Teleportation System

[sekhmet]

Teleportation should be a very high level mage spell, I think in AD&D they have something called Shadowwalk, this allows a high level mage to travel trough another dimension to another person. Maybe we could restrict this to teleporting to other players and give players the ability to toggle this feature off. Also make it a portal that lasts a minute or so, so an entire group can walk trough it.
And since it is a high level spell, people will have to have travelled trough the world on foot or whatever means first before they can ever use teleportation.

[Kereshin]

I think that teleportation is a good idea if it is used like so: You can\'t teleport there unless you\'ve already been there. But I think if you\'re an uber-mage that it could be possible to teleport to a place you HAVE NOT been to. I also like the ideas of turning an object into a portal to another place (would require another item at the other end). I disagree with teleporting to the location of where another person is unless:

A) The other person consents or
B) You have to be an uber-mage to do it because of the simple fact that it will eliminate the strategy of hiding from someone altogether. This eliminates the concept of hiding althogether, allowing access it private areas and lairs/hidey-holes.

[kastirin]

How about teleporting where some sort of cost or danger is involved? I\'d love to see some sort of Ways system (like in Wheel of Time) where you could enter the Ways at a gate, but the magic paths between waygates are full of danger.  
I\'d love to see a teleportation system approached in a more roleplaying way - e.g. players need to cooperatively discover and build a waygate system for themselves.  (Of course this is just dreaming - having players permanently affect the world is...difficult).  
I hope that teleporting isn\'t free though.

[Kereshin]

Having players cooperate and build a portal has its advantages, but like you said, players changing the world is difficult and time consuming.

[Stydracos]

Teleportation... eek I prefer hiring someone to fly me.

If long journey\'s are a must then players will be more inclined to stay in certain areas and the need or want to travel would be a big deal or great adventure. No doubt I\'ll spend most of my time in a place where my guild settles.

One of the other things about teleportation, it must be a powerful spell to travel great distances... but can I use it to teleport into places or where I want to go shorter.. and if not then why?

What affects would teleportation have on trade?
I guess it would eventually lead to its death... thats if some areas hold materials different to another.
Instead of flying it out or walking it between cities (time restricting flow) it would be a matter of *whoosh* buy some stuff *whoosh* back home I go.

Also are there villages and towns between big cities? no doubt if there are the journey may not be as boring.

Anyway I hope its implemented well, hopfully costly too. I\'d still prefer travel to be done by more conventional means.

*edit*
I do like however the idea of the portals, maybe more complex to implement but the ability for a group to build a portal in a city and another in another city and linking them would be VERY interesting. Especially if these were done in player buildings (guild houses?)
*/edit*

[Kereshin]

Now that I think about it, you are right. Teleportation would  only make it too easy to get things from place to place, eliminating the adventure, and making certain skills easier. Although, as far as flying goes, I would like to actually fly i.e. Direct my Pterosaur/Megara through the air at an accellerated rate, rather than *whoosh* youre there *whoosh youre back like in Pokemon. But maybe there could be portals to get to places you couldnt get to otherwise, instead of using them to provide an alternative to walking/pulleying/flying.

[Seytra]

Please not another portal system! I\'d rather have teleportation! The portals could be an addition, but not exclusive, because either the spell is so easy that creating them isn\'t difficult, therefore it\'s incomprehensible why it wouldn\'t be possible to use arbitrarily, or it is hard, but then the portals would be very rare and their use would be highly restricted and expensive.

I don\'t think teleportation would kill trade unless it\'s done by portaly, because the teleport spell would be limited by weight you can carry or it\'d add immense amounts of mana cost. A portal would allow you to simply keep stuffing things through it, even if you\'d have to carry them through personally, so a rich merchant would just build a portal at the location they wish to get stuff from and pay ppl. to keep transporting them through the portal.

The portal system would combine the inflexibility of being highly static with the disadvantages of teleportation.

So, if anything, I\'d advocate an instant teleport spell that is complex, costly (mana-wise) and limited in distance or to places that are known well to you (i.e., no teleporting to the location on the drawing or that someone tells you of). Of course you\'d be free to try anyway, but then there should be high chances of catastrophic failure.

This would be quite cool IMO to be able to actually force a teleport to go wrong (or give it a high chance), for the thrill of it. Yes, it would give the high level mages something interesting to do!

