Real Time Airship Travel

[Muted_Voice]

I use the airships all the time, and I miss the old version where you waited on them, and how you actually took a ferry ride to and from La Noscea. I would love to have them make both the ferry and airships into trips and not just pseudo teleports.

Imagines having a deck full of sitting Lalafells swaying in time... this could either scare everyone away or make it immensely popular.

[BearGrylls]

Sure, just as long as its a choice. Waiting around is not my idea of fun. I do enough boring crap in real life as it is, so i'd rather not have to do that in my vidya too.

[Gardthorne]

The only way to implement this without pissing anyone off is to make it a tour ship whose sole purpose is to be a long scenic ride that you spend with people. Maybe they could allow skyfishing or some other minigame while it happens. We will never get mandatory real time travel, it has no place in a modern MMO.

[Enkidoh]

Personally, I think the best way to implement such a feature is not the FFXI way of doing things, in that it's too realistic with it's far-apart scheduling and slow-boat-to-Doma speed whether you want it or not. FFXII had a much better system where when you paid for your ticket you were given the choice of either 'private cabin', which was an instant travel to your destination, or 'pleasure cruise', which was the 'slow', real-time travel where you could explore the ship and speak to npcs.

Making airship travel in such a manner would allow players that want to use it a social hub can do so, while also satisfying the requirements of those who just want to get where they're going right away without fuss.

And although as someone mentioned earlier that before they could even implement real time airship travel, a specific 'flying' zone would have to be created first for the airship to fly through, it's likely SE is already planning this, given the fact Yoshi hinted recently that the keyword for the game's future is 'flight' and how players will be able to build their own airships.

So I guess it's 'keep watching the skies'.

[Nero]

I don't think i ever used Airships, beside the part where you had to via the Storyline. What is missing, is the long ride and watching from the Sky. Traveling is way too easy in FFXIV, compared to FFXI. So Airships are currently a waste in the Game. I did not like the main-idea of everyone being able to teleport around in first place, but yeah.. i guess that's a problem of the playerbase who want access to everything with every class.

I would like long travels, with actual Content on it and the same goes for the Boat-Trips. Getting attacked by other Airships, fighting NM's there.. ( Monster Hunt would give a chance for Airships/Ships to be useful ), or even Skyfishing/Fishing there.

[Chibionieko]

Back in 1.0 the boat from outside Uldah to Limsa was a real time boat trip. With schedules, (i think) fishing, occasional lousy weather, and a nice area to sit and chat to pass the time. I rarely saw anyone else on the boat to chat with and when i did they usually sat and went afk.

[Gramul]

I miss just taking it easy and riding the boat. I would appreciate some more living world content like that as an option.

[Moqi]

The problem I find with this idea is that you're trying to force player interaction by making a feature less convenient, which I believe many players would resent.

Social potential should be a consideration when designing features, but so should convenience. If a player is going to spend time on something, like an airship ride, they should feel they get something from it, but if your idea was implemented I would feel like something was taken away instead.

This. Forcing player to interact won't make the game more social, just look at DF. People will say hi and bye (if you're lucky) but most times it will be a longer, silent ride. If you wanna talk to people go to them and start talking! You don't need an airship.

[Oblitae]

This. Forcing player to interact won't make the game more social, just look at DF. People will say hi and bye (if you're lucky) but most times it will be a longer, silent ride. If you wanna talk to people go to them and start talking! You don't need an airship.

True, I agree, but if this was implemented so it WAS a choice and you're given the option to socialize rather than forced to, hense why I said if people don't want to they can take a solo airship for a little more costwise but still under the cost of the current aetheryte teleporting.

[Oblitae]

Personally, I think the best way to implement such a feature is not the FFXI way of doing things, in that it's too realistic with it's far-apart scheduling and slow-boat-to-Doma speed whether you want it or not. FFXII had a much better system where when you paid for your ticket you were given the choice of either 'private cabin', which was an instant travel to your destination, or 'pleasure cruise', which was the 'slow', real-time travel where you could explore the ship and speak to npcs.

Well it could be frequent enough so that you're not waiting around, like every 10 minutes or something, with on the hour airships being slightly cheaper!