Riftway Stones and Raiding

[Tranao]

Before somebody yells consolidate I felt this issue needed a separate thread since it is another issue.


First off I think the riftway stones are a really bad idea for most who plan to be raiding. We are going to have the same problem we had in EQ2. It was very hard for new raid guilds to get started because all of the harcore 20+ hours a day guilds would have a monopoly on all spawns. The thing I loved about Vanguard is that since the world is so big everyone has a chance at hitting content since it is pretty much impossible to get to all the content in one night.

If these stones stay in the way they are right now everyone who is not a hardcore raid guilds will get next to nothing. There is not doubt that these stones will end up hurting a lot of the raid scene rather then helping it.

[EdwinAhe]

At last someone brought this to attention If I remember it correctly it was one of reasons NOT to have teleporters (as it was stated in beta)

[Odball-1]

This makes sense.

The riftways don't do the casual raider any good if the hardcores can muster the force to go on a killing spree from one side of a continent, then recall to a predetermined spot and then across the next.

Travel needs to be a waste of time if for no other reason than to impede the the large scale development of an mmo army and it's movement in a blitzkrieg across the virtual landscape.

The institution of a such a high speed network would be needed if the content for intensive multi hour raiding content was not there, and thus was necessary to carry an army from one dismal 3 minute fight to the next.

The time for single target raid encounters like we would see in other mmo's is over, dedicated areas of the world specifically designed to be done with more than 1 group to kill just a single trash mob is the way of the future. I'm talking areas that once the raid encounter has begun the trash will respawn 2 hours later, and it could take 4 hours to get to the first waypoint where you could relax. Then looking at another 4 -6 hours worth of killing to the main boss.

I'm off topic now aren't ?

Raid time sinks are a good thing, instantaneous travel is bad. Thank you.

[Mordecai]

/Agree with the OP could not have said it better my self...

[Shinto]

Travel was originally supposed to mean something... I guess they gave up on that.

[Ysharros]

Maybe it's time to paraphrase: "No vision survives contact with the players."

I'm going to sound reactionary here but I just woke up so I don't care. For every one person who would like a slower pace, a bit more challenge, and a little more meaning in their MMOs, there are now 10 who want an MMO to be just like a console game: play it like mad, relentlessly, till it's mastered or sucked dry, and then move on. There is no loyalty to the game, to its world, or to its community. The game is pure short-term entertainment, something like a very long movie which will be (and can be, these days) replaced as soon as one gets bored or something better comes along.

With travel as with raiding, the quicker the better. The idea isn't to enjoy your time in the game, but to have fun knowing that you're consuming game content.

I guess this is my Locust Theory of Online Gamers. It may apply even more to hardcore raiding groups than anyone else, since they actually do go around in sizeable contingents.

This is another one of those arguments where an apparently minor change can spark an enormous debate. It's that slippery slope thing again. Sure, a couple of teleporters here or there don't seem so bad, and they *do* make things a great deal more convenient, which is a good thing at times.

They also, however, seem to dilute a "vision" that many of us have followed for years, though I'm sure we'll be told we just didn't understand the vision correctly. It seems to be a capitulation of "oh crap, must get customers, ANY customers" over what we believed would be "we're small but we're great, and we don't need 8 million customers". Many of us, certainly myself, believed this might be a game for "the other half" -- the one that doesn't play WoW, that doesn't want 6'-tall shoulder-pads and cartoony graphics, that doesn't particularly want to rush to level cap in order to spend 30 hours a week raiding or waiting to raid. The half that no longer wants a fast-food gaming experience.

Course we're not a half, we're a very tiny minority. Teleportation may not be such a big deal, or it may be the tip of the blizzardesque iceberg. I don't know right now, but I am starting to feel a little betrayed, and I'm not particularly inclined to trawl half a dozen sites in the hopes that I can find a quote to reassure me. At the end of the day, it's what you do, not what you say.

Sorry for waxing philosophical and somewhat on a tangent.

[Crotalus]

I am not sure about the servers ya'll play on. Although on Tharridon I don't see this as a problem since the population is decreasing.

[Scarcius]

I think one of the reasons the stones are being added is because of low server populations. Brad has already said they launched with too many servers. It can just be too hard to find groups when you have limited play time. Those are the people I see actually leaving instead of the guys crying all over Silky Venom.

I've lost a few friends already I started with. Not because of bugs, not because of performance, not because they didn't absolutely love the game, but they just couldn't make any meaningful progress after they hit 30 with only 1-2 hours to play a night. They got frustrated and left. When you only have 2 hours to play taking an hour to get somewhere interesting just doesn't work. You end up stuck in the same chunk for days unless you want to blow a whole night going somewhere.

Anyway, the stones are expensive and in a few locations only. I'm pretty sure they would be smart enough not to stick one in front of every raid mob. They probably wont even be close. Besides, I don't think we need to be too worried about raid content right now. There is no raid functionality in the game and the more I play the more I'm unsure the engine and mechanics can actually support anything more then 2 groups anywhere.

[EdwinAhe]

Anyway, the stones are expensive

I can`t agree with you on this one, 62c is not expensive at all.

[Scarcius]

Originally Posted by EdwinAhe

I can`t agree with you on this one, 62c is not expensive at all.

It not expensive at 40 but, it sure is at 10. I think the idea is to keep it from being used as a general travel mech but, as a way of getting the mid-high level people to the small group/group content out in the wilderness.