Fast travel is never bad simply because it irks people or feels inappropriate to the setting. This is a selective and peevish response and developers would be fools to heed it.
What's concretely bad about fast travel is it empties out population centers and outposts, destroying the experience of people who like those places by making them easy to avoid. It may not seem very nice to force anyone to hang out in a city they don't like, but more often than not they really just like another place better - because the auction house is there, for instance. The vibe of the game is thereby destroyed for some people just so others can enjoy some minor benefit they wouldn't knowingly want if they knew the tradeoff. You're hanging out, you're making money and having a great time, and then one day you ride through Qeynos or Shattrath and notice it's empty.
"Well that's a shame," you think. "Guess that's what happens when an MMO gets old."
But it's not. It's what happens when the population is pampered, especially when that pampering is focused on the vocal, loot-hungry endgame crowd while little attention goes to the outpost dwellers who don't even know what they're missing.
It's not as though every possible fast travel idea has been invented and they could never conceivably come up with some new solution. Since that's the case it follows there's probably a solution that doesn't carry the negative baggage of most that have been tried in other games.
Whether we're going to see it from a game that is essentially a patchwork of commonplace MMO features, that's another question.
To me the sensible thing seems to be figure out how you want players to behave, and then ease into conveniences in a way that protects this. Then back out of them if player behavior changes in a negative way and deal with the nerf complaints as per the standard forum rage playbook.
So what you want to do is start out with considerable costs. Just for an example, you could eliminate the ridiculous quantum entanglement banks and stables that also don't belong in a realistic setting. The player who wants to fast travel can then do it as a favor to someone else, or for the simply joy of grouping (in FE, not bloody likely), but not for his own convenience.
Another way to go about this might be with PvP flags and faction favor that changes as you move through the worldmap. When you leave an area, you can acquire the flightpath / lifestone / waypoint for it, but as a consequence you'll permanently aggro the local population and become PvP flagged whenever you approach town.
But the simplest way about this is simply to make it very, very expensive. This has worked nicely for Anarchy Online, where the equivalent of hearthstones cost about 10 billions caps, and have one & two hour cooldowns.
einexile the meek Vacuos, Winterlong, Vaciante, Eicosapenta Atlantean, Tyranny, Malton
Another ramification of fast travel might be easier access to farming low level resources by high levels toons.
_____________________________ Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
I have not read every response so forgive me if this has been brought up.
As a day 1 Alpha tester, I knew in the first week that some form of faster travel was going to be screamed for. When I brought it up the the forums, I was soundly thrashed. Bear in mind, I was not asking for it but stating what I thought would happen after release.
My proposal, at the time, wasn't for "faster" travel but some form of "hands off" travel. The main problem with traveling is it requires you to be at the keys. Take that aspect away and most of the complaints will die down.
I don't mind the 20-40 minutes it takes to go from sector to sector, I just want the ability to do other things(surf net, toilet, make food, etc) while traveling.
That towtruck the garagemanager use to tow our vehicles back to us from the middle of nowhere - He can bring my bike from S1 to S3 in a jiff - sucks theres no room for me in his truck.
I am going agaist the grain and say, yeah, we need a sort of fast travel.
I am sorry and I respect everyones opinion, but I am looking down the road further.
I cannot see myself driving from sector 10 to sector 1 with even the Interceptor at this point, I assume when there are 10 sectors in the game, we will have some sort of faster travel from sector to sector.
If we don't everyone will just be crammed in S10 while the rest of the other sectors just sit there in limbo without anyone exploring anyway and newbies saying.. Where is everyone?
Make it more like Eve Online or Dark Age of Camelot, the game is big enough to explore and who in there right mind at level 1 would even want to go to Sector 10 just to look (its called insta death). Plus the chips that you would need to make a travel from S1 to S10 would be outrageous for any level 1 character.
Honesty, I can't see myself riding my motorcycle from sector 1 to 3 and just staring at the screen for over a hour. No way!
Why would I want to even go back to Sector 1, well, you said it, I would like to go back and explore as much as Sector 1 as I can, I may have missed a few AP's or just want to chill out with lower level clans mates for RP or just shoot the chiat.
What I am for..
Examples:
1. Eve Online got a great system for warping from location to location. I am for this system hands down.
2. Dark Age of Camelot had a nice system as well, instead of using your mount, you paid a horse merchant for a cruise control mount to your destination which took time as well.
3. World of Warcraft style was even good, try taking a gryphon flight from booty bay to silvermoon city.
My favorite would be Eve Online, if FE uses the same system as Eve does, the game will rock.
Another idea, you can also may the fast travel its own instance and everyone is hanging out in the train, bus or RV to get to the next destination.
I like to see some sort of copter flight from S1 to S10 in the way future. You see copters all banged up in the game so far.
What I am agaist:
No teleporations or cloning to other Sectors in the game. (even from S1 to S10)
I am a stern non-supporter of fast travel in any form. No, the game does not need it, you have multiple types of vehicles and that is more than sufficient. I could post a veritable laundry list of reasons why NOT to implement fast travel into the game, however, it is much easier to just do a search on the official forums if you are that interested. You will quite quickly see that fast travel is a minority request, and the majority of the games devoted supporters are highly opposed to the idea.
The issue is. You don't look ahead.
Now it's only 3 sectors. What when we come to the point of having 10 sectors or more?
You think it's fun spending a whole week traveling back in a game? I don't think so.
Or how about new players joining the game a year from now? You think it's fun for them when 95% of the playerbase is hanging around a week away REALTIME in Sector 10? No one going to be bothering helping them. No one answering, as they are in Region 10 chat and not in Region 1 chat.
And that is the problem with people like you. You only look at the NOW and it's all about me, me, me.
Well, the game needs a constant stream of new players coming in to survive.
So at a point they will have to come up with some form of fast travel. And it's NOT a minority request. I spend a great deal on the official forums too.
As a matter of fact. ICARUS is already working on Fast Travel.
I am a stern non-supporter of fast travel in any form. No, the game does not need it, you have multiple types of vehicles and that is more than sufficient. I could post a veritable laundry list of reasons why NOT to implement fast travel into the game, however, it is much easier to just do a search on the official forums if you are that interested. You will quite quickly see that fast travel is a minority request, and the majority of the games devoted supporters are highly opposed to the idea.
Never mind the forums. Try talking to real players in-game instead and I think you will find most people can't see how the game can work long term without some kind of fast travel.
