Feedback talk:User/Beef Mcnugget/Map Travel and Waypoints - Not Immersive

Yes, the waypoint thing made me restless too when reading about it in that article. My alternative approach to this problem would be to make waypoints free to use but at least as rare as outposts are in GW1. Paying gold for skipping game content does not seem like a very good idea to me, so let's just get rid of the cost, and most of the waypoints too while we're at it. In its current form this feature seems like a kind of a "playing tax", and that's just not cool. --Adul 02:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I kind of agree with you both, but there are some things that you must acknowledge (or remember). First of all, there will be no more quests. There will be Dynamic Events, and you will only be able to do some if you adventure on foot through the fields/explorable areas. So, waypoints will not help you do them, since events will appear suddenly and you will only notice them if you're around (so you don't have to travel to do them). Secondly, as far as the personal storyline goes, you will not be able to jump it, as you can only travel to waypoints you have already discovered. So, you might get your reward faster (since you can teleport back to town), but you will still have to explore in order to do whatever it is you need to do. Thirdly, GW2 will be HUGE. Just by looking at the Divinity's Reach screenshots you can get an idea. It will have an area for each of the six gods, plus the large carnival area, plus a section for each social group, and the instanced areas (your neighbourhood, the Queen's Palace, Seraph's headquarters, Logan's office, etc.) With so many areas, does anybody want to waste 45 minutes lost in an alley in their way home? It will be great to explore the city, and I will definitely do it, but just once or twice; most of the times I'll not have enough patience. But whoever wants to do it is free to do so! You can travel by foot if you prefer. Fourthly (does that word exist??), the small fee is meant to be a gold drain, which GW1 lacked. If waypoints were extremely expensive, not many peope would use them, so they would not be a gold drain. With a small fee, they are used often and they eficiently take gold out of the economy. Lastly, it does ruin the immersion of the game. I completely agree with you on that, and that's why I loved the Asura Gates (they are in the lore). Waypoints do not belong to the lore (as far as we know), but let's look at the other side here. GW is meant to be fun, always. If video games are meant to be a distraction from the real world, then they want us to be always entertained. It wouldn't be anywhere near entertaining to be obliged to run from Old Ascalon to Temple of the Ages EVERY TIME we wanted to go to the Underworld. We wouldn't explore near as much of the beautiful world they've made as we do now if that was the case. And imagine you were a casual player that could play GW2 half an hour each day. If you spent 10 minutes to get out of the city, then 15 minutes to reach the area you wanted to go (assuming it's a nearby area, of course), you could only play 5 minutes per day (during which you could only kill a couple of foes), which means you would be wasting 83% of your online time, and that's definitely not fun to do on a daily basis. But, always remember, you CAN go through the forests and lakes if you prefer. It's completely up to the player, and I think that between having waypoints and not having them, they certainly took the best option to assure satisfaction to all kinds of players. --217.129.133.230 13:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Its in my understanding that you cannot travel from a waypoint, only to one. Therefore you could travel to a waypoint to shorten the time requirement, but you would still need to walk back. If this is not the case, then the only other alternative is a network system. Each gate can link to two things: other gates, or that particular gate's waypoints. Traveling within a gate's subnetwork would let you travel within a realm (like Kryta, for instance), but you must go back to the city in order to go to a different waypoint (or die, essentially costing the same). If you wanted to go to a waypoint outside that gates subnetwork, you would need to go to that subnetworks corresponding gate. Also as said above, you need to explore and find these waypoints in order to use them, promoting wide exploration. Also maps are far larger than they were in GW1, meaning more ground to cover (all of Kryta having fewer than 20 waypoints? seems fair). If you need to get somewhere fast (like an event your friend is in), dish out the cash and go there. Low on cash? then go exploring. Its entirely up to the player. If they wish to ruin their experience by jumping around then thats their problem. Id easily bet though that most waypoints are not near the majority of the events that will happen in the game, they will merely let you get there faster than walking.--Neithan Diniem 19:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It's still a shitty game mechanic if you ask me. I'm not trolling, in fact I liked most things I've heard about GW2 so far, the sole exception being the travel system which sounds as if they simply hadn't thought it out. Still, it's not that major a problem and I will buy and play the game regardless. --Adul 07:55, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

