How about just expanding the system that already exists? Adding a few more locations to the housing teleports would certainly cut down on a lot of time spent running, for exampleMistone: Add HavenAlindor: Add Fort HomesteadDregar: Add Audira or North FortBelinara: Add Hilm CastleTilmar: Add Creedo or Huangjin This way these would be as available to everyone, no matter if they play a lot or a little. The locations are just suggestions, so could totally be changed to suit (epecially Hilm Castle given current Plot events).
from my experience you are looking at giving at least a 3 hour (ONE WAY) commitment to a well oiled group doing light RP just to get 1 crack at Emeralds.
Maybe just make a swift travel carriage system, a bit like the boats. That would cost tickets and would take you to some cities that are closer to the big rallying points that people tend to go venturing out to.
A "rapid carriage" system or whatever you want to call it would cost money as well, just as the ships and portals do. These, again, disproportionately impact the casual player.
3 hours?! Please teach me how. LOL I've lost plenty of beauty sleep on The Deep trips. With three hours, we are only able to get to the rubies and back safely! P.S. G-Sanc is bugged too. Many people have lost SS due to its malfunction. It's a risk to use it, so I see it was a fair exchange in certain circumstance.
Forgive me Dorg, but I pointed it out myself that it should cost like the boats.That being said, a 48 gp (or what ever it is now) tickets is really not likely to impact a casual player that much. Need to go there? go kill two or three gobos out of Hempstead and you're ready to go. So yeah even if there was a similar price to the carriage tickets (or what ever would be the system if taken) as the boat, it's really not a deal breaker. Unless of course you go out to make it a high price for a similar system that's already in game. If I'm not mistaken, the boat script could be applied to any npc (the dialogue might need to be changed to reflect that's it's not by boat transport) with a different set of destinations, still requires the same tickets that you would purchase. So basically you already have that system in game, that only needs the script to be applied to an other npc, with new destinations, no need for a complete new script or system. Wrong?
My point wasn't to critisize just bringing up the option that would probably have the least amount of work to be done with.
I have the fix.Just make a corathite and you won't have anyone to travel with. Hence no need to get anywhere in a hurry!