There's a vey good reason why just about every mmorpg game out there has fast travel and thats because it's pretty well essential for many of the other game mechanics to function effeciently. Without it, FE is a part finished game.
Ok, WAKEUP CALL! People! Exploration? No one is FORCING you to use this system! It's optional, like most everything else in the game. The last thing I heard about the game (was a long time ago, was in CB and OB) was that there were to be WAY more than 5 Sectors (the number: 10 got thrown around a lot).
Immersion breaking? Ok, lets imagine for a second, that the NPC's in the game world are actual people. You can do it, trust me. Now, as you know, there are traders and all other NPC's that handle with that little thing known as economy. The basics of economy is the transportation of goods. Yes, you see where I'm going with this? The train idea would be PERFECT! Just bloody PERFECT! Immersion wise, it add's nothing more BUT immersion! You can transport GOODS aswell as people! It'll cost ya a lot, but it just fits perfect.
A single station in each sector, nearby (not too much) of the main neutral town. Kills exploration? How about you have to first "discover" the destination station on foot, hoof or tire. Kinda like FO3 fast travel. Everything in-between has been explored, there is nothing TO "explore" but convenient fields of scav nodes, and that's called looting. Need another downside besides costs, limited location and "manual activation"? How about: "You arrive on foot." Yes, that's right. You don't push your dune buggy to the overhead hanger. Unless you have a ride waiting for you, you're on foot.
It's an idea that is good, it makes sense, both lore and logic wise. This would beef up the economy! Add in a way for players to put down their own trading stalls and VOILA! You'll be getting full fledged trader markets selling "home-made" knick-knacks like guns, armor, ammo and all the rest bazillion types of items you can think of worth making and trading. I think you can all figure out the rest from here.
Also, just adding a bit of food for thought. But there already IS lifenet based teleportation, and NO, not the suicide variety. Remember, at the end of S1 main story missions. You go to the LifeNet facility and that lady scientist teleports in, talks to you and teleports away.
My suggestion would definitely be for the steam train/monorail system.. Have one hub in each sector located outside a major town... you would have to purchase a ticket to open the door to access the train platform; then wait for the train (could take time maybe 15 minutes between trains) then after getting on the train you would go from station outside embry to a station outside new flagstaff in real time and traveling maybe twice as quick as interceptor(maybe slightly less)..
You could have it like in DAOC where you could hop off horse anywhere in world if you wanted too (though if its monorail you might suffer damage from fall, or train same thing) but no guarentees you would travel near any of the normal roads to be near enough to find a garage to get your mount out, so perhaps that would give enough risk of leaving yourself a long walk to counter the ability to jump out en-route...
Total train time from 1 sector to another could take 15+ minutes maybe traveling at that speed and you would have 3 trains running (so those waiting at platforms would only have a 15+minute wait between trains// extra train would be added with each new sector added; so that s4 <4trains> etc..{have them running in a circuit}.)
apologize for any bad grammer an run on sentences ahead of time
(also mounts would have to be stored pre-purchasing ticket for train ride, and quest line to access ability to purchase train tickets; and a in game event to add the trains to world in first place)
Like other people, I'd love to see a train system running in real time. Something like the trains in Half Life, where you can walk around the carriage, look out of the windows and enjoy the view, or if you prefer, go to your real life kitchen, for ten minutes, make a sandwich and get a beer from the fridge.
Unfortunately, I just don't see that as being a realistic option. I'm no game dev, but I'm still fairly sure that would take a massive amount of coding, requiring a fundamental shift in the way the world is rendered. You would have to design a whole new system for the people actually travelling on the train to be able to interact with their surroundings. Then what about the people in the wastelands? Presumably they will have to be able to see the trains passing at regular intervals unless they are going to be invisible trains?
Nice as it sounds, I don't see it happening. I think something along the lines of SWG's shuttles would be far easier to implement. People could wait at a station with other passengers but once they got on the train, the next thing they would see would be when they got off at their destination.
first off FAST TRAVEL is going to happen unless by sheer "sony like" ego the devs ignore players and the forces of nature.
I and many players are totally against insta travel or "iceing" as this movement is far too fast though this is the devs lazy method to shut players up this is the most likely "afterthought" travel they will dump on players.
I have fully supported the "train" idea if not actually origionated it months back in beta though I sugested that they use a more low tech steam train using the traditional rails that are also seen around the zones, it has the potential to address the problem of stratigic travel without making things overly easy. It also has great potential as a public works project and focus as a plot device for many support and maintence and security quests . the overhead train is simply beyond our ability to repair and maintain such a system a steam train would be a chalange let alone an overhead electric monorail.
*************
a few things still on my list...as ongoing failures for fallen earth. my bucket list of major issues.
water ditch in monkeytown water is a non interactable mass and its easy to get stuck between the sides of a ditch and the water
travel times overly long (steam train)
costume clothing / clothing toggles they have only ypur primary slots which are use for stat level armor, costume clothing obsolete after only a few levels .
crafting que no ability to shify things around in the craft que #1 asked for fix.
radiation barrier defined more obvious,, with rad meter clicker no more "suprise your dead!"
vehicles need vehicle physics (jumping)
horse population gonna be a problem after release as in 100+ horses standing in oil
repeatable quests not identified
need grenage physics includes the poisons and acids
need shotgun physics not slug
shotgun damage out of wach 410 is the smallest NOT the bigest (12,20,410)
factions are wattery and have no unique contrast. example vistas ride motercycles...hello!!! treehuggers!!!
no player chat channels
no tiered clan bank security
need more player choice in crafting dyeing or other customizations like a blue mororcycle or green berret or spicy chicken (vs normal chicken)
no /follow command
no /drag command
I would have to say even though steam train and shotguns are important to me,, I would have to say the number 1 thing that needs to be addressed is the vehicle physics and travel.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
Never mind the forums. Try talking to real players in-game instead and I think you will find most people can't see how the game can work long term without some kind of fast travel. There's a vey good reason why just about every mmorpg game out there has fast travel and thats because it's pretty well essential for many of the other game mechanics to function effeciently. Without it, FE is a part finished game.
Please read the entire thread, instead of just reading until you see a post you disagree with, then attempting to pick it apart.
I'm a member of a very well known, large clan that has been around since the earliest phases of closed beta. We have an active involvement in nearly every facet of the game. Post Apoc Radio, Globaltech ATLAS and Wasteland News in particular.