They still haven't announced what the small fee will be, also you have to think what a "small fee" could be, depending on how you play this could be any where between 25gold and 100+gold i mean character who only has 10plat might consider 100G small, but one who has over 100Plat might see 1 plat as small fee. so its all prospective, the price might also scale to you level, I mean certainly a level 5 and a level 60 do not have the same idea of a small fee. As for it being called skipping over content thats not exactly true i mean you are only skipping what the environment has to offer, and I think the people who use the waypoint the most are the same people who do not explore every inch of the map. LeaderFreak 20:27, Aug16 2010

Trains is the solution!

These trains, you could use a Steamed Engine, Asuran-magic train, 40 horses hooked up to 10 Caravan, or whatever anything fast and carry large quantity of people, and ride around the world from town to town. You pay the conductor, with a small fee and get on the train. Which the train moves very fast to each town not connected to an Asura Gate. This will bring back immersive, remove gold from the economy, and you can travel fast.

Plus, there can be quest to defend the train from bandits and centaurs. --Miteshu 16:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I thought this is what they might have done before they mentioned waypoints. I figured norn would have some kind of polar bear pulling a sled, humans would have a horse drawn carriage, sylvari could ride tamed Oakhearts, asura would have some kind of golem tram system, and charr would have some kind of war machine... Or perhaps an extremely large siege devourer. But ArenaNet was too lazy. You can see how close together the waypoints are in the GamesCom demo, and the fee for them is like 15 gold, which is the amount you get for killing ONE enemy. Beef Mcnugget 13:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Please use my idea at the front page. I wouldn't mind if I don't get any credit. I can't make a new page because I have no idea how.--Miteshu 00:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

If you don't like it you can always walk. -phlemhacker

I agree with this statement, 100%. You had the option of running from Old Ascalon through Yak's Bend to Lion's Arch without using Map Travel at all every single time you wanted to go to LA from OA, or Running from wherever you are all the way to Thunderhead Keep to redo the mission so you can get to the Ring of Fire Island Chain because you forgot to unlock a skill at Ember Light Camp before you started your trip to Cantha, Elona or the Eye of the North to pursue those stories. How long would that run take you? How many hours can you invest in a computer game each day? There are many who only have time to play on weekends, and only for a couple of hours a day.

+1. --Asterai

Here's a scenario: Your character has recently beaten Prophecies and is in Lion's Arch on its way to the next campaign, but you forgot that skill you really wanted to try out and it's only available in Ember Light Camp. Let's be optimistic and say a run from LA to ThK is about half an hour. Now you have to do the mission to get to ELC so you can unlock that skill you forgot. That's another half hour, at absolute best, because of wait times (waiting for all the Mursaat and Stone Summit to show up so you can end the darned mission). Now you have to go back to LA so you can move on to Cantha/Elona/EotN. You've just spent two hours to get one skill that could have been just a map travel/few gate-hops away. What a waste of time. A game like that would shut out absolutely every player who doesn't sit on their rump all day doing nothing but playing computer games. Two hours to get from point A to point B. That is tedious. That is ridiculous. That is unnecessary. Since GW2 will allegedly be so much bigger, that two hours could turn into four. That's four hours and you haven't even started something as lengthy as a quest/mission/dynamic event, yet. Who has time for that? To reiterate the post directly above: If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. Just don't ruin it for the rest of us. Teddy Dan, yo. 16:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

As per your latest edit

I'm pretty sure Anet has or will account for large numbers of players in certain areas. They implemented the separate server system and called them districts in GW1. There may be more than one server, or there will probably be some other system involved to prevent such an obvious potential issue. Again, though, if you don't like it you don't have to use it. Don't affix your narrow preferences to how others find joy in their games. In other words, don't ruin the game for everyone just because you don't like something that you have the option and the freedom not to use. That's just selfish. (edited typo) Teddy Dan, yo. 10:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)