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Air Travel / Transport
Sengarden
Member
As has been said, flying animals large/strong enough to ferry humanoids are extremely rare in Verra. Obtaining a flying mount will be reserved almost entirely for guild and other community leaders. I have my own opinions about this (not entirely supportive ones) but with that in mind, I was curious about air travel again after some of the lore text posted with the new cosmetic pack today:
"Now fully re-established on Verra, the [Greyshore Transporters]'s extraordinary expertise with planning, conveyance, and logistics, and its unparalleled familiarity with ground, sea, and air transportation methodologies have made it one of the most successful businesses transplanted from Sanctus."
I see on the wiki that airships have been brought up before, as recently as last fall by Steven himself (a bit funny since he's more recently stated that he's very much not into steampunk aesthetics) so I guess I just wanted to run it by everyone and see what other ideas people have thought of for air travel besides solo flying mounts.
If airships already exist on Verra, what's keeping people from making them smaller? Perhaps not solo-sized, since you'd need enough mass to resist air currents (or maybe you can make small ones but they're a PITA to fly and can't carry anything) but perhaps mid-sized airships could be an endgame goal, enough for a full party of eight to climb aboard. Maybe they could be piloted similarly to sea-vessels, where you need multiple players to fully operate the control mechanisms. They could be slower or more difficult to navigate if you only have one person captaining in order to keep everyone from grabbing their own and using it for all their transportation needs. I think this could be good content for a future expansion, especially if they ever did any content with floating landmasses.
As for air-taxis (flight points), considering how rare flying beasts of burden are supposed it be, and considering royal mounts hatched from eggs will have a lifespan of roughly 2-4 weeks, should nodes be required to obtain a flying mount at that level of frequency in order to open and maintain their own flight point? We don't know yet whether Intrepid plans on allowing tier 5 nodes to get in on the flight point action, or if only metropolises will be allowed to have flight points. If only tier 6 nodes are allowed flight points, and we know only five metropolises can exist on a server at a time, then I think making those node mayors/citizens fight to earn royal mount eggs in order to power their flight points makes sense. But if they're available to tier five nodes as well, and there are maybe 15-20 (I don't know the exact number, but likely 15+) tier 5 and 6 nodes altogether on a server at a time, then that might become a bit more difficult. Especially if the group who wins the royal mount egg has to consciously make the decision to donate the hatched mount to the city's infrastructure. If the majority of players decide not to, then royal mounts are suddenly half as rare as Steven originally intended. But if they don't make you source an actual beast to power your flight point, and it's just there for you to use 24/7 for as long as you pay the associated fees, then that seems a little immersion breaking when player-owned flying mounts are incredibly rare and only live less than a month.
Any other ideas or thoughts about air transport? Automated or otherwise?
"Now fully re-established on Verra, the [Greyshore Transporters]'s extraordinary expertise with planning, conveyance, and logistics, and its unparalleled familiarity with ground, sea, and air transportation methodologies have made it one of the most successful businesses transplanted from Sanctus."
I see on the wiki that airships have been brought up before, as recently as last fall by Steven himself (a bit funny since he's more recently stated that he's very much not into steampunk aesthetics) so I guess I just wanted to run it by everyone and see what other ideas people have thought of for air travel besides solo flying mounts.
If airships already exist on Verra, what's keeping people from making them smaller? Perhaps not solo-sized, since you'd need enough mass to resist air currents (or maybe you can make small ones but they're a PITA to fly and can't carry anything) but perhaps mid-sized airships could be an endgame goal, enough for a full party of eight to climb aboard. Maybe they could be piloted similarly to sea-vessels, where you need multiple players to fully operate the control mechanisms. They could be slower or more difficult to navigate if you only have one person captaining in order to keep everyone from grabbing their own and using it for all their transportation needs. I think this could be good content for a future expansion, especially if they ever did any content with floating landmasses.
As for air-taxis (flight points), considering how rare flying beasts of burden are supposed it be, and considering royal mounts hatched from eggs will have a lifespan of roughly 2-4 weeks, should nodes be required to obtain a flying mount at that level of frequency in order to open and maintain their own flight point? We don't know yet whether Intrepid plans on allowing tier 5 nodes to get in on the flight point action, or if only metropolises will be allowed to have flight points. If only tier 6 nodes are allowed flight points, and we know only five metropolises can exist on a server at a time, then I think making those node mayors/citizens fight to earn royal mount eggs in order to power their flight points makes sense. But if they're available to tier five nodes as well, and there are maybe 15-20 (I don't know the exact number, but likely 15+) tier 5 and 6 nodes altogether on a server at a time, then that might become a bit more difficult. Especially if the group who wins the royal mount egg has to consciously make the decision to donate the hatched mount to the city's infrastructure. If the majority of players decide not to, then royal mounts are suddenly half as rare as Steven originally intended. But if they don't make you source an actual beast to power your flight point, and it's just there for you to use 24/7 for as long as you pay the associated fees, then that seems a little immersion breaking when player-owned flying mounts are incredibly rare and only live less than a month.