Insinuating that I am basing my initial statement on forum word of mouth and rhetoric alone couldn't be further from the truth. I am as active a member of the community as one can possibly be and have been for quite some time.
We have had this discussion many a time ingame and over vent with clan members, allied clan members, random idlers who play and hang around our vent, clanless idlers who play and hang around our vent, etc... 95% of the time the outcome and majority opinion is that fast travel (if poorly implemented) is a bad idea. If executed correctly, then yes it could be beneficial, however if not correctly implemented it could prove to be disastrous.
There is no shortage of people waiting to pounce all over any little mistake a company makes in this industry these days, especially a small indy studio like Icarus.
I completely disagree with your observation as to why other mmorpg's have fast travel, there is a reason for it alright, people are impatient now thanks to certain other games within the genre embracing casual playstyles and ease of play/access.
Anyone who was a SWG Vet (which I am not, just for the record, using it as an example), will tell you how they enjoyed waiting for shuttles, and how those extra periods where you were waiting opened up opportunities for added social interaction among players. Fast travel systems, in a game like FE especially where it is attempting to be a breath of fresh air, are not unique in any way, shape or form.
All that aside, I made my opinion very clear on the matter with my responses on page 1. Had you taken the time to read them, you would realize my stance on the matter is not as black and white as you attempted to make it appear.
It would be somewhat speedy, about the speed of mounts; maybe a little faster, but not much
It would have windows to look out into the world as you go by to keep the immersion
It would cost some chips, nothing too expensive, but a nice little chip sink
There would be limits on how many players could be in a single train car, albeit a large limit, but enough to prevent a clusterfuck of people in one car. Alternately, tickets could be for a specific seat to control this
It would have one to two stops per sector, possibly stopping near a large town, but far enough away so it doesn't overpopulate one area
Have the drop off points be near a large garage so players can quickly get their mounts and head on their way
I would love if this was brought about by an in game event where we contributed to rebuilding the existing tracks, and participation was rewarded with some free tickets or a discount on future tickets
I think this kind of system wouldn't be game breaking, would keep immersion strong, and would alleviate some of the pains of travel.
EDIT: After reading Euphoryks post above mine, I wanted to make something clear that I didn't mention
The trains would run on a schedule, they wouldn't just be waiting for you. A train heading your way on the tracks showing up every 15 minutes to half hour would be reasonable.
My only suggestion for fast travel in FE is to make it for 1 preferably central location in S1, S2 and S3 for people to fast travel between. 1 spot in each sector enabled for fast travel would make going back to hang with friends from S3 or S2 feasible. I really don't see the harm of this, only the benefits.
The thing is, there is nothing unfeasible about it as it currently stands.
I am involved with a 200+ member (active members, not just padding numbers here) clan that is very well known ingame and we constantly have high level or level capped players in all sectors, almost anytime of day.
It`s just a matter of what you are willing to do on a personal level, many of us have no problem making the long journey back to the previous sectors. I find that it brings back a feeling of nostalgia from the original days of mmo gaming, as well allows me to plan and prepare for whatever I might be wanting to do during that particular playsession.
Sure, it can get boring, but travel isn`t really intended to be some dramatic, exciting event.
I do agree that it doesn't have to be some dramatic, exciting event, however if I've got an hour to play, and it's going to take me half that to get from A to B to pvp with some friends for example, I'll probably not bother.
I think you need to find a balance in there without making it to easy to get around. I think a train from a town in each sector could be a good solution.
It would be somewhat speedy, about the speed of mounts; maybe a little faster, but not much It would have windows to look out into the world as you go by to keep the immersion It would cost some chips, nothing too expensive, but a nice little chip sink There would be limits on how many players could be in a single train car, albeit a large limit, but enough to prevent a clusterfuck of people in one car. Alternately, tickets could be for a specific seat to control this It would have one to two stops per sector, possibly stopping near a large town, but far enough away so it doesn't overpopulate one area Have the drop off points be near a large garage so players can quickly get their mounts and head on their way I would love if this was brought about by an in game event where we contributed to rebuilding the existing tracks, and participation was rewarded with some free tickets or a discount on future tickets
I think this kind of system wouldn't be game breaking, would keep immersion strong, and would alleviate some of the pains of travel.
yeah this is what i was thinking too,the world is massive in the game so a train system would be great. as long as its not some insta spawn crap thing, would be cool to be on a train walking around on it as it travels, look out the windows seeing the sites as well.
I am a stern non-supporter of fast travel in any form. No, the game does not need it, you have multiple types of vehicles and that is more than sufficient. I could post a veritable laundry list of reasons why NOT to implement fast travel into the game, however, it is much easier to just do a search on the official forums if you are that interested. You will quite quickly see that fast travel is a minority request, and the majority of the games devoted supporters are highly opposed to the idea.
+1 !!!!
I can see some of the points listed as to why fast travel could be beneficial but to take away the "exploration" aspect of FE would completely destroy that with which FE is all about.
a train would do nothing to stop exploration especially since you would probably have to visit each location and do a series of quests to get or maintain access and I really love the idea of players being able to improve their world not just be a static bug hunt like so many other MMOs.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
I'm with the others on the monorail idea. Make it so that it has one stop in each sector, and is not instant but just a bit faster than the player vehicles. And don't make it instanced. I like the idea of each car taking several players and the train being this kind of mini social space. You could even shoot at mobs from the train
Do all this, and it would feel not like tacked-on mechanics but like a convincing part of the persistant world. It'd be a plus in terms of immersion. (Hey, I'd even say take it through a PVP zone here and there so that players with sufficient range can shoot at you from outside the train, but then you'd have to actively defend and that'd defeat the whole purpose of an automated ride )
EDIT: I also have to agree that putting the train on a schedule of no tighter than 15 minutes apart is a good idea.
Never mind the forums. Try talking to real players in-game instead and I think you will find most people can't see how the game can work long term without some kind of fast travel. There's a vey good reason why just about every mmorpg game out there has fast travel and thats because it's pretty well essential for many of the other game mechanics to function effeciently. Without it, FE is a part finished game.
Please read the entire thread, instead of just reading until you see a post you disagree with, then attempting to pick it apart.
I'm a member of a very well known, large clan that has been around since the earliest phases of closed beta. We have an active involvement in nearly every facet of the game. Post Apoc Radio, Globaltech ATLAS and Wasteland News in particular.