Well, chances are you\'d end up in a wall or something, but maybe the spell would be avoiding this by itself (because it needs to do so anyway as there might be someone or something at the place you teleport to).

Nothing beats appearing totally naked, with no mana or luggage left, in the middle of a battlefield some planes away!

[Zeraph]

I have given this some thought, one thing that I would like to see is Party\'s & Group-Hunting encouraged. it makes for a more RP atmosphere.

One of the disadvantages to Groups is when one of your Party dies, they get separated from the group (& yes they go to the DR.) anyway after they get out of the DR, I\'d like the option to Teleport to the leader of the group. that way the group does not have to go back for that person or that person has to catch up.

There really would be not much of an advantage to teleporting to the group leader because you have to meet that person to form a group with them. so the merchants couldn\'t really exploit it. :]

& Maybe (but probably not) a system were you can create a portal to another person if you are both using the same portal spell @ the same time, it would say something like \"Joe wants to make a portal to you? (y/n)\" - but I can see how merchants could exploit this...

[Stydracos]

Originally posted by Seytra
I don\'t think teleportation would kill trade unless it\'s done by portaly, because the teleport spell would be limited by weight you can carry or it\'d add immense amounts of mana cost. A portal would allow you to simply keep stuffing things through it, even if you\'d have to carry them through personally, so a rich merchant would just build a portal at the location they wish to get stuff from and pay ppl. to keep transporting them through the portal.

Where does it say a teleport spell limits anything? Where does it say a portal couldn\'t be restrictive?

Thats like me saying teleportation is such a drain and disorientation to a character that it can only be done once a day; otherwise the character will suffer permanent damage to psyche or death, where as portal travel is more controlled and safer allowing 2-3 travels a day. - eek I just made that up, I\'m not going to impose this on your arguement though in order to endorse portals over teleportation.

Unless better defined they mean the same thing to me - instant travel. The only real difference in definition and as I can tell so far is its viewed here as; portals are static and a teleportation spell is mobile, but essentially they are the same.  There are no doubt valid rule systems to allow either or both to exist with reasonable limitations and benefits, as far as I know there are no hard and fast rules to exclude either though.

Anyway moving on... my arguement earlier was slim on details but based on a worry that either may be implemented in such a way that would harm the gameplay and economy of a world that hasn\'t started . Having said that I said I prefer the use of conventional means over instant travel for the norm, but still liked the idea of the portals though, why?

Because Kendaro\'s description of the portal system sounds interesting - specific places you need to go to firstly unlock the portal, specific places to cast a spell to... I guess open a portal/teleport? these portals are dangerous somehow...

While I like it but still am worried about its effects on the game and the game economy especially through trade and especially long term when there are many high level characters *whooshing* around the place.

I would also be interested in large scale projects for guilds ands organisations that allow many players to pool resources in order to create things, a portal being one... but unlike the normal portals it requires a portal at each end (think Stargate) there by doubling the resources required and time to build. Have them require charge up times, cool off times and consume large amounts of power/resources to run (open only for a few secs) they could allow limited access to remote strongholds in a guilds territory allowing movement of players and items. The cost to activate the device in itself maybe enough to restrict its use in trade as the cost of items to recoup losses might not compete with those traders willing to take the time to travel by sea and land and air.

Another idea that I find entertaining would be travel in a manner similar to the wheel of time ways, but the twist is you are attempting to travel through the death realm. This may allow trade there if communities are encouraged, quests like in ancient greek mythology, or perhaps the living who enter the death realm do so at great risk... use your imagination here .

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Stydracos
Where does it say a teleport spell limits anything? Where does it say a portal couldn\'t be restrictive?

Nowhere, true.

Originally posted by Stydracos
Thats like me saying teleportation is such a drain and disorientation to a character that it can only be done once a day; otherwise the character will suffer permanent damage to psyche or death, where as portal travel is more controlled and safer allowing 2-3 travels a day. - eek I just made that up, I\'m not going to impose this on your arguement though in order to endorse portals over teleportation.

Possible, but it should also manifest in the char\'s status, i.e. you get maluses on many things after teleporting, which will wear off only over time (say, 30 minutes RL time).
Still I see queues of ppl. with buckets of ore being paid solely to travel the portal once a day. A typical job for students who want to earn some money during the holidays. :]

Originally posted by Stydracos
Because Kendaro\'s description of the portal system sounds interesting - specific places you need to go to firstly unlock the portal, specific places to cast a spell to... I guess open a portal/teleport? these portals are dangerous somehow...

