Does instant transportation effect game immersion?

[Bled]

Show of hands, who here is wanting to play this game not to fight enemies nor build their character up nor explore nor do raids nor progress through the story, but to hold W for an hour and run around the market wards all day?

What we have here is a lack of understanding. More specifically, you lack an understanding of how games work.
Working together with your party to take down a strong enemy is fun. Idling on an airship for ten minutes is not.
Building up your character is fun. Spending a halfhour running through those hugeass straightaways Gridania is riddled with is not.

More to the point:
PURPOSELESS DELAYS ARE NOT A GAMEPLAY ELEMENT
They are not something you can base a successful game around
"Lots of pointless waiting before we let you do the thing you actually want to do!" is not something you can put on the back of the box

what you call "purposeless delays" i call "immersion", which last i checked was a huge mechanic in gameplay.

[Jaber]

what you call "purposeless delays" i call "immersion", which last i checked was a huge mechanic in gameplay.

I'll tell you what, I'll go make a game where you win by fighting enemies and getting gear, and you go make a game where you win by idling on an airship with a scrolling background for ten minutes then holding W for the next halfhour, and we'll go see which is more popular.

I'm all for immersion. It's one of the main reasons I play games; to escape to a different world and different life. Idling on a boat and excessive travel times are not going to immerse me, they're going to do the exact opposite by causing me to instead spend that time playing MHP3 on my PSP. I don't want to spend my time in another world waiting. I can do that in this one, and it won't cost me twelve bucks a month to do it.

[Bled]

I'll tell you what, I'll go make a game where you win by fighting enemies and getting gear, and you go make a game where you win by idling on an airship with a scrolling background for ten minutes then holding W for the next halfhour, and we'll go see which is more popular.

Neither would be popular... to be a good game one mechanic can not be exclusively intended there needs to be a balance of all mechanics.

“media contents are perceived as ‘real’ in the sense that media users experience a sensation of being spatially located in the mediated environment.”

Breaking down the above sentence, fighting monsters, running raids, buying items, and insta teleport does not make up a game exclusively. Rather the extension of the world needs to create a second reality for you, rather then o hey i just killed x amount of what even monster for sp value.