Player Transportation, Fast-Travel and Travel Contracts

Hey guys,
I've had an idea and i'd appreciate your opinion on it. I Cross-post it from Reddit, as there are a lot of people here who aren't there and the other way around.

Just a quick idea I have had in regards to player transportation, "faster travel" and the need for fast travel through family summon.

What if, there was the possibility for players to write on a "transport board" and open a contract stating:

Current Location: Node A
Target Location: Node C
Payment: 500 Gold
Provide a check-mark, that allows the player to choose whether they can only be transported by
1. family
2. friends
3. guild members
4. alliance members
5. everybody

Then any player, that feels the contract to be worthwhile or is trading towards the general direction of Node C would be able to Transport the Player (both while on- or offline) from Node A to Node C and automatically receive the money in the payment upon completion of the contract.

This would:

allow players with a tighter schedule to spend less time with dreaded travelling when all they want to do is play with their family/friends.
make the community experience a little bit deeper, rather than replying on some sort of scuffed fast travel options with unnecessarily complex regulations
provide the ability for players to bring along their friends for the joint adventures while they are offline, so you can enjoy the game together once they are online
could easily be started through the Mobile connection they are planning for farming purposes/market stand purposes etc. So players without access to their PC are able to request a transport, when their friends on discord determined what they want to do tonight.
Could tie into the existing economy of taming/breeding/crafting by requiring carriages, special type of mounts, Saddles
build upon the existing economy and exploration focus by providing a life skil / job that combines both.
can be designed virtually abuse-free

Possible problems and potential solutions:

What if someone picks up the player and never delivers them or leaves them stranded at a location.

Easily circumvented by the offline player character only actually moving from Node A to Node C upon fulfillment of the contract. If the driver tries shenanigans, the player would simply log in back at Node A, no harm done.

Transportation of goods / risk-less travel for corrupted and normal players

Inventory would have to be void of location-bound materials
Corrupted wouldn't be allowed to use this service

What do you think?

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Comments

BaSkA_9x2

I don't mind the fact that there'll be hardly any fast travel in Ashes, as long as you can choose your starting Divine Gateway to play with your friends from the beginning.

However, if for some reason there absolutely must be some other way to fast travel apart from the family system which I am not a fan of and between Scientific Metropolises, a much easier solution would be unlimited teleports to a Divine Gateway of choice once a week as long as you're not carrying any raw materials.

I hope Fast Travel can't be abused and is able to help people trying to play together.

bloodprophet

Supposed to be a thing to pick which gate you start at so people can play with friends from the start.

I hope fast travel stays super minimal and would like to see heavy limits on the family summons.

Cat Quiver

Nah. If Hank with his 5 jobs, 17 wives, and 53 kids doesn't have the time to travel in the game with emphasis on traveling then he should find another game to play or learn to be happy staying in his home node(s).

McShave

Edit: upon rereading OP, I'm not sure if they are talking about family summons from node to node, or a caravan type system that I mention in my post. If they are caravans, then a player would not drive them, but would be an automated path, like a mayor or node caravan.

I don't think traveling is going to be as big of a deal as people think. In Alpha 1, it took a player 20 to 25 minutes to sprint across the map. The size of the Alpha 1 map will be about the size of one castle region. So, with a fast mount, i doubt you will have to travel more than 30 or 40 minutes to reach any destination you might have. If this is too much, then I suggest you alter your expectations.

I don't think players will be doing content all over the world. It is more likely that the farthest you would go will be one castle region over, or somewhere in or across the sea. I'm not sure how sea travel will effect these travel times, as they weren't tested in Alpha 1. We will have to see in Alpha 2.

This pay-to-transport model is something I've discussed before, but I don't want any instant teleportation. I don't even want family summons, and I'm hesitant on scientific metropolis teleportation. What I would be a fan of, tho, is a flight path type system where you can travel on a caravan from one node to another, and the player can be attacked and killed during travel. This let's you be able to go afk if needed and let's you be transported without having to manually ride the distance, while still keeping the idea of this is risk vs reward.

SirChancelot

Soo
Ashes Uber?

Xerheart

I am a bit torn on this. I think travel is going to be important in Ashes. However I do like this idea being tied to node progression and maybe a building that the mayor has to approve being built (Meaning it makes it more limited as not every node will have access to this service). I also like the idea of maybe tieing it into taming/breeding and only allowing players with X type of mount to do this.

I don't think it would be implemented, but also wouldn't be terribly opposed to it if was.

Cool idea and post Warth!

Warth

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Soo
Ashes Uber?

pretty much Ashes Uber yeah

Yuyukoyay

Against it because I'm against any kind of fast travel unless it's a final stage node unlock. There realistically will never be a time you will need a system like this since you are probably going to go to where your friends are going to play to begin with.

