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World Size Too Big?
OnyStyle
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The world size might be too big, let me explain.
As I have grown older I have had less and less time to be able to dedicate to playing a game. And I am afraid the map size has become too large for people who can't dedicate a TON of time to play per session.
For example, Steven has mentioned it taking about an hour to traverse from one end of a continent to another. So, if I am in the center of a continent it would probably take about 30 minutes to get to any of the edges. Unless there is teleporting (which I am not advocating for), I could potentially be spending 1/4 or 1/2 of my play session just traversing the world to get to the content I ACTUALLY want to do. If I want to hop in and go raiding with some of my buddies on another continent, I should be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
What I'd like to see is a sort of shared airship system that goes from one metropolis to another where I could just hop on that ship to more easily go to another area.
You could make this airship make a full cycle around every 10 minutes. This won't trivialize ground content because this ship only goes between metropolises. Trading routes and such obviously should not be able to utilize this method of travel.
As I have grown older I have had less and less time to be able to dedicate to playing a game. And I am afraid the map size has become too large for people who can't dedicate a TON of time to play per session.
For example, Steven has mentioned it taking about an hour to traverse from one end of a continent to another. So, if I am in the center of a continent it would probably take about 30 minutes to get to any of the edges. Unless there is teleporting (which I am not advocating for), I could potentially be spending 1/4 or 1/2 of my play session just traversing the world to get to the content I ACTUALLY want to do. If I want to hop in and go raiding with some of my buddies on another continent, I should be able to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
What I'd like to see is a sort of shared airship system that goes from one metropolis to another where I could just hop on that ship to more easily go to another area.
You could make this airship make a full cycle around every 10 minutes. This won't trivialize ground content because this ship only goes between metropolises. Trading routes and such obviously should not be able to utilize this method of travel.
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Airships are intended as one of the "node superpowers" for the Scientific Node.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Scientific_nodes
If there are multiple scientific metropolises, then an airship will provide faster travel between those scientific metropolises for citizens of those nodes and their vassal nodes, so long as the metropolises are not at war.
We'll have to see exactly how quickly such airships will transition between scientific metropolises; testing should help reveal whether or not airship transit time will need to be adjusted.
Did not know that. Though I honestly prefer if that system was in place regardless if they were a scientific node as well. I shouldn't need to be a citizen of a scientific node just so I can do content as a more casual player.
Mate, they've had plans for airships to be in the game for a while now. You should really delve into the wiki before being concerned about problems they already have answers for.
Here's some more info:
From one end of a Metropolis (stage 6) node to the other 2.83 minutes 1.67 minutes
From the center of a node to the center of its direct neighbor 5 minutes 3.5 minutes
From the northernmost to southernmost points of a continent 75 minutes 50 minutes
Also, you should keep in mind that they are hoping for Around 8-10k concurrent users per server. Making the map smaller would destroy the world and make many things impossible if not a huge inconvenience.
I'm hoping that access to airships will eventually be made available to non-citizens, of a scientific metropolis, for a fee. It would be a great opportunity for a scientific metropolis to make additional money and may encourage diplomacy and further cooperation/interaction between non-citizens and scientific nodes.
It could be that a node policy, allowing non-citizens access to airship travel, may be available.
I would, however, limit the use of the teleportation power to citizens of a scientific metropolis and its vassals.
Airships are only between two scientific metropolises. I am proposing the system to exist regardless of node type. Also, the numbers you are quoting are exactly what concerns me. Sure the numbers are reasonable when I travel between nearby nodes. But when I want to travel across the world, I could be spending 40 minutes just to get to the content I actually want to play.
That would definitely be a sweet solution! Scientific nodes have airships between all metropolises but non citizens pay a fee. (Which goes to revenue). Additionally, that route would close off to that node when the two are at war. I also agree that only citizens should be allowed to teleport within the scientific node.
There's already a flight path system planned outside of airships more akin to the wow travelling system.
You can find out more here. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Public_transportation
There isnt a design problem here.
George_Black is right. Here is why.
This isn't an everyone can do everything kind of game. It's going to be the opposite of everyone can do everything for the overwhelming majority of people in just about every important activity. Travel time is just one of the barriers limiting each player from doing and having everything.
