Control Points and the storyline

I was doing some thinking on control points, at the moment they are large areas controlled by monsters.

If a guild takes over can they charge players to go through?

Is the eventual plan to have it so it will be a pvp zone you have to go through?

How will these zones affect the following of the story line?

 

It'd be pretty futile to make it a PvP zone or for guilds to try to charge a toll for a couple reasons..

People will either go around or go single player to avoid it.. or they could end up passing through a different instance.

A control point should only force you into the instance if it's not controlled by players. Plus there are always alternate routes through the area. I go through the gap for example all the time and never have to fight.

 

Currently the only places I'm aware of that force players out of single player are the shardfalls, and visiting those is strictly voluntary.

Visiting places like Eastreach, Brightbone, etc. is not voluntary. It is forced on players who wish to complete the story that is part of the game that they have paid for - the same game that was promoted as supporting Single Player Online. It would not be appropriate to force players passing through those areas out of single player mode, without providing an alternative that allows them to remain in single player.

 

Has that been implemented?
I spend so much time in multiplayer that I haven't noticed.

 

I have been told that it has, but I do not feel inclined to verify that.

 

I've spent at least an hour a day for the past week in verdantis gathering wood (best place I've found to do so) in single player online. Haven't seen another soul in all that time. So either it isn't implemented or I've just been in there when zero others have.

 

I've been spending time collecting resources and gaining XP in Verdantis Shardfalls for the past few days and have only run into a few other players and was only hit once and that was by Net's obsidian bear that was off it's leash, so it's fairly safe there at the moment.

 

Right now, the mages offering to transport avatars across the passes don't have much of a function. First of all, the price is too high, and secondly it is possible even for a very low level player to dash through the pass taking only one or two hits, so there is no need (other than to save a few minutes time) to pay the mage.

I see a lot of potential for them, though, if they are woven into the story. I had a hilarious conversation with the mage on the southern side of Brightbone Pass - he was understandably grumpy at having to stand out in the cold waiting for customers.

 

The ability to teleport to houses and /zone has rendered control points useless unfortunately regardless if they are PvP or not. Perhaps /zone will be removed from the game, but will zoning to houses? I am not so sure. Both would have to go if further development time is going to be put into them.

 

There has to be a reasonable way to get through these zones(note I say reasonable) so that people can progress....if they can't progress the story because of the zones for whatever reason and get stuck on these zones I think it would cause a lot of problems...now if these zones separated a high yield area that isn't necessary for the story, having tougher requirements to get in is just fine.