Long-Distance Travel

[Rob Steele]

First: No flying mounts or transports of any kind. It creates too many problems in terms of fairness, logistics, etc. If you allow someone to fly then there must be a way to counter it otherwise it will be used to move troops, equipment, finances etc and your opposition can't do anything about it. If you start adding counters to it, before long we'll end up with Aion 2.

Next, we're looking into different possibilities for 'auto' travel. But it will not be safe travel or invisible. The idea is to remove the need for people to sit there pressing their W key or constantly steering on a long trip (or even a relatively short one), not to make travel safe or instant.
Any ideas you guys have along those goals are welcome of course.

[stubs]

First: No flying mounts or transports of any kind. It creates too many problems in terms of fairness, logistics, etc. If you allow someone to fly then there must be a way to counter it otherwise it will be used to move troops, equipment, finances etc and your opposition can't do anything about it. If you start adding counters to it, before long we'll end up with Aion 2.

Agreed.

Next, we're looking into different possibilities for 'auto' travel. But it will not be safe travel or invisible. The idea is to remove the need for people to sit there pressing their W key or constantly steering on a long trip (or even a relatively short one), not to make travel safe or instant.
Any ideas you guys have along those goals are welcome of course.

Also agreed that there should be safe/invisible travel.

Ideas for Auto-Travel:

Num-Lock for auto-run. Doesn't really fall under auto-travel but if I have to run 3mins in a straight line it's terribly annoying to have to hold down the W for the length of those 3 mins.

River Barges/Boats: They can have set routes and stops along the rivers criss-crossing the land. Players boarding will either have to pay a fixed fare to wherever they're going or else pay according to their destination ... and if they're still on the barge after the destination the ferry-men will kick his/her ass overboard

Some sort of skiff: It would be too light a vessel to travel the deeper waters, but it would offer to take an individual or group of players to a specific sea port for a fare, travelling along the coast. People who try stick around are lobbed over the side also. It's not a pleasure cruise after all :P

Inter-Continent Travel: There should be larger boats available that offer inter-continent travel regularly. Like 2-4 times a day. Not more though. It shouldn't be like a bus route with ships passing every 20 mins. The less transportation available the more detached the continents will be which might make them develop differently, which could potentially lead to very interesting scenarios.
Naturally whoever has their own sea-transport would not be affected by this.

Land Travel: As for land travel there could be some wagon/cart/carriage available for a fee. But depending on the rive network, I think it should only be available on demand

[gatordile]

Maybe have some magically summoned portals to other dimmensions that are highly instable. Travelling through these dimmensions are faster but more dangerous and then warp back into the world when you have reached your destination.

[stubs]

sounds similar to something I read in the wheel-of-time. I'm not overly keen on the idea tbh though.

If we're gonna make any travel portal related, I rather there be some sort of spell only possible if you have a group of high end mages at point A and B who form a portal between them that drains their mana to mantain and if they're undermanned or one of the groups members is killed or any run out of mana before the portal is released there is an 85% chance it will blow up in their faces rather than fizzle away

[Stone Dog]

sounds similar to something I read in the wheel-of-time. I'm not overly keen on the idea tbh though.

I enjoyed that series, although as the books progressed it seemed as though Jordan became a little repetitive in his descriptions of surroundings and some events. It's a shame he didn't live to see his work completed.

If we're gonna make any travel portal related, I rather there be some sort of spell only possible if you have a group of high end mages at point A and B who form a portal between them that drains their mana to mantain and if they're undermanned or one of the groups members is killed or any run out of mana before the portal is released there is an 85% chance it will blow up in their faces rather than fizzle away

I'm not really a fan of any form of portal system that allows fast movement of large numbers of individuals from one place to another. Darkfall's Nexus system is perhaps the best I have seen so far.

You need an entrance and an exit. Someone needs to travel to the place that they want the individuals to exit at. When the entrance and exit are both activated, one individual can enter the system at a time. It takes one minute to travel through the system and appear at the position of the exit. Once ten individuals have gone through, the entrance/exit are destroyed.

That system, at least for me, is the fairest in that it doesn't allow for an entire army of tens or even hundreds to suddenly appear on an enemy's door step. Both the entrance and exit can be destroyed if the defenders lose control of those positions and finally, as I said before, it requires someone to travel to the desired destination point first providing the defenders an opportunity to prevent the exit from being deployed.

[stubs]

In truth the best is for no portals methinks

It's true Jordan left us hanging but Brandon Sanderson took it up and will be finishing off the series. I agree about some repetition in descriptions. At least brandon picks up the tempo somewhat

[Stone Dog]

In truth the best is for no portals methinks

Agreed.

[Khaiyne]

In Red Dead Redemption you can hire a cart if you don't want to ride all of the way yourself but (if you don't auto-skip) you can be attacked on the way. I like that idea so that I can be part of a caravan or have horses 'auto-follow' roads but run the risk of being attacked along the way. I think that's a nice balance.

[zymurgeist]

All I ask is that you not make me trudge for miles across a featureless landscape. Points of interest along roads are required. It doesn't have to be the world's largest frying pan or an epic ball of yarn but something would be nice.

[Dave Belcher]

All I ask is that you not make me trudge for miles across a featureless landscape. Points of interest along roads are required. It doesn't have to be the world's largest frying pan or an epic ball of yarn but something would be nice.

We certainly intend to add in points of interest etc as much as possible, without making the world cluttered, if only with natural beauty.

But, that being said, we fully hope and expect players to start building their own points of interest across the most travelled routes, with small towns and waystations popping up along the way to service weary travellers passing through.