Any other ideas or thoughts about air transport? Automated or otherwise?
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This is one of those things where I have no idea what they're thinking though, so I realize that this is just me 'playing it safe' design wise without knowing what great ideas they have in mind.
I also have globophobia, but I'm sure that's unrelated.
So many good memories in WoW's public blimps
Autoattacking a tauren with one dagger for fun
Blimps and ships are very important in AoC, because in AoC there won't be a lot of teleporting around, there is a lot of incentive for people to be out there instead of magically teleporting everywhere. You will see people travelling, instead of seeing a lot of people afk around the banks in the major cities
Make it some ancient local magic to avoid the "if we have the tech, why da fuck is it only here" debacle and we're golden. Oh, and that ship should move suuuper rarely. Like, 1-2 times a day.
What if between continents has a public ferry and this ferry can be attacked by players?
Passengers will have to fend off player pirates
You mean in the sky?
I'm already looking forward to throwing people off/being thrown off of the TL Sky Whale, yes, but I don't think it would fit in Ashes.
If you meant on the ocean, that would almost automatically be a thing, right (and also kinda unrelated to the topic).
between continents would be naval ships, literally a public ferry
but blimps for taking you to places in the sky and to certain areas
Being attacked on the Ferry would make me pretty nostalgic, sure. But then players would want to be able to sink the public ferry with their warships, and then it will just get weird.
Who knows, if you tailor a good plot behind this, the other players could actually see you embarking and they would know you setting off for something
We could pretty much tailor a quest chain ourselves, write it down, etc
Warships are much slower
I still think people would try to get a big blockade together on the ferry path just to see if they could do it.
But yes, I expect Ashes to have this for the same reason I usually do.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_benefits
Scientific node benefits
Scientific nodes that have reached the metropolis stage unlock the Teleportation superpower.[7]
Citizens of metropolis scientific nodes may teleport between the metropolis and any of its vassal nodes, regardless of the stage of the vassal node, so long as the vassal node is not at war.
Citizens of vassal nodes may teleport to their metropolis node and back.
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.
Hopefully they put the rest of these out.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-04-10-know-your-nodes-scientific-node-type
If there are really only like 2 airships on the continent at a time, and they only work due to their ludicrous size, which would logically prevent an individual or a small group from owning one, then I can understand why airship travel is reserved for taxi-services. But if they’re only about as big as a sea-faring vessel, then I see no logical reason why players are ~mysteriously~ unable to figure out how to make them on their own. Logical inconsistencies that suppress player power always bug me.
So overall, I think air travel either needs to only exist in such a way that logically rules out its more widespread use, or it shouldn’t exist at all. Things can be rare in a game, but I think they should still be equally accessible by anyone who puts in the time and effort. When you create artificial scarcity and realistically reserve use of a system only to people who fill certain roles (not everyone wants to be / would make a good mayor or guild leader) then that arguably feels pretty shitty to anyone who doesn’t fill that role but would otherwise enjoy the grind to achieve personal air travel.
Games need more mechanics like this. We need more wonder in mmos.
So you want a bunch of mayors and guild leaders who only took on the job because they wanted a flying mount? That sounds terrible. There’s a reason Ashes artificially protects node citizens from tax theft by the mayor. It’s so that people aren’t encouraged to seek the position unless they’re genuinely interested in governing. Similar situation for guild leaders, I’d say. If someone isn’t passionate about being a successful leader, they shouldn’t seek out the role, and normally, they wouldn’t. There will always be some people who try to do it for attention, but adding the equivalent of a flying Lamborghini to the prize pool doesn’t help anything.
They can be extremely rare, I don’t care. But I don’t think the only avenue for getting one should be holding a leadership position. You can still produce a sense of wonder and awe due to their rarity without diluting the incentives for being a guild or node leader.
It's not about how easy it is, it's about the incentive. You literally just spelled out the entire problem with your last sentence by framing the "achievement" (actually a huge responsibility) of becoming a mayor, or even being a guild leader entirely around getting a flying mount. If the leader of your country was granted a free supercar and a personal racetrack just for becoming the leader, and someone earned that position solely because almost all they wanted to do was ride around the race track in their supercar, would that be a good time for the citizens they're supposed to be governing? Probably not.
It doesn't matter how hard it was for them to get the position, the point is that more people will be incentivized to earn it for the wrong reasons if something that rare and alluring is offered freely to the "winner", which turns the concept of governing into a competition with a prize you walk away with rather than what it actually is - a fulfilling, but somewhat demanding job that you qualify for. It doesn't help that only one out of the four node types actually choose their leader democratically. In scientific nodes, the voting populace should hopefully be able to weed out candidates who won't care about actually governing. But in a military, divine, or economic node, it's basically a free-for-all through questing, an arena battle, or oligarchy. So if you give people huge prizes for "winning" the election, you'll get people doing it just for that.
