Ship Travel Poll

I think we can all agree that an "open world" with no instances would be ideal. Moreover, the idea of paying a fee to be able to travel to any port of your choosing is a good one, I like it.

 

~Where Does This Scene Fit Into All of This~?'

Warp Drives? ~Time Lord~

 

@Time Lord I think/hope that is the direction we are going. I know it has been stated that if you owned a ship at some point you would be able to use it to sail from place to place, don't know if that is still in the mix though. Also, along those lines, I thought random encounters were supposed to be part of sea travel eventually. Am I wrong on that?

 

If they plan on requiring one to enter a scene and talk to an NPC and pay for package they should make this change sooner rather than later.

I wouldn't mind the requirement to enter a scene, I think it started out with that requirement(?) and the boat was added later. I'm foggy on that as all I remember was how excited I was to get off the hidden vale finally.

I want my recall to entrance spell

PS> on the only marginally related discussion of boats... I find the giant boat between land and island for each of those POT's to be a little distracting.

 

~It's Real Hypothetical Stuff~
I think we're still in concept design on those issues, meaning that we're discussing a very "soft and pliable subject here"...
This is the same as talking about space shuttles... maybe there's something hidden in the x-files of SOTA we haven't seen, but the search for better ideas is way open on this one I think
~Time Lord~

 

~Mini Game? or Do We Go With Random Encounters?~
These are two different directions the way I see it. If we go with random encounters (maybe as a place holder) then we are loosing an opportunity to place something unique about sea travel into our game...
I like adding things and not just "skipping the fine print", which seems not just a little cheap, but a pure cop out if you ask me

When everything is the same, then repetition become the problem when we talk about "instancing".
The more we try an limit the effects of instancing, the more we cause it to become more noticeable. Instancing is fine for "breaks in the game to add stuff to", but what we will add, then becomes that area where our game needs to be more well planned or innovated on.
~Time Lord~

 

But it wouldn't be your home that you're clicking on. It's essentially clicking on the docks for that town or scene.

 

~Instantaneous Leaves a Lack in Content~
I close my eyes and imagine I'm sailing as long as the loading screen is on, then I'm there in 5-10 seconds?
That seems a very dull immersive quality and lacking in good gaming content. Navigation, Crew Commands, Lack of Wind that day.... there's a longer list of items... including any "skill" that could be added within our sailing.

~What About Bob~?'

I mean, "when do we get to strap @Budner to the mast in this scenario?"
Where's the punch line? Where's all the sailing fun?
~Time Lord~

 

I'd say both and/or neither option.

If Spoon were designing this game then he'd be adding that extra tier of Luxury on top of for the wealthy to spend on, which actually makes them feel rich.

This being a typical example here for such a grand opportunity.

I'd add 3 ships for each destination. Each mentioning the other options so that you get clues of the options.

1.
The 10 coin cheap ship in the run down part of the town, or at the furthest place of the docks. So that you'd have to make some small effort to get there. I'd also put a mini-quest within sight so those who pay attention and explore get a bit of something.
For instance in Kingsport make you buy your passage from a smuggler just on the other side of the smuggler's house, then walk over to the ship on the furthest end of the docks to get there, might even be below the stairs on the houseboat side. It drives you next to some miniquests and storylines and showcase the town.

2.
The 75 coin ship in the best place in the harbor. You still have to traverse some of the scene but not the full way over to the other side.
For instance in Kingsport that would be the dock next to the bridge where they are now.

3.
The 500 coin ship on the overland map which takes you directly to the other overland map destination.
For instance in Kingsport that would be exactly where the overland galleon is right now.

This means that as the player is progressing they get a feeling of progression as well, which ends with the feeling of Luxury of being able to take the VIP way through.
It also lets you drive the exploration aspect when the player is new and struggling, and lets them pay for shortcuts to skip repetetive stuff.
Plus how many would refuse to pay that extra and keep going through town? Those still create traffic, but now from a choice instead of being forced.

