Why The Game Needs Fast Travel

I know it's been said that the game will not have point-to=point fast travel.

However, I feel like this is a mistake. The points of not having fast travel are o encourage world exploration and open world PvP. Given that there are PvP areas, large scale wars, and a node spawn system that is dynamic, these reasons are already covered. We will have plenty of reason to go exploring the world.

There's simply no point in making us take 20 minutes or more just to cross the map. This is further exacerbated by all the different leveling areas being very spread out and not having any kind of combined storage. If you add in the fact that the map is nowhere near completed, and you'll have players spending the bulk of their time just to get from point A to point B.

Case in point was making a group for Oakenhold tonight. We invited a cleric who was in the upper left of the map - it literally took him 25 minutes just to get over to us. That's a lot of wasting 7 other peoples' time.

At the very least, we need what EverQuest had - classes with the ability to create portals and gates to other locations. Druids and Wizards both had the ability to travel around, and at later levels they could do so for groups.

Many of your players are going to be people with limited time. We're going to want to spend the time we have doing what we want to do, not auto running and staring at your mount's backside.

So, please, consider throwing us a bone or two here.

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Arya_Yeshe

stonethrower wrote: »

exploring the world is interesting up to a point. When you learn everything, and this will happen quite soon, you will perform actions automatically. ignoring the environment. I played in others, no one reads the quests, no one looks around. no one cares. and this is a big problem. on the other hand, there is no fast movement - this is +. since you can kill players with resources, taking their loot

Only when the game is bad as known as being "MMO RPG", but when the game is a sanbox or at least very sandboxy then everytime you travel is another experience

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

stonethrower wrote: »

exploring the world is interesting up to a point. When you learn everything, and this will happen quite soon, you will perform actions automatically. ignoring the environment. I played in others, no one reads the quests, no one looks around. no one cares. and this is a big problem. on the other hand, there is no fast movement - this is +. since you can kill players with resources, taking their loot

Only when the game is bad as known as being "MMO RPG", but when the game is a sanbox or at least very sandboxy then everytime you travel is another experience

I'd argue that this is more about the dynamism of the environment and politics than the sandbox nature. I know you probably mean this too, but I'm just being picky about any potential semantics arguments.

An MMORPG designed with a simplistic overworld doesn't encourage travel, and offloading dynamism to players I feel seldom works, personally, because most players just aren't that interesting.

Myosotys

Orrion wrote: »

I know it's been said that the game will not have point-to=point fast travel.

However, I feel like this is a mistake.

I'd prefer a skill or spell for Cleric classes to add value to the team work and potentially selling the service. Let's tell 2 destinations to save maximum that you can learn with a quest (that requires some few items to farm/buy).

The more there are quests that delete some items from the game, the more the economy will be good.

joeyohknow

Orrion wrote: »

At the very least, we need

Who's "we"? Speak for yourself and don't presume to know what everyone else wants.

Noaani

Tjaeden wrote: »

Albion Online topped out over 350,000 BEFORE they released Asian servers.

And that MMO is more PVP focused than most.

Saying anything is "on it's deathbed" is so 2006 WoW.

No, it's perfectly appropriate to say it, but people need to understand that a genre death takes years or decades, not weeks or months as was the case back then.

As to Albion Online hitting a peak of 350,000 players - that is specifically for Steam. As of writing this, there are 7,458 players playing the game on Steam.

Don't use Albion as an example of anything good for the PvP focused MMORPG sub-genre.

As to your comment that the basis of this game is that PvP changes the world - I know, I was the first to phrase it like that (before Steven did).

The problem is, PvE is supposed to build the world, and the PvE is shit. Why PvP over the PvE building blocks if that PvE itself is shit?

Ashes core design - the one you are talking about where PvP changes the world - it requires thst Ashes have better *PvE* than any other MMORPG out there.

Aszkalon

It was "tough" before already for half a Year,

but damn i am surprised if there is any Topic still where People actually truly want to answer on each other with the Main Topic addressed.

Even the Meme Topic is as dried out as the Sandsquall Desert

Vyllz

I understand the concern about long travel times in Ashes of Creation, especially for players with limited time. But Ashes isn't just another MMO—it's built around a player-driven world where logistics, exploration, and meaningful travel choices are core mechanics.