This is not real life. I won't care if my mayor got to their power because they wanted a flying toy or because they wanted to be a mayor for a dozen other reasons. I'll only care about what they do with the power. But if there's no one else strong enough to remove that mayor from their position - that just means that their goal was even worse than "I want to fly lol".
Again, the work should pay off, because the work has to be hard in this context. Economic metropolis will probably cost millions to outbid, military will have hundreds of people gunning for the chair, same with divine. And scientific nodes will be controlled purely by huge guilds and maybe a few streamers. Getting a flying mount for overcoming all of that stuff seems fine to me.
TL;DR
Let's not pretend that giving largely unrelated, highly exclusive incentives to mayoral candidates won't influence their reasons for becoming mayor, and therefore impact the ways in which they will (or won't) exercise their power. For the people who actually want to govern, being able to shape the way their node and community develops is enough of an incentive, and enough of a reward. Nothing else is needed, nor should anything else be the incentive.
Again, I don't think you're focusing on the real issue here. "Getting a flying mount for overcoming all of that stuff seems fine to me." Sure, what they have to do in order to become mayor is difficult. I totally get that. It seems like a natural response to want to give them a prize. But for the people who want to become mayor with the intention of actually giving a damn about governing, becoming mayor is the prize. For the people who are actually passionate about filling that role, being able to have that control is an incredibly satisfying payoff in and of itself.
"This is not real life." You seem like you don't care why your mayor becomes the mayor. Why not? I assume the mayor will actually have a noticeable degree of control over how their node develops, and will therefore have a noticeable impact on the player experience. To be perfectly honest, I think you'd be a fool to not care why your mayor became mayor. The impact they have on their community should be a foundational part of how bonds, alliances, and territories will form and shift. To not care about that is to not care about the experience you have within the game. That doesn't make any sense to me. In contrast, if they don't have enough power to noticeably impact the flow of their community's ongoings, then what's the point of having the system in the first place?
You say you only care about what they do with their power. Okay then, by offering the most exclusive, efficient, and arguably fun travel mechanic in the game solely to those leaders, you are encouraging people to fight for a position they don't actually care about, but instead only for the flying mount. I can guarantee that hundreds upon hundreds of people would love to have a flying mount, but not actually care about performing the role of mayor with any degree of care. Would you want a mayor who doesn't care one way or another what they do with their power? You just said you do care what they do with it. Not making a whole lot of sense there.
Either you do care what the mayor does with their power, or you don't. You say you do. If you do care, then why wouldn't you care about the mayor caring? If the mayor doesn't care, anything could happen with very little reasoning, thought, mental effort, or social consensus with their node put behind it. It opens up all the players who don't want to be / don't have the time to be the mayor who aren't in a scientific node to the likely circumstance of being ruled by careless player after careless player who just wants to get on a flying mount for one month out of their entire span of time in the game. In addition to that, a lot of mayoral positions outside of scientific nodes will likely be dominated by the people who have the most time to spend in the game, (money earned for economic, quests completed for divine, gold/materials/quests earned/completed for a military arena champion) so you'd likely see a lot of the same people cycling in and out without any barriers.
I think the main issue with making them "freely" available to everyone is that the majority of the content occurs through travel on the ground. If you zoom around from point A to point B all the time, you're severely limiting your engagement with the world. This isn't WoW where you go do quests in zone after zone and then never use them again. The world develops and offers content based on how everyone moves through it to do everything they do.
With that in mind, and linking it to my conversation with NiKr, I don't think everyone should have a flying mount. They can be just as rare for all I care. (Well, maybe I'd be happier if it was more than 10-20 out of 10,000 players. Perhaps 100 is what I think sounds like a good number on a full server.) I just think that anyone should theoretically be able to get one with enough time, effort, and luck, without being simultaneously shoehorned into taking on the responsibility of becoming mayor and impacting other players' experiences in the game.
Give mount tamers and breeders a reward for incredibly high levels of effort and dedication. Give them a super rare quest, or have a super rare creature spawn that can only be tamed after several other rare quests / items / materials etc have been completed / obtained. Give them a profession development path that severely limits all other types of animal taming / breeding, and then make the process for finding, taming, and breeding incredibly rare, and likely to fail. Anything, really, just don't give people the wrong incentive to pursue what should be impactful leadership positions in their communities.
WHS.
Gliding mounts suffice.
So all nodes will be controlled by people who worked hard for it, in one way or another. And if we have literally 0 ways to influence the mayor (I hope we do) - it means that my caring about mayors or their actions doesn't matter at all. Nor do their motivations.
Like I already said, if those high and mighty "proper" mayors want to rule - they should work harder and get the mayorship. Btw, I'm gonna be aiming to become a mayor as well and I have my own goals that differ from "I want to be a prim and proper mayor that does everything perfectly". And I'm sure there'll be a ton of others that have their own motivations, flying included. And only the most powerful people will get to reach their goals.