Insinuating that I am basing my initial statement on forum word of mouth and rhetoric alone couldn't be further from the truth. I am as active a member of the community as one can possibly be and have been for quite some time.
We have had this discussion many a time ingame and over vent with clan members, allied clan members, random idlers who play and hang around our vent, clanless idlers who play and hang around our vent, etc... 95% of the time the outcome and majority opinion is that fast travel (if poorly implemented) is a bad idea. If executed correctly, then yes it could be beneficial, however if not correctly implemented it could prove to be disastrous.
There is no shortage of people waiting to pounce all over any little mistake a company makes in this industry these days, especially a small indy studio like Icarus.
I completely disagree with your observation as to why other mmorpg's have fast travel, there is a reason for it alright, people are impatient now thanks to certain other games within the genre embracing casual playstyles and ease of play/access.
Anyone who was a SWG Vet (which I am not, just for the record, using it as an example), will tell you how they enjoyed waiting for shuttles, and how those extra periods where you were waiting opened up opportunities for added social interaction among players. Fast travel systems, in a game like FE especially where it is attempting to be a breath of fresh air, are not unique in any way, shape or form.
All that aside, I made my opinion very clear on the matter with my responses on page 1. Had you taken the time to read them, you would realize my stance on the matter is not as black and white as you attempted to make it appear.
Well since you'd made six posts in this one thread I had to pick one post to reply to. That one pretty well sums up what you seem to be saying and that is you are part of a large clan, are an ex beta tester, you don't want any type of fast travel, everyone agrees with you and the rest of us should shut up. In the end I made a brief , three sentence comment, the gist of which was that I disagreed with you. Hardly picking your post apart.
So I just thought I'd introduce a reality check for you. Anyone using the FE forums knows that there is a group of players who are ex beta testers and like to think they can lay down the law to the newer players. Anyone asking for respecs is shouted down, anyone asking for fast travel is shouted down. You say that the majority of people on the forums don't want fast travel. I say that the majority of the players, most of whom of course don't even post on the forums DO want some kind of fast travel. The devs have already said that there WILL be some form of fast travel so the subject of whether there should be fast travel at all is moot anyway. It's just a question of what form it will take and how extensive its availablity will be.
If you'd have taken a leaf out of your own book and read a couple more posts before replying, you would also have seen that I AM a SWG vet and mentioned that something similar to that system where people waited together for a scheduled journey might be the answer. I also like the idea of trains but think it would take more resources to implement than would be available at this stage of the games life.
I like the train idea like many others do, but I don't think it is something that is possible at this point and probably won't be implemented. What I would rather see are faster vehicles, new roads, and road bonuses. Everywhere i go there is only one type of road. What about highways? I think creating highways with actual exits giving users a speed boost would be a great way to get around instant travel. This might not be a possibility either though. I really hope they add more vehicles and different models though. Like in The Road Warrior I want to see some crazy pick up trucks, old buses, dune buggies, muscle cars, etc.
I like the idea of rebuilding the train line to use as a fast travel system to a major town in each sector. Allowing players to participate in rebuilding it sounds great as it moves the game away from being a boring old static gameworld to something that is more realistic and involving. However if they can rebuild it then they should also be able to sabotage and destroy it. This would probably involve turning areas around the train line into pvp zones so that it could become contested. Otherwise the process of rebuilding it would be an event that would only ever happen once for the players who happen to participate in it. It wouldnt be worth the devs time to implement something that would only happen once. If that was the case then the devs may as well skip the player involvement part and just implement a fixed train line in a patch.
Then again the fixing of the train line would raise a new question. Why cant players fix the ruined buildings too? If people can repair a train line then they should be able to repair everything else right? But then this would make the game far too interesting. It would basicly involve remaking the way the entire game works so that it would be a true sandbox game. If the devs could make a game like that where the players could change the game world then they would have already done so.
The icing technique is perfectly viable too and a lot easier to implement......but its also a lot less interesting. I expect its what the devs will go for eventually though if they do decide to include fast travel.
As for players who are against a fast travel system.....well thats easy. Just dont use it. Problem solved. The players who want to spend hours just moving from A to B can do so at their leisure. The other players who dont want to waste their time being bored out of their skulls can use the train line.
As indicated by others, the bigger FE gets the more a fast travel system is going to be required. And not just a train line, where you wait 15 minutes for a train followed by a 40 minute train journey to a transfer station followed by another 20 minutes to your destination. Spending an hour in real life on a train isn't fun, so how is doing the same thing in a game enjoyable? Especially when you can craft offline? It's wasted time. That might be okay if you can spend 8 hours a day playing, but the person with 1.5 hours to spend in FE just wasted most of that experience in transit.
Instant travel between hubs is the most likely model, so that players can move quickly between major areas. There might be a role for a public transport system within sectors, linking key points, but movement between sectors is going to be more important. And for only a small cost too, unless FE devs want to see such transport controlled only by hardcore players / guilds.
Players can still explore. They can still socialise around the hub areas. But it cuts out the repetitious and dull travel times. If you have to 'unlock' an area to travel there first, that's fine, but expecting someone to travel repeatedly through sectors over many RL hours is also deluded, especially as more people have to travel through sectors to get where they want to go.
Also: respecs will come too. It's easy enough to screw up your first character (or first few) and "go back and start again" sounds a lot like "press the quit button" to some people.
Please read the entire thread, instead of just reading until you see a post you disagree with, then attempting to pick it apart. www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3216065 I'm a member of a very well known, large clan that has been around since the earliest phases of closed beta. We have an active involvement in nearly every facet of the game. Post Apoc Radio, Globaltech ATLAS and Wasteland News in particular. Insinuating that I am basing my initial statement on forum word of mouth and rhetoric alone couldn't be further from the truth. I am as active a member of the community as one can possibly be and have been for quite some time. We have had this discussion many a time ingame and over vent with clan members, allied clan members, random idlers who play and hang around our vent, clanless idlers who play and hang around our vent, etc... 95% of the time the outcome and majority opinion is that fast travel (if poorly implemented) is a bad idea. If executed correctly, then yes it could be beneficial, however if not correctly implemented it could prove to be disastrous. There is no shortage of people waiting to pounce all over any little mistake a company makes in this industry these days, especially a small indy studio like Icarus. I completely disagree with your observation as to why other mmorpg's have fast travel, there is a reason for it alright, people are impatient now thanks to certain other games within the genre embracing casual playstyles and ease of play/access. Anyone who was a SWG Vet (which I am not, just for the record, using it as an example), will tell you how they enjoyed waiting for shuttles, and how those extra periods where you were waiting opened up opportunities for added social interaction among players. Fast travel systems, in a game like FE especially where it is attempting to be a breath of fresh air, are not unique in any way, shape or form. All that aside, I made my opinion very clear on the matter with my responses on page 1. Had you taken the time to read them, you would realize my stance on the matter is not as black and white as you attempted to make it appear.