🚫 Why Ashes of Creation Doesn’t Have Global Fast Travel
1️⃣ Maintains the Integrity of the Economy 💰

In most MMOs with fast travel, markets become centralized, and resources lose value because players can instantly jump to farming hotspots.
Ashes prevents this by making resource transportation an actual gameplay mechanic—you need to physically move goods across the world, leading to trade routes, caravan escorts, and PvP ambushes.
2️⃣ Encourages Meaningful Conflict & Strategy ⚔️

Without instant teleportation, wars and sieges require planning. A zerg guild can’t just teleport their entire force in seconds.
This means guilds must strategically position their members, reinforcing Ashes’s vision of regional control and player-driven conquest.
3️⃣ Supports the Node System & Player Settlements 🏰

If everyone could teleport instantly, most of the world would be ignored, with players clustering in a few key areas.
Instead, nodes develop based on where players actually live and play, making every server’s world unique.
✅ What Travel Options Do Exist?
While Ashes doesn’t have global fast travel, there are several travel systems that make movement easier without breaking the game’s core mechanics:

🔹 Scientific Metropolis Teleports – If a scientific node reaches metropolis level, it provides limited teleportation.
🔹 Flight Paths & Airships – NPC-controlled transport between major hubs.
🔹 Family Summon System – Limited group teleport for small parties.
🔹 Mount Breeding & Speed Upgrades – High-tier mounts will significantly reduce travel time.
🔹 Caravan & Ferry Systems – Transport not just goods, but players as well.

🎯 Balancing Player Convenience vs. Game Depth
I completely understand that some players don’t want to spend half their play session traveling. That’s a valid concern. But Ashes of Creation is built around deliberate, strategic travel, where choosing where you live and play matters.

Rather than teleporting to any dungeon instantly, players are encouraged to establish local bases, use guild coordination, and plan their adventures—just like in a real living, breathing world.

🔥 Final Thought: Would Fast Travel Kill the Experience?
MMOs like New World and ESO rely on convenience mechanics, but at the cost of world depth and immersion. Ashes aims to create something different—an MMO where travel isn't just a loading screen, but a meaningful part of the adventure.

It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. But if Ashes of Creation can successfully balance travel mechanics, while keeping the world engaging and dynamic, it has the potential to be one of the most immersive and rewarding MMOs in years.

Would love to hear thoughts—what travel mechanics would feel balanced to you without ruining the game’s depth? 🚀

Dolyem

Fast travel and flying mounts make MMOs with open world PvP awful. If it were only a PVE game, fast travel would be more or less ok, though itd still effect the economy. But this is a PVX game, so fast travel (and I would also argue any form of flying, even as limited quantity as it currently is) would be one of the worst things to add. Fast travel would end up enabling massive guilds to quickly move around to map to claim areas and resources and quickly respond as a whole unit to war declarations while also allowing them to spread out across the worlds nodes instead of staying together. It would also result in players quickly traveling to any world boss, and jumping back and forth to different resources theyd otherwise have to rely on others to gather and transport across the world for profit.

TLDR: All forms of fast travel are bad for PVP/PVX games

Orrion

Dolyem wrote: »

Fast travel and flying mounts make MMOs with open world PvP awful. If it were only a PVE game, fast travel would be more or less ok, though itd still effect the economy. But this is a PVX game, so fast travel (and I would also argue any form of flying, even as limited quantity as it currently is) would be one of the worst things to add. Fast travel would end up enabling massive guilds to quickly move around to map to claim areas and resources and quickly respond as a whole unit to war declarations while also allowing them to spread out across the worlds nodes instead of staying together. It would also result in players quickly traveling to any world boss, and jumping back and forth to different resources theyd otherwise have to rely on others to gather and transport across the world for profit.

TLDR: All forms of fast travel are bad for PVP/PVX games

Fixing the "it ruins PvP" situation is pretty damn easy. You simply prevent anyone from engaging in PvP if they've utilized any method of travel aside from their mount. The amount of time would depend on the distance between you and wherever you're traveling. Problem solved.

Now you can't engage in war unless you hoofed it the entire way at some point, and I don't have to spend the large majority of my time staring at the map and my mount's backside.

Edit I will say this right now - this is still my number one issue as to why I'm not playing much at the moment. "Oh hey guys, where are you leveling at?" "We're in the south desert." "Great, I'm at Winstead. I'm gonna go play something else, call me if you go somewhere that isn't 30+ minutes away."

s0b3it wrote: »

Fast travel is cope. It would destroy fundamental systems in the game. Everyone would reside around a specific city, town or location. and the large majority of the map would be empty. ESO is so mind numbingly boring because of how easy it is to travel everywhere and zones feel pointless and lifeless aside from the major town hubs. Exploration is so underrated, people want everything handed to them on a platter leaving nothing to the imagination.

