Should Airship travel be instanced or non-instanced?

I think non-instanced is more sensical and lets you appreciate the world around you instead of just looking at an instanced background that isn't a true representation of Eorzea. Some people do however prefer instanced flight (like FFXI) ... for whatever reason. Here are some examples of non-instanced travel, in case you don't understand what I mean:

Archeage

TERA

FFXIV

I would love to have non instanced travel as I highly enjoyed it in TERA (was WoW Flight Points 2.0 but it was beautiful none the less). I also find I have that itch to have it be instanced like in XI due to the fact we could get things like random encounters (pirates in XI) or random NM spawns (Sea Horror in XI).

Archeage poses an interesting way of travel and I think if SQEX utilized the z-axis we could have non-instanced mobs attacking us while on the airship. But I don't realistically see that happening with this horrible engine.

Either or would be fine in my books as long as they don't half ass whatever they choose to add in.

I fully expected this to be a Giftforce thread, purely because it's a request to bring things into the non-instanced environment with no consideration of server strain etc, ala 'bring it to the streets'.

Whilst it would be nice to have a non-instanced version, I'm not going to lose sleep over it either way.

FFXIV LOL @ hacker.

The other two.. I have to say look seriously cheap. Even Tera who I've heard such nice things about.. It looks like perfect world, or maybe Aion.

These, they are only maybe a couple hundred feet off the ground. In the FFXI instances, they look like they were about 30,000 feet off the ground. I don't know how hard it would be to render graphics that well at such a distance. FFXI airship feels epic becasue you're so high. I don't want to be 100 feet off the ground.

I'd rather have instant travel where I don't have to wait to get on/off an airship.

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FFXI airship feels epic becasue you're so high. I don't want to be 100 feet off the ground.

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You must freak out and nerdgasm every time you fly on an airplane >_>. FFXI airship travel was, in terms of graphics and displaying the world around you, shabby at best. Height =/= excitement. What made it EPIC was the events that could randomly occur on things like boat rides.

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Originally Posted by Richard

You must freak out and nerdgasm every time you fly on an airplane >_>. FFXI airship travel was, in terms of graphics and displaying the world around you, shabby at best. Height =/= excitement.

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Yup being in an airplane is all kinds of cool, sorry you've lost the wonder of it all. The XI airships were neat partly because of the illusion of height too. And not many MMO did it like that, I hope they bring this back.

does not take much to please the mmo crowd these days apparently.

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Originally Posted by Sephr

I fully expected this to be a Giftforce thread, purely because it's a request to bring things into the non-instanced environment with no consideration of server strain etc, ala 'bring it to the streets'.

Whilst it would be nice to have a non-instanced version, I'm not going to lose sleep over it either way.

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No consideration of server strain? Pfft, as if I even need to consider that. I think if you refer to a thousand other MMOs over the course of history, specifically Ragnorak Online and Mabinogi, you see that street-vending is not an impossibility. If old games can do it just fine, why can't FFXIV? It's not our fault they chose to run the game on inferior servers. Ugh, but let us let bygones be bygone, shall we?

I think the issue here is not so much server-strain, anyways, but moreso video-card strain. There's only so much you can represent graphically. With a non-instanced version, we may not get the illusion of clouds and height and atmosphere (both literally and figuratively speaking). Also, the draw-distance in FFXIV is kind of odd (the way it doesn't fade between high res and low res textures) so it may just end up being an eye-sore if SE opt to go the non-instanced route.

However, I think it would be much more interesting to actually see the world for what it is, rather than a 2-dimensional representation, and maybe be able to see people scurrying around below you too.

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Originally Posted by Richard

does not take much to please the mmo crowd these days apparently.

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Not very nice today.

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Originally Posted by alexi14

Not very nice today.

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lol I don't mean to come off as brash but I'm serious.

this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUaBaPQNX8 and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95qHqPU23Y

are infinitely more exciting than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSrbCnf0aUQ and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Bgn1P72s4

JUST SAYIN

I'd rather enjoy a 2-3 minute flight followed by a short loading screen rather than sitting for 10 minutes on a boat IMO

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Originally Posted by Richard

lol I don't mean to come off as brash but I'm serious.

this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUaBaPQNX8 and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95qHqPU23Y

are infinitely more exciting than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSrbCnf0aUQ and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Bgn1P72s4