I am around since the Friend & Family alpha. So spare me your lecture!
And you are nothing but a arrogant religeous fan, who thinks that running a fansite makes him god. Pathetic.
I know and remember the Beta boards very very well. So don't think you can fool me now those boards are no longer there.
During Alpha / Beta the fast travel issue was a hot debated topic. All the way through beta! So give me a break.
The community was pretty much 50/50 split on that matter. Just like it is now.
And like I said in my previous post in this topic.
The problem with religeous fanatics like you, is that you people don't think ahead!
You really think it's fun for a new player to jump into the game and see 95% of the playerbase hanging around in Sector 10 and being a FULL week away REALTIME??
From the South of Sector 1 all the way to the North of Sector 1 into Sector 2 already takes pretty much a whole night (aka play session).
Most people are already not bothering with helping other people with Team flagged missions when they are on the other side of a sector. Nevermind when they are even a sector away!
Even people in clans admitted that they really want to be helpful to their other members, but being forced to decline help most of the time, because it would take them more then an hour or even longer to get to their clan member for just a 10-15min mission. And that they feel bad about it.
And with the coming of more and more new sectors, this problem is going to be only bigger and bigger.
This game needs a form of Fast Travel. And fast! Period! If you like it or not! The game won't survive on a few religeous fanatics only.
I love the real time train idea but it might be a bit too sophisticated. We are talking post-apoc here, not society where the trains run on time. It also would be a very dominant feature throughout the landscape, especially if it runs on those high tracks.
I think an old, ragged, propellor biplane only flying between each major tradehub would be more in line with the setting. Especially if it occasionaly crashes :P
Also; no mounts on the plane allowed so you'd have to ship it to you destination at a garage or have a mount in each zone stabled nearby. Seats and tickets would be limited and quite expensive too.
Comments
Fast travel is never bad simply because it irks people or feels inappropriate to the setting. This is a selective and peevish response and developers would be fools to heed it.
What's concretely bad about fast travel is it empties out population centers and outposts, destroying the experience of people who like those places by making them easy to avoid. It may not seem very nice to force anyone to hang out in a city they don't like, but more often than not they really just like another place better - because the auction house is there, for instance. The vibe of the game is thereby destroyed for some people just so others can enjoy some minor benefit they wouldn't knowingly want if they knew the tradeoff. You're hanging out, you're making money and having a great time, and then one day you ride through Qeynos or Shattrath and notice it's empty.
"Well that's a shame," you think. "Guess that's what happens when an MMO gets old."
But it's not. It's what happens when the population is pampered, especially when that pampering is focused on the vocal, loot-hungry endgame crowd while little attention goes to the outpost dwellers who don't even know what they're missing.
It's not as though every possible fast travel idea has been invented and they could never conceivably come up with some new solution. Since that's the case it follows there's probably a solution that doesn't carry the negative baggage of most that have been tried in other games.
Whether we're going to see it from a game that is essentially a patchwork of commonplace MMO features, that's another question.
To me the sensible thing seems to be figure out how you want players to behave, and then ease into conveniences in a way that protects this. Then back out of them if player behavior changes in a negative way and deal with the nerf complaints as per the standard forum rage playbook.
So what you want to do is start out with considerable costs. Just for an example, you could eliminate the ridiculous quantum entanglement banks and stables that also don't belong in a realistic setting. The player who wants to fast travel can then do it as a favor to someone else, or for the simply joy of grouping (in FE, not bloody likely), but not for his own convenience.
Another way to go about this might be with PvP flags and faction favor that changes as you move through the worldmap. When you leave an area, you can acquire the flightpath / lifestone / waypoint for it, but as a consequence you'll permanently aggro the local population and become PvP flagged whenever you approach town.
But the simplest way about this is simply to make it very, very expensive. This has worked nicely for Anarchy Online, where the equivalent of hearthstones cost about 10 billions caps, and have one & two hour cooldowns.
einexile the meek
Vacuos, Winterlong, Vaciante, Eicosapenta
Atlantean, Tyranny, Malton
Another ramification of fast travel might be easier access to farming low level resources by high levels toons.
_____________________________
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Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
My copy came with fast travel.....fast travel to the trash can...
I have not read every response so forgive me if this has been brought up.
As a day 1 Alpha tester, I knew in the first week that some form of faster travel was going to be screamed for. When I brought it up the the forums, I was soundly thrashed. Bear in mind, I was not asking for it but stating what I thought would happen after release.
My proposal, at the time, wasn't for "faster" travel but some form of "hands off" travel. The main problem with traveling is it requires you to be at the keys. Take that aspect away and most of the complaints will die down.
I don't mind the 20-40 minutes it takes to go from sector to sector, I just want the ability to do other things(surf net, toilet, make food, etc) while traveling.
I'll tell you what we can use for fast travel.
That towtruck the garagemanager use to tow our vehicles back to us from the middle of nowhere - He can bring my bike from S1 to S3 in a jiff - sucks theres no room for me in his truck.
I am going agaist the grain and say, yeah, we need a sort of fast travel.
I am sorry and I respect everyones opinion, but I am looking down the road further.
I cannot see myself driving from sector 10 to sector 1 with even the Interceptor at this point, I assume when there are 10 sectors in the game, we will have some sort of faster travel from sector to sector.
If we don't everyone will just be crammed in S10 while the rest of the other sectors just sit there in limbo without anyone exploring anyway and newbies saying.. Where is everyone?
Make it more like Eve Online or Dark Age of Camelot, the game is big enough to explore and who in there right mind at level 1 would even want to go to Sector 10 just to look (its called insta death). Plus the chips that you would need to make a travel from S1 to S10 would be outrageous for any level 1 character.
Honesty, I can't see myself riding my motorcycle from sector 1 to 3 and just staring at the screen for over a hour. No way!
