The Daily Grind: Long treks and earned mounts, or easy fast travel?

I must admit, I love having space to wander and explore. LotRO zones could easily be ten times the size and I'd love them that much more :)

But I'm odd. Everyone knows that.

I've always thought it was incongruous to have a game set in a medieval fantasy world.......and not being able to ride a horse till Level 40. Given that you'd imagine that every kid by the time the could walk could ride a horse as it was up until the motor vehicle came along here in the 'real' world.

Can you imagine reading a fantasy book, of any flavour, that said that the Hero's party travelled to the Whatever Mountains, a journey of 6 months because the hero of the book couldn't ride a horse yet......but could despatch entire tribes of Orcs with a single swipe of his magical sword.....

Keep in mind that everyone pretty much knew how to ride a horse in medieval times, but very few could afford to own one.

Nonetheless, it IS rather retarded that "you need to be THIS high" to ride a horse in a fantasy game. What the heck is the point to that? If you want players to see your setting and value the background you've created, then give them a reason to adventure there--don't just force them to walk through it.

I think it depends on the atmosphere the game is going for.
Guild Wars, travel is not even a factor and thats what the players expect. Vanguard on the other hand, large, no huge, explorable world.

I like having a world that can be explored and as annoying as walking may be by level 30 or whatever, I certainly prefer it that way. There are so many places in gameworlds I would never see if I just rushed down the path on my horse/tiger/speedwings and I certainly wouldn't feel immersed. It's the same feeling I have about AoC's quest markers on the minimap - sure, sometimes it's annoying to not know where to find something, but after playing AoC I SO prefer not knowing where everything is right away.

Also, I think arguments from medieval reality about the trait of an acknowledged medieval fantasy are just plain silly.

It's an annoying chore. WOW wanted to get rid of some of the monotony of playing MORPG's with less downtime, but they've been horrible at forcing people to travel for extended amounts of time. Not being able to travel quicker with the flight paths, or waiting for ships, or not being able to easily go back and forth from outlands to Azeroth (except one way), is annoying.

I still remember Everquest (1) when they released an expansion where you could use portal stones that could take you from any city to a portal city that could then take you anywhere else.

It was amazing and well worth whatever they wanted to charge.

If someone is the wanderer who wants to take it easy to explore, there is nothing to stop her from doing so.
Not getting access to a mount due to level restrictions is simply a time-sink. And time-sinks are there for you to stay longer, pay longer and let the devs get away with the type of quest system that most MMOs have.

And another problem with running around: once you discovered an area, you get tired if you have to run back and forth for the umpteenth time for your quests. There the magic gets lost quite fast....

EQ2 doesn't have a level restriction, but mounts are very expensive. For some classes the horse speed of "cheap" mounts though might not be worth it either with the correct skill, thus not everyone will run around on mounts.
And for a twink/alt, where you have money, it doesn't matter.

In the end, all games develop a way to get around their own system. WoW by lowering the riding level to 30, making the skills cheaper, etc. LOTRO found a way around the lore to put in some fellowship traveling methods, etc.

It isn't just City of Heroes that's spoiled me. It's been long enough that I don't remember how low they went, but I want to say it was as low as level 25 that you could get a flying vehicle in Anarchy Online, if you were persistent enough. And in Neocron, while you were unlikely to *fly* much before level 30 (of 36), there were fairly inexpensive non-combat motorcycles available as early as level 10.

Look, I understand why it's out of character in a medieval setting to travel 35 miles per hour plus. This has very little effect on me personally; having played AD&D since 1978, I've been bored with generic medieval fantasy settings since before there *were* MMOs. But how realistic do you really want? Remember that it took months for Frodo to walk from the Shire to Mount Doom; are any of you saying that that's how long you want it to take your character to get from the mission-giver to the door to the mission?

Even back in Diablo II, itself in a late-medieval early-Renaissance fantasy setting, the longest walk I remember took not much more than an hour *counting* the time to fight every swarm of enemies between point A and point B, and you never had to walk that far twice thanks to saved waypoints. If a generic fantasy game is going to have magic in it, it's at the very least inexcusable not to have selectable teleporters all *over* the world.

Spending half or more of my logged-in time doing nothing but walking from point A to point B is a pointless time sink, especially if I'm asked to take the same long walk more than once, and doubly so in any game set in a modern or science-fiction setting.

I'm still a fan of the idea of wandering a zone once, then finding a portal stone, so from there out you can warp to that spot. Great for the initial moment of exploration, convenient for later excursions.

I miss the Guild Wars style of travel. Instant, and easy. LOTRO isn't terrible, but needs more interconnected fast travel options.

I can still remember waiting for boats in EQ when it launched. That boredom combined with corpse runs was the main reason I didn't last very long in EQ...

I'm currently playing WoW, but I've always hated mounts and flight paths. Even with a mount in WoW, traveling somewhere can still take an eternity. Some flights are ridiculous and can take over 10 mins. I'm glad I play a Mage since they can teleport to some cities.

Even though not everyone had the ability, I loved how DAoC had a self casting speed that some classes had. It sucks that not all classes had it, but that's what I prefer.

It used to be a pain to travel in DAoC though with the taxi horses and having to wait for the teleport master guy in Castle Sauvage. Don't forget to wear your necklace! :P Then they got rid of all that and basically put teleporters in all main cities that ported you instantly.

I'm a fan of walking, I think it adds to vastness of the world your in. I also agree its a chore most of the time, especially on routes you've trekked before.

A couple things I'd like to see;

A stamina bar which would require you to set up a camp to rest and eat. This would give game developers a chance to add new mobs scripts. So no two long treks would be the same experience.

I do like mounts and other sources of fast transportation, but it definitely should be more cost effective to walk. So you can make the cost of trekking free, it should cost you something (food & grooming) to maintain a mount (horse, mystical winged creature). Same thing with devices like wormhole-like gates or teleportation gadget or spells. Charge a taxi-like fare for the use of gates, and require devices or spells to be 'recharged' over long period of time.

The whole point of MMOs is to 'roleplay' and be part the virtual world as if it truly exist. Hardships no matter how annoying or dull should definitely be part of the roleplaying experience.

Without travel time you take the world out of the game. We already know most MMO players play for the rewards and level race than explore or get immersed.

You might as well make it all instanced with portals in cities, atleast Guild Wars disguises most of its instances with beutifull towns.

MMORPGs are not supposed to be dungeon runners/diablo. Take your mind off the grind carrot for a while and look on the bright side of enjoying a world with others.

travel powers were my favorite thing in CoX, they definitely made the game feel fresh compared to most other MMOs i've played.

personally i think they encouraged exploration, not discouraged it. there were many zone to check out, and you can make the zone more interesting with travel powers, ie multi level, etc...