Meaningful distance in MMOs: A discussion

[Heliomance]

This is an idea that occurred to me reading some fics online. What would be the consequences of having an MMO that included meaningful distances as part of gameplay?

To help discussion, I'll define what I mean by meaningful distance.

-Semi-realistic distances between towns for the time period. As an absolute minimum, major cities should be as far apart as they are in, say Skyrim. Further would be better - I'm thinking at LEAST half an hour to walk between cities, preferably more. Opposing nations would be significantly further away, probably.

-No fast travel. No teleportation magic. No facility to return to a place you've already been with just a click. If you want to go anywhere, you'll have to travel the distance. Mounts and other means to give you a faster land speed are okay - horses can cut down travel time simply by making you move faster, maybe allow flying as well, but distance can't simply be ignored.

-(Optional) some form of logistics management. Having to stop to eat and sleep regularly in game just gets annoying, but possibly a system where you have to have access to food at all times, even if you don't actually have to eat it.

What would a game look like if it was built with these in mind from day one? What changes would have to be made? Could it still be fun?

[Elemental]

It would be fun for the right people, myself included.
But most people hate walking.

[Heliomance]

Oh, pasted into a game as an afterthought, it would be terrible. But I think if a game was built around it, it could be made interesting. It would mean travel was far less common - you'd go to an area and stay in that area until you'd done everything there was to do there.

Wars would be interesting, if you had to move the armies overland to the battlefield, and there'd be potential for quests out in the middle of nowhere that require planned expeditions to get to and complete. Things like that.

[Elemental]

No doubt it could be done well.
But as I've said, most people hate walking. For those of us who like scenery, it'd be great, but for those who prefer action, they'd find transit times rather annoying.

[Heliomance]

Then that's something that would have to be taken into account. Something to do on the way would work, though I'm not sure what would be best.

[GnomeFighter]

I don't think it would work to have realistic distances at all I'm afraid. You talk about half an hour to get between cities. It takes more than an hour for me to drive between the large town I live in and the nearest city, which is not that far away. It takes 20-30 mins to walk from the edge of my town to the nearest village, which is about 20 houses and a pub... Any game that tried to implement realistic distances would mean you were walking for days or even weeks on end to get anywhere.

Anything other than realistic is the designers choice as to how far they think feels right, and for me it depends on the game.

[Elemental]

Neither am I. The main difficulty with that idea is;
What do you do with the routes that have to be travelled a lot? Like between say, two major cities? People are bound to go backwards and forwards so much that nothing will distract them.

[valadil]

What would turn that interesting instead of tedious for me would be player factions. I don't just mean guilds, where everybody knows to be in the Capital by Sunday for the big raid. I think I mean something broader that isn't so quest specific. I really like the idea of playing the factions agent in a specific city. Managing who goes where when going somewhere isn't free seems like an interesting challenge.

I don't think this would work with traditional quest structure. I'm not really sure what these quests would look like.

If you want players coordinating across cities they'll need a way to communicate. Carrier pigeon seems thematically appropriate, but still might piss off impatient players. Instant message might break immersion, but I'd you don't include it players will just alt tab to chat. Did you have any thoughts on the matter?

[Heliomance]

That can be partially accounted for by the standard practise of having in-game time run faster that RL time. Half an hour IRL could be three hours in game or something. The point is making the world seem large, and changing the way people think about in game distances. One of the things about Skyrim that irritated me slightly is the way people kept giving quests on the other side of the province. Most people in a civilisation like Skyrim shouldn't have any business with places that far away, and the only way it's reasonable for you to do what they ask is the fast travel system. I'd like to see something that stops distance being a triviality.

[The_Admiral]

I think Skyrates has something like that. You set your plane to go somewhere, step away from your computer and let the plane fly, maybe check up on the plane now and then for possible combat.

[factotum]

Isn't World of Warcraft more or less like that anyway? Apart from cross-continent travel you have to jump on some sort of flying beast to make fast journeys, and those can take AGES--back when I used to play (which was a good five years ago, admittedly) one of the longest "fast travel" flights I remember took something like 12 minutes of real time!

The fact is, having people take a while to reach their destination is only a benefit to the makers of the MMO--so long as the player doesn't get bored and stop playing, the more time it takes them to do stuff, the better for the game.

[valadil]

Here's a thought for the benefit of the patience impaired. While a character was in transit could the player play an alt? I wouldnt mind leaving my main character out of commission until he reached his destination as long as I could still play someone else. Maybe you'd have to navigate to a city the first time you went there but afterwards you could use autopilot. Same idea a fast travel but slower.

[Brother Oni]

Shouldn't this be in the Gaming (Other) forum?

Anyway I think Daggerfall had realistic distances between towns so while you could run from place to place, most people used the fast travel system.

Eve Online kinda has realistic distances - deadspace pockets (dungeon rooms) are all interconnected by acceleration gates (one way fast travel system), which can be traversed by normal flying, but expect it to take hours in anything other than the very fastest ships.
As it's a sci-fi setting with FTL, fast travel is kind of needed (fastest non-FTL speed is about 24km/s, which would take ~75 real time days to travel 1 AU and star systems are several AU across).

Atlantica Online has semi-realistic distances and also has an automove function to get to far off locations that can't be teleported to. The problem is, if you're jumped by a mob or another player and you're AFK, you're screwed.

I think Age of Conan has some hybrid system, but I'm not sure.

Unless you introduced some sort of automove or quick travel from major population centres, it'll turn people off as a major time sink.
If I was playing Skyrim, I certainly wouldn't have completed the Thieves' Guild quest to capture Markath as it involves multiple trips from Riften, a journey that takes ~24 hours ingame time, or ~72 minutes real time.
Note that this is for traversing the entire game world - if you introduced this as the minimum distance to get from Helgen to Riverwood, I probably would stuck with the game until being told to go to Whiterun.


I'd like to see something that stops distance being a triviality.

Simple - have certain events happen only at set times (weekly, monthly, annual, etc) in-game and tie the travelling into that. People will have to start planning their journeys better to co-incide with events they want to see/interact with, thus making distances (and time management) more of an issue.

Suppose the stuff you wanted to buy was only available on a weekly market and you missed it by a day - you could either wait around 6 days (and incur boarding fees) or go round adventuring and try and get back in time for the next one.

[Morph Bark]

In the beginning, I would think it was very nice, because I love to explore. However, once I would have gotten through a location twice already, I would start to hate it due to the long distances involved. Fast travel should be an option, but with limits that are reasonable for the kind of world the MMO is set in.

[Elemental]

Hmm... Depending on the time period... Trains are a possibility.
I mean, everyone likes steam trains.

But if the trains are magitech, that's just too much.

Also, not at all a possibility in a fantasy setting because of the above.
No magitech trains! They make me cry.

[Eurus]

I think it'd be interesting to include a fast-travel system, but limit it. Towns have teleportation circles, but it requires an expenditure of mana or expensive reagents. It's impractical for moving armies, and won't take you to unexplored or enemy territory, but it eases the burden of getting from place to place in relatively safe circumstances.

[Mercenary Pen]

Hmm... Depending on the time period... Trains are a possibility.
I mean, everyone likes steam trains.

But if the trains are magitech, that's just too much.

Also, not at all a possibility in a fantasy setting because of the above.
No magitech trains! They make me cry.

You could even go back as far as horse and carriage if wanted...

[Ravens_cry]

I wouldn't mind it if there was plenty to see, do, and explore along the way. If it's just bland scenery, well, it just becomes a time sink.
Magictech trains could be OK if there is a strong tradition in the fictional setting of mixing mundane technology with magic.

[GolemsVoice]

You could at least make it so that you have to explore new areas once or twice, and after that, they are available via fast travel. For extra travelling, you could make it so that particularly remote locations always have to be reached manually.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Here's a thought for the benefit of the patience impaired. While a character was in transit could the player play an alt? I wouldnt mind leaving my main character out of commission until he reached his destination as long as I could still play someone else. Maybe you'd have to navigate to a city the first time you went there but afterwards you could use autopilot. Same idea a fast travel but slower.

As long as the travel times aren't excessive for say a flight or train, some sort of mini-game, like how in the old west guys on a long-ish train ride would play poker to pass the time. Sprinkle a few mini-games like that across a lounge of some sort in the vessel and longer travel times could be tolerable. Heck, some players would probably start doing the normal adventuring stuff just so they could afford travel tickets to get at the mini-games, if they're good enough.

[valadil]

As long as the travel times aren't excessive for say a flight or train, some sort of mini-game, like how in the old west guys on a long-ish train ride would play poker to pass the time. Sprinkle a few mini-games like that across a lounge of some sort in the vessel and longer travel times could be tolerable. Heck, some players would probably start doing the normal adventuring stuff just so they could afford travel tickets to get at the mini-games, if they're good enough.

Maybe? I like mini games when they're relevant and resent them when they aren't. River rafting in Oregon Trail (yes I'm old) was awesome. Poker in Red Dead Redemption was pointless. In theory I like the idea of getting rewarded for participating in this part of the game, but in practice I think I'd be pissed off at having to grind poker.

[Sipex]

Final Fantasy 11 kind of followed this. There were no easy ways to simply travel a large distance, especially at lower levels. If you wanted to go anywhere you'd probably be walking, waiting for a boat, riding said boat (and hiding below decks in case it got attacked by high level pirates) or renting a Chocobo (which was the same as walking, but you moved faster and you couldn't attack/be attacked).

Definitely gave journeys to other cities much more significance. Also made traveling incredibly perilous at low levels.

[akma]

This would work out horribly, both for the designers and the players.

The developers would have to spend much more time on scenery and the game will weight more bytes.

The players would get sick of all the walking. I personally would get sick of it almost immediatly (in fact, comments in this post convinced me never to try skyrim just becuse of the walking). I`m actully surprised some of you say you would like it.
But I don`t think you`ll like it for long.
Walking the same road over and over again, for half an hour each time, spending literaly hours on just walking. I`m sure anybody will eventully get sick of it.

Fast travel will make the distances meaningless. If it takes you 30 minutes to get there in walking, but just 2 minutes to get there in fast travel, it would take you 2 minutes. People would take fast travel whenever they could, unless they are intrested in something in the way. Making fast travel less available or expensive will irritate people, as they`ll have to walk 30 minutes when they just want to do something in the other city.