Why would I want to even go back to Sector 1, well, you said it, I would like to go back and explore as much as Sector 1 as I can, I may have missed a few AP's or just want to chill out with lower level clans mates for RP or just shoot the chiat.
What I am for..
Examples:
1. Eve Online got a great system for warping from location to location. I am for this system hands down.
2. Dark Age of Camelot had a nice system as well, instead of using your mount, you paid a horse merchant for a cruise control mount to your destination which took time as well.
3. World of Warcraft style was even good, try taking a gryphon flight from booty bay to silvermoon city.
My favorite would be Eve Online, if FE uses the same system as Eve does, the game will rock.
Another idea, you can also may the fast travel its own instance and everyone is hanging out in the train, bus or RV to get to the next destination.
I like to see some sort of copter flight from S1 to S10 in the way future. You see copters all banged up in the game so far.
What I am agaist:
No teleporations or cloning to other Sectors in the game. (even from S1 to S10)
The issue is. You don't look ahead.
Now it's only 3 sectors. What when we come to the point of having 10 sectors or more?
You think it's fun spending a whole week traveling back in a game? I don't think so.
Or how about new players joining the game a year from now? You think it's fun for them when 95% of the playerbase is hanging around a week away REALTIME in Sector 10? No one going to be bothering helping them. No one answering, as they are in Region 10 chat and not in Region 1 chat.
And that is the problem with people like you. You only look at the NOW and it's all about me, me, me.
Well, the game needs a constant stream of new players coming in to survive.
So at a point they will have to come up with some form of fast travel. And it's NOT a minority request. I spend a great deal on the official forums too.
As a matter of fact. ICARUS is already working on Fast Travel.
Cheers
Never mind the forums. Try talking to real players in-game instead and I think you will find most people can't see how the game can work long term without some kind of fast travel.
There's a vey good reason why just about every mmorpg game out there has fast travel and thats because it's pretty well essential for many of the other game mechanics to function effeciently. Without it, FE is a part finished game.
Oh dear.... all these nay-sayers... *sigh*
Ok, WAKEUP CALL! People! Exploration? No one is FORCING you to use this system! It's optional, like most everything else in the game. The last thing I heard about the game (was a long time ago, was in CB and OB) was that there were to be WAY more than 5 Sectors (the number: 10 got thrown around a lot).
Immersion breaking? Ok, lets imagine for a second, that the NPC's in the game world are actual people. You can do it, trust me. Now, as you know, there are traders and all other NPC's that handle with that little thing known as economy. The basics of economy is the transportation of goods. Yes, you see where I'm going with this? The train idea would be PERFECT! Just bloody PERFECT! Immersion wise, it add's nothing more BUT immersion! You can transport GOODS aswell as people! It'll cost ya a lot, but it just fits perfect.
A single station in each sector, nearby (not too much) of the main neutral town. Kills exploration? How about you have to first "discover" the destination station on foot, hoof or tire. Kinda like FO3 fast travel. Everything in-between has been explored, there is nothing TO "explore" but convenient fields of scav nodes, and that's called looting. Need another downside besides costs, limited location and "manual activation"? How about: "You arrive on foot." Yes, that's right. You don't push your dune buggy to the overhead hanger. Unless you have a ride waiting for you, you're on foot.
It's an idea that is good, it makes sense, both lore and logic wise. This would beef up the economy! Add in a way for players to put down their own trading stalls and VOILA! You'll be getting full fledged trader markets selling "home-made" knick-knacks like guns, armor, ammo and all the rest bazillion types of items you can think of worth making and trading. I think you can all figure out the rest from here.
Also, just adding a bit of food for thought. But there already IS lifenet based teleportation, and NO, not the suicide variety. Remember, at the end of S1 main story missions. You go to the LifeNet facility and that lady scientist teleports in, talks to you and teleports away.
...Yeah...
My suggestion would definitely be for the steam train/monorail system.. Have one hub in each sector located outside a major town... you would have to purchase a ticket to open the door to access the train platform; then wait for the train (could take time maybe 15 minutes between trains) then after getting on the train you would go from station outside embry to a station outside new flagstaff in real time and traveling maybe twice as quick as interceptor(maybe slightly less)..
You could have it like in DAOC where you could hop off horse anywhere in world if you wanted too (though if its monorail you might suffer damage from fall, or train same thing) but no guarentees you would travel near any of the normal roads to be near enough to find a garage to get your mount out, so perhaps that would give enough risk of leaving yourself a long walk to counter the ability to jump out en-route...
Total train time from 1 sector to another could take 15+ minutes maybe traveling at that speed and you would have 3 trains running (so those waiting at platforms would only have a 15+minute wait between trains// extra train would be added with each new sector added; so that s4 <4trains> etc..{have them running in a circuit}.)
apologize for any bad grammer an run on sentences ahead of time
(also mounts would have to be stored pre-purchasing ticket for train ride, and quest line to access ability to purchase train tickets; and a in game event to add the trains to world in first place)
Like other people, I'd love to see a train system running in real time. Something like the trains in Half Life, where you can walk around the carriage, look out of the windows and enjoy the view, or if you prefer, go to your real life kitchen, for ten minutes, make a sandwich and get a beer from the fridge.
Unfortunately, I just don't see that as being a realistic option. I'm no game dev, but I'm still fairly sure that would take a massive amount of coding, requiring a fundamental shift in the way the world is rendered. You would have to design a whole new system for the people actually travelling on the train to be able to interact with their surroundings. Then what about the people in the wastelands? Presumably they will have to be able to see the trains passing at regular intervals unless they are going to be invisible trains?
Nice as it sounds, I don't see it happening. I think something along the lines of SWG's shuttles would be far easier to implement. People could wait at a station with other passengers but once they got on the train, the next thing they would see would be when they got off at their destination.
first off FAST TRAVEL is going to happen unless by sheer "sony like" ego the devs ignore players and the forces of nature.
I and many players are totally against insta travel or "iceing" as this movement is far too fast though this is the devs lazy method to shut players up this is the most likely "afterthought" travel they will dump on players.
I have fully supported the "train" idea if not actually origionated it months back in beta though I sugested that they use a more low tech steam train using the traditional rails that are also seen around the zones, it has the potential to address the problem of stratigic travel without making things overly easy. It also has great potential as a public works project and focus as a plot device for many support and maintence and security quests . the overhead train is simply beyond our ability to repair and maintain such a system a steam train would be a chalange let alone an overhead electric monorail.
