I'm on a boat....

User controllable boats can be cool if there is something to do on them? Explore? Fish? Host a party? Find an island to claim a plot of land on?

 

I'm definitely looking forward to potential boat use in future episodes as the world map opens up a bit and there are places to actually sail to. In days of ye olde UO I ran a somewhat short-termed ferry service off one of the islands. I had a bunch off 'toy boats' lined up with labels and people could cast a recall spell off the boat key to wherever the boat happened to be (a boat rune library of sorts). I'd leave the boats in set points around the world, cast 'Recall' off the key and reset them to their original positions once a week (until I ran out of patience one day). Felucca (a more dangerous shard in UO based off the orbiting moons) boats were a bit harder but I believe I did attempt to run a few of these from a player run town if memory serves correct - the initial experiment.

Anyway, this is just to note that I support the idea and hope boats also see some expanded use from what they were used for in the first decade of Ultima Online (beyond macro mining).

 

Explicit Language (NSFW)


couldn't help myself.

 

We do have houseboats ingame.
The only thing keeping them at their location is the bridge, which could be destroyed??

 

yeah boat travel was fun... I always sailed around in UO looking for new spots to place a home, somewhere unusual and off the beaten path.

 

You are so right on that...It was early Novemember when I saw ArchAge's housing and I was thinking ewww those are horrible and cramped...and like the next youtube i watched SOTA...6 month demo I think, and the houses were so awesome! The decorating was fun and easy...chairs you can sit on! Everything I had been waiting for...So lucky I was in between games again and bored...

I think this game may end up with boat eventually. Fishing tends to bring them into play and so does sandbox. I'll always love Vanguard for their craftable boats and yachts... And I remember in UO you could sail so far with your friends and do some hunting on the sea too...

Fun times. I think we will get another chance at fun times in this game for sure.

 

Boats were one of the stretch goals they met during KS (though not player controlled boats, rather taxis which took you around), so I think boats will definitely be in game. We might just have to wait on player-controlled boats and ship battles though.

 

I also support the boat ideas! big time its fun!

 

Yoho me hardys we'll keelhaul them beneath their own bot.

 

OK... I may be wrong, but I thought that the world is going to be released year by year (in Episodes) in a 3 by 3 grid. Correct? In first release (Ep. 1) we get the first tile, called Novia, which is the center tile. Then we get 1 or two more parts of this 3 by 3 (9 tiles in total) grid in the second release (Ep. 2), and so on until the entire persistent "globe" is playable. Although I do not think this has been officially confirmed by developers, it does look like the Novia map piece will be the middle of what will ultimately be a Britannia (or very very similar) from U9. There was a thread in which this was discussed. See how the Benefactor's Cloak image seems to be the map from U9 with a moon or both moons destroyed, and chunks of them in orbit?
If this is all true, and we DO get a U9-ish Britannia in the end, then a ship cannot sail *at all* until the entire 3 by 3 grid is complete. Novia being just the center tile, you would not be able to sail anywhere else, because it is not released or created yet. I hope I am making sense.

 

They could reveal the entire continent that makes up multiple episodes, but portions of that continent have no detail and certainly aren't accessible. So you could still have ships auto-sail you to other islands or continents if that land is available for exploration with the episode's release.

 

I'll be pretty disappointed if the game has a ship that "auto sails" me around. One thing that UO, U4 and U5 had right was that the map was a globe, and if you wanted to you could sail anywhere. If you sailed off the edge of the map, you appeared on the other side of it, implying it was actually a realistically spherical world. Sadly, the only way I see this working is if they don't have ships until the entire world is in-place (5 years after Episode 1 release?).

 

For the time being (Episode 1), there will be ships that transport you around but you can't control them. It is hoped in future episodes that you will get to own them and sail them wherever you like. They love the idea but unfortunately it wasn't something they could commit to for the initial release. We can dream though!

 

If all you could do was sail around and not visit those other continents, this one being one of the smallest land masses, we'd be annoyed. It's best that they hold ships for what I would think would be episode 3... the last few landmasses can be hidden/inaccessible/whatever. But there isn't much point in sailing at this point with limited locations to go to. You could make a case for episode 2 even, with what has been hinted at as 2 more land masses appearing we at least have a few places to travel between on our own ships.

 

However it happens, I hope they take as much time as they need to get it perfect.

 

I don't know if there are any other former EQ players here, but when EQ first launched I can remember falling off the boats due to server lag. :/

 

They could add small islands and dynamic content around the coast of Novia. I'd take my boat and circumnavigate the entire continent of Novia if possible! Just put in a bunch of connected instances that circle the continent and let us go exploring!

 

Boats would also help fill the void of non property owners having access to more storage space. You might not be able to craft on a boat, but you sure as hell can store a lot of your stuff on it. Just make sure to lock the plank

 

I can't wait to see the two house boats they have planned. I'm on a boat! I'm on a boat!

 

Actual in-game screenshots: