Portal Restrictions: Reactivating them?

[Red Ropes]

I was wondering when this was going to come back about? While the convenience of portals is pretty great the incredible, networked system has sort of made certain activities very easy and there is little risk / or sense to certain aspects of it.

I think there is an opportunity to make portals interesting, strategic and sensible.


General idea!

Andunor & Associated Areas:
The Slum Caverns Portal
The Hub Portal
Treadstone Locks Portal
The Outpost Portal **

These should be restricted specifically to the use of the UD Races, Outcast PCs, and /collared, tagged Andunorian/ slaves.

The only exception to this I think would be Svirfneblin, who, I think should need to choose a citizenship in Andunor's districts to make use of those portals as they are connected to Brogendenstein and are sort of able to go surface or UD without too much of an issue because their race is usually opposed to the other monsters of the deep. In this way they are risking themselves or are depraved individuals like the rest of Andunor.

** I think the Outpost should be further restricted to whatever citizenship of the district that 'won it'. As a part of their 'reason to bid on the outpost'.

---

Underdark Portals:
Ogre Fist Trading Outpost
Ice Road

These should be limited to UD races (including svirfs), Outcasts, and /Andunorian/ slaves.

---

Sencliff:
Sencliff's Portal

This should be limited to those who have taken the Sencliff Pledge as pirates & slaves taken for Sencliff. Keeps the place safe-ish and makes it so if you want to fuss with isle you need to use the shadow realm or a ship.

---

Radiant Heart
Minmir Nexus Portal

This should be limited to those who have taken the Radiant Order oath. It'd be a nice boon for those who mechanically have sacrificed their dignity to the glowing tag as well as ensure that the portal and its convenience is limited to wholesome powers.

There are two other portals in the area which I'd otherwise keep open to everyone.

---

The Arcane Tower
Trading Route Portal
Portal Source

I think the portal source at the arcane tower should be limited to surface races only. Andunorian slaves should be restricted as well.

---

Surface Settlements! I think they could reflect the following together: 1) anyone who is an Andunorian slave should not be able to use their 'near portals', 2) any citizen of a settlement that is war with another should not be able to use the portals near an enemy settlement, 3) UD races, outcasts and the like are similarly and sensibly restricted.

Potentially could be restricted to citizens of settlement only, as well, as an incentive to participate in those places.

Brogendenstein:
Front Gate Portal
Portal on the way into the spires.

Burrowhome:
The Gorge Portal

Guldorand:
Skullcrags Portal

Myon:
Southern Forest Portal

Cordor:
Bramble Portal
Road Portal

---

Castles & Future Bidded Property on Surface:

Castle Darrowdeep

Castle Gloom

Potentially give them each a portal that only their citizens can use that are two way or one way? Something to make getting back and forth between the things you won would be useful / convenient.

---

In addition! Something neat could be that guild assassins and Harpers can have access to any and all portals due to their meddling / agreements / use to the isle at large.

[WanderingPoet]

Radiant Heart
Minmir Nexus Portal

They already have a source portal inside the keep, and this is the main source portal for Myon/Guld/Banites (and Brog until they got their own), I think it'd be best to leave this one be.

Castle Darrowdeep

Castle Gloom

Darrowdeep has a source portal as well as several nearby exit portals (campsite, traders route) (not to mention the tower next door)
Gloom as an exit portal nearby, I can't remember if it has a source portal but would be great if it did!

[Red Ropes]

The portal source that they have is not always certain to be available to everyone. It is a unique feature for a guildhall.

--

I honestly think every settlement should probably have its own source portal or twoway, tbh, though.

[WanderingPoet]

Can agree with that!

[Ork]

Call me crazy but maybe a reduction + restriction of portals should happen. Unless an area is designed as a Hub (Hub, outside Nomad, etc.) it is rare for players to even run into each other on the road.

On Skal, the inverse is true & you always run into people on the road in which to RP with. Skal isn't perfect and long travels are frustrating but overall I like the flow of that travel.