*************
a few things still on my list...as ongoing failures for fallen earth. my bucket list of major issues.
water ditch in monkeytown water is a non interactable mass and its easy to get stuck between the sides of a ditch and the water
travel times overly long (steam train)
costume clothing / clothing toggles they have only ypur primary slots which are use for stat level armor, costume clothing obsolete after only a few levels .
crafting que no ability to shify things around in the craft que #1 asked for fix.
radiation barrier defined more obvious,, with rad meter clicker no more "suprise your dead!"
vehicles need vehicle physics (jumping)
horse population gonna be a problem after release as in 100+ horses standing in oil
repeatable quests not identified
need grenage physics includes the poisons and acids
need shotgun physics not slug
shotgun damage out of wach 410 is the smallest NOT the bigest (12,20,410)
factions are wattery and have no unique contrast. example vistas ride motercycles...hello!!! treehuggers!!!
no player chat channels
no tiered clan bank security
need more player choice in crafting dyeing or other customizations like a blue mororcycle or green berret or spicy chicken (vs normal chicken)
no /follow command
no /drag command
I would have to say even though steam train and shotguns are important to me,, I would have to say the number 1 thing that needs to be addressed is the vehicle physics and travel.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
Please read the entire thread, instead of just reading until you see a post you disagree with, then attempting to pick it apart.
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3216065
I'm a member of a very well known, large clan that has been around since the earliest phases of closed beta. We have an active involvement in nearly every facet of the game. Post Apoc Radio, Globaltech ATLAS and Wasteland News in particular.
Insinuating that I am basing my initial statement on forum word of mouth and rhetoric alone couldn't be further from the truth. I am as active a member of the community as one can possibly be and have been for quite some time.
We have had this discussion many a time ingame and over vent with clan members, allied clan members, random idlers who play and hang around our vent, clanless idlers who play and hang around our vent, etc... 95% of the time the outcome and majority opinion is that fast travel (if poorly implemented) is a bad idea. If executed correctly, then yes it could be beneficial, however if not correctly implemented it could prove to be disastrous.
There is no shortage of people waiting to pounce all over any little mistake a company makes in this industry these days, especially a small indy studio like Icarus.
I completely disagree with your observation as to why other mmorpg's have fast travel, there is a reason for it alright, people are impatient now thanks to certain other games within the genre embracing casual playstyles and ease of play/access.
Anyone who was a SWG Vet (which I am not, just for the record, using it as an example), will tell you how they enjoyed waiting for shuttles, and how those extra periods where you were waiting opened up opportunities for added social interaction among players. Fast travel systems, in a game like FE especially where it is attempting to be a breath of fresh air, are not unique in any way, shape or form.
All that aside, I made my opinion very clear on the matter with my responses on page 1. Had you taken the time to read them, you would realize my stance on the matter is not as black and white as you attempted to make it appear.
This is how I see the train system implemented
I think this kind of system wouldn't be game breaking, would keep immersion strong, and would alleviate some of the pains of travel.
EDIT: After reading Euphoryks post above mine, I wanted to make something clear that I didn't mention
The trains would run on a schedule, they wouldn't just be waiting for you. A train heading your way on the tracks showing up every 15 minutes to half hour would be reasonable.
The thing is, there is nothing unfeasible about it as it currently stands.
I am involved with a 200+ member (active members, not just padding numbers here) clan that is very well known ingame and we constantly have high level or level capped players in all sectors, almost anytime of day.
It`s just a matter of what you are willing to do on a personal level, many of us have no problem making the long journey back to the previous sectors. I find that it brings back a feeling of nostalgia from the original days of mmo gaming, as well allows me to plan and prepare for whatever I might be wanting to do during that particular playsession.
Sure, it can get boring, but travel isn`t really intended to be some dramatic, exciting event.
I do agree that it doesn't have to be some dramatic, exciting event, however if I've got an hour to play, and it's going to take me half that to get from A to B to pvp with some friends for example, I'll probably not bother.
I think you need to find a balance in there without making it to easy to get around. I think a train from a town in each sector could be a good solution.
yeah this is what i was thinking too,the world is massive in the game so a train system would be great. as long as its not some insta spawn crap thing, would be cool to be on a train walking around on it as it travels, look out the windows seeing the sites as well.
+1 !!!!
I can see some of the points listed as to why fast travel could be beneficial but to take away the "exploration" aspect of FE would completely destroy that with which FE is all about.
a train would do nothing to stop exploration especially since you would probably have to visit each location and do a series of quests to get or maintain access and I really love the idea of players being able to improve their world not just be a static bug hunt like so many other MMOs.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
I'm with the others on the monorail idea. Make it so that it has one stop in each sector, and is not instant but just a bit faster than the player vehicles. And don't make it instanced. I like the idea of each car taking several players and the train being this kind of mini social space. You could even shoot at mobs from the train
Do all this, and it would feel not like tacked-on mechanics but like a convincing part of the persistant world. It'd be a plus in terms of immersion. (Hey, I'd even say take it through a PVP zone here and there so that players with sufficient range can shoot at you from outside the train, but then you'd have to actively defend and that'd defeat the whole purpose of an automated ride
)
EDIT: I also have to agree that putting the train on a schedule of no tighter than 15 minutes apart is a good idea.
Please read the entire thread, instead of just reading until you see a post you disagree with, then attempting to pick it apart.
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3216065
I'm a member of a very well known, large clan that has been around since the earliest phases of closed beta. We have an active involvement in nearly every facet of the game. Post Apoc Radio, Globaltech ATLAS and Wasteland News in particular.
Insinuating that I am basing my initial statement on forum word of mouth and rhetoric alone couldn't be further from the truth. I am as active a member of the community as one can possibly be and have been for quite some time.
We have had this discussion many a time ingame and over vent with clan members, allied clan members, random idlers who play and hang around our vent, clanless idlers who play and hang around our vent, etc... 95% of the time the outcome and majority opinion is that fast travel (if poorly implemented) is a bad idea. If executed correctly, then yes it could be beneficial, however if not correctly implemented it could prove to be disastrous.
There is no shortage of people waiting to pounce all over any little mistake a company makes in this industry these days, especially a small indy studio like Icarus.
I completely disagree with your observation as to why other mmorpg's have fast travel, there is a reason for it alright, people are impatient now thanks to certain other games within the genre embracing casual playstyles and ease of play/access.