However...
For an exploration focused game long distances could be an advandge - a lot to explore. But it would still be horrible if you`ll have to walk the same paths over and over again.


You could at least make it so that you have to explore new areas once or twice, and after that, they are available via fast travel.

I agree with you, but instead of fast travel, I think it should be immediate travel - you get there immediatly, not in 5 minutes.



For extra travelling, you could make it so that particularly remote locations always have to be reached manually.

Then the distances would only apply when it`s most annoying. Players would just ignore those parts.

[Aedilred]

In order for it to work, you'd need to put as much effort into designing the landscapes in between cities and towns as into the cities and towns themselves. Including larger numbers of small settlements and isolated farms, etc. would be helpful in accomplishing this. I find that game landscapes tend to be somehow cluttered and sterile somehow. Also, as mentioned above, a realistic distance between cities and towns would be days, not minutes or hours.

Another option would be the existence of "travel parties", whether riverboats, bands of people heading to the same place like in the Canterbury Tales, aeroplanes/dragons (where appropriate), coaches for hire or whatever. You pay a fee, get on board, and then the journey becomes non-interactive (although an interacive option would be nice). Game time passes, you arrive in your new location, presto. That cuts out the problems of walking for those players who would hate it.

A game that handled this well, that I recall fondly, was the original Baldur's Gate. At least half the maps in that game were for wilderness or sections of road (or surrounding area) and there was something to do on each of them. But the player wasn't forced to interact with them in such a way that it became boring. In order to get anywhere for the first time, you had to tramp the whole way on foot. If returning to a distant location, you told the game where you wanted to go, and it assumed you took the quickest road back, adjusted the in-game time, and there you were. Unless you had an encounter along the way.

That sort of system, though, works well in a single-player RPG but is difficult to coordinate in a MMORPG. Making time in-game run faster than normal time is an option, but in most cases it already does, so you'd have to take care it doesn't get ridiculous. Characters travel outrageously quickly, because if you had to trudge around at 3-4mph you'd get bored within about a minute.

[valadil]

The developers would have to spend much more time on scenery and the game will weight more bytes.



In order for it to work, you'd need to put as much effort into designing the landscapes in between cities and towns as into the cities and towns themselves. Including larger numbers of small settlements and isolated farms, etc. would be helpful in accomplishing this. I find that game landscapes tend to be somehow cluttered and sterile somehow.


Read up on procedurally generated content.

[Heliomance]

This would work out horribly, both for the designers and the players.

The developers would have to spend much more time on scenery and the game will weight more bytes.

The players would get sick of all the walking. I personally would get sick of it almost immediatly (in fact, comments in this post convinced me never to try skyrim just becuse of the walking). I`m actully surprised some of you say you would like it.
But I don`t think you`ll like it for long.
Walking the same road over and over again, for half an hour each time, spending literaly hours on just walking. I`m sure anybody will eventully get sick of it.

Fast travel will make the distances meaningless. If it takes you 30 minutes to get there in walking, but just 2 minutes to get there in fast travel, it would take you 2 minutes. People would take fast travel whenever they could, unless they are intrested in something in the way. Making fast travel less available or expensive will irritate people, as they`ll have to walk 30 minutes when they just want to do something in the other city.

However...
For an exploration focused game long distances could be an advandge - a lot to explore. But it would still be horrible if you`ll have to walk the same paths over and over again.



I agree with you, but instead of fast travel, I think it should be immediate travel - you get there immediatly, not in 5 minutes.



Then the distances would only apply when it`s most annoying. Players would just ignore those parts.

This is why I say the game should be built around it from the ground up. Thus there wouldn't be anything that required you to go back and forth between cities that are an hour away from each other. You'd start in one city, do everything there was to do there, and then later you'd move on and go somewhere else. In the real world in the middle ages, people didn't go back and forth travelling all the time. Journeys were things that you planned for, and were significant.

Also, I think you misunderstand what I mean by "faster". I never suggested that if a journey take 30 minutes, a way exists to do it in 2. You're right, that would make the distances meaningless again. But having a flying mount only available at higher levels, that makes a half hour journey doable in 15? That would still be meaningful, but would make having a flying mount awesome.

The entire point of the idea is to make it so that people don't just pop over to do something in the other city. That's not a bug, it's a feature. Going to a different city is a big choice, and means you can't just pop back home for dinner or whatever. It would make populations more insular, and I think it would give different cities actual different feels, as they'd be populated by different people that actually only have a limited amount of contact.

[Aedilred]

Read up on procedurally generated content.
While, if implemented sensitively, it could help with the workload of generating such an environment, it would need to be deployed with extreme caution. Entire map areas that were procedurally generated would really be a step backwards in terms of immersive game design.

[snoopy13a]

Everquest had many of those features:

Low level characters had to walk everywhere. Higher level wizards could port, but they were the only class that could do so. Wizards actually had a nice side business as taxis

Zones were fairly large and major towns were far away. I don't know if there were 30 minutes away, but they weren't necessarily close.

You had food and water and you were penalized if you didn't have any.

Other aspects:

Soloing was practically impossible except for pet classes and druids (who were able to "kite")

Death penalties were harsh

You had to do corpse runs

Leveling took a long time

Recharging spell mana took a long time. They even forced people to look at their spell books while recharging mana.

Healing hit points took forever

If you wanted to cross the ocean, you needed to take a boat. A boat ride took about a 1/2 hour and nothing happened.


The end result: players were notoriously conservative because recklessness could set you back days of gameplay. People liked it, solely because it and Ultima Online were the only games in town back then. Once the next generation games came along (ok, when World of Warcraft came along) it was popular anymore. WoW is popular for a reason. Generally speaking, people want to kill stuff, not travel.

[Knaight]

I could see meaningful distance working really well in MMOs, but the MMORPG is the wrong genre for it. Something like a turn based strategy game, where everyone can send in one turn a day, everything is resolved simultaneously, then another turn becomes open could work beautifully, particularly if turn length were managed properly, so that they only took 15-30 minutes even in the end game, and simply not taking turns provided at least some advantage (e.g. those not moving benefit from rest, or fortify, or whatever).

[Sipex]

Also, for the sake of clarity, Skyrim has a fast travel system which allows you to move between any two visited locations (locations encompass everything, from towns to dungeons), so you're only really walking to any one place once.

[Morph Bark]

In the end, I think this would work best for a wilderness-based MMO, rather than one focusing on cosmic battles, the intrigue of cities or nobles or companies or wars between countries.

Or tomb-raiding.


Also, for the sake of clarity, Skyrim has a fast travel system which allows you to move between any two visited locations (locations encompass everything, from towns to dungeons), so you're only really walking to any one place once.

Well, that, and you can pay a guy to hop on his cart so he can take you to one of the big cities, if you haven't been there yet. Incredibly handy.

[Keldridge]

Everquest had many of those features:

Low level characters had to walk everywhere. Higher level wizards could port, but they were the only class that could do so. Wizards actually had a nice side business as taxis

Zones were fairly large and major towns were far away. I don't know if there were 30 minutes away, but they weren't necessarily close.

You had food and water and you were penalized if you didn't have any.

Other aspects:

Soloing was practically impossible except for pet classes and druids (who were able to "kite")

Death penalties were harsh

You had to do corpse runs

Leveling took a long time

Recharging spell mana took a long time. They even forced people to look at their spell books while recharging mana.

Healing hit points took forever

If you wanted to cross the ocean, you needed to take a boat. A boat ride took about a 1/2 hour and nothing happened.


The end result: players were notoriously conservative because recklessness could set you back days of gameplay. People liked it, solely because it and Ultima Online were the only games in town back then. Once the next generation games came along (ok, when World of Warcraft came along) it was popular anymore. WoW is popular for a reason. Generally speaking, people want to kill stuff, not travel.

I played a good deal of Everquest back in the day.

Small correction, druids could teleport as well, but only to the druid circle things.

I remember my first trip from Qeynos to Freeport as probably a level 8 or 10 monk. I think I died twice as there were much higher level zones in between, and by the time I got all the way across it was approaching 2 hours.

Travel was scary, and getting somewhere cool was a sense of adventure. Instant teleport anywhere for everyone ruined that part of the feel... At least for me...

It's a completely different game, but there are times where travel is a huge deal both in time and danger in Eve Online.

-Keldridge

[Eldan]

Sounds awesome, really.

One more thing: I like games where players have ways to make a lasting impact on the world. (The main reason I play MUDs over MMOs). How about a game where players formed nations that would then, first, have to build streets or train lines between locations? And warring nations could attack those train lines to cut off supplies and player reinforcements?

"Our train line was cut!" "What do we do now?" "Walk to the border." "But that takes six hours!" "Well, set your chars to automatic, we'll be playing our alts."

[Kindablue]

Travel was scary, and getting somewhere cool was a sense of adventure. Instant teleport anywhere for everyone ruined that part of the feel... At least for me...

Oblivion had a lot of problems, but for me the most annoying one was how cheap distance felt. You could never get your head around how big the world is because it only took ten seconds to get anywhere. I wouldn't say that distances should be made more realistic in games like that, but they should be given more weight.

[valadil]

While, if implemented sensitively, it could help with the workload of generating such an environment, it would need to be deployed with extreme caution. Entire map areas that were procedurally generated would really be a step backwards in terms of immersive game design.

How do you figure? From what I've read procedurally generated content is going to be how game worlds get built in the not too distant future. There's a fair share of indie games doing it right now. For all intents and purposes, the earth is procedurally generated and nobody complains about it not being immersive enough.

[snoopy13a]

I remember my first trip from Qeynos to Freeport as probably a level 8 or 10 monk. I think I died twice as there were much higher level zones in between, and by the time I got all the way across it was approaching 2 hours.

Travel was scary, and getting somewhere cool was a sense of adventure. Instant teleport anywhere for everyone ruined that part of the feel... At least for me...



I traveled from Freeport to Qeynos as a low-level bard (single digits, I think) and it was fun (the speed song was key). But exploring and traveling is fun the first time, not the 23rd time. I think that was also the character which carried a scimitar. I did it because I thought it looked cool. Everyone else assumed I was a druid and kept asking for SoWs. I never got to the high levels; I pretty much was playing my brother's account on his downtime.