[Red Ropes]

Call me crazy but maybe a reduction + restriction of portals should happen. Unless an area is designed as a Hub (Hub, outside Nomad, etc.) it is rare for players to even run into each other on the road.

On Skal, the inverse is true & you always run into people on the road in which to RP with. Skal isn't perfect and long travels are frustrating but overall I like the flow of that travel.

I agree actually with the sentiment. I just think there would be something nice about a settlement portal meant to benefit the citizens, key word, citizens in each settlement. It should be easier to get back and forth.

We could also use fewer portals in some areas - the crows nest has about 4 within 1 to three screens from it. LOL

[The Kriv]

I do think that travel around the module has been made very convenient, so if you have someplace you need to get to, you can simply jump somewhere very close by.

Unfortunately, this has a negative result, that travel by road is at an all-time low. As a medium or low-level character, you are bound to surface travel. But once you get towards lvl 20, and start hanging around with lvl 20's... suddenly everyone's got a portal right in their pocket! So you are either summoned, or somebody creates for you a temporary unstable portal, and with the destinations now being SO frequent, you really just skip around the island.

I do acknowledge that there is certainly a time-investment in surface travel, back when portal destinations were much further away

But i recall those journeys on foot amongst my comrades in arms were some of the best bonding journeys. And it seemed that encounters with others (both friends and fiends) seemed more common, because.. well.. they had to walk too.

With the convenience of all the destination portals (and increased number of Source Portals), I feel like Arelith has lost a little bit of its soul.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

We're starting to regress to when every portal was a 2-way portal.

I also think the DEV-led paradigm of "(basically) every hub needs a 2-way portal/speedy messenger" is problematic. Some things should be inherently unequal/uneven. Inconvenience can be one of those things.

(imagine if the Temple of Akadi was easily accessible, for example. it would never have stood the test of time)

edit: I'll also call my bias of anti-portal. I've always loathed the Ruins of Old Stonehold 2-way because the amount of time "convenience" seemed to trump all semblance of fear and anxiety of being within the ruins of one of Arelith's most tyrannical factions and a stone's throw away from the UD. The whole "roleplay" of that area is always always downplayed and shrugged off. Because it would be exhausting.

Because the design of that whole area undercuts narrative in favour of a portal. O how I hate it.

[Nitro]

Taking away easy access to some places isn't going to increase traffic to them, it's just going to make them used less than counterparts with easier access. Unless we take away all portals then people will naturally gravitate towards the areas where portal access is easier.

Cutting away convenience for the sake of immersion is just poor game design.

[Ork]

Taking away easy access to some places isn't going to increase traffic to them, it's just going to make them used less than counterparts with easier access. Unless we take away all portals then people will naturally gravitate towards the areas where portal access is easier.

I think that's the point tho. If you cut away easy access to places, more people congregate in specific narrower places.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Taking away easy access to some places isn't going to increase traffic to them, it's just going to make them used less than counterparts with easier access. Unless we take away all portals then people will naturally gravitate towards the areas where portal access is easier.

Cutting away convenience for the sake of immersion is just poor game design.

To echo Ork, we don't want every spot on the server to be high traffic. We want our "highways" and our "country roads" so to speak.

If everywhere's convenient, then the idea of a "hub" gets lost. We want hubs and wilderness. We don't want little bubbles everywhere.
(at least, this is my opinion)

[Ironsoul]

Just to throw in my two-cents/anecdotal experiences...

I used to play a Ranger of Arelith Forest way back when and whenever I played that character all I really had to do was log in and just sort of prowl about the server for 10-15 minutes and I would run into SOME kind of RP, be it with known friends/players or new interactions, the roads were just more traveled between hubs.

Maybe its just bad luck on my part but now when I travel the same paths I dont see a single character. Thats not even hyperbole. I've adapted how I've had to play and how I go about finding RP but I defintely miss 'the road' encounter with players that used to be a halmark of my time on Arelith.

I've ended up gravitating more towards the Underdark in recent years because thats where I find chance encounters more likely, still rarer then before but a farcry from the surface in its current state (Not counting the Outskirts of Cordor) and the only reason I can attribute to that is the far more linear nature of the UD.