Maybe this is my biggest objection to the portal system: you having to go there and unlock the portal. I can\'t think of any reason other than artificially restricting it for this to be required. I mean, portals are like subways, I don\'t need to walk to the station I wish to go before I can use the subway to go there...

Either the portals are magically linked to each other, therefore you\'d just need to select the destination, no need to have been there before,
or they are not linked, which would just mean that you\'d simply need knowledge of some form of coordinates for the target portal. as you can easily remember these, they can\'t be too hard to tell someone else, so there is bound to be a \"portal book\" (like a phone book)...

Originally posted by Stydracos
While I like it but still am worried about its effects on the game and the game economy especially through trade and especially long term when there are many high level characters *whooshing* around the place.

I\'m not sure of this. Of course it will have effects on the economy, but my opinion is that it will merely create a different economy, not make trade impossible / pointless. After all, even in an isolated city there will be trade. Let the farmer teleport the grain to the mill, it\'s not that much of a deal IMO.
Granted, large-distant travel would be unusual and the scarcity of goods created by these distances would not exist, but is this such a bad thing? I\'m not entirely sure, but long-distance trade isn\'t my main interest so I\'m of course biased.

[Stydracos]

Originally posted by Seytra
Possible, but it should also manifest in the char\'s status, i.e. you get maluses on many things after teleporting, which will wear off only over time (say, 30 minutes RL time).
Still I see queues of ppl. with buckets of ore being paid solely to travel the portal once a day. A typical job for students who want to earn some money during the holidays. :]

Using maluses might be an interesting concept, it fits in nicely. I think I know what you mean about the queues of people. I forgot about how some players pay others to be a \'mule\' for them .

Originally posted by Seytra
Maybe this is my biggest objection to the portal system: you having to go there and unlock the portal. I can\'t think of any reason other than artificially restricting it for this to be required. I mean, portals are like subways, I don\'t need to walk to the station I wish to go before I can use the subway to go there...

Either the portals are magically linked to each other, therefore you\'d just need to select the destination, no need to have been there before,
or they are not linked, which would just mean that you\'d simply need knowledge of some form of coordinates for the target portal. as you can easily remember these, they can\'t be too hard to tell someone else, so there is bound to be a \"portal book\" (like a phone book)...

I agree it looks like a set restriction, sounds like a player has to journey to the place to get the spell that will allow you to \'portal\' there. I think the idea is to force you to adventure to these place, as well as perhaps there will be less known portals (hard to get too).

I do like the idea from the standpoint of discovery.
The sense of adventure and accomplishment of collecting a portal spell. I\'ll then appreciate the instant travel after the time and trouble it takes to get the spell no doubt. Have to make your own phone book by the sounds of it .

Originally posted by Seytra
I\'m not sure of this. Of course it will have effects on the economy, but my opinion is that it will merely create a different economy, not make trade impossible / pointless. After all, even in an isolated city there will be trade. Let the farmer teleport the grain to the mill, it\'s not that much of a deal IMO.
Granted, large-distant travel would be unusual and the scarcity of goods created by these distances would not exist, but is this such a bad thing? I\'m not entirely sure, but long-distance trade isn\'t my main interest so I\'m of course biased.

Might be true, it\'ll just be a different economic setup.
Just a new trade route for the cities and from there it has to be moved out by more convientional means. I can warm to theat idea and am happy that the portals are fixed locations. Trade may very well become better for it, I guess its one of those things that has to be seen in order to determine if it can and will be abused.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Stydracos

Originally posted by Seytra
Maybe this is my biggest objection to the portal system: you having to go there and unlock the portal. I can\'t think of any reason other than artificially restricting it for this to be required. I mean, portals are like subways, I don\'t need to walk to the station I wish to go before I can use the subway to go there...

Either the portals are magically linked to each other, therefore you\'d just need to select the destination, no need to have been there before,
or they are not linked, which would just mean that you\'d simply need knowledge of some form of coordinates for the target portal. as you can easily remember these, they can\'t be too hard to tell someone else, so there is bound to be a \"portal book\" (like a phone book)...