[factotum]

Oblivion had a lot of problems, but for me the most annoying one was how cheap distance felt. You could never get your head around how big the world is because it only took ten seconds to get anywhere.

Morrowind did that much better--there were a few methods of fast travel (siltstriders, ALMSIVI and Divine Intervention spells, and the propylon indexes in the old Dunmer forts) but these would often land you some distance from where you actually needed to be, so you'd have to hike out there. (This wouldn't have been so bad if every Cliff Racer for miles around didn't decide to attack the moment you set foot outside town, mind you...).

[Xondoure]

I think this would work really well for an MMO set in the modern world. Zombie apocalypse (or some other apocalypse) makes it perfect. Think cities sized from games like Prototype or Grand Theft Auto (possibly with the interior of buildings fleshed out if you wanted to be ambitious) and then scatter them across miles of highways with small towns branching off to stalk up on supplies.

Let's go with the zombie game because inspiration has struck. You start out in a small town to get the basic ropes for the game, exiting the easy zone when you grab your first car and get the hell out. Cities go through periods of high zombie activity and low zombie activity. To put a twist on it, the more players in an area the more zombies are attracted to it, but spending all of your time alone is a sure recipe for disaster. This forces players to find allies while avoiding high density cities until higher levels. If a city get's too dangerous it's time to hit the highway, stopping only for gas and twinkies. Make the roads an adventure in themselves (bandits trying to steal from the desperate, quarantine blockades that have to be evaded) and you release some of the monotony while maintaining the vast distances between civ centers. There would also be safe cities unaffected by the plague, where the game plays more like GTA if pissing off the law enforcement meant getting kicked out of the city and stranded without support from civilization.

[Ravens_cry]

How do you figure? From what I've read procedurally generated content is going to be how game worlds get built in the not too distant future. There's a fair share of indie games doing it right now. For all intents and purposes, the earth is procedurally generated and nobody complains about it not being immersive enough.
The trouble is that pure procedural content can feel samey after awhile, because everything is based around a set of rules, creating limited unique experiences. Now, one suggestion (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=5134) that has been made for procedural generation is to use it in the development stage, taking care of the artistic scut work, freeing up artists to work on the more intimate details. If done right, this could potentially be a win/win as you have a broad expansive world that is full of special things to discover and do.

[Mutant Sheep]

Sounds awesome, really.

One more thing: I like games where players have ways to make a lasting impact on the world. (The main reason I play MUDs over MMOs). How about a game where players formed nations that would then, first, have to build streets or train lines between locations? And warring nations could attack those train lines to cut off supplies and player reinforcements?

"Our train line was cut!" "What do we do now?" "Walk to the border." "But that takes six hours!" "Well, set your chars to automatic, we'll be playing our alts."

This actually kinda reminds me of (what I've heard of, at least) Planetside. (Not sure a FPSMMO counts here though) You'd capture fortresses and move on, with the other two nations having to claim it back to spawn there (and otherwise, it's kinda blocking them from flying over with its giant guns) and you'd need to capture a fortress to get any vehicles (walking, it was slow. A squad tank, it was faster. A APC, it was a speedemon that explodes really fast). I heard there was a Planetside 2 in ebta, actually... I should look into that... *intrigued face of curiosity*

[Eldan]

Would be fine, I think. Generate the basic geography. Put in parameters for forests, grasslands, deserts, cliffs, caves, waterways and so on. Then put in buildings, dungeons and interesting locations by hand.

[Morph Bark]

Y'know, an MMO where the servers regularly go down for a short while every week or so to generate new, different wilderness areas would be pretty awesome. The big cities could be the only stable areas in a land that is constantly shifting.

[Eldan]

Build it into the game's structure and background. Plenty of fantasy games feature lands that are divided, broken into shards or something. Every week, portals to new worlds, bridges to new lands, jump gates to new planets, or whatever else your game is going for. Then give some kind of advantage for holding territory.

Maybe players can build their own kingdoms, or tribes, castles, controlled areas, whatever and hold them against competing players.

[scurv]

Makes me miss boat rides in EQ

[Traab]

Everquest had many of those features:

Low level characters had to walk everywhere. Higher level wizards could port, but they were the only class that could do so. Wizards actually had a nice side business as taxis

Zones were fairly large and major towns were far away. I don't know if there were 30 minutes away, but they weren't necessarily close.

You had food and water and you were penalized if you didn't have any.

Other aspects:

Soloing was practically impossible except for pet classes and druids (who were able to "kite")

Death penalties were harsh

You had to do corpse runs

Leveling took a long time

Recharging spell mana took a long time. They even forced people to look at their spell books while recharging mana.

Healing hit points took forever

If you wanted to cross the ocean, you needed to take a boat. A boat ride took about a 1/2 hour and nothing happened.


The end result: players were notoriously conservative because recklessness could set you back days of gameplay. People liked it, solely because it and Ultima Online were the only games in town back then. Once the next generation games came along (ok, when World of Warcraft came along) it was popular anymore. WoW is popular for a reason. Generally speaking, people want to kill stuff, not travel.

Yeah i was going to mention all this myself. Classic everquest had "realistic" travels. The only thing that made it bearable was, that once you got into a good leveling area, it was pretty much zone to zone only, then stay put for a few days of game time as you grinded your way to the next set of levels. Seriously the stupidest name for a game ever, as it had what seemed like hardly any quests at all in it. 99% of leveling was done by finding a good camp of mobs and sitting there killing them for 6-12 hours at a stretch.

The fact that time actually went by while playing, night would fall and it could get DARK, and caves required you to bring light sources, made it a surprisingly immersive game for its time. Traveling on my druid from misty thicket to freeport, (I think it was, might have been qeynos) through the karanas was an adventure and a half. Dying and having to run 6 zones because you did the equivalent of setting your hearthstone in ironforge while leveling in searing gorge was considerably less fun since you now had no gear.

[Ninja_Grand]

I think its sounds good, but if it was REALlistic, then It may be bad, but skyrim-like where it takes 10min to get to a town? Sign me up.

[Tonal Architect]

I believe this system would only work if meant as a means to an end, the end being providing a solid reason (as well as a framework) for players to build small outposts or towns, perhaps, as well as the maintenance of known routes of travel.

Small outposts would emerge anyway, if such a system was in place: Players would converge to any landmark possible, items would be sold for prices progressively more outrageous the more one went farther from NPC vendors, "tank" caravans would hire themselves out, real life would mimic itself in game. If already implementing a map in this style, it would be only logical to add more ways to make such expected behaviour into something fun.

If common routes become unavailable depending on PC interaction (as in, not maintaining them monster clean via MvP, removing bandits and marauders from oposing factions outside the routes, etc), this would also provide an interesting layer for gameplay.

Overall, I think it could work, but would require a number of features, in order to provide meanfulness to the untamed wilds... Otherwise, you just have a big empty gameworld.

[Prime32]

Small correction, druids could teleport as well, but only to the druid circle things.Interesting...

Imagine an MMO where each class/faction has different fast travel networks; druids can transport their party between druid circles, wizards between wizard colleges, captains between ports, and so on. (plus some trains that anyone can use) Maybe some factions don't grant direct travel, but let you access a monster-infested underworld/other dimension/etc. where the exit portals are fairly close together.

[PallElendro]

Day 5. I'm still walking to Reytan. I think this quest is about to expire. Dammit.
Day 12. So many random encounters in the forest. I might as well find a job here as a smith, or something!
Day 20. I found a bodyguard that could keep me safe while traveling. I don't know how long it'll take me to reach the boats, but I'll need to chart the western continent.
Month 4, Day 13. I've finally made it to the west continent. SO. MANY. DAYS.

Final Verdict: Do not want.

[Morph Bark]

Interesting...

Imagine an MMO where each class/faction has different fast travel networks; druids can transport their party between druid circles, wizards between wizard colleges, captains between ports, and so on. (plus some trains that anyone can use) Maybe some factions don't grant direct travel, but let you access a monster-infested underworld/other dimension/etc. where the exit portals are fairly close together.

That would be pretty cool. In fact, if fast travel would simply go through monster-infested dimensions or such, then the "real world" could focus on things other than having a lot of monsters itself and being more like our world (except for time period, made-up cultures and races and the inclusion of magic of course).

[Eldan]

Day 5. I'm still walking to Reytan. I think this quest is about to expire. Dammit.
Day 12. So many random encounters in the forest. I might as well find a job here as a smith, or something!
Day 20. I found a bodyguard that could keep me safe while traveling. I don't know how long it'll take me to reach the boats, but I'll need to chart the western continent.
Month 4, Day 13. I've finally made it to the west continent. SO. MANY. DAYS.

Final Verdict: Do not want.

See, if the way there was actually interesting, say, with a varied landscape, maybe a village or two or some unique geographical features, I think I would love this more than any other game.

[scurv]

Day 5. I'm still walking to Reytan. I think this quest is about to expire. Dammit.
Day 12. So many random encounters in the forest. I might as well find a job here as a smith, or something!
Day 20. I found a bodyguard that could keep me safe while traveling. I don't know how long it'll take me to reach the boats, but I'll need to chart the western continent.
Month 4, Day 13. I've finally made it to the west continent. SO. MANY. DAYS.

Final Verdict: Do not want.

And your opinion of a game were travel time across the world would be maybe a few hours, provided the person knew what they were doing?

[Chen]

I suspect the vast majority of people don't actually want this though. In WoW I'd imagine walking the full continent would take a fairly good chunk of time. But there are faster ways so people use those. Similarly in Guild Wars 2 there is tons of stuff to explore but people like having the fast travel option available. I think Guild Wars 2 tends to do it pretty well since there are events that occur all over the map and searching for them can be fun.

But guess what? The vast majority of people just congregate at the dense spawn areas and farm those. Because people like to progress their characters by the most efficient way possible. And I suspect the same thing would happen in this "realistic travel" game. People would find the ideal spot where the distance to vendor and distance to monster farm were minimized. And just stay there. If everything was completely random at anywhere in the world, people would complain because they kept "missing" content since they would not be able to get there in time. Or you'd hit a boss in the wilderness but have NO ONE nearby and thus be unable to do anything with it.

