End / Remove / FIx Teleport . . .

When someone invents a teleporter IRL and we she hiw tariffs alter to meet that tech I will be back here with a rebuttal, count on it

 

http://progressquest.com/

People should play Progress Quest and see the extreme example it makes.

Removal of travel is a major step in the direction being illustrated.

 

Edit: @Nelzie: I got my Belt of the ox at the elysium mine from an elemental mob, just as an unexpected drop from an ordinary mob, but I guess it could drop elsewhere, just needs a little bit of luck.[/QUOTE]

Off to the Elysium Mines it is! LOL

 

when talking about economy, travel is irrelevant now, and would be nearly as irrelevant with teleport and recall removed. People don't go mining, then list their ore on a public vendor near where they are because it's heavy. They buff and/or crawl to the place where they can sell on their commission-free-vendor. It is the tax which determines the market, not a load screen or 2 minutes of a boring mini-game.

 

We could all stand in one spot, never moving, and the content could come to us. The game could be more like a slot machine. Three cherries - uber loot. Three diamonds - 1 mil exp. Tax as they see fit.

Why is there a world at all? Why do we bother clicking anyway. Bot it and let it roll while we sleep.

See where I am going with this?

What would it take to get you to travel? That’s the things I say we add. Not wanting to focus on zipping passed the boring parts. Make it less skippable because we don’t want to skip it.

 

What? I travel currently, to my vendor, every time i sell. Currently i'm encouraged to sell everything at my CFV, or one of the handful i have been given access to.

The question you should be asking, if you are trying to support the current notion of regional economies, is "What would it take to get you to not travel, and instead sell your goods in the locality of their origination?"

I'm not even discussing whether recall/teleport are good or bad.. My point is that "travel" as an generator of "regional economies" is a failure. It is my opinion that would be just as true without either spell. If novia were removed, it is possible but not certain that it could work.

 

I miss my demi-Canadian bastard.

 

I can really defend something that’s never existed. Can’t really say the concept has failed when it’s not there to show failure.

But teleport as is will make it fail for sure.

 

I can't believe this has become a serious discussion about regional economies.

There is nowhere in the world I regularly go to to find a favourable vendor, they are all pretty much the same. If you took away teleporting to friends, it would change nothing. You wouldn't see more people selling artifacts or resources in specific areas moreso than other areas.

The end result would be that it would just make the game a little harder to play because there is no fast travel anymore (or less fast travel I guess, with lunar rifts).

 

The regional economy thing was a decent idea but well, quite simply, it just doesn't exist at this stage of the game and can't really, its too easy for people to buy and relist items elsewhere and we end up with fairly standard prices unless you happen to find a 'good deal' in a less travelled area. There is no regional anything aside from npc price inflation in popular areas ..so you just go buy your reagents at the nearest pot instead.

Because the regional economy isn't really a thing, its not really a good argument against convenience/fast travel.

Personally, I think we need MORE convenience and fast travel, less time wasted in pointless overworld meandering. After you've explored everywhere the travel time is just a frustrating sink, especially having to deal with random encounters and sieges when you're just trying to get someplace. Without the teleport to friend option it would take 10-15 minutes to get people grouped up, and that's optimistic. We really don't need MORE deterrents to grouping, grouping should be encouraged and made as easy as possible. For the individual, what is the purpose of adding unnecessary time to every journey? Wouldn't we all rather just get where we're going and...play the game? Whether you're going to kill things or returning home or shopping or going to a party or whatever, the endless to-and-fro doesn't add anything of substance to the experience.

It once took me over an hour to get from where I live (over by Desolis) to where I was going (Norgard area) due to control point pointlessness, random encounter pointlessness, and siege pointlessness, and all the associated load screens accumulated therein and pointless running about. By time I got where I was going that was basically all my playtime for the evening gone. Thats an extreme case, but you're easily looking at 10-15 min travel on a regular basis if you've not got someone to teleport to at your destination. What does this accomplish? What possible argument, other than regional economy, is there to force players to waste what time they have to play unproductively walking about?

