I do not think there should be Ethereal or Summonable Mounts

Just something that came to mind earlier. This killed mount trading by tamers and leads to situations where people can call a mount mid-combat/crisis. Ethereal and summonable mounts ARE convenient but I think that is the problem. Accommodating convenience doesn't always make the game better.

By all means offer various protections you can buy for mounts (barding and such), and even possible training. Perhaps if it comes to a stage where they are considered part of the character then let them have to be resurrected as other players are or some such.

But no double-click and horse appears sort of thing. God no.

All just my opinion of course.

 

Mounts will no be in the game in episode one - who knows about the rest of the episodes.

 

I strongly dislike magic for the sake of convenience.. and that includes utility summons like mounts. There's just something about things like this that diminishes both the magic in the world and mounts themselves. What should be special and precious is reduced to the mundane, common and worthless. It would be akin to making death painless for the player in that sense.. death should mean something.. as should owning a mount.

 

Agreed. If it's just to make things more convenient for players I think it takes away from the experience. If it were to have a strong grounding in the story driving their existence I might not object so much though...

 

What about having your mount always by your side? If you get off your mount, then it wanders off a few meters and starts grazing, then when you are done with what you were doing <fighting, getting resources, whatever>, then you walk up to it and get back on.

 

Yep, that's how UO handled it... in WoW they don't let you fight from horseback so your mount disappears then reappears, it would have been better if it stood next to you, but in many instances you would have to leave it behind from limited space. so it was a decision of design choice. UO mounts were very common, it was rare i walked around on foot, other games they restrict your mounts... so it just depends on how things are designed.

We might never see mounts with the way the game is setup. dual scale maps typically if you got mounts they were used only in the overworld map and were things like chocobos(with limited ability to cross over areas), ships, and airships. ways to travel by air and sea are much more common forms of travel than mounts.

 

I will defer to my usual opinion of prioritizing fun over realism.

I play SWTOR daily. My mount appears and disappears. Star Wars doesn't even have magic to explain it. I've never once heard anyone complain about it.

A mount allows you to cross terrain faster, which is a huge convenience. RG mentioned when he was first developing Tabula Rasa he wanted to focus on the elements of the game that were fun, and remove from MMOs conventions that were not fun. If it takes a decent amount of time to reach players you want to play with, then that isn't fun. He added teleportation because he wanted players to group quickly and easily. I see mounts in that vein. I'd rather have an unrealistic appearing/disappearing mount, than long travel times that are tedious.

I need to be able to travel quickly to meet up with players from my guild, or my friends, or whatever.

Edit: I'm discussing if/when mounts are added since they won't be in Episode 1 it seems.

 

http://tinyurl.com/lgfgntg

Much more fun that way.

 

For any not familiar with Sacred/Sacred 2, you can whistle for your mount and it will come running, sometime it takes a little bit for it to show up and you might have to go get it if it can't come directly to you. If you are fighting it'll stand off to the side and not come into where the fighting is. It can be killed and at times you have to put some effort into protecting it, like if a fight goes bad you want to get off and get far enough away so the mobs don't kill your mount too. This system I like alot.


Games with an "over map" system don't usually have or need mounts, but someday maybe we'll get them.

 

If somebody is riding a Summoned or Ethereal mount, what happens when a hostile magic-user casts a Dismissal or Banishment?

And does the mount use its, or the rider's, stats when a determination is made about resisting magic (especially phantasms)?

Also, how prevalent will the pairing of 'detection/alert' magics be? Those can make magic mounts a self-filtering liability (most players will be either too low a level to have such, or too inexperienced with higher-order use of low-order alerts to be wary of them).

...plus, there's the Classical technique, exploiting the scent of a mare in season, to thoroughly discombobulate all those ego-happy, heavily-armored, Anti-Paladins (or Chevaliers or just plain Paladins) who feel they must ride stallions. Make the path lead through a combination of tight walls and low boughs to separate rider from horse, as they pursue different goals.

 

This brings up another intresting point, using an old hunters trick to camoflage yourself and scare off lesser critters.