Travel distance in Ashes is going to matter more than most MMO's. It will require many players to plan around it. In your case, if there is a raid that you want to do regularly you should probably find a tavern or nearby town to work out of while you focus your time in the area.
It isn't just raiding, also world bosses, node events, etc. If you want to say I don't have enough time to play an mmo, you are going to lose a large portion of the potential playerbase. 2 hours a day is 14 hours a week. That is a part time job.
Additionally, if you think the world isn't that large, just imagine the world is 32 times larger than skyrim. And nearly 80% larger than the entirety of final fantasy 14. Population is about the same per server. If you think the world isn't big, you are crazy.
We were typing our posts at the same time, but everything I posted above applies to your various examples. Players are going to have to plan what they do more than other MMO's. Players are not intended to be able to do everything and time is a major limit on what players can do.
If you played Guild Wars 2, you could teleport everywhere and do all the world bosses at each daily spawn time, run all dungeons and all raids and do pretty much anything else in the game that you wanted with a 30-120 second travel time. Ashes is basically the exact opposite.
This is going to impact the economy in that resources will be more locked to an area which will impact whether those resources are available and players can make money moving resources around which is the basis for the caravan system. i.e. The large world is required for the caravan system (which is intended to generate a lot of gold and meaningful PVP) to matter.
Also, successes in basically all things are more important due to the increased difficulty of attempting them due to travel restrictions.
They dont care about a large portion of the playerbase.
They dont want to churn out just another piece of content that is copy paste of all the other mmos.
They want to make a good game.
Not every studio aims to get every person on this planet with a gaming pc to buy their game.
One more thing. Are you telling me that you found not even one modern mmo to "jump into raiding" and do "other stuff like world bosses etc"?
Ff14 and eso are just like that. Are you bored with them? And if you found them boring, why would you suggest that AoC needs to be like them?
I do not th
Saying they don't care about a large portion of the playerbase is just a silly thing to say. It just dismisses criticism and basically tells people "lul deal with it." If I was suggesting something that completely changed the games original kickstarter promises then that is one thing. But I'm not. I am not suggesting they allow everyone to teleport everywhere, I am suggesting that they make the world easier to navigate in a way that allows people to not have to spend an hour to get to content they want to do. There are a few systems that try to reduce this that are already planned. Such as family teleporting, flight paths between continents via naval nodes. But I believe that these measures are still insufficient. If you were told "hey the map is too small" a month ago, I bet you would have thought that person crazy.
I never said other mmos didn't have stuff like that? I'm not suggesting aoc copies them. There are plenty of features besides "raiding and world bosses" in aoc. An actually relevant crafting/gathering system, open world pvp with a fun hunter/bounty system etc etc. But I don't want to hop into aoc and not be able to work on my freehold because I would have to travel an hour to get home. There is a difference between not being able to do all the content and respecting your playerbases time. I think 15 minutes to travel to any metropolis (like via an airship) is more than enough of a time sync to make someone think about how to spend their time.
Best answer you're gonna get besides the unique travel mechanics is what @FuryBladeborne was kind enough to provide, though. I say this as someone who works 60+ hour weeks on a farm but still manages to squeeze in some game time when I can. We can't realistically expect the game made for all to cater to our individual schedules.
I do not suggest adding teleporting etc. But as someone said above, I don't want to play travel simulator. I don't expect to be able to do everything, but i do expect to not need to consume the bulk of a play session to do whatever I actually want to do for the day.
No problem.
You’ll still be able to discover the world map … it will just take longer on the calendar.
Of course the game won't cater to our individual schedules. But aoc is even 3x as large as eso. Now keep in mind the playerbase is theoretically going to be split between the metropolises (since that's where people will mostly gather) and it feels not quite dense enough IMO
Also, there won't just be airships.
I really think this is a non-issue and not even worth commenting on until people are actually in-game to test it.
I've mentioned all these systems already and do not think it's enough.