Even further down the line when the game mature, I'd even add that 'hire-your-own-ship-anywhere' stuff which could take you to other harbors for a much much higher fee like 2500 coin, but which would let you reach destinations beyond the common routes.
Like Brittany>to>Port Graff or Brittany>to>Norgard. Then another such with Port Graff>to>Ardoris or Norgard>to>Aerie. So that you could get to the other side of the continent in two - three such really expensive trips.

However that is totally bust due to the teleport to friend option.

 

I understand what you're saying here... I would suggest however, a payment for crew... because our house servants may not be sailors

~Missing Something? Stimulation For Sailing Ideas~




Information and mood...
~Time Lord~

 

~Is This Thing Steam Powered or What?~
We also need some modifications made... Steam Powered? Manure Powered Possibly?


Is it a river boat?... "What Boat Does What Here" ?

Keeping our trade boarders safe and our seas calm seems quite a waist of our good gaming fun...
"UO Had Better Sailing That We're Talking About Here!"
~Time Lord~

 

Quite the opposite in fact. There are multiple exit points in Brittany, yet only one entry point. Furthermore, to get to the neighboring scenes, such as Brittany Estates, Brittany Wharfs, Brittany Fields, Brittany Alley, will all only be accessible from Brittany proper, yet they are on the outskirts that you'd have to logically pass by to get to Brittany itself? Or will they expose those entry points on the overland map so that you can get to them directly? Think of the docks as simply another "scene" that you can access, given its proximity to one of the entry/exit points within Brittany. Not suggesting an entry point to the middle of any scene, only those that seem logically accessible from the overland (assuming it's not walled off) or has an entry/exit point near by.

 

It's not a boat unless you can ride on it. Clicking the picture of a boat and transporting immediately to shore at destination is dumb. Might as well click on a turtle, seashell or little rocket ship. The boats themselves seem out of place, cluttering the map, and not in scale for the surroundings.

 

I don't follow, each of my suggestions had you pay for your travel. Which the captain would surely use to feed and pay the crew.

Actually those look like the Korean Turtle ships
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_ship
which was made fameous by Admiral Yi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Sun-sin
and those were powered by rowers (and maybe sail).

 

~Motive~
For each of the above comments I'm missing the motive for desiring the ship transport, "unless we are looking at the ships as just our personal cars"...
Ships have been normally used for transport of goods or as mobile war platforms.

If they are only cars like this, they still seem as a transport which could carry a donkey load of materials...


~Hiring a Crew~
Sailors may differ in their quality, and by not asking each you hire what qualifications they have, we also miss out on any quests we may be able to offer in obtaining them. @Lum (as if he didn't have enough to do) Imagine if you will that I need a crew, my motive for taking my ship is trade cargo, would I not need smugglers if that voyage was for smuggling, to insure I have a crew trained for evasion. Or... say it's just a normal cargo, I may need a more expensive crew to travel more swiftly, or a poorer crew for a more slow paced travel to my destination. "What's the danger of mutiny?" My crew may see what I'm transporting and have the need for greed along the way. Maybe our crew's only interest is to get drunk? In such case they don't need to be paid in gold, but rather in alcohol. There's bound to be out of work NPCs sailors around because of the smugglers activities limiting ship transport. Crew management may involve the player in other ways, such as if your personal ship captaining skills are not up to par, then you may be in need of hiring a captain to manage the crew and commands necessary for setting to sea and proper navigation. Maybe we may loose a crew member at sea, by mutiny or by falling overboard, at which time we ourselves need to be able to man a mast or steer the ship "across our overland sea map"...

Our seas are known to be dangerous and we know this by what information has been informed to us, by the sailors of our beloved Kingsport. They will most likely wish to sink any ship transporting anything on our high seas. Yet our ease of transporting a large amount of goods or even our persons anywhere, would seem to subvert our game's need for accommodating our future smuggling quests, "where players are expected to try, or have a chance of catching us for a bounty.

Then our Lord's Houseboat, is still missing paddle capacity and also missing sailing capacity within it's design... paddles would require a significant amount of more crew than a sailing ship don't you think and also be much slower transport.

