Comments on: Travel Time

By: Ryan Shwayder’s Nerfbat » MMO Rant #14: Time as Gameplay

Ryan Shwayder’s Nerfbat » MMO Rant #14: Time as Gameplay — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:01:03 +0000

[...] I’m not saying that travel time should not exist. On the contrary, I quite like travel time. But it can and should be used in the right ways, such as to create a sense of scale in the world, [...]

By: Garu

Garu — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:56:29 +0000

I don’t mind WoW’s travel time, although i do wish there was one change: flying should continue if I log out, instead of suspending me mid-flight. I could even approve of a vast MMOworld where long distance travelling is generally only undertaken while logged out .. no instant travel, people stay in communities while playing …

By: Fog

Fog — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:31:42 +0000

Note that travel time suddenly means a more realistic economy, too, assuming you can trade things worth buying. See EVE for a prime example of how difficulty transporting goods leads directly to an interesting market.

By: Loki_d20

Loki_d20 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:41:52 +0000

Looking back I think EQ1 had travel right. Why new MMO�s got rid of port classes is beyond me :/

I’ve always despised class-based porting ability. It just makes people feel less than others for an ability completely outside of the overall balance of the class. I feel that if you have speed or port abilities, they should be capable of being obtained by everyone, even if it’s through item use. Such as fast mounts to match the speed of bards and better porting options from existing but typically limited global porting spots from questing.

By: Daven

Daven — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:42:20 +0000

Looking back I think EQ1 had travel right. Why new MMO’s got rid of port classes is beyond me :/

By: Loki_d20

Loki_d20 — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:04:44 +0000

Too many variables to determine a general (dis)like for travel time.

Looking at myself, I do dislike travel times most of the time, but I knowingly put myself into a position where it is prolonged. I play lots of alts, I’ve deleted and rerolled characters more than a few times, and I play with adventurer experience turned off (EQ2, of course). This means I’m reliant on quests, many of which can send me all over the same area just for the purpose of slowing me down with travel time, but also that I don’t obtain the ‘faster’ methods of travel (mounts and faster speed buffs mostly, but ports on some level). In fact, my travel time is for all intents and purposes fairly exaggerated.

I recognize this as being a result of my playstyle, but still wish there was a way that I could further eliminate travel time with my rerolled, questing, low-level characters.

By: Sente

Sente — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:09:21 +0000

Exploration and variation makes travel time fun - i.e. if the road and environment is new or if there are interesting things happening during the travel.
If the mobs and the environment are the same always and not affecting me in any significant way I could probably skip it after a few times.

By: JuJutsu

JuJutsu — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:53:04 +0000

I’m with Thermoses. Exploration is fun; new sights to see. After a while though, traveling from point A to point B for the umpteenth time is not exploration. After I moved to Toronto, the first couple of trips on the subway was novel and interesting. Eight years later, I’m on autopilot the entire way.

By: rao

rao — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:57:48 +0000

I always enjoyed travel times. First off, it really made the world feel big. Knowing that it could take me hours to travel from a city on one side of the world to a city on the other side of the world just made me appreciate all the work that went into the creation of that world all the more.

Back in EQ, I made more friends sitting on the docks waiting for the boats than I did in dungeons I think. While waiting for the boat to arrive, you really didn’t have anything more to do than to chat with the others waiting for the boat. So, I got to meet people, find out what they were up to and learn about places I had yet to see. Some of those friends became frequent adventuring companions. Some became guild mates.

I also loved the exploration part of travel. When I would walk around a mountain and see a new sight for the first time, I would almost always stop for a few minutes and just enjoy the view. Back in the day, if I could have clicked on a book and almost instantly gone from Kelethin to Kunark, for example, I would never have seen the chessboard in Butcherblock Mountains. If I could have clicked from Greater Faydark to Odus, I would never have seen the wall carvings on the road from High Hold.

People get too wrapped up in hunting for loot and leveling as fast as they can and don’t spend nearly enough time enjoying the world that they are in. Not too long before I quit EQ, I met a level 75 monk whose starting city was Qeynos, but who had never actually been to Qeynos Hills or any of the Karanas. His home was actually in the Plane of Knowledge and he only went to Qeynos when he had to.

The easier these games become and the more the worlds shrink in the name of convenience… I don’t know… I just think something gets lost.

By: Lakoda

Lakoda — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:49:32 +0000

For me, travel time is one of the necessary “evils”. Instant gratification isn’t the right phrase. The time to fun ratio isn’t about walking to a mob and hearing that all too loved “ding” and moving on to the next. It is about approaching a reasonably difficult challenge and succeeding with a reasonable chance of failure after a reasonable amount of work within a reasonable amount of time. It all comes down to feeling like you earned the rewards, the level, or whatever. Travel is a challenge just like any other challenge in a game instant gratification makes that challenge meaningless.