JUST SAYIN

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Not really, I still prefer XI's flight over TERAs (and yes I actually play both games) as XI's flight accomplishes what it sets out to do in terms of atmosphere. If you want "excitement" you don't look toward airships, you may as well grow wings and fly yourself everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Richard

lol I don't mean to come off as brash but I'm serious.

this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUaBaPQNX8 and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95qHqPU23Y

are infinitely more exciting than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSrbCnf0aUQ and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Bgn1P72s4

JUST SAYIN

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Lol. You said it so well.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Not really, I still prefer XI's flight over TERAs (and yes I actually play both games) as XI's flight accomplishes what it sets out to do in terms of atmosphere. If you want "excitement" you don't look toward airships, you may as well grow wings and fly yourself everywhere.

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Pardon me for wanting airship flight in XIV to be more than a 10 minute snooze fest. Like I said in the first post, if they make it instanced they need to be reasonably more exciting than its predecessor or GG another disappoint. If they go un-instanced then by the same token it needs to not be bland.

They already confirmed it's not even going to be like the XI's airship initially, it's going to be basically be "Airship here > Interact > Fade out > New location" type of system. So if anything you won't have to worry about it not being exciting.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

They already confirmed it's not even going to be like the XI's airship initially, it's going to be basically be "Airship here > Interact > Fade out > New location" type of system. So if anything you won't have to worry about it not being exciting.

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That will be a temporary placeholder for the real system.

This thread is not discussing that iteration (which supposedly comes patch 1.19).

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However, I think it would be much more interesting to actually see the world for what it is, rather than a 2-dimensional representation, and maybe be able to see people scurrying around below you too.

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I AGREE WITH THIS.

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Originally Posted by Richard

does not take much to please the mmo crowd these days apparently.

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or it takes to much, it really goes both ways. And I'm willing to bet more the way of people are harder to please.

Considering the state of the game/engine all considered, I think it would be much wiser to wish for an instanced version done right as opposed to a half bottomed open world system.

Non instanced. It's just better and gives you a better feel for the world around you.

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Originally Posted by Darkshade

Considering the state of the game/engine all considered, I think it would be much wiser to wish for an instanced version done right as opposed to a half bottomed open world system.

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Yeah lol

Imagine the epicness of the airship having to go through those "loading tunnels" between zones, and also we have to load between each area so might as well make it instanced.

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Originally Posted by Perrin_Aybarra

Yeah lol

Imagine the epicness of the airship having to go through those "loading tunnels" between zones, and also we have to load between each area so might as well make it instanced.

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Well I showed the video of TERA to show how they eliminate the need for a loading screen by masking it with that magical portal.

Perhaps in FFXIV, instead of flying through a magical portal, you could fly into a storm cloud. You wuold be surrounded by clouds for a few seconds while the other zone is loaded in (the cloud coverage would be related to how fast your processor was).

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Originally Posted by Richard

does not take much to please the mmo crowd these days apparently.

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Pardon me for not playing the game exactly the way you do. I love online worlds for their immersion factor. I don't need pew pew fricking conflict at every singe corner of my play time, sometimes it's nice to just sit back and enjoy the ride, the scenery, the atmosphere. This is why I'll always be a big supporter of housing, pets, crafting, controllable mounts/airships and so on.

Combat is everywhere you look.

like FF12

Zoooooooom!! and you have arrived

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Originally Posted by giftforce

Well I showed the video of TERA to show how they eliminate the need for a loading screen by masking it with that magical portal.

Perhaps in FFXIV, instead of flying through a magical portal, you could fly into a storm cloud. You wuold be surrounded by clouds for a few seconds while the other zone is loaded in (the cloud coverage would be related to how fast your processor was).

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Yeah maybe they can work around it somehow. If they can still make events happen even when non-instanced than sure, but i'd rather have it instanced with random events than non-instanced and just sitting there and watch the scenery.

To answer to the OP, i really don't care as long as we're not going to see any difference, but if it was instanced they could put some more effect, like bird flying around or be totally in the clouds or even more (Dragon NM pop on the boat ?!).

Maybe Cid could appear to make some event also :D <<< Cid teeth (FFXI)

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Originally Posted by Perrin_Aybarra

Yeah maybe they can work around it somehow. If they can still make events happen even when non-instanced than sure, but i'd rather have it instanced with random events than non-instanced and just sitting there and watch the scenery.