The other issue is having a HUGE world (due to realistic travel) will result in very little player interaction when adventuring. Odds are you're not going to run into a bunch of people unless you're in a farmed area (as mentioned above). I think this is a big killer as to why this wouldn't work in an MMO. People want there to be other people around for an MMO. They want to trade and adventure together and the like. I think an exploratory concept like this would work better in a single player game like Skyrim. Hell Skyrim pretty much does do this. You don't HAVE to use fast travel, its simply an option.

[Heliomance]

The thing about Skyrim, though, is that the existence of the fast travel system was taken into account during the design. Thus, there are quests that send you hither and yon that would be absolutely maddening without fast travel.

[Reluctance]

It'd work in a management style, turn based MMO. It'd suck balls in one focused on a single character for many reasons. The biggest one being that a whole lot of nothing is a waste of every possible resource (player time, developer time, computing resources), while a whole lot of interesting places means that somewhere interesting will be nearby. By definition.

The ultimate point being that players want to do cool things, and that busywork is only acceptable to the extent that it enables further cool things. You can balkanize populations by area by having each area be more conducive to finding certain resources, be it finding the required ingredients or that the skills themselves are boosted while in the area. But making my character off-limits for half an hour just to get together with my real-life friend is bad form. Making me sit there watching them for that half hour is even worse.

[Morph Bark]

I suspect the vast majority of people don't actually want this though. In WoW I'd imagine walking the full continent would take a fairly good chunk of time. But there are faster ways so people use those. Similarly in Guild Wars 2 there is tons of stuff to explore but people like having the fast travel option available. I think Guild Wars 2 tends to do it pretty well since there are events that occur all over the map and searching for them can be fun.

But guess what? The vast majority of people just congregate at the dense spawn areas and farm those. Because people like to progress their characters by the most efficient way possible. And I suspect the same thing would happen in this "realistic travel" game. People would find the ideal spot where the distance to vendor and distance to monster farm were minimized. And just stay there. If everything was completely random at anywhere in the world, people would complain because they kept "missing" content since they would not be able to get there in time. Or you'd hit a boss in the wilderness but have NO ONE nearby and thus be unable to do anything with it.

It'd probably work a lot better if you could recruit NPC companions to come along or something.

[Inglenook]

I think it's a bit presumptuous to say "Players want to be awesome, not spend all their time wandering around". MMORPG players aren't some big, uniform blob that you can make sweeping generalizations about.

I dislike WoW for that reason (among others)—it encourages players to be so over-the-top awesome that it becomes completely (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wow.com/media/2009/07/zach-mighty-battle-warlock.jpg) laughable (http://images.mmosite.com/photo/2008/04/13/shaiyas215q2013i0g0.jpg) and insane (http://i36.tinypic.com/qpjl7l.png). And despite all that, you can never be a unique snowflake because of the inherent limitations of class abilities and such.

A game with long distances would be amazing if implemented properly. It wouldn't work in a game like WoW, of course, but if it were factored into the game's design from the get-go …

It would have to be focused on long-distance travel being a really uncommon thing, like the OP said, with all such expeditions requiring a lot of planning and supplies. The cities would have to be tiny blips with massive tracts of explorable land in between. And most importantly, it would have to be a very dynamic game (not just adding expansions) to make up for the lack of an easy way to travel. Maybe a system to set up a fiefdom or trading outpost in the wild? Rainy seasons that change the landscape? Bands of robbers that require payment to cross their bridges? The ability to rebel and kill the leaders of a city, taking it over entirely? A newly discovered continent that sees a sudden and massive influx of explorers, but while they're away an evil emperor conquers the lands they left behind? I don't know if any of this is even feasible to implement, but it would be pretty cool.

Such a game probably wouldn't have even a fraction of WoW's players, but I do think it's a marketable idea, on the indie game market if nothing else.

Edited for spelling.

[GolemsVoice]

I don't know if you realize it, but the second image isn't even from WoW. Aside from that, I don't see your problem. Can't one be awesome and cool and still travel? Is there nothing awesome and cool to do on the road?

[TSGames]

I'm not sure that 'distance' is really what is being conveyed by the OP. It may be better to say "significant time' which implies distance, rather than just 'meaningful distance' which is usually meaningless.

In English: most games have ways to circumvent distance traveled i.e. mounts, teleports, public transit, speed spells, etc. All of which reduce the time it takes to get from point A to B. I think the OP is talking about a game that requires time investment to get places and not merely large distances. For example, it's easy to imagine that two cities could be very close to each other, but separated by terrain that is difficult to navigate which would require significant time investment over a normally short distance.

I know that probably made no sense to anyone, but that's what I think the general concept is: time, not distance (though normally distance is implied by time). Personally, I would like an MMO like this if it had environments that were worth exploring, cities that were worth visiting, a way for coordinating faction/city state wars, and (most importantly) a way of traveling automatically without just having to sit in front of a screen the whole time. In short, I don't mind if it takes two days or two weeks to get from point A to B, but you need to have interesting stuff in between and I need to not be forced to watch every single solitary step towards progress.

[Inglenook]

I don't know if you realize it, but the second image isn't even from WoW. Aside from that, I don't see your problem. Can't one be awesome and cool and still travel? Is there nothing awesome and cool to do on the road?
Whoops! I just went looking for some examples of ludicrous WoW armor and that showed up in the search results. Looking at it more closely now … yeah, definitely not WoW. :smallredface:

Nothing at all wrong with being awesome. It's just that when game designers give precedence to players' desire to be awesome above all else, things start to suck. You don't have to dislike WoW to acknowledge that Blizzard is a team of soulless, pandering leeches. But that's a different topic altogether.

I played WoW for less than a month, but I generally found the environments pretty dull. Which is totally fine, because it's not really a game you play for the environment/exploration factor. That was my mistake.

I'm just saying that people who claim, "No one would play a game with realistic distances!" aren't entirely correct; it certainly wouldn't be as popular as a WoW-like combat/leveling game, but I think there are people who play an exploration/world-interaction based game.

[Ravens_cry]

Sounds like you are talking about Power Creep. Extra Credits had a good episode (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep) on its pitfalls.

[Inglenook]

That was a good video, thanks. I didn't know the phenomenon actually had a name.

[PallElendro]

And your opinion of a game were travel time across the world would be maybe a few hours, provided the person knew what they were doing?

Skyrim. World of Warcraft. Star Trek Online. EVE Online. Oblivion. Morrowind. Daggerdale. RuneScape. Doctor Who: Worlds in Time.

[Ravens_cry]

Imagine game where players mostly ran the quests, giving as well as receiving. Perhaps some initial quests to kickstart the economy, but in the end, players run the ship. Towns and centres would be built where the players build them, with resources gathered by players.
It would be insane, but would it be fun?

[Astrella]

Imagine game where players mostly ran the quests, giving as well as receiving. Perhaps some initial quests to kickstart the economy, but in the end, players run the ship. Towns and centres would be built where the players build them, with resources gathered by players.
It would be insane, but would it be fun?

Doesn't Eve Online have a mechanic for that?

[Ravens_cry]

Doesn't Eve Online have a mechanic for that?
That is true, I think, I don't know much about Eve Online. But this idea was for a more ground based game. Perhaps not fantasy, basing it on some outer space colony could work, but not a space flight game either.

[Reluctance]

I think it's a bit presumptuous to say "Players want to be awesome, not spend all their time wandering around". MMORPG players aren't some big, uniform blob that you can make sweeping generalizations about.

Except that when you focus on the M's, especially the first one, clear trends do emerge. Also, anyone with any degree of real game design under their belts learns to recognize the difference between what players say they want, and what they actually want.

Not saying that there isn't room for games where traveling takes up a lot of time. Just that I doubt most of the people here would want to play this hypothetical dream game if it were produced, and that the real fanbase would in no way pay enough to support the level of development required.

Ultimately, all these suggestions could work well for a turn-based, management MMO with minimal graphics. Rebuild (http://www.kongregate.com/games/sarahnorthway/rebuild-2), while single-player, has no problem with tying up individual units for extended periods of time because you'll have other units rotating in that you can work with. Changing the map is easier when it only involves trading one sprite/model out for another. In fact, my brother used to play a game built with that spirit, although I can't remember the name.

Most players do prefer single-avatar games over management ones, though, and most would prefer 3d worlds to Catan-like resource tiles. Single-avatar games with long grind times tend to alienate players, and changing a detailed 3d world tends to require a lot of artist time. So you can get something like what Helio wants, just not in the form most people think of when they think of MMORPGs.

[Eldan]

That is true, I think, I don't know much about Eve Online. But this idea was for a more ground based game. Perhaps not fantasy, basing it on some outer space colony could work, but not a space flight game either.

Eve really is like that. Look around a bit on a search engine for things like "Eve heist" or "Eve exploit" to give you an idea for the kind of thing players pull in there. Players form corporations, which employ other players to do quests for them. If they earn enough money, they buy company ships, company real estate, company military...

[Morph Bark]

Eve really is like that. Look around a bit on a search engine for things like "Eve heist" or "Eve exploit" to give you an idea for the kind of thing players pull in there. Players form corporations, which employ other players to do quests for them. If they earn enough money, they buy company ships, company real estate, company military...

But where does all that money come from?

[GolemsVoice]

You can, as far as I know, trade real currency for ingame currency.

[Ravens_cry]

Eve really is like that. Look around a bit on a search engine for things like "Eve heist" or "Eve exploit" to give you an idea for the kind of thing players pull in there. Players form corporations, which employ other players to do quests for them. If they earn enough money, they buy company ships, company real estate, company military...
Eyepatches . . .

[Eldan]

But where does all that money come from?

I didn't really play it (gave up half-way through the tutorial), but from what I can tell, Mining is a major industry players engage in. Players can learn various crafting skills, to build ships and weapons to sell to others. And there's trade between worlds, smuggling, piracy...

[SiuiS]

Then that's something that would have to be taken into account. Something to do on the way would work, though I'm not sure what would be best.

