Portal Restrictions: Reactivating them?

[Ork]

I have had this idea for awhile, but I believe that the caravans are underused. Remove the limit of time when they're used, and allow that instantaneous travel after a lovely cutscene. Have the Caravans follow a path, and maybe Caravan from Cordor to Bendir only reaches half way, and players have to traverse an area or two to the next caravan. That path would become a hub of traveling players that could be exploited or protected by the afformentioned ranger,druid, outlaw.

Of course that's a lot of work, but in my mind it's a more intuitive and realistic form of travel as opposed to portals.

[The Kriv]

Or like in the TOEE video game version, where when you travel, there's a chance you end up stopped by a random encounter and have a combat.

If the caravan is 'stopped' due to combat, any player who joins the route for the next 10-rounds is ported to the spot of the conflict as well... so that folk traveling together can at least help each other out... or getting jumped solo lends a chance of help arriving.

Rangers, or partying with rangers when joining the caravan decrease the % of the encounter.

[One Two Three Five]

If I wanted to indulge bored masochism via video games, I'd go pay WoW for the pleasure again. Using Bendir as a justification is really funny to me, too, because it's my least favorite place on the entire server because it's annoying to get anywhere else from. So I just don't go there.

[Marsi]

There are so many pointless, antiquated and time-wasting mechanics in RPGs, I have no idea why it's travel time that attracts the most rage. I don't think "I don't have the time" or "this is boring to me now" are very good platforms to argue for the trivialisation of travelling in an adventure game. I'm an actual, gold-certified casual in a hostile timezone and walking distance on Arelith has not proven to be a timesink to me. Plain old roleplay is.

I don't want POTM-tier distances, but simply making the pre-existing mechanisms more immersive, less instantaneous and not taken for granted does a lot. A character should in the beginning be forced to walk, but as they advance, they are able to access more efficient means and routes. If you find it dull you can get that sorted without robbing everyone else of what is an important contextual vehicle for fantasy roleplay. The long-time player isn't forced to suffer what is no longer immersive to them. That's not a new notion and is already how it is to some extent but I'd love to see the travel disparity between beginner and veteran even more pronounced and tied into affiliations, etc (as suggested).

[One Two Three Five]

pointless, antiquated and time-wasting mechanics

be forced to walk,
....
you can get that sorted without robbing everyone else

You are so close to my opinion, but the exact opposite reasons, ironically- If you want travel to be 'meaningful' for you, you can do that for yourself without wrecking everyone else over. See also the great 'death must be meaningful- but for other people, because I say so' debates.

[Ork]

You are so close to my opinion, but the exact opposite reasons, ironically- If you want travel to be 'meaningful' for you, you can do that for yourself without wrecking everyone else over.

It isn't a discussion about what is meaningful, it is a discussion about increasing encounters for roleplay. I doubt you'll see it that way, but that is the argument none the less.

[One Two Three Five]

Easy access to hubs seems like it'd be an easier way to do that, tbh.

[Nitro]

You are so close to my opinion, but the exact opposite reasons, ironically- If you want travel to be 'meaningful' for you, you can do that for yourself without wrecking everyone else over.

It isn't a discussion about what is meaningful, it is a discussion about increasing encounters for roleplay. I doubt you'll see it that way, but that is the argument none the less.

I mean, is someone zipping by at full speed with haste on or mounted an encounter for roleplay? Just because you take away one venue of easy travel doesn't mean that people who don't want to spend half an hour walking will do so. They'll switch to boats, caravans and haste runs to get to their destination without wasting time.

[Ork]

I mean, is someone zipping by at full speed with haste on or mounted an encounter for roleplay? Just because you take away one venue of easy travel doesn't mean that people who don't want to spend half an hour walking will do so. They'll switch to boats, caravans and haste runs to get to their destination without wasting time.

The suggestion isn't an attempt to correct that behavior. It's more about creating locations that promote encounters. These new thoroughfares could be used to set up traveling merchant venues, or bivouac a handful of troops, or similar to the Liberated Territories set up a toll. These areas won't be used 100% of the time, but at least promise a higher frequency of chance encounters than the current system. Certainly a hasted+invis character could sprint through the area, but those aren't the people I'm attempting to encounter anyways.

[The Kriv]

Portaling vs Caravan vs "Coach"

I used to play on a server that had a very extensive transportation system. You could journey from any settlement to any other settlement by way of a "Coach"

This "Coach" would have an out and back route. The route would 'touch' every territory between point-A and point-B and at any time, while it was 'active' in each territory as it passed, anyone could jump on, or off at that specific spot it passed.

When you got 'on' the coach, you transported to a small interior which represented the inside of the coach. There were seats for your character to relax in. And while you were ON the coach, you would encounter OTHERS making the journey as well.

Boarding a coach line had a small $$ cost to it, which varied depending on how long the coach ride was.

What this enabled was for easy travel around the server, of course it was NOT instantaneous, but it was fairly quick. And it added the benefit of encounters with other people, and the ability for entire parties of characters to literally travel together.


This was back in 2002-2004, and the server I encountered it on was "Sartyr's Borderlands" (if anyone remembers it) It was quite efficient and really added to the RP.. at least IMHO. I really liked that sort of system even over the instantaneous portals we have in Arelith... at least for basic travel between settlements.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Back on subject, yeah totally disable all those listed portals.

[msterswrdsmn]

Personally i'm okay with the way things are? And yes, I remember what it was like when you had a 2-way portal every 5 areas or so.

A lot of the arguements for removing portals is to encourage travel rp. I'm going to be honest; I get far less quality rp out of "travelers running into each other on the road" than I do meeting at settlements/hunting grounds. At best? "Hey! We're going the same way! Lets walk and talk an-oh, this is where we split up. bye!" At worse? "[tell] sorry can't rp i'm using minute buffs! (yes, tells like this happen).

When people are running around on the roads, they have somewhere to be. And if that way isn't the way you're going? Tough.

When people are all in the same area they want to be? Theres much, much less reason to go run off or break off rp because the road is filled with giants and i'll be damned if my level 8 butt dies because I was talking while my concealment/stat buffs wore off!

I actually didn't see a dramatic change between the before/after in terms of activity in settlements after the portal change that shut the server down for a few days. A little more congregation in the more remote settlements, sure, but places like Soulhaven (before and after the move) and the Crows Nest were, and still are, ghost towns in terms of rp.

Accessability via portals isn't killing anything, but it -is- saving me a ton of time with a work schedule IRL.

Sidenote; A good number of classes can -teleport and/or make portals. Reducing the number of options avaliable to the people that -cant- do this is kinda skewing things.

[flower]

Citizens should have ability to teleport to their city, once a day!