Make Airship/Train feel more "alive"

[fusional]

You can mess with the times you know - without completely wiping the system. (Like comparing WoW to FFXI, both use very similar transportation methods - one is greatly faster then the other)

right. if they can actually make the transportation real-time and make the times reasonable (1-5 minutes combined total wait) it does add to immersion. anything beyond a few minutes, though, and it's a big fat nope

[Shougun]

right. if they can actually make the transportation real-time and make the times reasonable (1-5 minutes combined total wait) it does add to immersion. anything beyond a few minutes, though, and it's a big fat nope

Very true. Waiting at boats in FFXI, or barely missing one was such a pain... I can see how people have nightmares about that. Missed the boat, 15 mins, on the boat, 15 mins, now you are in this town get on chocobo 15 mins.. wait for others who may have missed the boat 15 mins. 1 hour gone by waiting.

In WoW when you missed a boat it was like meh, another one is coming in 1-2 mins (I think a couple were longer but they were usually for obscure locations if I can remember) /turn on guild chat and start talking for a bit.

[Reaujien]

I like the "feeling" of knowing you've traveled somewhere by experiencing it rather than some popup title saying "You've arrived at [X]", but I understand there's a limit to how far you should have to travel. However, I feel that this limit is also dependent on what's actually taking place around you. For example, a 30 min ride on an/a [insert vehicle here] where your character is just standing there would most certainly at first be [maybe] entertaining, I'm sure the novelty will quickly wear off and simply become a "snooze" for a lot of players (although, some, like myself, might take it as an opportunity to grab another beer, take a short wc break or break in general, etc.). But if you add some more elements to it, while not increasing the total time to ultimately get from point A to point B, I'm sure the 30min would feel more like 5min or something significantly less. But until they add teleportation for everything IRL I prefer to have to traverse my fantasy universes myself (so to speak) to some degree.

[Hakaisha]

Seeing the land from the airship would be wonderful, though perhaps like others said an option could be put to skip it.

[Orophin]

It'd be more appealing to take the "scenic route" if there were content developed around it. Like if you talk to the person at the counter to get a ticket to the airship/train and you get some dialog stating that monsters have been harassing passengers, you know that would be a cue that you'd want to take the scenic route if you want to go on the ship and bash some stuff. If you're not in the mood, you can just pick the option to fast travel and be done with it.

I was thinking about the train and it'd be pretty cool if they could work it in somehow like on Doomtrain where you had to get past the zombies. Or on the airship, you could fight off Ahriman and other avians.

[fusional]

no, 30 minutes won't ever *feel* like 5 minutes. i only log on when i have sh*t to do. so if i have something to do and i have to wait 30 minutes to go somewhere, it's going to *feel* like 6 hours.

[Shougun]

I like the "feeling" of knowing you've traveled somewhere by experiencing it rather than some popup title saying "You've arrived at [X]", but I understand there's a limit to how far you should have to travel. However, I feel that this limit is also dependent on what's actually taking place around you. For example, a 30 min ride on an/a [insert vehicle here] where your character is just standing there would most certainly at first be [maybe] entertaining, I'm sure the novelty will quickly wear off and simply become a "snooze" for a lot of players (although, some, like myself, might take it as an opportunity to grab another beer, take a short wc break or break in general, etc.). But if you add some more elements to it, while not increasing the total time to ultimately get from point A to point B, I'm sure the 30min would feel more like 5min or something significantly less. But until they add teleportation for everything IRL I prefer to have to traverse my fantasy universes myself (so to speak) to some degree.

I always thought they could do things to their boats and such like if pirates attack the ship goes in alarm state and everyone is shouting and preparing for battle - you can go to the rafts and take one off and escape the pirate attack or you can stay on and fight them off.

If you leave on the raft you have a normal travel time, if you stay and fight the travel time will increase to include for the extra event going on. (I dont think 30 mins is a good default time, but like in my pirate example you could take the 3 minutes or something and turn it into +10 if you accepted the event)

So even then you can have content making these exciting without being a total nuisance (a la FFXI).

I know someone is probably going to shoot me for saying WoW so many times but I played it for a few years and I never heard anyone cry about the travel network they developed - and that game was very popular so it showed proof the concept works in a general audience.

[Reaujien]

no, 30 minutes won't ever *feel* like 5 minutes. i only log on when i have sh*t to do. so if i have something to do and i have to wait 30 minutes to go somewhere, it's going to *feel* like 6 hours.

To each their own then... *shrugs*

[Shougun]

To each their own then... *shrugs*

Well I think there is a gold amount of time, where you feel the travel and you appreciate the scale it provides but at the same time you are not considering to go AFK for something.

"Well just got on the boat going to go pick up the kids and make dinner - brb in 30"

I suppose some people could honestly sit there the whole time doing nothing but... I couldnt :P

Definitely having content on the ships like pirates, card games, quests, fishing - that is all cool but people wont want to do that every time. So I think a good result is to mix them together - SE has instance technology so they have freedom when each person has to leave based on contents they are preforming and their choices.

[Reaujien]

I always thought they could do things to their boats and such like if pirates attack the ship goes in alarm state and everyone is shouting and preparing for battle - you can go to the rafts and take one off and escape the pirate attack or you can stay on and fight them off.

If you leave on the raft you have a normal travel time, if you stay and fight the travel time will increase to include for the extra event going on. (I dont think 30 mins is a good default time, but like in my pirate example you could take the 3 minutes or something and turn it into +10 if you accepted the event)

So even then you can have content making these exciting without being a total nuisance (a la FFXI).

I know someone is probably going to shoot me for saying WoW so many times but I played it for a few years and I never heard anyone cry about the travel network they developed - and that game was very popular so it showed proof the concept works in a general audience.

That pirate example sounds kind of cool - it's almost comparable to making a decision to stop and spend the extra time to participate in a real-time event or to not spend the extra time and simply go about your route.