travel time becoming a real burden

[jrizz]

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 example

Mistone: Add Haven
Alindor: Add Fort Homestead
Dregar: Add Audira or North Fort
Belinara: Add Hilm Castle
Tilmar: 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).

Another low impact high value idea! Adding to the list of where portals can go and adding multi-directional portals to those locations would be a great way to cut down on the time it takes to get a group in one place.

[jrizz]

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.

A great point in the middle of a great post!

The trip itself from the time you get a group together, say at Hlim or Dun Lake, is 3 hours long. This does not take into account the time it takes just to get the people together. That is another hour or so added to the over all time. Yes I know you can set a date on the calendar and gather a group OFF LINE (kind of defeats the whole on line game thing ) to meet at some time to go. But what about the player that logged on late, or was out ding something else and still needed to get to the starting point. The game time to get t a location is still lost play time even if it is a planned event.

[jrizz]

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.

played on a server with this, it was very cool. It even had a chance of the carriage getting attacked part of the way there

[Dorganath]

It's worth pointing out that all of our bi-directional portals cost coin to use, to the tune of 300 True.  Any new bidirectional portals would likely carry a similar burden.

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.

"But why not just make it all free, Dorg?"

Because it's the balance struck between RP and more active forms of play. If we enable free and extremely accessible rapid travel everywhere, then distance has no meaning. RP about distances is pretty shaky sometimes anyway, and there's no reason to make it worse. *winks*

As another point of interest, trips into the Deep to get Emeralds or Mithril are supposed to take 3 hours or more. This is by design.  If we make the trip quicker, then I'd probably reduce the amount of resources available.  Trade-offs!

As has been hinted, there's already a misuse of some of our systems that's become more-or-less "accepted" practice. Perhaps that's my fault in some ways, but it's also behavioral.  I might be willing to bend a little more if, for example, I didn't see such widespread misuse of spells like Greater Sanctuary.   You know who you are.

And just so you don't think I'm all "no" today, I have been reading and thinking.  So far, I've found a suggestion or two that might be workable.  But keep talking!

And remember, this is intended to be an RP-oriented server, so now and then when you have trouble assembling a group, instead of orbiting Fort Miritrix, the Great Forest and the Deep, how about hanging out in Center and see what comes of it?

[Dorax Windsmith]

Quote from Dorg:
"As another point of interest, trips into the Deep to get Emeralds or Mithril are supposed to take 3 hours or more. This is by design. If we make the trip quicker, then I'd probably reduce the amount of resources available. Trade-offs!"

I've never been able to make this trip faster than 5 hours and it's usually more like 6-8 hours.  I think a reduced amount of CNR for a shorter trip would be a good thing overall.

[xsweetpeaxs]

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.

[Hellblazer]

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.

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?

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.

You got your answer there, you went for rubies and tried for the emeralds too, who are not in the same directions. If you just went for the emeralds, the trip is quicker. But still not really 3 hours, closer to it though.

[Dorganath]

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?

I know what can be done.  I know how it can be done. That's hardly the point, and I was never saying it couldn't be done. One "ticket" would not be such a huge thing, no, but think about this for a moment. How does the boat system work? Are you able to sail directly from say...Port Hempstead to Arnax?  No, you're not. Even if we had more interconnections between ports, you're still looking at several tickets each direction.

So it's not, nor has it been a matter of if it can be done and whether we can just reuse our current systems. It can, and we could.  It's a matter of whether we should do that, and as a strongly casual player (not by choice) who doesn't really like the dubious RP of killing a few gobbos (which don't reside outside of Port Hempstead, by the way ) or kobolds (which do reside outside of Port Hempstead) for boat fare, I have generally strong reservations about adding any convenience system that more negatively impacts the causal player.

So you might say, "But Dorg, the existing boat system does this as well."  but notice I said "convenience".  The existing boat system is a necessity for traveling between continents and islands. There is a subtle but important difference.

And so, just to be clear, I am not nor have I been arguing that something can't be done in terms of travel. I'm trying to give everyone a idea of what sorts of issues I consider when adding or adjusting systems.  I am purposefully trying to steer clear of saying "No we can't do this," or "That won't work," to avoid this very sort of response.  

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In my observations, I have noted that the more ways you have to get people away from somewhere, the less motivation and reason there is for people to gather anywhere.  People scatter to the winds and wonder why they can't find anyone. People log on to find a group or find RP, and they can't because the people who are on are orbiting around the "high-paying" locations (Northern Belinara, Thunder Peaks/Thunder Valley, and so on). We made Center, in part, to help facilitate meeting and grouping. It has almost everything the old Hlint had, that bit of nostalgia that so many said they wanted back. We specifically kept from putting an outbound portal of any sort in Center for this very reason: to make it a point for collecting, not just another stepping stone on the way to somewhere else.

In the days of Hlint, if there wasn't time for a 5+ hour run to the Deep, people didn't go, or they went somewhere else...or they hung out and RPed.   I suppose it's nostalgia to a certain extent, but isn't that in part why so many people asked for a Hlint-like starting area?

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Anyway, tangent over. Please return to your regularly-scheduled discussion.

[Hellblazer]

Yep and I was pleased to be able to Rp for an hour or so (that's all the time we had I think) in center nice going there.

My point wasn't to critisize just bringing up the option that would probably have the least amount of work to be done with.

Gobos.. kobold.. they're all small and stinky to me!

[Dorganath]

My point wasn't to critisize just bringing up the option that would probably have the least amount of work to be done with.

Actually, while it would take no extra coding potentially, setting up a network of caravan destinations is actually a fair amount of busy work and actually more than some of the other options I'm considering.

[Hellblazer]

Well it would be less than coming up with a whole new script

[Dorganath]

Depends on the script!

[Polak76]

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!

[Ravemore]

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!

LOL. Totally!:D

[miltonyorkcastle]

Pbb. Corathites don't bother Steel at all. It's your Australian timezones that kill me. :p