Horses could increase travel speed immensely. On the other end, mass transportation would exist. Having several horse pull a wagon would go slower than taking a horse, but having a level plane could give you time to perform mundane tasks - armor repair, fletching, whittling. Wagons would probably be expensive to buy, similar to build. A guy who owns horses and a wagon could create a market for them. The ability to brand horses, have them run between two pours and get dropped off (and punish thieves who never return rentals) would be cool. The ability to travel into the barren wastes, find a griffon egg, hatch an raise it, and have a griffon mount is pretty slick, so long as catching wild horses to tame was possible. It would be necessary to feed the griffons, actually. :smallbiggrin:

[Brother Oni]

But where does all that money come from?

While GolemsVoice is correct, the GTC to ingame currency mechanic wasn't introduced until a few years ago and the Eve Heist pre-dated that.

A discussion of Eve economics would significantly derail the thread (not to mention very long), but suffice to say that while all money being injected into the system is from NPCs, it's relatively small potatoes to the amount of money being shuffled around from player to player via the player run market (nearly everything you see for sale on the market is from another player, with only NPCs stocking a few items).
Even the real currency to ingame currency is an example of money shuffling, rather than fresh money creation, as it's done through the market.


Back to the main topic, while it's true that players can build stations and offer courier missions to other players, the general paranoia and cut-throat nature of the game doesn't make it a very good model.

For example, a common scam is to put up a courier missions to carry items from safe space to a station in the bad lands. Even if you do manage to evade all the roaming pirates and the hostile patrols, you may find yourself unable to dock at the station as the station owners (who are players) have set it to prevent any non-friendlies from docking.
Three guesses which players set up the courier missions in the first place?

[akma]

Read up on procedurally generated content.

I have. Unless it will produce very diffrent content everytime the player will go through the area, it would only help with saving costs (which is good).


This is why I say the game should be built around it from the ground up. Thus there wouldn't be anything that required you to go back and forth between cities that are an hour away from each other. You'd start in one city, do everything there was to do there, and then later you'd move on and go somewhere else. In the real world in the middle ages, people didn't go back and forth travelling all the time. Journeys were things that you planned for, and were significant.

If you would only travel the distance once or twice, it could work.



The entire point of the idea is to make it so that people don't just pop over to do something in the other city. That's not a bug, it's a feature. Going to a different city is a big choice, and means you can't just pop back home for dinner or whatever. It would make populations more insular, and I think it would give different cities actual different feels, as they'd be populated by different people that actually only have a limited amount of contact.

I think there could be better ways to do it - only being able to travel between cities once every X time (I think this would work best), having to overcome a difficult obstacle everytime you want to pass between cities, etc.

Just walking is boring if you already walked that path, especially when you are just intrested in the other city.


I could see meaningful distance working really well in MMOs, but the MMORPG is the wrong genre for it. Something like a turn based strategy game, where everyone can send in one turn a day, everything is resolved simultaneously, then another turn becomes open could work beautifully, particularly if turn length were managed properly, so that they only took 15-30 minutes even in the end game, and simply not taking turns provided at least some advantage (e.g. those not moving benefit from rest, or fortify, or whatever).

I would play that.


Y'know, an MMO where the servers regularly go down for a short while every week or so to generate new, different wilderness areas would be pretty awesome. The big cities could be the only stable areas in a land that is constantly shifting.

That would make traveling much more intresting, but I still think such a game would benefit from a fast travel system.

If I want to explore the wilderness, I won`t mind walking 30 minutes, becuse the path itself is the point. If I just want to go to a diffrent city, it would be the point, and I won`t be focussing on the road at all. No matter how exciting and beautifull the road will be, I just want to get to the other city.

[Erloas]

EVE's economy is quite interesting, to the point where actual economists have studied it and the devs eventually hired some economists to work for them to try and help judge how changes they make to the game are going to affect the economy.

As for where the money comes from, it actually all comes from NPCs, players can't actually create money on their own. There are NPC seeded buyers and sellers of many items in the game but the majority of buying and selling is done by players. The majority of the money comes from mission runners and NPC bounties. The money is spread out from there. And while you can (and many people do) mine for minerals to make a lot of products, the majority of those products are then sold for money and not traded for other products.


As for the original topic travel times aren't fun. They just aren't, no one likes just traveling. A lot of people might like looking around and exploring areas they haven't seen. They might like random encounters. And traveling might make seeing stuff like that more common, but the people that like doing that will do that even if they aren't forced to long travel times.
Besides, 30 minutes isn't anywhere near "meaningful" or "realistic" travel times compared to real life. Even contemporary travel with a vehicle, 30 minutes of driving can get me to one other city and from there it is another hour before we get to anything else. By horse or bike that would be much closer to an hour trip with other cities, especially any of any size, would be full day trips (getting to a big city takes about 2.5 hours going at 75mph most of the time).

And while it is true that *now* you can go into some parts of the world and probably walk or ride a horse for a day or two and never leave urban areas, that is only actually possible because with cars we can move goods much farther and faster. You simply couldn't keep a city like Los Angels in a livable state if you couldn't move large amounts of goods hundreds or thousands of miles in a day or two.

Any realistic pre-industrial travel is limited to people with a lot of free time or people with a very large need to go somewhere. Even farmers with produce to sell wouldn't be making the trip between towns every single day. If you "only" had 2 hours to play a day and were going with realistic travel times, you could easily spend 1-2 weeks of playing doing nothing but walking from one small farming town to the next only slightly different small farming town. And probably not running into much of anything along the way, because if you were wandering off the path that same trip might take 2-3 weeks instead.

[mangosta71]

Major cities would be way more than 20-30 minutes apart. On foot, that's only about 2 miles. Towns with any sort of facilities (such as inns) would have at least 20 miles between them, because there's no reason to have inns closer than a day's travel. And these would be small villages. Figure around a week between mid-sized/large towns, minimum of two weeks' travel between major cities (assuming you have a mount).

I assume that reasonable population density would also be a part of this design, which means you wouldn't have the saturation of current MMOs. This means that encounters would be fairly rare. You might spend a month hunting through the forest to find the 20 brigands you need for a single quest, assuming that nobody else is also on that quest.

I would also point out that the vast majority of people aren't particularly fond of the actual travel part of traveling. Most of us, when we're on the road, really want to be at the place we're heading toward. For example, someone in the US who "wants to travel to Paris" doesn't really want to travel to Paris so much as he/she wants to be in Paris, and is willing to put up with the flights there and back.

[Xondoure]

Major cities would be way more than 20-30 minutes apart. On foot, that's only about 2 miles. Towns with any sort of facilities (such as inns) would have at least 20 miles between them, because there's no reason to have inns closer than a day's travel. And these would be small villages. Figure around a week between mid-sized/large towns, minimum of two weeks' travel between major cities (assuming you have a mount).

I assume that reasonable population density would also be a part of this design, which means you wouldn't have the saturation of current MMOs. This means that encounters would be fairly rare. You might spend a month hunting through the forest to find the 20 brigands you need for a single quest, assuming that nobody else is also on that quest.

I would also point out that the vast majority of people aren't particularly fond of the actual travel part of traveling. Most of us, when we're on the road, really want to be at the place we're heading toward. For example, someone in the US who "wants to travel to Paris" doesn't really want to travel to Paris so much as he/she wants to be in Paris, and is willing to put up with the flights there and back.

The point of a game such as this would be to make it about the journey, not the destination yes?

[Eldan]

Oregon Trail, the game! Organize your trek, trade with other travelers, avoid dying of dysentery!

[Heliomance]

Major cities would be way more than 20-30 minutes apart. On foot, that's only about 2 miles. Towns with any sort of facilities (such as inns) would have at least 20 miles between them, because there's no reason to have inns closer than a day's travel. And these would be small villages. Figure around a week between mid-sized/large towns, minimum of two weeks' travel between major cities (assuming you have a mount).

I assume that reasonable population density would also be a part of this design, which means you wouldn't have the saturation of current MMOs. This means that encounters would be fairly rare. You might spend a month hunting through the forest to find the 20 brigands you need for a single quest, assuming that nobody else is also on that quest.

I would also point out that the vast majority of people aren't particularly fond of the actual travel part of traveling. Most of us, when we're on the road, really want to be at the place we're heading toward. For example, someone in the US who "wants to travel to Paris" doesn't really want to travel to Paris so much as he/she wants to be in Paris, and is willing to put up with the flights there and back.

You're assuming two things. First, that time in game corresponds 1:1 with time IRL. Second, that the people designing the game are incompetent.

There's a lot of people going "this is a terrible idea because X, Y and Z". That's not helpful for discussion. Far more useful is "X, Y and Z could be problems, but here's some ideas that could maybe overcome that, what do you think?"

[Brother Oni]

There's a lot of people going "this is a terrible idea because X, Y and Z". That's not helpful for discussion. Far more useful is "X, Y and Z could be problems, but here's some ideas that could maybe overcome that, what do you think?"

Give them credit where it's due - it's better than the standard internet "This is a terrible idea and you are terrible for even thinking of it". :smalltongue:

Eldan's hit upon an interesting plot reason for travelling as part of a convoy, why not extend the idea and have the players as nomads, travelling between cities to peddle their wares? You have room for all sorts of gameplay types, from hunting down dangerous monsters to get raw materials; fighting to protect the convoy from attacks; crafting along the road or at city sites; exploring to find loot; and trading from city to city.

You can enforce the moving mechanic by giving each player a reason to stay only a limited time at a particular city (they have nothing more to sell, or incremental rental prices on the crafting facilities).

Players can form convoys to better travel between cities more safely (ie pickup groups), with better rewards for more of the group that actually make it to the next city in one piece.
As for the setting, you could go historical/fantasy using the Silk Road (ignoring the SRO MMO).

Alternately you could go sci-fi with a variant of Battlestar Galactica (other than the BSG Online game), with a very good reason for the convoy not to hang around. In this one, the players would have a 'mobile' base and deploy out in between jumps to get raw materials for repairs, fight off cylon patrols, etc.
Possibly shard the server so that each shard has a single convoy ship that the human side are responsible for, with the opposing cylons just being a pure pvp mode?

[Eldan]

And raiding less well-defended cities and villages. Nomads often do that too. Players certainly will try it.

