Teleport To Town (IMPORTANT)

[Externals]

As in most games have town portals, or town portal scrolls, i believe there should be a way of getting back to town if you are deeply lost somewhere and do not want to die just to get back. Maybe perhaps something a bit more realistic would be needed such as a wagon that could pick you up or perhaps something as simple as /town to replace the current /spawn feature.

[Moogie]

So you\'re suggesting a pointless name change from /spawn to /town...?

Or you\'re asking for a completely unrealistic, inexplicable command that has no grounds to exist in the Planeshift world? (Which is what /spawn is- but this command is here for debug purposes).

Or you\'re asking for teleportation methods? A search on that would reveal that we\'re not going to have any ways of teleporting to places- you walk or you ride.

[Externals]

Moogie, I dont know if i made you mad in any way, it was only a suggestion.

Besides, it has some point to it, i mean really what happenes if you really honestly are trying to explore and then bam.. ur literally just completly lost and dont know how to get back.

Sorry for pulling a few of your strings in the wrong way, maybe I just wont suggest anything anymore. I thought the 2 years i spent with PS were of use

[Under the moon]

Um...not to be rude, but for spending two years with PS, you don\'t seem to know a lot about it. All of this has been discussed before. Extensively.

Please do a little more research before posting anything else. I\'m asking this on your behalf as well as ours.

[Externals]

Little off subject and i wasnt trying to bring it up, but since you did. I spent about a year recovering from various injuries and such and didnt think it was appropriate to put that on there. Therefore i have come back and trying to learn more about PS only to be put down. Im sorry if i dont kno as much as you would want me to know but im trying. Please accept that.

[Tharizdun]

Hydlaa ought to be easy to spot from the air, mutate yourself some wings, levitate or hire a Pterosaur to find your way back. Its a neat trick to get around the different levels of Yliakum too. Or perhaps hire a guide in town before venturing somewhere unfamiliar, there should also be maps and travel directions available for sale at the right price.

The Death Realm is also supposed to be a shortcut between places in the physical world I believe, I heard somewhere that the plan is to give it multiple exits which while close in the Death Realm geography may correlate to vast distances apart in the real world. Of course, getting there and surviving the denizens that inhabit such a place can pose its own unique challenge.

Maybe being lost in the wilderness is the better alternative

[cossack]

What this game realy needs is a compass. As long as you remember what road you left on (north, south, east and west) if you have a compass you should be able to find you way back.

[Quwaar]

something like a bus line between towns would be ok. Perhaps guilds can provide them, for money I think it would be.

But pick you up from the middle of no-where. No I dont believe in that either But a compass would be great for that

[Externals]

Then perhaps a hire or something would be useful for an exploration to get back. A compass would be very useful. I was just brainstorming, but it is kinda of needed if you do want to vastly explore something.

[Diamondcite]

Something that might be feasible:
-A medium cost light weight crystal which points the way out of the area you are currently in.
-A low cost light weight crystal which points the direction of the town it was bought in.

Something un-feasible:
-Similar to the SNES game EARTHBOUND, a take me home sign, after placing it down for about half a minute, a merchant will come by and offer to lead you back to the last town you were in (will charge you)


The crystal which points the way out might actually be very difficult to make due to the fact that one can\'t tell which way is out? Maybe there can be a designated exit direction in which case the way to the surface is always correct? I think I\'m loosing myself...

[Externals]

Well, simply, there could just be a compass, and you could lead yourself out. You could also buy a \"crystal\" as you said, which leads you back to your maintown so you never get lost. There can also be crystals which lead you to other towns for other fees.

[Vandel]

After venturing for a while out in the wilderness, there\'s enough varietety in the landscape, creature markers rocks and such to actually orientate yourself from landmarks.  Maps are not needed whatsover.   However, a compass is.  It\'s almost impossible to map out for yourself without it.  The maps are large enough to warrant something.  It\'s not like I can drop bread crumbs, or spray paint rocks, or scratch distinguishing markings in tree bark like in real life.

I\'ve been lost in the woods on huge hiking trips, and used the sun and stars, and rivers and whatever else to find my way out/direction for survival training.  There\'s not enough markers in the world of planeshift to permit such tactics to be used.  Be fair, something should be provided, in this case a compass, or with the cartography skills or something to permit general direction location, as some classes like Dwarfs or such can detect slopes.