Why have a fast or flying mount if you can just teleport everywhere? It just reduces mounts to a mere cosmetic... do you understand yet?

As opposed to now, where I'm residing around a specific city or location because it takes too long to get anywhere else?

Plus I want to stay around where I'm a citizen anyway?

Further, without some form(s) of faster travel the last majority of the map will be empty anyway. Look at New World's start where fast travel cost was prohibitive, and we all walked everywhere. Everybody congregated around Windsward, Everfall and Brightwood. Why? 'Cause they were in the center of the map, they were where everyone started, and they were the first places that got built up and had any chance of staying that way. Places like Ebonscale were ghost towns. Nobody wanted the far away nodes, nobody built them up, and there was no economy in any of them. You can see a similar thing happening in Ashes already - you go to one of the desert towns and you see, what, maybe 3-4 pages in the market on the high end? But when you're at Winstead, you have 40 pages.

Kallysha

fast and flying mounts existed in gw2 and far prior to them waypoints and there was absolutely no conflict what so ever with any of it at all, and all the mounts had their own function and no they didnt got reduced to a mere cosmetic if thats what you are afraid of...; some regions or locations being more populated than others will always exist independently if there is or not fast travel, so unreasonable excuses yall trynna bring into the table. To the matter of pvp open world well yes i do see/understand why flying mounts are only allowed to mayors (although it still sucks, everyone wants a flying mount tho but not everyone wants to be mayor), there would be issues if everyone could own one, related to pvp, unless...for exemple in gw2 there was locations/places where flying mounts were disabled (you would get a warning popping up in your screen telling you that so and you only had 2 options land or go back before getting dismounted mid air followed by a very possible death fall) could do for when a siege or node war happening (maybe everyone could have the possibility of owning a flying mount like this, not being only exclusive to mayors) i've also seen some people asking for mount perma death i would only agree with that in this specific case which is flying mounts); also mayors could then be the only ones allowed to trespass these interdict flying locations as of to the rest of the players; players could simply not be allowed to use a flying mount meanwhile corrupted; there could also be the case anyone who flags for pvp cant use a flying mount and even if they flag mid air same situation as i described before warning, land or dismounted mid air, fall and die; seas as being lawless zones same situation because you get automatically flagged so none flying regions.

natsport

Without a faster travel system like town-to-town, this game will fail. Ninety percent of players work and play when they can. If it takes 30 minutes to ride a horse to your party, then that's a big chunk of play time gone. Working gamers buy cosmetics and DLCs more than others. Lose your working base, and you lose funding for additional projects. THE GAME WILL DIE QUICK.

Noaani

Dolyem wrote: »

Fast travel would end up enabling massive guilds to quickly move around to map to claim areas and resources and quickly respond as a whole unit to war declarations while also allowing them to spread out across the worlds nodes instead of staying together.

I agree with your reasoning, but feel you need to take things one step back.

Before getting to that though, I want to establish two fundamental truths.

The first is that running content (specifically dungeons and bosses) is the core of an MMORPG. It is what defines the genre. It is what we seek others out in game for, why we form social bonds in game. It is where the bulk of MMORPG players derive the bulk of their fun from. One could go as far as to say that the content *is* the game, and everything else is there to support that.

The second is that travel generally refers to time taken to get to a given piece of content.

Now, I agree that in a game with open world PvP with some form of stakes at hand, fast travel is bad for the reasons you state. I don't think anyone is arguing that.

The problem is, not having fast travel is the same as decreasing time spent on the core of the game - decreasing the amount of time players spend on the most fun aspect of the game.

Any time a game is faced with a decision where one of the options is to decrease the amount of time players spend having fun, and it isn't blatantly obvious that this is the wrong decision, the actual bad decision has already been made.

In Ashes case, caravans are the main reason fast travel doesn't work well with the game. They are the only thing of note that will have zergs enabled due solely or mostly to fast travel. Boss encounters are not a factor here, as the determining factor as to whether they are able to be served is their spawn mechanism, not travel (and static spawn is always able to be zerged, a random spawn is not reliably able to be zerged).

Thus, the issue is in the design specifics of caravans, not in whether the game should or should not have fast travel.