The reason I can assume the gameplay and travel frequency is simple. Content will be split between metropolises. With their own raiding dungeons (both instanced and non instanced), node events etc. These dungeons won't have the same drops which give players a reason to go explore other regions. Not to mention the times you may want to participate in war, do trade routes, and other such stuff.
You have to remember this is a mmorpg, you want to have all that content and land to explore and do content with. I'm sure they aren't going to design it like new world where your quest make you walk back and forth one after another.
Idk, Cutting even more time is delving into the realm of instant gratification which the Devs have been trying to avoid since the beginning. It only takes 3.5 minutes while mounted to get from the center of one node to the next to it. If you dont have 7 minutes to make a return trip to the node next to it I honestly just dont even know why you're playing video games in the first place.
That time is only for adjacent nodes. I don't think there is any issue there. The issue becomes when you want to travel 10 or more nodes worth of distance away. (Which isn't an unrealistic amount of distance between metropolises.)
As I said above, I don't mind some travel time. I think it is important to make it feel like a meaningful decision. I also don't think I'd call 10-15 minutes from one metropolis to another "instant gratification." 10-15 minutes is plenty of time to make the journey be a conscience decision.
Your issue is that you may want to take on content that is 30 minutes away, giving you an hour travel time in total.
Take on content closer to home.
If there is no content closer to home, move home closer to the content you want to take on.
If you are limited to 2 hour play sessions (and 2 hours at a time is quite a limit), you cant expect to have everything in the game.
A tradeoff between being closer to content you want to take on vs living in the node of your choice seems reasonable to me.
How do you stop people selling crafted gear? are people going to have to travel naked? are you going to need an empty inventory? what about consumables can you travel with any food? the only way to stop trading using the system would be to make you unable to do content at your destination defeating the purpose of the method of travel, if you can take consumables, equip the gear you want to sell, or have any crafted item in your inventory or how do you propose that the loophole gets closed?
Many of the things you are listing are time investment activities, and likely things preplanned in advance, if you know your guild is going to wage war on the other side of the map for some reason on Tuesday, why not travel there on Monday, then you are ready and waiting to go to war, Trade routes that is the activity, getting to the destination is the end goal it's the getting there that has the content with potential caravan raiders etc. you can also break this up into multiple days of gameplay today were going from node A-B-C tomorrow C-B-A. If your group wants to do the dungeon on the other side of the map or just explore you want the world to be big because travelling is part of the content. You mentioned Skyrim, as someone who has played Skyrim while ignoring fast travel I can tell you it's still engaging and fun, if all you do is "climb in back and well be off" you will miss over half of the content.
I can understand only having 2 hours a day to play but that is something you need to work around not something the devs should design around. if you have a spare 30 travel to where you plan to game beforehand meet your friends there or join a family and they can summon you to link up when you log in.
The Wolves of Verra
are recruiting: https://discord.gg/Rt8G3sNYac
Ya see, you're not "Supposed" to get anywhere. The game is supposed to be enjoyed during the journey and is not destination centric.
A game with enough thing to not be able to do all if i don't spend a stupid amount of time in it.
Games like ArcheAge have already solved this issue. Items for trading routes would be in special packs that need to be carried in a back slot, or on a caravan mount designed specifically for trade routes/caravans. If you have these items, you cannot use the "quick travel" methods such as airships and anything else that may be available.
Any item can conceivably be sold or are consumables excluded, are you just going to travel across the map and leave all your potions/food at home? usually food and potions have a relatively large stack limit or are you suggesting a boe system where the gear wear on the ship is then unable to be sold cause you could fly out a full suit of crafted gear, and fly home naked otherwise
The Wolves of Verra
are recruiting: https://discord.gg/Rt8G3sNYac
Clearly standard inventory items would not be prohibited. This would already be solved by having either weight limits or strict quantity limits for items so that a player cannot carry 50 sets of armor in their inventory. Again, this would go back to the whole "special item" mechanic I mentioned where items could be "packed" into a box that must be carried by means mentioned earlier that would allow a player to transport more items at the cost of having to manually transport them across the open map. If you're suggesting someone would somehow gain an unfair advantage by being able to carry a standard inventory of items on these "quick travel" methods, you're grossly overestimating the value a person could feasibly carry in a single inventory.