So all in all I'd like to see fewer portals. Its a double edged sword though, I now have far less time to play and I do remember a simple dungeon run taking hours just to even get there with all the people you'd meet along the way, which could be frusterating if you were short on time... but I find I miss it now. Maybe the grass is just greener on the other side.

[WinkinBlinkin]

I'll give the alternative viewpoint. When I am at work, I have about 1 -2 hours a day to play. Some of the people on this thread practically LIVE in Arelith, but many of us don't. I would rather spend my time in the place I wanted to be, doing the things I wanted to do, rather than spend my entire time travelling so that I have the possibility of running into a few people that I may not rp with anyway.

At the very least, make it so that destination portals are unrestricted when using a lens, so that we can make the choice between coin and convenience.

[The Kriv]

. I would rather spend my time in the place I wanted to be, doing the things I wanted to do, rather than spend my entire time travelling so that I have the possibility of running into a few people that I may not rp with anyway.

But then all the spies and stealthers can't pick your party-up mid-trail and tail you all the way to your destination, listening in on your private conversations as you walk, learning how to exploit you later.

[triaddraykin]

Let's not derail this, the last four comments have been about one specific quote.

[flower]

Walking from Brogenstein to Myon is taking lot of time, and save god if you intend to go further than that. It easily brings up frustration to player. And only way to avoid it is to use a horse.

Restricting portals to race or faction would be to worst. It would have further impact on people who dont play on mainstream.

If you want to restrict portals (exception are city related ones), then give each character like one point per level. Two way portal would cost two points to remember, one way portal one point. You could reset your portals but it would mean you need to pick them up again.

In this way each PC will keep essential portals, being forced to walk in places where does not spend its life time.

[Mithreas]

One of my least popular decisions at the time, but one I am most pleased with the results of, was when we drastically reduced the number of source portals (previously all portals were two-way, but we made most of them destination portals only). Prior to this change, Cordor was very busy, but people would teleport from the Cordor portal to the dungeon they wanted to visit, and back again directly. Other settlements basically existed as places for people to store stuff.

Overnight, the change made Bendir into an active hub, because of the number of roads that meet there & the proximity to the Arcane Tower. Wharftown also got a significant boon, other settlements less so. But to some of the comments above, it also became normal to meet other groups on the road again, which resulted in a large growth in casual RP - and from a DM perspective, gave us lots more touring bands of PCs to victimise.

I fully get that convenience is something people like. When you have a goal in mind, you just want to do that thing. But the hidden cost of convenience is serendipity: so much interaction and story comes out of serendipity, and IMO good module design should encourage a healthy level of it.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I have lost hours of my life on the Prisoners of the Mist server doing the Vallaki to Tser Pool run, which is about 12-18 minutes per way (depending on if you are invisible and hasted). To get to Dementlieu was another 6 minutes of caravan waiting time (assuming the caravans were free). And my character had reason to regularly be in both areas.

As long as I don't have to spend half an hour trying to go from point A to point B on a regular basis if I'm RPing in multiple territories I'll be happy. I understand not wanting people to freely travel into areas they can go raid, but having to regularly do massive travel times between areas is unfun.

[JediMindTrix]

I agree with Ork & Mithreas fundamentally but as someone who has lost a huge chunk of their playtime I really appreciate the convenience the balance of two-way/one-way currently offers.

[Zaravella]

I honestly think every settlement should probably have its own source portal or twoway, tbh, though.

Seconded.

Or maybe limit the destinations of the settlement portals. Like for example right now Guldorand is vassal to Brogendenstein - cant we get a two way portal between these two towns?

[Queen Titania]

I honestly think every settlement should probably have its own source portal or twoway, tbh, though.

Seconded.

Or maybe limit the destinations of the settlement portals. Like for example right now Guldorand is vassal to Brogendenstein - cant we get a two way portal between these two towns?

No, because what about when the vassal ends? Doesn't make sense to add it for the vassal.