Zerging is a rampant problem in every other MMO. So I'm going to assume it's going to happen again here unless something is done to limit fast travel so zerging can be more controlled. The major problem with zerging mentality is these bastards weaponize everything no matter how minor the system may seem.

Travel time is just a major focus in the game. At least to get to where you want to play initially. So everyone is going to be expected to put that time in and not cheat the system aside from the family summoning crap already in the game. The initial teleport is a resource to meet this goal. So I would recommend not wasting it.

I don't think the game should cater to anyone who might have wasted it in any way.

daveywavey

So, would the passenger ride on the uber-driver's mount, or in their caravan, etc? Could they be attacked individually, or would their health sync with the uber-driver's health? How would it work?

SirChancelot

daveywavey wrote: »

So, would the passenger ride on the uber-driver's mount, or in their caravan, etc? Could they be attacked individually, or would their health sync with the uber-driver's health? How would it work?

Could just be a caravan, but the passengers are the goods being transported...

ptitoine

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Could just be a caravan, but the passengers are the goods being transported...

Haha I imagine the dissapointement in people trying to steal from the caravan and realise the treasure is just laze people people beeing carried

SirChancelot

ptitoine wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Could just be a caravan, but the passengers are the goods being transported...

Haha I imagine the dissapointement in people trying to steal from the caravan and realise the treasure is just laze people people beeing carried

Whole new layer to risk reward.
Or it's the risk of using ashes Uber, highway robbery.

bloodprophet

The Verran horse. Be an interesting tactic to distract gankers and defend a caravan.

clone63

The logistics of this sound hard to implement.
I don't see people actually paying anything others would want to travel if they're not able to do it on their own.
Waiting for someone to take the contract (only the last 2 options make any sense for 'posting' something rather than messaging your family or guild) probably defeats the purpose of it reducing travel times.
I like the idea as it would be a practical means in a real world, but not much in most game worlds.

SirChancelot

clone63 wrote: »

The logistics of this sound hard to implement.
I don't see people actually paying anything others would want to travel if they're not able to do it on their own.
Waiting for someone to take the contract (only the last 2 options make any sense for 'posting' something rather than messaging your family or guild) probably defeats the purpose of it reducing travel times.
I like the idea as it would be a practical means in a real world, but not much in most game worlds.

My friends want to do a specific dungeon that's on the other side of the map. when I log out tonight I post the Uber request to take you to the other side of the map and go to sleep. when I get home from work the next day hopefully someone fulfilled the request and I'm over on that side of the continent.

I wouldn't use that, but I'm frugal... I could see how others might though.

Can't say I'm personally super stoked about the idea though...

McShave

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

clone63 wrote: »

The logistics of this sound hard to implement.
I don't see people actually paying anything others would want to travel if they're not able to do it on their own.
Waiting for someone to take the contract (only the last 2 options make any sense for 'posting' something rather than messaging your family or guild) probably defeats the purpose of it reducing travel times.
I like the idea as it would be a practical means in a real world, but not much in most game worlds.

My friends want to do a specific dungeon that's on the other side of the map. when I log out tonight I post the Uber request to take you to the other side of the map and go to sleep. when I get home from work the next day hopefully someone fulfilled the request and I'm over on that side of the continent.

I wouldn't use that, but I'm frugal... I could see how others might though.

Can't say I'm personally super stoked about the idea though...

IDK about doing a dungeon on the other side of the map. There should be enough dungeons to do just in your castle region, if not just one castle region over. Alpha 1 had a lot of dungeons, and that's just one castle region (theoretically).

Warth

I don't think the game should cater to anyone who might have wasted it in any way.

That was the mindset of the Wildstar developers as well. Don't cater to a casual audience.
Funny where that ended up.

SirChancelot

Warth wrote: »

I don't think the game should cater to anyone who might have wasted it in any way.

That was the mindset of the Wildstar developers as well. Don't cater to a casual audience.
Funny where that ended up.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about ashes doing too. I loved WildStar, was so good.

Noaani

Warth wrote: »

SirChancelot11 wrote: »

Soo
Ashes Uber?

pretty much Ashes Uber yeah

I'm fairly sure any player in an MMO would be able to create a transportation system with a better long term financial prospect than Uber though.

ravetgn

Warth wrote: »

I don't think the game should cater to anyone who might have wasted it in any way.

That was the mindset of the Wildstar developers as well. Don't cater to a casual audience.
Funny where that ended up.

That's just not true. Wildstar had plenty of issues (especially performance-wise) waaay before they catered to the hardcore community, which were the only ones that stayed playing until the end btw. That's a false narrative. Wildstar died for sooo many reasons, the poor optimization, particularly around that time when PCs weren't nearly as powerful, mediocre questing, bad business focused decisions, and many many more.

But catering to the hardcore audience held the last 2 megaservers up for almost a year thanks to those hardcores who stayed.

For an MMORPG to endure, it has to be close to perfect, in every area, and Wildstar, while well intentioned, wasn't even close.

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