that... :P
In MTG, cards have playtest names until the flavor department gievs them a real name. So, lets just call it the Red Rover spell until it\'s implemented.
I like the idea that it is impossible for someone to teleport just by himself or by having his friend help out. Maybe each member should have to have something given by the person, to prevent the guy\'s friend from simply recruiting for the spell.
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Wedge, I am sorry you did not see the humor in my post. you are correct, the example I gave could be fixed in a number of ways. I had imagined large mountains, but in PS there does not have to be mountains.
I still have my doubts about how a world with guild housing, a big round hole in each level, and groups of 50 or more players will have short cuts to different places. Rather than get into some sort of taste great/less filling debate I will refrain from making anymore examples of what could go wrong with your concept of a PS world.
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Paxx, I love the Red Rover Spell. What do you think? Should it be a \"red\" spell?
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What I don\'t untherstand is why every one makes so much fuzz about traveling. I\'m sure when traveling get\'s realy bad that the dev team will make a solution for it. I also think that teleporting is boring. Because you only travel to the same places over and over again. It\'s like playing music. When you have heard a song 80 times a day the 3th day you hate it. But when there are enough songs (enough areas you have to walk trough) than the songs (landscape) keeps sounding (looking) great.
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I like Vengance\'s idea, and Red Rover is funny too.
I get confused with just how realistic the game will be. I would think a Red Rover spell would be a bit cumbersome. I imagine that most groups will want to start a party in or near a major city, to stock up on supplies and such, e.t.c... now lets see.. If my friend who walked to the fourth level summoned 5-10 people from the first level and started charging, we would have a teleport spell to ruin PS.
This is how I see it working:
A teleport pad in each major city, I am talking big, bustling. So usually only one per level.
Certainly no teleports in the lower levels, the lowest being the level where the lake \"usually\" is. maybe 5? 6?
Anyways, some levels do not compromise of any major cities and do not have a teleport pad.
You, yourself have to find the pad in the city, or you can buy a one-way gate pass to the next level for a large amount of money, think, $250 American, so it will be thought of twice, and put a dent in Joe Schmo\'s wallet that he might regret.
The Gate Passes are more expensive the closer to the bottom. i.e. 1000 Tria Level 1 to 2; 1500 Tria Level 2 to 3; 3000 Tria Level 3 to 4 ; 3500 Tria Level 4 to 5; and 4500 Tria to level 5 to 6.
The hitch is that you can\'t use the gates normally by paying for them. You still have to walk, or ride something, physically from gate to gate so you are able to use them charge free.
No group teleports, and no one really gets the money from the gate passes, which removes explotation or the gates, or a person buying his way down the stacilite. Maybe they are put into a lottery, I dunno.
---I see this way, I can call my friend to go on a quest to the stone labyrinths in the second level, and we can make it to the second level by first going to the only city the first with a pad, then appearing in the city, and then walking to the bronze doors.
Then this gets me thinking that the teleporting should be like a bus? Taking time, like a bus and not being at all instant? Putting a price on it will definetly keep people from pouring into the hardest zones and bringing the game down.
We can call the teleport pad Red Rover.
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Jeh, i agree for two-ways teleports expensive and only in some places.
I\'m also for a return-only spell. After you have completed a quest in a far-away area or having gone in never-explored area, it\'s boring to walk back to the city. So my suggestion is to allow spells (Red Rover sounds a good name, no? :P) or scrolls that teleport back the player to the nearest city
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What i would like to prevent borring travel is a living environment. For example seasons you can see at the plants, lake and rivers with differing deepths, tides and inundations, atmosphere mobs.
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How about those flying things? I mean, flying\'s fast, right? So what\'s wrong with flying?
And if it\'s Planeshift, shouldn\'t some of the places be in other universes? And shouldn\'t interplanar portals exist? I mean, if it\'s Planeshift, \"A universe is not enough\", you really can\'t have just one universe can you?
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Yes, there will be \"flying things,\" but they are slated to be quite expensive, and meant to be owned either by the wealthy or by a business of sorts. If you happen to fit into one of these categories then that\'s just fine for you. Perhaps some people will run a \"flying taxi\" service to charge other people to fly them around, if the game allows more than one person to ride, that is.
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I had an idea...
Guild teleporting, err sort of anyways. It could be a guild command. A guild leader could \"teleport\" players if that person issued the command a day in advance.
Wait! don\'t go! it is not that bad. Guild leader would issue a /gather command followed by the date and time.( /gather 311003:2300 for Halloween) then at that time all guild members would have the option of being summoned to the guild leader.
Well it is just an idea. It might not be original.