 

remember part of this was also like in the Norgruad area, wooden weapons would get a earth boost if crafter in the setting sun . . .

There is / was talk of regions being this interlaced throughout crafting / economy. So it was not just as simple as a vendor in the north east had so and so . . .

There is so much that is just left out there hanging it is sad

 

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I loved the concept/idea/potential of a regional economy. But we don't have one.
Even with no fast travel its a fairly simple thing for players to walk from wherever you get X commodity to their preferred home/town/place of selling it.

So even though the Elysium area is where most of the mined gold in the game comes from (From Ely and Etceter Crag Mines both being down there), you don't see gold ore for sale cheaper in that part of the world compared to anywhere else. People more than likely just recall home with the stuff, and removing teleport to friend isn't likely to change that. Even if you removed recall, people would still walk to wherever they live/sell to list on their own vendor rather than paying tax on a public vendor locally. And we aren't likely to see tax removed from public vendors, which is probably one of the biggest obstacles to building local markets.

The thing is with players, really, we are very migratory, we travel across the map all day long to get to our preferred places to kill things, mine things, whatever. Some of us have chosen to live near our preferred areas but we still get around. The only way I could see a regional economy working was if it was hard-coded in by the developers, i.e. NPCs in a certain town may pay more for x or y non-local goods. But since there's very little that gets sold to the npc other than weapon junk, as anything with a crafting use is better off being sold to players, I don't think this would make enough of a dent.

I'd have LOVED to see regional demand / price fluctuation / etc. but its been made pretty clear the devs don't want players to be able to make money without fighting (as every possible way of doing so is quickly nerfed) so I doubt we'd ever see a real 'merchant' capability involving NPCs.

That being said ....and back on topic ....why make travel arduous? I see no way that some sort of limited runebook like functionality would be detrimental to the game. Even if you made it some sort of anchor that you had to put on a lot or town, rather than something you could use from your inventory, it could at least help folks get where they need to go.

 

Who will compensate the scroll makers? You will make them homeless!

 

Just like getting rid of the IRS. They are still accountants. They will find work doing other things. The skills don't disappear.

Lots more in the Alchemy tool chest.

 

I disagree. I like the overland travel the way it currently is. There was no fun in the Ultima online recall system. Frankly, I wish the devs would remove the friend teleport too. It makes zero sense in the game world!

 

im for either or but this grey area we are in stinks. Remove teleport completely or add runebooks and be done with it.

edit; and I hate the overland map but I hate a unreliable teleport sytem even more

 

Yes.

It's pretty convenient, more so now that load times are getting optimized a bit, as long as you have a PC capable of running two clients simultaneously. I have my alts bound in/near Drachvald, Resolute, Ardoris and Hidden Vale so that I can get to places even when all the Americans are still in bed (or when I'm on the QA server, for that matter).

I don't think there's any real chance of us getting one until Episode 2 comes along and adds more regions.

 

See, I believe the overworld map is the best thing SotA has going for it. Tons of potential there.

 

Before the load times were lowered i would only go places i could tele to pretty much. overworld travel is too slow and needing multiple load screens just ruined the idea of going anywhere my friends werent. Now aside from the still slow overworld travel i find myself walking more locations just for the enjoyment. I would like to be able to choose multiple spots to recall but perhaps only 6 or less. If theyre going to keep teleport should make it so your friend needs to accept your teleport to them so you can blackmail people

 

First off, let me start with saying that i don't think we will see any regional economy until at least episode 2. The landmass we have is just not large enough to keep players from reaching any spot they like to go to in a few-ish minutes. Having another recall spot or several wouldn't hurt anyone. Just attach a price for using to it, a loss in experience for example, much like those dread artifacts if you wish to recharge them. The experience loss would increase the more you use them and could be "reset" by either not using it for time or by doing a quest.

I'm still hoping that eventually the world map has so many distractions (fun ones) that people will want to walk instead of porting, but having it as a option is most certainly welcome.