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Events can still happen if it's non-instanced because the Airship would obviously still be on a flight path. (It is way too much to ask that we be allowed to fly the airships anywhere we want ourselves, considering the engine.) So along this path, there could be random spawns of hostile airships or dragons or whatnot.

In my head it sounds really plausible!

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Originally Posted by Cendres

Pardon me for not playing the game exactly the way you do. I love online worlds for their immersion factor. I don't need pew pew fricking conflict at every singe corner of my play time, sometimes it's nice to just sit back and enjoy the ride, the scenery, the atmosphere. This is why I'll always be a big supporter of housing, pets, crafting, controllable mounts/airships and so on.

Combat is everywhere you look.

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If you're going to play the "I don't play the way you do" card please realize it works both ways. This is also the joy of what we call RANDOM BATTLES. It worked the same way in XI. Don't care to have your pew pew fricking conflicts at every single corner? Sit yourself below deck and don't worry about it. Those of us who like a sense of adventure and danger in our oh so immersive game world will be above deck.

at the moment relaxation is everywhere you look.

Airship travel should be. That is all.

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Originally Posted by Richard

If you're going to play the "I don't play the way you do" card please realize it works both ways. This is also the joy of what we call RANDOM BATTLES. It worked the same way in XI. Don't care to have your pew pew fricking conflicts at every single corner? Sit yourself below deck and don't worry about it. Those of us who like a sense of adventure and danger in our oh so immersive game world will be above deck.

at the moment relaxation is everywhere you look.

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lol... Yes and I will until I get high enough to fight too. You're more likely to get your kicks while enjoying a ride and a random enemy appears then in an instant fade to black travel system. So I'm not sure what your problem is.

Wait I know what it is I mistook you for this guy:

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Originally Posted by Corrderio

I'd rather have instant travel where I don't have to wait to get on/off an airship.

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Thought you were battle! or bust. XD Mah bad.

I don't mind fights, but at the same time I just don't want to wait for what feels like forever just to get from city to city with literally nothing to do.

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Originally Posted by Corrderio

I don't mind fights, but at the same time I just don't want to wait for what feels like forever just to get from city to city with literally nothing to do.

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save your anima then

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Originally Posted by Richard

lol I don't mean to come off as brash but I'm serious.

this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUaBaPQNX8 and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y95qHqPU23Y

are infinitely more exciting than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSrbCnf0aUQ and by extension this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Bgn1P72s4

JUST SAYIN

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Lol. I started watching the first one and thought 'when the hell did WoW get pegasus's?!'. Then I noticed it was Tera >.>

In any case... I would like main City-City air ship travels to be on large air-ships high above the sky, with no 'instant' air-ship travel, and you can see the ground below that matches where you started and where you're headed. Smaller flights like mini-air ships (there are air-ship docks at certain places on the maps, particulalrly in La Noscea) it can be lower to the ground, but still with ground visuals, to include monsters and other characters that happen to be below you.

The thing is, I never really though of the Air Ship as something to do if your trying to get somewhere in a hurry. You teleport and choco, or bloodwarp, or something like that. The Air ship to me is like.. so calm. It's one of the few places you can go in FFXI where it's just you and maybe 1 other person on board, and you can just look at the view, and think or w.e u want. It was soothing. It was a break from the hussle and bustle of jueno. You're traveling all the way across the world. If you are traveling 100 feet in the air so you can see players, and stuff, think how long it's going to take you to get to the other side of the world.

On the other hand, if you're 30,000 feet in the air, and entire continents are going by slowly.. It's a lot more realistic to think about where you are, and how long until you get to your destination.

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Originally Posted by alexi14

On the other hand, if you're 30,000 feet in the air, and entire continents are going by slowly.. It's a lot more realistic to think about where you are, and how long until you get to your destination.

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I'd be great to have a UI based Tetra master too just for those times, maybe in practice mode to get ready for player vs player tournaments XD Man this forum is too full of dreams today.

Also, if it was instanced, you wouldn't be able to parachute down to the ground!

Think of the possibilities if they add parachuting!

It'd be nice for it to be none-instanced, especially if they boosted the character draw distance so you could look over the side and see people running around doing everyday stuff, it'd make the game feel a bit more alive.

That being said if airships are going to be as high up as what we currently see when they fly overhead there's the possibility it could be pretty nasty on players who don't have powerfull computers.

It should be non-instanced, and we should get sniper rifles.

if it was not instanced, you could shout

"hey d-bags down there! guess what, im on an airship! ha!"

and everyone down below will hear you