Meaningful distance in MMOs: A discussion

[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.