That would be an interesting trade-off mechanic. Trading with a city makes it richer, so it has more money if you attack it. But the also spend some of that money on fortifications and soldiers, so they'll be harder to attack. Plus, if you raze a village, chances are they aren't there anymore next time.

Instead of clans or giulds, you'd have caravans. Your character is a member of a caravan. You have your wagons that contain all the NPCs that other games would have in a city. They move across the map at a set pace. Your character can leave the caravan, but to learn new skills, heal or buy/sell things, they would have to return to the caravan.

[Heliomance]

Ooh, that's actually an interesting idea. Completely not what I originally envisaged, but fascinating. Make it so that the distance isn't an obstacle, but a goal in and of itself - I like it.

[The Succubus]

One of my early plans in WoW was to start a guild on an RP server that was entirely self sufficient. No city trading, they'd just move from zone to zone as a group herbing and mining and doing PvP.

I think the problem is that WoW lacks decent pillaging mechanics. Back in vanilla, storming the Crossroads was great fun of an evening, plus the usual Southshore/Tarren Mill derby.

There are a few MMOs that cater for your desires, Helio. Mortal Online is one, although I never got very far with it.

[mangosta71]

You're assuming two things. First, that time in game corresponds 1:1 with time IRL. Second, that the people designing the game are incompetent.
If time isn't close to 1:1, combat is going to be insane. Even 2:1 would make it extremely difficult for players to react. And then what happens if one group of players is fighting bandits on the road when a caravan passes? And even if there's nobody else near the combat, you still have different time compression in different spots on the server. The only way to not give the server crippling schizophrenia would be to instance everything (what DDO tried to do), and then force the party to stay together on top of that. But if you never interact with players outside your party, you may as well be playing Diablo 3.

Of course, then you have to deal with mobile combat. Suppose the time compression goes to 1:1 when combat starts, and then returns to whatever you decide you want it to be during travel. Scenery that was passing by at a leisurely pace is suddenly whipping by in a blur.

Another issue with high time compression ratios is that roads between cities/towns/villages aren't straight. You'll have people be cruising along the path, when suddenly it bends. Before they can react, they're past the bend and lost in the woods off by themselves. Even if they can stay on the road, they'll be on top on bandit ambushes before they see them.

From the OP, I'm guessing you don't want to follow the route Baldur's Gate took with travel. I'm not sure how that would work in an MMO anyway, even if you were willing to consider it - other people would be online doing stuff during the 8+ hours (in game-time - as a player it's instantaneous) you spend traveling between areas.

There's a lot of people going "this is a terrible idea because X, Y and Z". That's not helpful for discussion. Far more useful is "X, Y and Z could be problems, but here's some ideas that could maybe overcome that, what do you think?"
I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. These are legitimate issues that need to be addressed to make your idea viable. If I knew how the problems could be solved, they wouldn't be problems worth bringing up for discussion.

[Heliomance]

Give me a few examples of games that feature time passing (a cycle of day and night, etc) that have it happen at the same rate as IRL. Pokemon's the only one I'm coming up with. Skyrim, for example, has a clear day and night cycle, along with things that only happen at certain tims of day, but that cycle is a lot faster than IRL. It's a well-established game design feature, and doesn't have any of the problems with time compression you mentioned.

[The Succubus]

Eve Online also operates strictly in real-time with regards to learning skills, etc. Certain aspects of WoW used to behave that way, especially with regards to fishing - certain fish could only be caught in summer/winter and day/night.

[Brother Oni]

Eve Online also operates strictly in real-time with regards to learning skills, etc.

Eve is also the only game that I've seen a meta requirement for a global distribution of members in a corp (guild for non Eve players), since it allows for around the clock operations.

However the mechanics also give a buffer to account for these issues (reinforced mode for POS towers), so while there's no time compression, it's inaccurate to say it's hasn't been a considered issue.

[Story Time]

This is an idea that occurred to me reading some fics online. What would be the consequences of having an MMO that included meaningful distances as part of gameplay?
[...]
What changes would have to be made? Could it still be fun?

Hi, Helio!

...most pertinent in my mind is the word, "Navigation." Meaningful distance isn't very meaningful with-out some-thing to fill it. And this distance is made useless with automatic map functions in the graphical user interface.

Exploration is about patience, consistency, and ( most importantly ) mystery. The not-knowing of what is or is not out there is one of the points which makes distance meaningful.

( As a side note, I wonder how many readers / gamers, know how to take an azimuth. )

Having some game design experience I can tell you that such a game would have to be very nice to look at, but the number of players on a single server might have to be limited. In order to make the distance truly meaningful the game would have to reward the player for exploring. Puzzles, images, and riddles could be tied up in the virtual terrain. Players would have to make their own maps.

One more thought: A game incorporating both permanent, stationary, land-marks and shifting geography.

[Kindablue]

( As a side note, I wonder how many readers / gamers, know how to take an azimuth. )
I can't do that, but I do know how to make an astrolabe with a paper plate, a roll of duct tape, a yard stick, and an astrolabe.

[killem2]

Isn't World of Warcraft more or less like that anyway?

It very much is, aside from the hearthstones you foot your way across the landscape.

Sure a mage can teleport themselves and people to capital cities, but in a fantasy setting i can accept that big cities have facilities like this.

It has lost some of its flare with the dungeon finder/warlock summoning abilities now. But there has to be some ease, MMOs cannot be a grind. That is the old way, it is about the easy now.

[GolemsVoice]

Nothing however stops you from physically walking everywhere, safe for the areas that have to be reached by (manually) flying there.

[mangosta71]

Give me a few examples of games that feature time passing (a cycle of day and night, etc) that have it happen at the same rate as IRL. Pokemon's the only one I'm coming up with. Skyrim, for example, has a clear day and night cycle, along with things that only happen at certain tims of day, but that cycle is a lot faster than IRL. It's a well-established game design feature, and doesn't have any of the problems with time compression you mentioned.
This is about day/night cycles now? I thought we were talking about distances in the game world being comparable to distances in the real world, which is what would make the travel times comparable, which is why time compression would be necessary (unless you honestly want your players to spend months just to accrue enough play time for their characters to travel from one city to the next). Anyway, if you're speeding up the passage of time so that people are choosing to play the game instead of, say, slashing their wrists, why don't you just play any of the current flock of MMOs and tell yourself that the map is big enough to be realistic, and time is simply so sped up that it only takes a couple minutes to go from point A to point B? The fast travel features are completely optional, so if you feel it spoils the immersion you can choose not to take advantage of them.

[PracticalM]

Puzzle Pirates originally did not have whisking potions and so travel between islands was via sailing there. Now there are potions that allow you to move between islands and you have to buy them from shops/stalls run by players. (Players could also be invited by a player who has a ship/shop/stall/home on an island so there were ways to move between islands without potions.)

For people looking for a player run economy, Puzzle Pirates is worth the look. You need rum and shot to sail (pillaging, trading, hunting sea monsters) and rum and shot are made by players. If you want a sword you either must find them in sea monster hunts or find a shop that will make or sell you one. Clothing, bludgeons (for rumbling), mugs (drinking game), paint, furniture, and ships are all mostly player made. Players bid against each other for different commodities and post notices for labor.

http://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Economy gives a good summary.
http://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Economy_diagram gives an idea of how different commodities tie into the economy.

Puzzle Pirates just turned 10 years old and I'm still having fun after playing for more than 8 of those years. If anyone is interested in checking it out, try this referral link. It should put you into my crew on the Cerulean ocean but you don't have to stay there if you don't want to (there are 2 other oceans). I'll be happy to introduce you around to the game.

Puzzle Pirates Link (http://www.puzzlepirates.com/?affiliate=r1861958&lang=en)

I like the idea of increasing travel times, but I think it may be impractical. A better solution might be making there be multiple types of currency which may provide a similar effect (keeping people local) and create currency markets among players. Puzzle Pirates originally had different currencies in different island groups but that was changed even before I started playing. I think it could have been very cool though.

--
PracticalM
Silverstache, Drunk of the Mad Mutineers of the Cerulean Ocean

[Heliomance]

This is about day/night cycles now? I thought we were talking about distances in the game world being comparable to distances in the real world, which is what would make the travel times comparable, which is why time compression would be necessary (unless you honestly want your players to spend months just to accrue enough play time for their characters to travel from one city to the next). Anyway, if you're speeding up the passage of time so that people are choosing to play the game instead of, say, slashing their wrists, why don't you just play any of the current flock of MMOs and tell yourself that the map is big enough to be realistic, and time is simply so sped up that it only takes a couple minutes to go from point A to point B? The fast travel features are completely optional, so if you feel it spoils the immersion you can choose not to take advantage of them.

What I'm suggesting is not distances so large that you have to spend two days of real time walking to get anywhere. What I'm suggesting is distances large enough that travel time is an actual obstacle, such that you don't simply pop over to the city on the other side of the continent because you need to run an errand over there. I'm suggesting distances that can be travelled when you want to go somewhere else, but that encourage you to stay in one place until you have a compelling reason to go elsewhere. To make different places actually feel like different places.

[Saskia]

I used to play Final Fantasy XI. Some zones could take the better part of an hour to navigate end to end. The inevitable first trip to Jeuno fairly early in the grind could take three hours or so if you didn't have help since you had to avoid aggressive enemies. Even with a teleport (there were only three places you could teleport to, later they added a fourth and other ways to get places a little more quickly) you could reliably expect a trip from a major city to anywhere important to take an hour or two, even with a mount. Because of how integral the game's day/night cycle, elemental days, and weather were to the core mechanics (spawns, magic damage and resist rates, and even unlocking one of the playable classes) getting places quickly and efficiently for different quests or to avoid the powerful undead that spawned at night was often very important, particularly during the lower level grind but even sometimes at maximum level. And don't get me started on the boat/airship schedule.