Either way, they take away much of our boating or ship sailing fun or enjoyment, by reducing these items to personal transport with that luxury being, of skipping the overland distance to be covered rather than running it on the overland map.

"Our ships and sailing need to operate on the overland sea map" or all our smuggling fun, seafaring fun or trade fun is gone by way of just casing them to become our personal car transport.

Keep in mind that anything given to our players and changes their play style (especially our transportation ability) often gets met by an awful lot of controversy and rebellion enough for us to be made to walk the plank over...

Trading in our seafaring fun for a car?

It had better be just for a place holder
~Time Lord~

 

But. But. But. Hum.
You are arguing against how we discuss Episode 1 feature implementation with wishful thinking about Episode 2-3 features? Why?

It's not like we wouldn't love to see boats, crew and piracy implemented. But that would take manyears to do properly, while all the other suggestions in this topic is at most a manweek.
Sure if we had that kind of budget I would bring a whole different set of suggestions but the OP was about now.

So see such suggestions as a step 1 on a grander journey towards such glorious goals as being able to commandeer a ship onto the seas.
But in the mean time getting a crew for a journey lots of players do 2-3 times in a session.

 

~Seeds Grow~
It's the tendencies of developing games to always grow things from what basis they begin at. To me, this means that any implementation needs to consider everything and where it's to end up in the final outcome first, before planting any seeds that would grow into trees causing our players to become dependent on those first implementations. If our future wishes can be better accommodated for "adding instead of changing" then our game turns out all the better for it.

My only hopes are to hit the final aiming point by considering what the first seed should look like in regards to hitting the final target. I'm not directly opposed to the ideas provided, I'm just looking out for placeholders that may become the basis of what the final outcome will be.

Currently our game has talk of pirates impeding sea travel because that's what our NPC smugglers imply. If that is true, then no sea travel would seem to best fit our game for it to be easy.

~Circumventing the Overland Map~
This seems the only objective in using ships and as such is a bit Elitist, because this leaves out a few of our players. In this regard, we could say that there could be some motive we haven't figured out yet which could be fun to do, but motive seems key to implementing anything at all for sea travel.

Until I can see a better motive than just "circumventing the overland map by a few elite players" then I just don't get the point at all at having any sea travel unless that is inclusive and fun, yet not just a luxury.
Other than that, "I'm sound as a Pound with it" (unless England leaves the EU that is)

But I'm just one player's opinion...
~Time Lord~

 

Would love such a solution…but maybe I would add something like boating. (of course not as a first implementation step)

1. The nearly sinking floating coffin is moving slow on a fixed route to your destination on the overland map…or you are entering a scene where you can walk on the ship while it is “moving”, talk with the crew and maybe even get that way a quest once in a while. Travel time e.g. 2 minutes Brittany > Port Graff.

2. This ship is a good shape and sailing faster on a fixed route to your destination on the overland map (or scene). Travel time e.g. 1 minutes Brittany > Port Graff.

3. As it is instant travel no overland map movement (or scene).

This way you would need just one e.g. NPC standing at the harbor that is offering 3 price categories and the more you are willing to pay the faster you reach your destination. You wouldn’t need to create 3 different points of contact which is maybe a good point regarding required working time.
The ships movement would be visible to everyone else in multiplayer and maybe enhance the overall picture of a living world.
1 and 2 could even get possibilities of encounters/events during your boating…maybe more likely on 1 as it is slower and that way an easier target.

 

All in good time.

 

If you mean, "disembarking from ship on overworld map lands you in an instance (and vice-versa; i.e. you can board ship on overland only if you go there in the instance)", I will find that interesting.
Helps congestion, too.

So ineffect:
- Click on overland boat lands you in an instance with river banks / beach, where you can board them.
- When you disembark from overland boat, you land in the same instance.
- This instance should be PvP capable.
- This prevents risk-less transfer between fast-travel boat and fast-travel overland should you want to guild war.

 

No for me. The amount of loading screens in game because it's not open world are bad enough as it is.