[Spoiler?] Is teleportation just a player convenience and not a real thing?

[StouterTaru]

If you watch the cutscene really closely you can see that they were trying to teleport, but someone was spamming trade with them.

[Waffilicious]

If you watch the cutscene really closely you can see that they were trying to teleport, but someone was spamming trade with them.

I hate that, i hate it so much.

[Belhi]

The really obvious answer would be there are methods of blocking teleportation. The city was on lock down. If they were going to use any mechanism to disable teleporting it would be then. It would seem an extremely fundamental necessity of security.

Think of it this way. To teleport you move through rivers of either to particular aethyrite points. Without those points you would get lost in the Aether and never return. Now image in Ul'dah had a seal that basically put barriers across those rivers of aether. You would either get stuck or potentially sucked out of the Aether right into your pursuers hands.

[myahele]

I think some pointed out how 4s (to cast teleport) will equal to less than 2 min in eorzean time. They also had arrows, so casting teleport will make you an easy target.

[Riepah]

I think some pointed out how 4s (to cast teleport) will equal to less than 2 min in eorzean time. They also had arrows, so casting teleport will make you an easy target.

Going by gametime is meaningless. If a 4 second cast takes 2 minutes of game time, then a 4 second walk will take them 2 minutes of game time as well. Looking at game time versus real time makes no difference at all.

[Kuwagami]

Going by gametime is meaningless. If a 4 second cast takes 2 minutes of game time, then a 4 second walk will take them 2 minutes of game time as well. Looking at game time versus real time makes no difference at all.

It does. The cast time of return/teleport is short because player convenience. In the game (or rather, in your avatar's "real life"), it takes a lot more time to cast this thing. The enemies are right behind you in cutscenes. Which means you aren't anymore in the scaled down world displayed on your screen. You're in your avatar's real world, with "real" distances. An enemy at 20 meters would take these 2 Eorzean minutes in a gameplay POV. In a CS POV, it will take them 10 seconds. You'd be dead before succeeding your teleport

TL;DR : in cutscenes, distances are more realistic than in game. 20 meters will take 10 seconds for your enemies to come. Not 10 real seconds but 10 in game seconds. Thus you'd be dead.

[Enkidoh]

The really obvious answer would be there are methods of blocking teleportation. The city was on lock down. If they were going to use any mechanism to disable teleporting it would be then. It would seem an extremely fundamental necessity of security.

Think of it this way. To teleport you move through rivers of either to particular aethyrite points. Without those points you would get lost in the Aether and never return. Now image in Ul'dah had a seal that basically put barriers across those rivers of aether. You would either get stuck or potentially sucked out of the Aether right into your pursuers hands.

I'm not actually certain aetherytes can be disabled in such a way though (remember, it's just a big piece of crystal 'fused with arcane machinery', paraphrasing the old Lodestone description from 1.0, short of completely destroying one (there has never been any mention about being able to turn the aetherytes on and off anywhere, either mentioned here or in the game), as all they are is technically a beacon that the spirit of a teleporting person is guided to when 'riding the aether', as you mentioned. Really, I think this trope is in effect here - in other words, you're not meant to think about it too much.

Teleportation taking time to concentrate, time the player simply did not have, is actually a reasonable explanation though.

[gamesmart]

I'm honestly still leaning towards the fact that teleportation requires focus to pull off correctly - the process, to my knowledge, is more or less reducing yourself into aether while maintaining a conscience in some way, so you could guide yourself towards a beacon (aetheryte) to reconstruct yourself at. It's dangerously close to resembling how some things die, so it would stand to reason that if you didn't concentrate hard enough you could easily botch the process and become lost in the sea of aether. In addition, if you look closely when you teleport, your character closes his or her eyes - a pretty common sign of focus by removing visual distractions from the mind, which would have been much more difficult given recent events, which included dismemberment (at least for those of us that are slightly more squeamish).

So the fact that teleporting takes time isn't the only way to explain why we didn't just flip the Brass Blades the birdie and warp to safety - the PROCESS of teleporting could serve as an equally valid reason.

[HexWeaver]

Cuz plot.

Just teleporting away would've made for a very crappy finale.

[RobinRethiel]

Hmmm, teleporting away would have just been the icing on the cake for our cowardly behavior.

"Oops, you guys got some serious problems here with a Lala Nazi coup? I'm out. *poof*"

Warrior of Light gone and they just interrupt the Scion's teleport and capture them.

Same result, but much more fitting.