Your View: Fast Travel

[Ever 2648]

We're over a month into the new map, our cities are built, and players have begun to spread out into their own settlements. It's evident that the walk between nations and settlements and everything in-between is... a bit much. So let's talk about fast travels. It may just be that the map is just far too big to feasibly walk it and fast travels of some sort would definitely assist in getting players to and from roleplay hubs.

 

Nation Neutral Fast Travels

 

Fast travels on the map were supposed to be few and far between, their primary goal was to shuttle players from spawn to an island of their choice OR one of three resource islands. With the tile system and nations moving their plots around, a few of these fast travels aren't really nation-neutral anymore. Constantly moving them only solves the issue for a short time. 

 

Should the goal of neutral fast travel be abandoned? Should every major nation have a boat relatively close to their city, perhaps a short 100-150 walk from their front door, as opposed to some nations having to walk 500+? Or should we continue to maintain/enforce nation neutral fast travel boats; all nations would have to walk 200-300+ blocks equally, some a bit more.

 

For reference, here's a map detailing travel from spawn to islands: The X denotes where exactly you land after taking a ship.

 

 

 

Inter-Island Travel

 

Perhaps the most pressing issue is just how long it takes to travel between... well, everything. If you're currently situated in Nation A and want to travel to Nation C, which is on another island, you have to either soulstone to that nation, soulstone to spawn then walk to the boat that takes you that nation's island, or walk from wherever you're at to the docks that connect you back to Malin island/spawn, then take a boat from there.

 

Should there be some faster way of travelling between islands? Should there be numerous docks/ports around the islands that let you travel to other islands?  Should cities be able to purchase docks/sea-ways that link up with one another?

 

Island Travel

 

While this may be more of an issue with the current region system and the playerbases' tendency to spread out as much as they possibly can, walking between settlements is a pain. Locations where three tiles bump together might have four or five fiefs within a few hundred blocks, guaranteeing that you'll likely come across SOMEONE. Other times, you'll walk across owned-but-empty tiles without seeing any builds or players for hundreds of blocks.

 

Should there be some sort of island travel? Such as carts, railways, carriages, etc.? If there should be fast travels on the islands, should there be heavy draw backs for using them (I.E., cost minas, can only use one cart an hour, cannot quickly enter carts to deter using them to avoid conflict or attackers, etc.)? 

 

 

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There's a lot to talk about so feel free to share ANY ideas or thoughts you have on fast travel. The poll above will not decide what happens but is merely to gauge a general interest. Fast travels aren't the only thing we're discussing currently either, the potential return of some sort of moderator autoshop system and updates to the current regioning system are both on the table- though, for the moment, fast travels seem like a much more important issue to address.

[ARCHITECUS 4788]

It's not fast if it's instant.

[HurferDurfer1 2978]

I travel fast on my horse, remember those?

[Kaelan 1918]

I haven't really explored much of the map outside of Sutica, Wood Elves, and Oren, because it's a pain to travel around.

 

Takes so long to walk anywhere where something is built. And easily get lost.

[Ever 2648]

Just now, Alterazgohg said:

It's not fast if it's instant.

 

What's quicker than instantaneous? 

 

As for my own personal opinion, I really like the idea of ports and railways. Rails can be used to travel throughout an island without it being too fast or immersion breaking (plus it opens the door for cool builds- riding a cart down a steep incline right next to two giant lava rivers? Sweeet). Ports, docks, and port cities just make sense since this map is a collection of islands. It'd be silly for cities not to capitalize on this. Though ways of making the travel not instant would be interesting. Perhaps you'd have to wait on a boat a few minutes before it takes off, then you're taken to an empty-ocean where you wait another few minutes until you arrive at the next port. This wouldn't exactly fix the long travel times, but it would make roleplaying while travelling much easier. Instead of run-jumping from one city to the next for five minutes, you could roleplay on a boat.

[shimmeringbliss 268]

I like the idea of ports and stuff, since thats realistic and you'll have a 'chance' to see the scenery/players mid translantic ship :P

 

First of all: Is it possible to have timers on the fast travel? Lets say a boat from Point A to Port B every 20 minutes. That way it'll be like a train, where you have to plan your journey (As do most people have to do) 

 

Second of all: Is it possible to charge players per ride? I think this can work either payment to nations or simply as a minas sink, since thats how roads were maintained. 

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

Just give every capital city a fast travel, but make it so using a fast travel has a 10-30 minute cooldown, and takes 15-20 seconds to fully warp, to prevent people using it to escape PVP.

 

edit: I also like the idea of scheduled fast travels. Like they only open once every 20 minutes or so, so you need to actually ICly make a travelling plan. Carts and boats would work more like actual carts and boats in RP instead of boat-shaped star-trek transport beams.

[mmat 7460]

I think there's a simple solution. ONLY capital city to outlying settlement fast travels. Which need to be paid for. So JBurg to Lorraine, etc.

 

No cloud temple to capital fast travels, as these allow you to literally jump from one edge of the map to the other.

 

This maintains a sense of scale whilst also decreasing the obscene distances somewhat.

[Hiebe 2493]

Make fast travel cost mina. Make it a gold sink and bring back admin shops or hostile mobs that drop mina.

 

They should be avaliable and set up to reach other settlements and nations if you have the port space avaliable. Make the fast travel cost money to activate and not be able to be change so if dwarves link up with humans it will cost them once to activate it but if they choose to stop the fast travel the money is lost, another gold sink.

[Guest]

Just now, Hiebe said:

Make fast travel cost mina. Make it a gold sink and bring back admin shops or hostile mobs that drop mina.

 

They should be avaliable and set up to reach other settlements and nations if you have the port space avaliable. Make the fast travel cost money to activate and not be able to be change so if dwarves link up with humans it will cost them once to activate it but if they choose to stop the fast travel the money is lost, another gold sink.

What Hiebe said pretty much, that's my view as well. 

[meg 1994]

I like the concept of guilds being able to purchase fast travel/nations being able to purchase it. My feelings on the matter change depending on when/if we'll be getting easily accessible soulstone pillars ATM. (More SS less FT, Less SS more FT) Currently SS pillars are broken and ppl can't make them. Is there any ETA on when this will be fixed, if at all?

[TwinkleStar 27]

Personally I think things are fine as they are. A few days of voting will get you a decent enough horse, and its really not that much of a walk if you go in a straight line and learn to mentally mark where things are, or get a minimap.

 

Roadside rp pretty much dies because of fast travel, people who open things like roadside taverns or shops literally DEPEND on people walking the road to get any foot traffic. You basically kill any roadside towns or business that dont actively go out trying to get people every moment of the day and posting every few hours trying to get any people to come to their shops or towns.

 

Its a fine system, teach people to vote and /bread and they'll be fine. Only took me about 4 days to buy my first horse, and i travel the entire map all the time. Its not broke, dont try and 'fix' it.

[Krism 67]

Hey another thread where it is somewhat relevant to plug this:

 

 

I honestly have no problem with there being a low amount of fast travel, and encouraging people to travel the lands and see them.

The problem right now, which i have been addressing for quite some time, is that the landscape is not very interesting. I don't get a sense of wonder when i walk through the landscape. Why? Because it is nothing but grass and trees stretching into the distance in an eternity.

[Medvekoma 2073]

Before you continue the discussion of fast travel, why don't you cut CT's size? I haven't ever seen any roadside RP on the CT island yet and it literally just adds 5 minutes to any travel for no apparent reason.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

Honestly, having no players and forcing people to "go out and explore" is the most over-played and shitty argument I hear in the fast-travel debate.

 

Firstly, it's akin to forcing a kid to eat his veggies. Why are we making players do things "for their own good", why can't they decide how they want to enjoy the map? We're not their mothers.

 

Secondly, having no fast travels doesn't encourage people to explore. It encourages people to make a sprint-jumping beeline from point A to point B hoping no one halts them to PVP. People only explore when they go out for the actual purpose of exploring, like for an event.