I agree it looks like a set restriction, sounds like a player has to journey to the place to get the spell that will allow you to \'portal\' there. I think the idea is to force you to adventure to these place, as well as perhaps there will be less known portals (hard to get too).

I do like the idea from the standpoint of discovery.
The sense of adventure and accomplishment of collecting a portal spell. I\'ll then appreciate the instant travel after the time and trouble it takes to get the spell no doubt. Have to make your own phone book by the sounds of it .

Yes, this interpretation of the effect is OK, but I have a strong aversion against artificial restrictions.
I love to explore, I love to discover, but I hate being forced to do so with no actual reason other than the wish to force me to. It instantly stops being fun for me.

Of course, the whole concept of the game is a set of artificial restrictions, but the huge difference is that great effort is being made for the whole construct to make sense and be realistic, with everything explained as logical consequence of the game world. I have no problems with that.

If, however, a restriction pops up that is there due to an badly designed / thought out system, and is a kludge to stop it from breaking, then the fun is gone. I\'d rather see it left out than have it encumbered by illogical and IMO braindead restrictions that lack every base in the game world.

(I.e. I can accept \"this is because the magic can be focused more easily, allowing for it to sustain itself and to carry more mass and also go greater distances more easily\", but I cannot accept \"It\'s like that so that the development effort for the intermediate regions isn\'t wasted\". You wouldn\'t like a program that opoerates this way, would you? \"This is like that so that the development effort for the intermediate dialogue screens isn\'t wasted\"... no, if the system is wasting my time and effort due to bad design, it\'s annoying like hell)

Even the rarest portals would be known to someone, and most certainly the ones within the adjacent towns will be known to almost anyone! So if a merchant sends you to the neighboring town, they\'d tell you of the portal so you can use it, it\'s in their very own interest that you\'ll go there as quickly and safely as possible! They\'re not going to tell you to walk there, face the myriads of obstacles, hostile creatures and whatnot to deliver their important, urgent package...

It would be way more fun for me to actually discover a lost portal somewhere that indeed is only known to me, if I wouldn\'t need to \"discover\" every single well-known portal.
This wouldn\'t work with the \"magically linked\" portals, unless you would be able to re-activate a broken / disconnected / powerless portal.

I would then be willing to share the knowledge with others, especially if I want them to go there!

It\'s things like that that add fun to the system IMO.

(I think that even instant teleport spells would be feasible if the system was thought through well.)

[josephoenix]

I\'m not sure whether these portals would be one size fits all, or whether you can step in portal A to get to B, not step in A and choose B...

If it is the prior, then there is a reason that fits in with the setting... If I may make a reference to Eragon by Christopher Paolini... in that book the fabled dragon riders have the ability to \"scry\" to see what\'s happening in other places. However they can\'t see the land no matter how hard they scry if they have never seen it before. there was a mention of how some riders spent their whole lifetimes flying everywhere and seeing everything so they could see what was going on almost anywhere whenever they wished.

I agree that a 1-to-1 portal that you have to unlock to use would be senseless since there\'s the question of \"why the **** is the portal scroll always over there and never on this side of the portal?!\"

Or to draw on Robert Jordan\'s wheel of time series, it is possible that you could rig up not teleportation per se but instead a system like the Ways, and you could wander through them to find new \"Waygates\" without knowing where you\'re going.. but acquiring the knowledge from visiting the other end (perhaps the inscription on the gate) could give you the directions or \"translate\" portions of the mysterious script on each island that connects to a group of \"waygates\" in order to prevent you from wandering blindly

if anyone sees obvious flaws tell me.. I wasn\'t thinking this out totally before posting like I usually do...

josePhoenix

[NATIK]

I think that teleporting makes people jump over massiva amounts of gameplay too, so i think that permanent teleportfacillities should not exist, but that highly experienced magicusers should be able to create semi permenent portals that would be extremly hard to create, and that they would rip themselfs apart over time because of the emmense power they were created with, a portal should also have to be created at both ends, meaning that two highly experienced magicusers would have to work together because of the massive strain and cost a portal demands, with this i would hope to limit the portal creation to guilds, so they can create portals at various places, and as the portal rips itself apart a guild would have to have the ressources to rebuild it.

People not in a guild should also have a limited ability to teleport, this should be done by magicusers being able to create a object that binds itself to a place, so people can use that object to get to that place but only once after which it would be destroyed or expire. These items should not be easy to create and they should be worth alot, but they should not work for people who havent been in contact with the place they are bound to, and so they wont be extremly rare it should also be possible to purchase few, but very few of those in the major towns. Experienced magicusers should be able to create and sell them to people who need them and thereby creating a working system were people depending on what they needed done would either invest in a teleport item or portal, or an animal if the other things arent profitable.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by josephoenix
I\'m not sure whether these portals would be one size fits all, or whether you can step in portal A to get to B, not step in A and choose B...

If it is the prior, then there is a reason that fits in with the setting... If I may make a reference to Eragon by Christopher Paolini... in that book the fabled dragon riders have the ability to \"scry\" to see what\'s happening in other places. However they can\'t see the land no matter how hard they scry if they have never seen it before. there was a mention of how some riders spent their whole lifetimes flying everywhere and seeing everything so they could see what was going on almost anywhere whenever they wished.

This concept is usually used to limit instant teleport spells, at least in PnP RPGs (and I half-heartedly explain it to be due to needing to know of the location in such a great detail that it would take months to communicate (but a mind-link would make it possible in at most minutes IMO)).

Still, I can\'t, however, think of an IC reason for this to apply to portals. After all, they\'re linked somehow, and the only thing you require to use them is the knowledge of the target. This knowledge will IMO be some sort of signature, be it an abstract thing like a number or name, or be it some magical thing like the aura of the portal.
While the aura will be harder to give to someone else, it can\'t be too hard, because otherwise you\'d have a hard time remembering them all, in which case it would be more like different spells that you learn. This would then bring up the question of why you can\'t instantly learn a spell from it being used by someone else...

Of course, you\'ll say, a spell will be more complex than a portal aura, and I agree to that. How complex can the aura realisticly be, especially since it was created to be easily accessible in the first place?

The portal IMO provides the knowledge of the physical location by itself (therefore you don\'t need to have been there already as you\'d need for the teleport spell), and also doesn\'t require any macic of yours (portals are usable by a farmer as well as by a mage). Therefore, they must be able to be easily \"locked\" on the target portal so that they don\'t require a portal operator (which would enable me to \"scan\" for portals, even without the slightest clue of their location). It\'s just like telling you you need to physically visit your local radio station before you can tune your receiver to it.

If there way some operator, why would they not be able to send you to any arbitrary portal they usually send other ppl. on a daily basis?

I just thought of another idea: you might need to authenticate to the portal before you are permitted to use it. We wouldn\'t want the evil guys to be able to sneak through our portals using their own.

However, this only looks like a solution: as with everything you authenticate to, the permission would need to be transferrable and sharable (i.e. the king gives you some document that authenticates you). There would be no benefit if anyone could just arbitrarily authenticate themselves, or if they had to circumvent authentication anyway... :] So we\'ll just have to guard the portals just like the city gates.

Originally posted by josephoenix
I agree that a 1-to-1 portal that you have to unlock to use would be senseless since there\'s the question of \"why the **** is the portal scroll always over there and never on this side of the portal?!\"

Or to draw on Robert Jordan\'s wheel of time series, it is possible that you could rig up not teleportation per se but instead a system like the Ways, and you could wander through them to find new \"Waygates\" without knowing where you\'re going.. but acquiring the knowledge from visiting the other end (perhaps the inscription on the gate) could give you the directions or \"translate\" portions of the mysterious script on each island that connects to a group of \"waygates\" in order to prevent you from wandering blindly

This system sounds really interesting, but still I don\'t see why you can\'t just in advance give someone the directions they would be able to decrypt on the other side.

These ancient scripts sound like some ancient portal-book to me, so why would nobody
a) translate them and / or
b) make a new book from their own explorations?

Both of these things are done for rather pointless (in terms of everyday life) things like poetry, so why would they not be done for something so immensely useful as portals / waygates?

This waygate system (if the direction-giving issues would be resolved) would, however, appeal to me much more than the conventional portal system, because it adds some mystery. It would enable really powerful mages (or groups of less powerful ones) to artificially create new ways, just like with portals, but you\'d also have the option to explore the system if you wish. It doesn\'t even have to be ancient for this, because it uses naturally existing phenomena.