Archeage is a good example of a better way to do this. It had a system similar to caravans with that games trade packs. However, they still had fast travel (an absurd amount of it).

The thing is, they designed the game so that the major profit aspect of trade packs was in crossing the ocean with them, and there is obviously no need for fast travel in the ocean. Thus, fast travel existed to get players to content, but it didn't interfere with the caravan equivalent in any way at all.

The bad decision in Ashes is having caravans be equally viable to attack anywhere in the world. Instead, have areas of the world where they need to travel through (or are more profitable if they do), and make this the area where you want to attack caravans. Then you can have fast travel in the rest of the world - and you then just keep the actual games content to the parts of the world with fast travel.

That is how you make good decisions. You don't just stupidly, blindly carry on with ill-concieved early decisions even if that means making specific decisions that are objectively bad for the game.

Arya_Yeshe

natsport wrote: »

Without a faster travel system like town-to-town, this game will fail. Ninety percent of players work and play when they can. If it takes 30 minutes to ride a horse to your party, then that's a big chunk of play time gone. Working gamers buy cosmetics and DLCs more than others. Lose your working base, and you lose funding for additional projects. THE GAME WILL DIE QUICK.

You're exaggerating!
In many other games, people spend 30 minutes just leaving town and chatting on Discord. You're trying to spread fear among the devs just because you're lazy and don't want to travel, and are afraid of PvP.

Noaani

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

chatting on Discord.

This is key.

People are happy to waste their own time.

They are not happy for others to waste their time.

allimartinez324

I'd say some form of summoning a person to you would be nice, but I kinda like the lack of fast travel for the majority. I really like the lack of zoned instances thus far.

Kallysha

Something that just crossed my mind, why not some sort of a magical gem that you could obtain from a vendor or a quest and utilize it as a form of teleportation to an emberspring of your choosing, a single unique gem with unlimited usage (somewhat similar as in dd2, but actually better 😊) for the people that want fast travel still have the choice/option to do it so!

Oldtimer209

allimartinez324 wrote: »

I'd say some form of summoning a person to you would be nice, but I kinda like the lack of fast travel for the majority. I really like the lack of zoned instances thus far.

I like this approach also. It reminds me of when I played Shadowbane in 2003 ish. They had Travel gates around the map that were pretty useful, but they had a class of characters that were able to Summon one person at a time with a 5 minute timer (I think) before he could summon again. The entire healer class were able to summon players, Priests, Prelate, Confessors and Healer Channelers. IT made regrouping after a fight more more strategic.

Depraved

no fast travel pls ;3

Aszkalon

natsport wrote: »

Without a faster travel system like town-to-town, this game will fail. Ninety percent of players work and play when they can. If it takes 30 minutes to ride a horse to your party, then that's a big chunk of play time gone. Working gamers buy cosmetics and DLCs more than others. Lose your working base, and you lose funding for additional projects. THE GAME WILL DIE QUICK.

It is just ... ...

... ... the Moment it will become the Mishmash-Same-old-Story-thing like so many other MMO's -> then the Game will also die quick, if you understand.

The only Reason why Sir Steven doesn't include Fast-Travel available all around the Clock is -> is that huge Armies who go to Worldbosses or Nodes for Sieges and so on -> are not supposed to teleport right before your Doorstep as an Enemy Node and then bash your Cities Walls in, before you can even blink.

I mean -> that " IS " going to happen anyway what i just described -> even with the Warning-Time that a Siege-Scroll should provide,

because some People will alway be busy -> be it Work or Holiday or any other form or sort of Off-time from the Game. But the Game is not supposed to be a Blitzkrieg of Minutes and then a whole Superpower-Node-Hierarchy is gone i in like 20 Minutes and then this is about as long as it takes for it to change completely yet again.

It should take Hours. And if i remember correctly, a City-Siege can be 2 Hours at least. And a single "Declaration" of War/Siege per Scroll can take +24 Hours to +72 Hours or so until the Siege goes down, right ?

There is no need to have teleporting Armies via Fast Travel. The Game is supposed to be SOMEWHAT Hardcore. A City-Siege shouldn't be like a Battleground in WoW, where every Casual (like me, lol) can check in Three to Seven to Ten Minutes before the Battleground starts,

and then You have +XXX Noobs/Casuals running around without a Plan and getting farmed like NPC's in the worst Cases.

Whatever Node-Wars, City-Sieges, Battles to contest World Bosses, etc. - are and should be -> it should NOT be the Casual-Experience of WoW-Battlegrounds.