Anyone who was a SWG Vet (which I am not, just for the record, using it as an example), will tell you how they enjoyed waiting for shuttles, and how those extra periods where you were waiting opened up opportunities for added social interaction among players. Fast travel systems, in a game like FE especially where it is attempting to be a breath of fresh air, are not unique in any way, shape or form.
All that aside, I made my opinion very clear on the matter with my responses on page 1. Had you taken the time to read them, you would realize my stance on the matter is not as black and white as you attempted to make it appear.
Well since you'd made six posts in this one thread I had to pick one post to reply to. That one pretty well sums up what you seem to be saying and that is you are part of a large clan, are an ex beta tester, you don't want any type of fast travel, everyone agrees with you and the rest of us should shut up. In the end I made a brief , three sentence comment, the gist of which was that I disagreed with you. Hardly picking your post apart.
So I just thought I'd introduce a reality check for you. Anyone using the FE forums knows that there is a group of players who are ex beta testers and like to think they can lay down the law to the newer players. Anyone asking for respecs is shouted down, anyone asking for fast travel is shouted down. You say that the majority of people on the forums don't want fast travel. I say that the majority of the players, most of whom of course don't even post on the forums DO want some kind of fast travel. The devs have already said that there WILL be some form of fast travel so the subject of whether there should be fast travel at all is moot anyway. It's just a question of what form it will take and how extensive its availablity will be.
If you'd have taken a leaf out of your own book and read a couple more posts before replying, you would also have seen that I AM a SWG vet and mentioned that something similar to that system where people waited together for a scheduled journey might be the answer. I also like the idea of trains but think it would take more resources to implement than would be available at this stage of the games life.
I like the train idea like many others do, but I don't think it is something that is possible at this point and probably won't be implemented. What I would rather see are faster vehicles, new roads, and road bonuses. Everywhere i go there is only one type of road. What about highways? I think creating highways with actual exits giving users a speed boost would be a great way to get around instant travel. This might not be a possibility either though. I really hope they add more vehicles and different models though. Like in The Road Warrior I want to see some crazy pick up trucks, old buses, dune buggies, muscle cars, etc.
I like the idea of rebuilding the train line to use as a fast travel system to a major town in each sector. Allowing players to participate in rebuilding it sounds great as it moves the game away from being a boring old static gameworld to something that is more realistic and involving. However if they can rebuild it then they should also be able to sabotage and destroy it. This would probably involve turning areas around the train line into pvp zones so that it could become contested. Otherwise the process of rebuilding it would be an event that would only ever happen once for the players who happen to participate in it. It wouldnt be worth the devs time to implement something that would only happen once. If that was the case then the devs may as well skip the player involvement part and just implement a fixed train line in a patch.
Then again the fixing of the train line would raise a new question. Why cant players fix the ruined buildings too? If people can repair a train line then they should be able to repair everything else right? But then this would make the game far too interesting. It would basicly involve remaking the way the entire game works so that it would be a true sandbox game. If the devs could make a game like that where the players could change the game world then they would have already done so.
The icing technique is perfectly viable too and a lot easier to implement......but its also a lot less interesting. I expect its what the devs will go for eventually though if they do decide to include fast travel.
As for players who are against a fast travel system.....well thats easy. Just dont use it. Problem solved. The players who want to spend hours just moving from A to B can do so at their leisure. The other players who dont want to waste their time being bored out of their skulls can use the train line.
As indicated by others, the bigger FE gets the more a fast travel system is going to be required. And not just a train line, where you wait 15 minutes for a train followed by a 40 minute train journey to a transfer station followed by another 20 minutes to your destination. Spending an hour in real life on a train isn't fun, so how is doing the same thing in a game enjoyable? Especially when you can craft offline? It's wasted time. That might be okay if you can spend 8 hours a day playing, but the person with 1.5 hours to spend in FE just wasted most of that experience in transit.
Instant travel between hubs is the most likely model, so that players can move quickly between major areas. There might be a role for a public transport system within sectors, linking key points, but movement between sectors is going to be more important. And for only a small cost too, unless FE devs want to see such transport controlled only by hardcore players / guilds.
Players can still explore. They can still socialise around the hub areas. But it cuts out the repetitious and dull travel times. If you have to 'unlock' an area to travel there first, that's fine, but expecting someone to travel repeatedly through sectors over many RL hours is also deluded, especially as more people have to travel through sectors to get where they want to go.
Also: respecs will come too. It's easy enough to screw up your first character (or first few) and "go back and start again" sounds a lot like "press the quit button" to some people.
I am around since the Friend & Family alpha. So spare me your lecture!
And you are nothing but a arrogant religeous fan, who thinks that running a fansite makes him god. Pathetic.
I know and remember the Beta boards very very well. So don't think you can fool me now those boards are no longer there.
During Alpha / Beta the fast travel issue was a hot debated topic. All the way through beta! So give me a break.
The community was pretty much 50/50 split on that matter. Just like it is now.
And like I said in my previous post in this topic.
The problem with religeous fanatics like you, is that you people don't think ahead!
You really think it's fun for a new player to jump into the game and see 95% of the playerbase hanging around in Sector 10 and being a FULL week away REALTIME??
From the South of Sector 1 all the way to the North of Sector 1 into Sector 2 already takes pretty much a whole night (aka play session).
Most people are already not bothering with helping other people with Team flagged missions when they are on the other side of a sector. Nevermind when they are even a sector away!
Even people in clans admitted that they really want to be helpful to their other members, but being forced to decline help most of the time, because it would take them more then an hour or even longer to get to their clan member for just a 10-15min mission. And that they feel bad about it.
And with the coming of more and more new sectors, this problem is going to be only bigger and bigger.
This game needs a form of Fast Travel. And fast! Period! If you like it or not! The game won't survive on a few religeous fanatics only.
Cheers
I love the real time train idea but it might be a bit too sophisticated. We are talking post-apoc here, not society where the trains run on time. It also would be a very dominant feature throughout the landscape, especially if it runs on those high tracks.
I think an old, ragged, propellor biplane only flying between each major tradehub would be more in line with the setting. Especially if it occasionaly crashes :P
Also; no mounts on the plane allowed so you'd have to ship it to you destination at a garage or have a mount in each zone stabled nearby. Seats and tickets would be limited and quite expensive too.
My brand new bloggity blog.