While I suspect that your game may be flawed from a marketing perspective if utilities like this (http://www.mithrapride.org/vana_time/index.html) are actually necessary for getting anything done, I can't say that I don't look back on the game fondly. Yes, it was a pain in the butt and a source of endless frustration, but it made for a wonderfully flavorful world and travel. It was still aggravating when you needed to wait 8+ hours because you're a summoner, or helping a lower level summoner, and the elemental monsters you need to kill for top-end class-related gear (not to mention your core summoning abilities) would be a pain in the butt during a different game day. Personally, I like that kind of depth even when it makes me want to pull my hair out, and things like that were the lion's share of reasons I played that game as long as I did. The travel time and general pain in the rear that the game was did give a sense of accomplishment when you finished something. I'm not keen to admit it, but that's reason number one reason that I kept giving Square-Enix money even long after I stopped logging on: The sense that I had succeeded in something and wanting to have access to my "trophies". Even aside from the sense of having accomplished something by virtue of having the biggest baddest summoner gear (oh my god that sounds so stupid), some of my best friends and I bonded over that game. The people I had met through that game (some of them even still very close friends) and the stories we have that relate to it, stupid game-jokes that became so ingrained into us over years that the word "goblins" is still synonymous with "Mujahaddin", and myriad other mental trinkets that mean a lot more than they should at face value are attached to that game.

That's what makes a financially successful subscription-based game, particularly since the NUMBERSNUMBERSNUMBERS people and the "I just want to stab things with my epeen" people already have WoW. You cannot compete with WoW directly, no matter how much money you have behind you (I'm looking at you, TORtanic!). The MMO market already has its Call of Duty, and Battlefield cost a LOT of money to make its way into that market. The MMO market doesn't need another cartoon game where any given character is 20% body, 10% clothing and 70% shoulder pads as if fashion had only gone further south after the 80s, and the world doesn't WANT another MMO with a quest-based experience system where three quarters of the content is nothing more than "go to X area and kill Y number of monster Z." I suspect the only way another MMO is going to make way is by being different and actually engaging its players and sucking them in so that they become emotionally invested, but travel times and sweeping vistas only go so far to making that game satisfying. Visuals are not the core engagement of any game, despite what the drooling simians at CryTek would have you believe. Populating that massive world with interesting creatures and characters is no mean feat, and creating interesting content for most of those areas (because not every area needs to have four dozen hub-based quests) is not a simple proposition, either, and nobody is going to pay a subscription fee to play Dear Esther: Online Edition. Who is really willing to put up that kind of money? Square-Enix met with success with FFXI but then XIV was a market disaster, EA is hemorrhaging money thanks to TOR, and everything else has been mauled to death and its skull displayed on a pike outside of World of Warcraft's blood-stained cave.

Obviously the next big MMO is going to be in some significant way different from WoW, but a game world which would be end-to end 10+ hours of legwork would be A) going to be extremely expensive and have terrain consisting mainly of large sections of Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V; and B) nobody will want to play it because it will take so incredibly long to get things done, not to mention scheduling nightmares for player groups. I admit that a MMO on a scale even a tenth of Daggerfall would be impressive, but the cost would likely push into ten figures, and that's simply too much risk for any company with its head screwed on right.

[Brother Oni]

Square-Enix met with success with FFXI but then XIV was a market disaster, EA is hemorrhaging money thanks to TOR, and everything else has been mauled to death and its skull displayed on a pike outside of World of Warcraft's blood-stained cave.


Just because a MMO doesn't have the income or subscription numbers of WoW, doesn't make it a failure.

Eve Online for example is still showing consistent growth even nearly 10 years on.

Incidentally, Eve also fulfils Story Time's request for stationary landmarks (gates and the sun in each system remains static, planets and other stellar bodies move very slowly and missions/complexes/wormholes spawn as and when scanned out), although as a space game, there's a lot of empty scenery.

[Mynxae]

It very much is, aside from the hearthstones you foot your way across the landscape.

Sure a mage can teleport themselves and people to capital cities, but in a fantasy setting i can accept that big cities have facilities like this.

It has lost some of its flare with the dungeon finder/warlock summoning abilities now. But there has to be some ease, MMOs cannot be a grind. That is the old way, it is about the easy now.

Actually, since Mists of Pandaria (released in September), warlocks are 100% more useful. So are summoning stones. Considering for challenge dungeons you need to summon people to them (as in actually LFG in a city first, then travel there from wherever the five of you are), yeah.. I remember when they implemented the pre-Mists patch - everyone was like 'WHERE'S 'HAVE GROUP WILL TRAVEL' ?!' (mass summoning spell that's been around in.. Cata I think only?). Personally, having been a GM of a guild before, I'm glad they got rid of it. All 90% of the guild members (and we were the biggest social guild on the server at the time) did when they wanted to come back to Stormwind was whine in guild chat constantly if they can have a summon to Stormwind until someone did it. Got annoying after the first day or two. And don't get me started on the gold beggers.. :smallannoyed:

But also on the fast travel issues, probably 50-75% of the time you can find a mage who can portal you to whichever city/continent you want to go to really. And it's usually inexpensive, depending on your level and the niceness of the mage. Once my mage is max-level I'll give free portals to guildies and anyone under level 80. Anyone above that, probably 10g, just 'cause if they don't have that much at that point, they shouldn't be playing WoW..


Just because a MMO doesn't have the income or subscription numbers of WoW, doesn't make it a failure.

Eve Online for example is still showing consistent growth even nearly 10 years on.

Incidentally, Eve also fulfils Story Time's request for stationary landmarks (gates and the sun in each system remains static, planets and other stellar bodies move very slowly and missions/complexes/wormholes spawn as and when scanned out), although as a space game, there's a lot of empty scenery.

All I know about Eve Online is that it has spaceships and is apparently cool. Is it worth looking up? (And yes, I know it requires a subscription, like WoW, which after a year of playing I'm getting bored with)

[Rockphed]

This is why I say the game should be built around it from the ground up. Thus there wouldn't be anything that required you to go back and forth between cities that are an hour away from each other. You'd start in one city, do everything there was to do there, and then later you'd move on and go somewhere else. In the real world in the middle ages, people didn't go back and forth travelling all the time. Journeys were things that you planned for, and were significant.


Sounds awesome, really.

One more thing: I like games where players have ways to make a lasting impact on the world. (The main reason I play MUDs over MMOs). How about a game where players formed nations that would then, first, have to build streets or train lines between locations? And warring nations could attack those train lines to cut off supplies and player reinforcements?

"Our train line was cut!" "What do we do now?" "Walk to the border." "But that takes six hours!" "Well, set your chars to automatic, we'll be playing our alts."

I think an MMO with more of an economic rather than combat bent. Players would be merchants or nobles who were trying to build an economic empire. As such, they would spend most of their time in a single place trying to milk it of goods, services, mercinaries, and money. Having many alts tied to a single account would probably be a must for transporting goods between locations. Either you would grab 4 or 5 of your alts and tell them to follow a combat character through the wilderness, or you would have your alt follow a group of combatants who won't be paid until he gets to the other end safely. People doing the walking through the inbetween would either have their characters on auto-walk and just get notified if combat starts, or would have some basic, low level interaction with the environment with occasional bursts of interesting, read dangerous, stuff going on.

Aside from whatever combat and economic skills exist, there should probably be an "alertness" skill that allows a character to sense when other characters or monsters are about.

There would probably be a few NPC run towns, but, in general, players would build everything. Expect someone to build an inn at the top of the tallest mountain, just to ruin the view.

[Acanous]

This is not an idea I think I'd enjoy. I'm used to City of Heroes, with it's
Train, Ouroborus, Supergroup base teleporters, Pocket D VIP pass teleporters, Long Range Teleport power, Black Market Teleporter, Midnight Club, Ferry, Helicopter line, Superspeed, Flight, Super Leap, Mission Transporter, Vanguard DPO, TUNNEL network
14 different means of fast transit. (Usually, picking what you want to use to go somewhere takes longer than going there.)

Of course, I've always championed the idea of an MMO where *Death is Permanent, roll a new character*, *To keep your wealth, you must leave it in a bank* and *To keep your levels, you must get married, procreate, and spend resources on raising your kids*

If you wanted to add long travel time to that? I'd still play.

[bluewind95]

Those that have said WoW is kinda like this are right. I remember once, when there was going to be a server restart, I was all the way south of a continent. I really needed to get to, like... halfway up the continent (from Tanaris to Felwood) due to the chance of getting a rare spawn pet (minfernal!), and I really needed it to be before the 15 minutes before the server restarted were up. I mounted up. I have paid for the fastest mount travel. I set up auto-run, keeping an eye out for obstacles.

... I got to Felwood with less than 3 minutes to spare. This was via the fastest travel speed, direct line, practically no turns or obstacles (just a few times correcting my course to take the most direct way).

Back at the lower levels, before I had a mount, travel times were pretty impressive. You pretty much had to stay in one area, not really popping over to another city for an errand. Major cities were indeed mostly inter-connected, but anything else meant walking for a very long time. I think a run from the starter area of a race to the main city can take like 10-20 minutes, depending, and that's if you didn't catch the attention of enemies along the way. Some errand quests were pretty awful because of this, though thankfully going from town to town was a rare thing. Usually what you do is finish all the quests in one town, and then you get a quest sending you over to the next. When you get a mount, travel times become bearable, and you can sometimes spare time to go for an errand elsewhere. Or just to explore. But never before a mount (especially if you're gonna be a crazy person exploring places 20 levels ahead. You need to outrun the enemies!).

Thing about travel times is that you don't always have a long time to spare on a game. Those quests that needed traveling would often take half the time I had avaiable, and then I wouldn't be able to really get anywhere. Oh, I do love to explore, and that's part of the charm WoW holds for me. The different areas are all so different and it's just nice to see this amount of variety. But... I want to do things too (mind you, I am FAR from a min-maxing player. I have been told I play WoW wrong because I never go for the most efficient level-up plan, nor the best equipment possible). And oftentimes, if it takes me 2 hours to get to the next town, I likely won't be able to get there *and* do something in there, but just... get there. So I prefer to have the option to get there faster. Especially at a high level, when I've likely traveled the place so many times.

While I think that a game focusing on traveling would be a wonderful thing, I think that the schedule of people in general is a pretty big obstacle. Some kind of vacation/retreat virtual reality where you get to do that for a few weeks would be great, cos then you'd have all the time to really dedicate yourself to it. But as it is, I think very few people would be able to enjoy a game like this, even if it's a really nice idea.