And what is one Aspect of this Casual-Gameplay ? The "Ability to FAST-check/log-in" to the Battle. It already starts with People not needing to take the Stage of Preparation seriously.

In all Games i ever played which have actually epic Storylines -> the Preparation-Stage before a huge Battle was always something to behold. Something to take seriously.

For Example in Heroes of Might and Magic

- and those are Turn-Based Games where Multiplayer is usually optional and usually has nothing to do with the Ingame Campaign.

One can always feel the Weight. This Feeling of Importance.
You don't feel this with a Battleground in Worst of Warcraft - and it shows on the Performance of the Players. Especially in "Thousand-Winter" in Northrend.

18 to 19 out of 20 Battlegrounds i see ONE of the two Groups (Horde or Alliance) RUN IN - towards the first Location -> like a Bunch of NPC's,

"Brain off and then brainless into the Fray",

then One Side loses -> and from the losing Side +70% of all Players quit the Battleground -> because they see the 15 Minutes Penalty as less a Punishment for their Refusal to take BG's seriously than to keep trying,

usually in 8 or 9 out of 10 Cases dooming their Side to lose.

Why do i even mention this here ?
Because i sincerely hope that the whole MINDSET will be different in Ashes of Creation. With Node-Sieges and your ingame Home at Stake, especially if you have a static House or even Freehold sometimes,

Players are more bound to take things like "Battlegrounds" more seriously. And one Detail to take all of that seriously -> is that You can N.O.T. teleport/"blink" yourself towards the Battle in a matter of Seconds or maybe by waiting a few Minutes, no matter WHERE in the World the Battle is going to be - and no matter where YOU are in the Ingame World and how far away from the Location you might be.

But the Time ?
But ooohhhh People have Reallifes ?
But some People can not spare more than +30 Minutes or maybe an Hour or Two at any Day ?

Am i a dick when i say : these epic Battles like Node-Wars or City-Sieges are not supposed to be a daily thing, but a thing to prepare for ? Several Days in Advance ? That it should be something huge ? And not another "Thousand-Winter" from Worst of Warcraft -> which People can treat like a Nuisance or something, to make some cheap Points or fulfill Conditions to fill up things like the Trading-Post Bar for the Currency and Reward at the End of the Bar ?

I am not even someone who wants to put Time into analysing everything and understanding "Everything" -> but even i can not help but to see the positive AND THE NEGATIVE things on every available Content sometimes, whetever i want it, or not.

And i can see and understand WHY some to many -> to "too many" People, treat for Example Battlegrounds in WoW like absolute Garbage and like they just want to get carried in Brain-off-Mode and don't care how often they lose pathetically in Order to achieve their absolute, "brainless Method/Victory" until they finally get what they want. (lol)

Long Story a little bit shorter :

The State of being, of how Players TREAT BATTLEGROUNDS in WoW -> is NOT acceptable as a Standart and way to treat Node-Wars or City-Sieges, in Ashes of Creation.

Not when your Ingame-Housing and/or Belongings as in Ressources are at Stake. Which You will from time to time lose anyway, even IF you play everything right and take the Game serious all the time.

But People will lose FAR. MORE. -> and FAR. MORE. OFTEN. -> and FAR. MORE. QUICKLY. - if they treat Ashes of Creation like it's World of Warcraft,

and like they are entitled of things like being able to "fast-travel" everywhere. I miss the Times when i needed to travel to Ashenshale as an Alliance-Player to participate in the Warsong-Gulch Battleground.

When i needed to travel to Hillsbrad-Foothills, to participate in Alterac-Valley. When i needed to travel to Arathi Highlands, to participate in the Arathi-Basin Battleground.

I won't even deny,
that it is also a good thing - that Players could simply "que up" for Battlegrounds later on - and didn't need to travel anymore to the Areas ingame themselves,

but i also acknowledge and see the negative things,
which this also did to the Players' Minds.
"And Attitudes".

Imagine having these " CARRY ME to Victory, OR ELSE i simply throw and leave " -kind of fellow Players, in a Node-Siege, where your ingame Home and Belongings/Ressources could be at Stake.

It doesn't take a smart Person to see how horribly this is going to backfire.

Idhalar AlBaiesh

No. It trivializes the world, distance and time and breaks pvp, economy and immersion.
Want to travel faster? Get a ship, a faster mount ride a public transport or use scientific nodes transportation when available.

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