Having played copious amounts of roleplaying games over the years instead of actually doing something with my life... I usually found myself having to map for those as well, even the DM/GM was capable of giving out dimensions and whatnot of a room, space, or winderness map with distinguising features.

Nearly every other large mapped game has had some form of town portal scroll, homing rock, or otherwise.  This seems a little absurd, some of the handiest functions are being left out, while other debilitating features are being added, it\'s almost somewhat self-defeating.

If the death realm is going to be laid out in such a way, which seems a lot the like the Pipe System in Mario, then a high level spell, or scroll aptly named \'Planeshift\' (probably been mentioned before, or already in the works) would be more than sufficient.

These threads seem to run around in circles. ) Weeee.... round and round.

[Under the moon]

Hmmm... a compass, ay. We\'re in a cave right? No stars. But we do have a ceiling. How about making a large crack/streak/whatever on the ceiling big enough to see from all levels. A natural way of navigation until you can afford a compass (if there will be one). You\'d be kind of hosed in the caves, though.

*looks up at thread title*

We\'re getting a little off subject here, arn\'t we?

*edit* Yes, discussed very much. It seems like the big man in charge has frowned on \'quick teleporting\'. Myself, I hate the idea of the Death Realm. There are better \'ways\' of getting places quickly than dieing.

[Vandel]

It\'s totally OT, but it\'s the natural progression of the thread...

Caves and dungeons, yes, would be a total problem, as would the sewers, but there\'s enough gates, lumps, boards, corridors with columns, moster spawn points, stairs, and such to navigate those.

The death world thing spawned from moogie\'s response, and the compass, cartography and such kinda spawned from the prior bits and pieces around it, and from the split posts described around it.

They seem to have a way of doing that.

Externals post I assume was spawned from when we running around lost in the wilderness, though in fairness I was able to distinguish where I was and navigate it pretty easily, but it is a pain when there\'s out there.

And kinda spawned off the no mini-map threads into a single thread here...  Blah... it\'s all good.

The only problem with making marking on items, is other people marking over, or marking up your markings.  It would be interesting to be able to put a sword mark or something in the ground.  Or in the sewers having the rats eating your trail of bread crumbs.

Everything pondered in a growing game, has infinite spinoffs and tangents.  99.9% of which will never make it into the final game, due to coding and time constraints, or lack of interest/unreasonableness.

The town portal though, I think is a shame...

I still think the \'planeshift\', or maybe a \'Door\', \'Astraal Gate\', or \'Teleport\' spell would be handy.  This option is already implemented in some fashion for Game Masters under the administration options not open to the public after digging through code.

But then that means setting jump points, markers and flag points or something, as the average individual is not going to have the knowledge of the x,y,z coordinate system required for a jump in a 3d universe.  Everyone is going to end up teleporting into a building wall, or below the world floor, into the side of a mountain, or something that\'ll cause death.

It\'s not that it\'s not possible, there\'s just major design issues with implementing a proper RPG in a 3d environment.  Personally, If I could head back and find a group still open to the pen and pencil d20 system, I be cool with that also.

Sure the worlds are cool, and the maps are great, but I\'m unimpressed with graphics, I\'m more on features, and expandable options.  RPG was founded in basements, and garages on evenings and weekends with friends who were just hellbent on slaying goblins and rolling dice as you were.  After all, in the imagination \'green glowing underwear +1\' can spawn all kinds of vidid images in the mind.  Implementing that into a game never lives up to the imagination.  Something are just best left alone when they can\'t be correctly implemented.  

Other posts I\'ve mentioned lesser games like Larn/Nethack/Rogue are perfect examples of excellent RPG\'s and they\'re text based ANSI graphics with loads of features and excellent replayability factors.

It\'s all personal taste... and how viable options in a given game environment will be.  3D is the hardest and least viable of the options.

2d Topographic, gives a perfect blend of options and graphic possiblities.

If you could mix the Nox mapping Engine, the AD&D skills and spells, with NWN NPC and Quest engine, and tie it together with the random map, cave and dungeon system of Larn/Nethack/Rogue you\'d have the greatest game ever made.  It would be infinitately playable, with a good mixture of graphics and playability, with a world that grows as people explore it.

Opting for a 3D engine, sacrifices have to be made, it\'s difficult working spacially in 3D geometry and it takes forever and day.

[Externals]

Bringing up the death realm and spells, Ya if you have spells being imputed into the game, and a \"death realm\" which is kind of unrealisitic in a game like this BUT a cool idea, well id say being able to cast a town portal spell or the such would be valid.