I wouldn't mind the frontier portal being moved to the Cities and Planes server, as a destination one. I would be strongly against giving every settlement a two-way portal though. It's more difficult to run an event in the wilderness if there's less of a chance of anyone being there, and it help spreads traffic around.

[Zaravella]

I think that vassalage is so stable, it will last years.... and au contraire it will be easier to do eventswhen PCs are gathered in a spot... its easy enough to possess an npc to usher the PCs out of settlements into the wilderness. I used to do just that in another server... years ago.

[Griefmaker]

As long as I don't have to spend half an hour trying to go from point A to point B on a regular basis if I'm RPing in multiple territories I'll be happy....but having to regularly do massive travel times between areas is unfun.

This is the crux of it for me as well.

But it also depends on the character being played, their motivations, etc. as well. A ranger or druid or road warden or bandit or the like would prefer the LONG paths because that is potentially a big part of their RP. I know on my druid, I have lamented many times about seeing fewer and fewer people on the roads or traveling through maps, unless they are out hunting.

9 times out of 10, a character is simply trying to go from point A to point B and the player does not want to waste what could be 1/3 or more of their playtime traveling instead of being involved in what they were wanting to do (granted, this is in regards for people with limited playtime. Those who can hop on for several hours at a time like I used to be able to do will not mind longer traveling in general, as it is a part of the immersive experience).

The old system of only the Tower as the main hub and Stonehold's source portal pretty much sucked in general from the standpoint of trying to get from point A to point B. But it did force more travel and despite the fact that I have extremely limited playtime when I can hop on nowadays, I believe that a few source portal hubs and a significantly lower number of destinations are the way to go again.

I personally love being able to create a portal and travel within a map to pretty much anywhere now, but I have noticed when I try to RP along major thoroughfares that there is very limited travel which leads to very limited RP outside of major gathering points.

So in my ideal setup, I would have four source portals, one located either centrally in each geographical region (north/south/east/west) or in an appropriate place in the region (such as the Arcane Tower) and have all of them accessible and not buried within any dungeons or the like. Perhaps have their control regulated by a faction...not settlement, but faction...who controls the area, which would be cool and a great boon to factions in general so that they have more of a purpose.

Then reduce the number of destination portals so that travel is required again...but don't make it too extreme. Perhaps no more than 3 maps to get to a destination (case in point, look at how Myon is currently).

One thing I do think is good is having a destination portal nearby or in a major settlement or even better, a completely /neutral/ trade post with full faculties to sell all items found on an adventure (someone like a general peddler). Sibayad could be end up being that sort of place with minor modifications, thanks to no PC faction or group being able to have government powers there. This is more of a convenience factor as I am certain a vast majority of us have been playing late into the night while on a great adventure and are exhausted. You do not want to spend another 30 minutes to get to safety, /then/ do all the post adventure things, and finally be able to log.

[flower]

I honestly think every settlement should probably have its own source portal or twoway, tbh, though.

Seconded.

Or maybe limit the destinations of the settlement portals. Like for example right now Guldorand is vassal to Brogendenstein - cant we get a two way portal between these two towns?

No, because what about when the vassal ends? Doesn't make sense to add it for the vassal.

I wouldn't mind the frontier portal being moved to the Cities and Planes server, as a destination one. I would be strongly against giving every settlement a two-way portal though. It's more difficult to run an event in the wilderness if there's less of a chance of anyone being there, and it help spreads traffic around.

Major part of Island is accesible via boats. Why walk when you can use boat...Cordor --- Brog---Guldorand ---- Crows Nest ----Sibayad etc.


Why would even someone want to undertake 30-40 minutes long trip worth of walking at all, it is frustrating.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Source portal stuff

The conversation includes destination portals as well, and locking them off. Like let's use Sencliff as an example. If I can't use the destination portal because I'm not a pirate, and I can't find an available boat, and I don't have any friends online who are pirates, I'm screwed. While on one hand maybe that's intentional to keep it exclusive, Sencliff is a beautiful area and I like the shady vibe of it, I'd like to be able to RP there as a shady criminal place.