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An interesting solution to travel time that is beginning to become favourable is that of offline movement. Basically when you log in the game gives you the option of where your character should appear. If you\'ve been logged off for 5 hours then you can appear anywhere within a 5 hour radius (which in PS would be pretty much anywhere). This can also be used for crafting. You could choose to spend 2 of the 5 hours you\'ve been logged off creating hammers, 1 hour travelling to a neighbouring town and 2 hours selling the hammers to passing npcs. The server takes your options and applies them to the world (so you appear in the next town and all them hammers appear in the inventories of npcs in that town). There\'s some suggestions that things should actually take twice or three times as long in offline play than they do in online play.. this gives an advantage to players who are online. Alternatively, we might prefer to go the other way, and encourage players to do all the \"boring\" stuff offline and only come online when they want to do something fun (therefore increasing the enjoyment for other players).
It could be possible to provide a web interface to the game where players who are offline can spend their banked time or set up an action queue for their offline activity. So if you\'re one of those unfortunately people who has to work from 9 to 5 and can\'t log into the game at work, you could conceivably sneak some time in on the web interface to make sure your character is doing something useful.
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Yea offline travelling/working/whatever is great!
Also I wouldnt make it less effective than the onliners, I dont see a reason for that.
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Originally posted by QuantumG
An interesting solution to travel time that is beginning to become favourable is that of offline movement. Basically when you log in the game gives you the option of where your character should appear. If you\'ve been logged off for 5 hours then you can appear anywhere within a 5 hour radius (which in PS would be pretty much anywhere).
I don\'t think it\'s a good idea. You can\'t always count on a safe and peaceful journey, something may interrupt it. Even if it would be done, you should decide what are you going to do before you do it, not after.
Alternatively, we might prefer to go the other way, and encourage players to do all the \"boring\" stuff offline and only come online when they want to do something fun (therefore increasing the enjoyment for other players).
Well, nothing should be boring in the first place. ;) I would like the crafting jobs to be interesting too, though I\'m aware that it\'s easier to say than to do.
There is another problem - how to prevent cheaters from making many characters and using them as money-makers?
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I don\'t mind travelling around as long as i can see new things. For instance in Gothic I loved to travel trough, because of mountains, forests,swamps, planes, etc. pp. . A bad example is Morrowind. Nearly all of the world is Ashlands, the rest doesn\'t really differ from each other, that really becomes anoying, because three quarters of the game is just travelling. In a MMORPG it is a bit different. There are PCs who flesh out the world. You don\'t know if there was someone on the next crossroads or not. But a bit difference in the landscape is always good.
Just a stupid question: What color will have the \"Sunlight\"? (Blue or something?)
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I cant think of anything worse than finding a place I really enjoy going to and having to walk there time and time again because of some stubborn decision to not allow teleportation.
I mean sure exploring is great but how long can one explore for? Its like driving to work in the car and taking the same route over and over again. The journy is more often than not plain boring. Half the reason people make macros for games is so they can leave the game running in a travel mode with minimal input and do something else until they arrive at their destination.
Offline travel is an interesting concept. It definately needs to be explored.
In reference to the suns colour I imagine the colour of the crystal will influence that.
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I think that you should only be able to offline travel to places which you have been to before. I think that crafiting offline should not be allowed due to possible cases of cheating. Although I think you should be able to sell things offline.
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Offline movement sounds promissing, though I would also have to agree that actions shouldn\'t be done offline due to possiblilites of people who have a character on offline mode make hammers 24/7(I feel sorry for the anvil which the hammer was being shaped on).
Maybe there can be long winding peaceful routes between town. A player could conceivebaly get a pass and then logoff at the station/boarding area. With trips leaving once an hour/day in real life time, or maybe some to be determined time in game time. the time it\'ll take to travel to the next destination will probably be determined by how much time it takes to \'walk\' to that next area with a certain multiplier attached to it.
This I believe will help those players who want to travel but don\'t have that much time to play. And to be semi realistic, players cannot getoff mid-way without loosing some progress, perhaps if they forcefully getoff then they\'ll end up on the last town that the transportation departed from.
I can\'t decide whether or not to let people travel to place they haven\'t been to before, it sounds viable, it\'s not like they can cause too much harm, assuming that this travel is only use on city to city so that there will me no such trips to places like \"The forgotten underground lair\".
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Offline travel, crafting and whatever... at first I thought I hated it, but in fact it seems to be a great concept. After all, it is a fair alternative to people who are less fortunate time-wise. This way they have a chance of keeping up with the players who have time to play 12/7 or more. Offline-anything should be less effuicient time-wise because it is also risk-free. When traveling online, you always run the risk of being attacked, which is eliminated offline. Therefore, offline-anything needs to take into account the additional average time it would take online and merge it with the risk-factor.
Furthermore, it allows people who wish to do crafting to do so even if they don\'t like to watch their char craft for hours. Also, it is more realistic because the char doesn\'t simply vanish into stasis when the player logs off, instead it goes about it\'s everyday business except adventuring. I support this.
As for cheaters: if there are cheaters, they will cheat anyway. IF they manage to get lots of chars, they will use them online as well, maybe by running several (macroed) instances of PS and pretending to be a NAT.
The only exploit I can see is that you can flee easily, but OTOH, you can do so by logging off as well, so it doesn\'t really matter. Both can be avoided by having the char remain there for, say, 20 seconds RL time, which will be pretty deadly. However, that isn\'t nice if the player has to log off really quickly due to RL issues, so maybe this period should be left out, as this often happens due to connection loss anyway.
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I can\'t quite remember but I think it was posted else where that a player will stand there like a statue for 31 seconds or so when they hit logout, so they can\'t do cheap things like kill the game to avoid death.
Now I wonder... If you comeback before you hit your logout timeout.. will you come to life right where you stand again?
Also.. in the case of account sharing, what if someone else comes online with the same account and tries to control the same character, will the other be kicked off?
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I love to travel all the way across Morrowind the only reason I dont do it so often is that it usually crashes halfway through and I forget to save (immersion does that to you I guess).
I would really hate to see teleportation but I think it would be good if you could teleport to your guildhouse as otherwise organising guild events would take far too long.
What I would like to see is an area like in Dungeon Siege where its just a massive desert with 2 pyramids or ruins that are almost unlocatable and have the desert littered with dead bodies and erie noises. I remember how much fun I had searching for those 2 pyramids and that place used to scare the hell out of me, but then I found all 3 entrances to eastern isle and then it became boring.
I would love to have to travel for ingame days but then it would probably come to people dying (literarly) just to get back to a town.
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Originally posted by Diamondcite
Now I wonder... If you comeback before you hit your logout timeout.. will you come to life right where you stand again?
I think you should. Also, you should reappear at this very spot if you didn\'t order an offline move, regardless of when you reconnect. Of course, if you reconnect two years later and the place where you were standing before now is a lake, or the inside of a mountain (or the mointain is gone), you\'d appear at the nearest non-fatal location or maybe the nearest town (to avoid being trapped).
Originally posted by Diamondcite
Also.. in the case of account sharing, what if someone else comes online with the same account and tries to control the same character, will the other be kicked off?
Everyone who connects after the first one has connected will not be let in until the original player disconnects. I don\'t think account sharing should be allowed. After all, it only depends on the email, and everyone will have at least one, won\'t they? If anything, they might need to officially state that they are two different players if they use a NAT, but OTOH there will be campus networks that are NATed as well so that can\'t be used as a general criteria.
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Account sharing seems kind of pointless in a free game. Isn\'t the whole idea behind it to share an account because you don\'t want to pay two subscriptions?
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Originally posted by Adeli
Account sharing seems kind of pointless in a free game. Isn\'t the whole idea behind it to share an account because you don\'t want to pay two subscriptions?
Some people are sharing accounts to make an uber character with maxed skills, since usually more time spent playing == better skills.
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That may be. However, in either case there is no point in supporting it in PS. :)
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I think the ways I have seen in other games that fit into a ROLE PLAYING realm are:
skills or spells that speed up the traveler (yes these CAN be role played. Think of Bruce Lee\'s ability to move so fast that he literally was nothing but a BLUR, if he could move an arm or leg...he could RUN fast too).
In AD&D they had various forms of more or less dangerous portals...not always as cut and dried and POOF...I am here...POP now I am here. Some cost material components, others were more or less draining on the caster (no more EQ Wizzard or Druid popping all over the game ALL day long for game cash).
Various forms of game themed mounts...horses, lizards (flying or NOT), if you have a technological race like EQ gnomes you could come up with mining carts or other transport DOWN with SLOW transport of heavier items UP (some kind of pulley and cog with slave or animal in a \"wheel\" of some kind).
Coaches like the old west, carts or \"buggies\" or other animal drawn four wheeled contraptions.
Ships are the BANE of any game...why you ask? EASY..moving 3d object with MANY other 3d objects with different connections from ALL over the world. That sounds more like a NIGHTMARE than a ship to me. Plus the pathing of the ship can be irratic at times. I have actually been ON the ships in Lineage two and Everquest when the ship crashed.
In EQ the ship just went fizzle flash, blink, POOF *splashing sound of occupants* I also had an issue with the Kunark transport where either the shuttle boat OR the platform you walk onto the ship FROm the shuttle boat had a hole that was NOT visable, results were the same...SPLASH plus either a long swim or a kindly GM.
In Lineage 2 I was sitting in the MIDDLE of the ship, the ship took a WIERD turn and FLUNG me off the deck (along with about ten others) into the water, we all died and the gm ported us to the boats landing spot since we had paid HUGE price to take the boat. (I think we all got our gear back...Yeah I know I did).
When the game world is relatively small, running from point a to point b is reasonable. BUT...try that in EQ with ALL of the expansions, just running and riding boats is a day long experience. Which once there are raids, invasions and guild events and a LARGE world, having to travel would take away from the role playing and immersion factor.