[Brother Oni]

All I know about Eve Online is that it has spaceships and is apparently cool. Is it worth looking up? (And yes, I know it requires a subscription, like WoW, which after a year of playing I'm getting bored with)

Spoilered for off topic.


The TL,DR version: Eve Online is a very niche game and the best recommendation I can give is to try it out for yourself before committing to a subscription (it's one of the more expensive games out there, I believe).

If you ask nicely on Other Gaming, there are a number of Eve players here who can give you a referral for a 21 day trial instead of the standard 14 day one.

A brief rundown on the lore: You are a capsuleer, a rare breed of spaceship pilot that can interface with special ships via alien technology (a pod). Since a capsuleer can command the entire ship directly instead of having a command crew (or in some cases, replace the crew entirely), a capsuleer ship has much better combat effectiveness, resulting in a massive military advantage that can (and has) won wars.
You can have multiple ships (although you can only pilot one at a time) and changing ships is pretty much like changing classes in other games.

Now onto what the game is actually like: this CCP video (The Butterfly Effect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU)) is true but hides the fact that good intel and organisation is often critical to success (hence the perjorative but accurate nickname Spreadsheets Online).

The game has a very high death penalty - if your ship is destroyed, it's gone along with probably most of your modules (equipment), which can be looted by your killer. In addition, you can be killed directly (after your ship explodes, you're left in your pod which can be shot up), which can result in skill point loss (which would take real time to re-learn).

While the tutorial and basic hand holding has been improved, the game still has a fairly high learning curve - this is offset by the fact that you can do anything you like in it. If you wanted to jump straight into pvp, you can (you can be useful to any group almost right from the get-go); you can trade, do missions (NPC quests), mine asteroids for minerals, courier goods or run blockades, go exploring - you're not locked in by your initial character decisions, which are mostly cosmetic only.

This level of freedom does mean that if you're not used to setting your own goals and like a vague framework to work through, you're not going to find it in Eve.

As a consequence of this freedom, you can be scammed by other players in-game and the GMs will not do anything about it: account hacking and the like are properly punished, but if you get scammed on contracts (in game auction house), you're out of luck. This leads to Eve players being generally very paranoid and if you can't get into a good corp (guild) soon after the tutorial, you may find your play experience very lonely and boring.

[mangosta71]

What I'm suggesting is not distances so large that you have to spend two days of real time walking to get anywhere. What I'm suggesting is distances large enough that travel time is an actual obstacle, such that you don't simply pop over to the city on the other side of the continent because you need to run an errand over there. I'm suggesting distances that can be travelled when you want to go somewhere else, but that encourage you to stay in one place until you have a compelling reason to go elsewhere. To make different places actually feel like different places.
Okay, this sounds a lot more reasonable than the impression I had of what you wanted. Still, once your players have finished the quests in one area, the majority of them won't want to spend an hour just in traveling to the next area. This could be mitigated somewhat via breadcrumb quests, so that you're actually progressing a story as you go from one area to the next - as long as they feel like they're accomplishing something/have a goal, they're more likely to stick around. Or perhaps having questlines that gradually move you farther away from one point along the path to another. But then you get into the type of "go to this little farm, do the quests here, then go to the next" thing that I think you want to avoid.

Now, suppose someone realizes that he missed a quest and, for whatever reason, wants to go back and do it, but said quest is several areas behind the zone he's currently in. If there's no fast travel system, he either has to forget the quest or spend several hours traveling just to get back to that area. This is why I like having fast travel to areas that you've visited before - otherwise you're spending a lot of time just running between areas that you've already been through. Instead of teleporting for instant travel, you might prefer a taxi service like WoW's birds or TOR's speeders - they're a lot faster than you can travel on your own, but it still takes time to reach your destination and you pay a service charge for the convenience.

[Saskia]

Just because a MMO doesn't have the income or subscription numbers of WoW, doesn't make it a failure.

Eve Online for example is still showing consistent growth even nearly 10 years on.

Incidentally, Eve also fulfils Story Time's request for stationary landmarks (gates and the sun in each system remains static, planets and other stellar bodies move very slowly and missions/complexes/wormholes spawn as and when scanned out), although as a space game, there's a lot of empty scenery.

Absolutely! Eve also isn't competing with WoW though because it serves a fundamentally different player engagement than WoW does. Eve is in fact exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say that any game to survive in the MMO market would have to be different, and for exactly that reason. Anybody who's interested in a MMO for the numbersynumbers thing already has WoW, and WoW already has a big playerbase and online support infrastructure (wikis, etc) so people aren't going to change games en masse over what amounts to a reskin, QED The Old Republic.


Okay, this sounds a lot more reasonable than the impression I had of what you wanted. Still, once your players have finished the quests in one area, the majority of them won't want to spend an hour just in traveling to the next area. This could be mitigated somewhat via breadcrumb quests, so that you're actually progressing a story as you go from one area to the next - as long as they feel like they're accomplishing something/have a goal, they're more likely to stick around. Or perhaps having questlines that gradually move you farther away from one point along the path to another. But then you get into the type of "go to this little farm, do the quests here, then go to the next" thing that I think you want to avoid.

Now, suppose someone realizes that he missed a quest and, for whatever reason, wants to go back and do it, but said quest is several areas behind the zone he's currently in. If there's no fast travel system, he either has to forget the quest or spend several hours traveling just to get back to that area. This is why I like having fast travel to areas that you've visited before - otherwise you're spending a lot of time just running between areas that you've already been through. Instead of teleporting for instant travel, you might prefer a taxi service like WoW's birds or TOR's speeders - they're a lot faster than you can travel on your own, but it still takes time to reach your destination and you pay a service charge for the convenience.

That's exactly why quest-based level grind is so intrinsically flawed though, not even getting into the inevitable mountains of "Go collect nineteen wolf tails" which is made even more absurd when any given wolf might have 0-2 tails. Quests should be just that: Quests; tasks given by people in need for more than a minor errand with significant rewards. Sure, you can have the requests to suppress populations of X monster or Y but they shouldn't be the lion's share of of experience in the grind either. Just ditch the WoW-style quest system and make exploration and enemy variety (and thus strategic variety) primary engagements over repetitive grindy combat. Otherwise that gigantic world won't pay off anyway because you're competing with WoW and that just doesn't work.

[mangosta71]

Well, Rift is still around. And it even has an expansion launching in a couple weeks. To be fair, MoP has morphed WoW into a completely different game than it was originally - Rift is more similar to vanilla/BC-era WoW than the current incarnation. Most of Rift's playerbase is ex-WoW junkies that quit after WotLK launched.

In my opinion, BC was the high point of WoW and Rift is superior to that.

[Susano-wo]

Absolutely! Eve also isn't competing with WoW though because it serves a fundamentally different player engagement than WoW does. Eve is in fact exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say that any game to survive in the MMO market would have to be different, and for exactly that reason. Anybody who's interested in a MMO for the numbersynumbers thing already has WoW, and WoW already has a big playerbase and online support infrastructure (wikis, etc) so people aren't going to change games en masse over what amounts to a reskin, QED The Old Republic.



That's exactly why quest-based level grind is so intrinsically flawed though, not even getting into the inevitable mountains of "Go collect nineteen wolf tails" which is made even more absurd when any given wolf might have 0-2 tails. Quests should be just that: Quests; tasks given by people in need for more than a minor errand with significant rewards. Sure, you can have the requests to suppress populations of X monster or Y but they shouldn't be the lion's share of of experience in the grind either. Just ditch the WoW-style quest system and make exploration and enemy variety (and thus strategic variety) primary engagements over repetitive grindy combat. Otherwise that gigantic world won't pay off anyway because you're competing with WoW and that just doesn't work.




I would play that game. I would play it sooo hard!

I like the idea of distance in MMOs (and I had the exact same experience with FFXI..damn, I want to get back into that game. I had just gotten my Red Mage up to lvl 41 before having to quit for various reasons...sorry back to the topic), but you have to design the game around it. Have different, interesting things to do at each of the locals, so its not just 'moving to the next area,' its making your home base this or that area for a while, so traveling to the next home area takes some time, so you feel as though its in a different part of the world

But the idea that exploring, and fighting different kinds of monsters, that employ different tactics and require different tactics sounds awesome!

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Wurm Online has significant travel distances. One of those sandbox MMORPGs, looked very much "in progress" when I last played. If you want to travel fast you can ride a horse, or hitch horses to a wagon to carry lots of stuff, or build a boat to sail to other parts of the map (or even other servers). Roads increase foot speed, and you also need to eat and drink or else your stamina will take a hit.

Cooperative players gather together in villages, focusing on areas near water, lumber, and minerals. I saw one of the more experienced players ride a two-horse cart halfway across the map to trade with another player. He didn't come back for about an hour.

It worked because we were on a PVE server and we were kinda laid back, not too obsessed with big projects or what. On PVP I guess things would be different.

[Jonzac]

You have this exactly..its called EVE Online. You have distances that cannot be shortcutted, exploring to do and people who will kill you on the way...just because you might carry something good.

[Brother Oni]

You have this exactly..its called EVE Online. You have distances that cannot be shortcutted...

*cough*Jumpdrives*cough* :smalltongue:

[Mynxae]

*cough*Jumpdrives*cough* :smalltongue:

Aren't they only on Capital Ships though?

[Brother Oni]

Aren't they only on Capital Ships though?

Not any more. You're right in that all capital ships have jump drives, but Black Ops ships now have them as well.

Starbases and titans can also generate jump bridges which allow any ship to bypass distances and Black Ops ships can make covert jump portals, which apparently allow covert ops, SBs, Force recons and blockade runners to make jumps as well.

This is also not including wormhole randomness that can spit players out multiple jumps from where they went in.

All in all, the 'no short cuts' view of Eve is looking distinctly creaky.

[Empedocles]

The most important thing with this IMO to make it appeal to a wider audience would be to make most of the land you travel over interesting. Not in the sense of nice scenery, but rather wildlife and villages and mines and bandits and isolated huts and so on. You also couldn't have one of those games where a player will constantly have to access something in a village. For example, in Runescape, players constantly run between villages since in one village there's a furnace, and in another there's an anvil. If that were the case here, and it took 2 hours to get from village to village, and the mines were another hour away to the east... :smallconfused: