Player owned town portals

I want to address this and say that I am in support of player owned town portals. I do however have some questions on how they might be implemented and have some concerns about them as well.

1. Will player owned towns be able to have multiple portals to different different player owned towns?

2. What is the range of the reach of the portals in distance?

3. Do the player owned towns need to be adjoining each other to have the portals?

My concern is that it could be abused if towns could be linked across the map, bypassing the regional zones, overland maps, and choke points.

What do you guys think?

 

Learn to Walk

 

I like to walk

The benefit to player owned towns as I see it would be to join a community together of player owned towns. If we are side by side next to each other it is a great benefit to go to the next hex. It is important to have it for going to a town that is adjoining yours on an island town or in a below ground scene.

 

I think that Player Owned Portals should be partially under the control of devs, but if two towns wished to connect, it should be possible (with few rules listed below).

Each POT should have maximally one portal (there can be boats or coaches as fast travel to nearby towns).
The larger the distance between towns, the shorter the connection should be and it might require more special conditions.
The more towns are linked by this single portal the more 'messy' the daily and monthly schedule for these connections is.
POT portals should not allow manipulation to select target destination.

POT owners could select if they prefer more frequent (and more unpredictable) connections or longer and more stable connections.

I also think that lunar rifts should have small chance of backfiring (increasing with number of connected locations) putting players into random encounter randomly on the map.

I like fast transport, but there needs to be risks of using it, otherwise why bother with the map.

 

1: Should
2: If they're connected by boat it shouldn't matter.
3: Yes, unless by boat.

UO gave me a strong dislike of magic travel as it can and would be easily abused to the point that people have no respect for travel and take magic for granted.

Implementation is easy. Just set up connections like they are now.

 

I would say portals between towns should be a definite no-no, no one should be allowed to skirt the overland map functionality.

That being said, normally functioning rifts should be allowed, as well as boat travel. Essentially anything that would be allowed in a normal NPC town

 

Walking for its own sake will get old pretty fast. If there's something to do/see/look for when walking, yes, by all means. If walking is just a way to pointlessly dilute gameplay, and having to staring repeatedly at loading screens every minute or so, oh god please no.

 

so what do you think about the portals then? The range of them and such?

 

I am not sure about every town having a lunar rift, but it does present an option. I would like to put a price on travel though through the rifts if that was the case. Having multiple destinations and all.

 

I am not sure they want fast travel between scenes unless they are adjoining, was player town portals mentioned somewhere? or just an idea?

 

They have indeed been brought up on the forums before, so it is a possibility that they will be in game. I am not certain of course. It is worth this discussion though, and should be discussed accordingly.

 

ah ok nice. I think if PoTs have event support added, portals should open in all towns when an event draws near that would take people to the town where the event is happening. Exiting that scene should then result in sending you back to the town you originally started in.

 

I am not sure about that. It is an interesting idea. If something like this where to be implemented, a cost must be applied to the portal. It all depends on the distance traveled.

 

perhaps event tickets could be prepurchased that allowed it.

 

that is a great idea! I never thought of that. I was thinking more on the way of your weight or what you have in bulk supply, as to apply a cost to fast travel vs overland map for region to region trade.

 

In fact you could have an npc vendor sell the tickets at the gates, that would or could levy the right amount to charge you for the trip.

 

Honestly didn't think about it.

I'd prefer the "filler" map to be... ehm... full of things to do/see/search/examine/discover/fight.

Lacking that (boo!), maybe some gathering points with teleport/rifts near major urban conglomerates. E.g. one portal close to Port Phoenix (wherever it will be), so all the connected POTs will take advantage of that. Another near Paxlair and its hinterland area. Then out in "the bare plains of Wiltshire" at close distance from major NPC cities/towns. OH, Ardoris, Brittany, Resolute, etc.

A network of fast travel not necessarily covering every single POT (maybe giving portals only to POTs size City+?), nor every neighborhood, but still a way to cut down huge distances, in case it'll take half an hour to go from Sawtooth Hollow to the next town with something to see.

And fleeing from five random encounters on the way.

And the three roving encounters made you take an highroad thru the mountains.

And the PVP ambush.

And that nasty patch of map that looks like cobblestone road, but actually you crawl thru it as if you were in deep forest.

Only to realize you forgot to bring with you the Greater Sword of Ungodly Slaying Everything++ that you sooo dearly wanted to sell at the Brittany trade fair. And set sails for home, another thirty minutes in the middle of absolutely nowhere and "prepare to defend yourself".

 

Thank you for your reply.
I am for portals also, but as you know I do like the overland map. But I do see your point. As a proposal I suggested a fee applied to the convenience of fast travel. I feel like being able to skip over content should have a price. Do you feel this is reasonable?

 

Fee for fast travel is ok. Considering that higher level chars may have broader horizons, maybe scaled with level?

I would like to be able to skip only over no-content, while playing a game to its fullest when it's densely populated with things to do/see. Even Daggerfall (1996) had fast travel to your destination, while letting you roam freely an humongous map (*) if you feel like doing so, and you'd stumble upon tons of encounters and randomly generated and placed dungeons.

Neither the "go anywhere with a teleport" of modern WoW, nor the need to cross endless swaths of empty wilderness as punishment for not having bought enough housing lots in every "significant" location.
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(*) - Daggerfall map was truly legendary in size: 161'000 km2, and hype wants that it takes around two weeks to fully cross it in wilderness mode, riding on horseback, thru 15'000 point of interest, mostly algorithmically generated. For comparison, Morrowind is 24 km2, Oblivion 57 and Skyrim 37. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_II:_Daggerfall#Gameplay

 

The fee for fast travel would be required in my opinion for the reason that the game is set up with regional economies. If we can figure out the cost in percentage of time/vs effort and put a price tag on it for bypassing the control points, random encounters, and basic travel time, then I am all for your ideas. The cost must be greater of course than the time/effort that overland map consists of. I think Richard mentions something like this in one of his interviews. I will find it if I need to lol. He does mention that fast travel will come with a cost, but he does not say what that cost is other than he wants you to have to weigh the choice of such a benefit.