Does instant transportation effect game immersion?

[DantesAmore]

it will effect it and it wont,

insta travel takes away from the experience that you are Mr./Mrs. Adventurer not just a character on a game by not allowing you to feel like your traveling at the speed you should be and experiencing all the sights and sounds you would be.

it doesn't effect it as well. if you never experience the joy of the airship ride or boat ride then you wont always feel like your missing out on the content.

[Falcus]

It didn't affect my immersion in Guild Wars and I had a total of about 650 hours playtime in that and you can instantly warp to any outpost you've already been to at any time.

[Enma]

At this point of the game's life I don't care if I have Anima, Teleport, Chocobo or whatelse, because the "sense of adventure" that the game should give simply doesn't exist... In Eorzea there are 5 landscapes, and once you have seen them your desire of exploration just disappear. Huge and monotonous maps that don't need any exploration at all. I hope in the future Yoshi will fulfill his promises about maps and landscapes, so that you can really prefer an healthy ride on your chocobo instead of an instant teleport ( by anima or airship ). I'm still convinced that "instant airship" and anima system will be deeply reviewed when the game will have solved all his main problems.

[Quanta]

Does instant transportation effect game immersion?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Instant travel only has an effect on immersion if travel time is a significant and worthwhile part of gameplay. The game's primary focal points are combat, crafting, and narrative (not necessarily in that order), which are affected by travel to varying degrees.

Travel affects combat (and gathering) the most, but only when you're in the field, where combat and gathering skills are actually relevant. Outside of that, travel is irrelevant, unless you're going to be mining iron or killing monsters on the airship.

For crafting, travel doesn't add anything. Having a 10-minute airship ride isn't going to give crafters anything they couldn't already get sitting in Ul'dah all day.

For narrative, travel is only relevant if the plot deems it so. If plot-relevant characters can be found on the airship, then having a scene on the airship prior to reaching your destination is an important break in the action, but only then; if there's no plot events occurring, having the extra scene in-between adds nothing to the experience.

Immersion is less about mimicking reality, and more about maintaining the audience's interest. People are more immersed when there's something going on that's keeping them active in the game than when nothing is going on and the only way to pass the time is to troll linkshell chat.

[AlexSag]

I can see a lot of people's points about the game loosing that sense of immersion with an insta-travel airship and I completely agree that anima may make things too easy, especially since you can be teleported placed you've never visited, but I think the convience of things far outweigh the draw backs. Running from point A to point B can be a very fun part of the game (like the first time you visited Jeuno from your home city), but after doing the same thing over and over again, it gets to feel like a horrible waste of time. Game play will almost always be concentrated in a few popular areas (Whitegate comes to mind), unless the developers go out of their way to get people to travel around.

[Moiren]

I like the fact that with anima we can instantly go where we want.

What I dont like, tho, is the fact we get only animas right now (but this is gonna be addressed with 1.19, finally) and, regarding this thread, the fact that you can be teleported to any aetheryte camp by friends without visiting them first.

It was fun in FFXI to reach the new teleports (Dem, Holla, Vahzl, ecc), and I must say almost indispensable for a true game immersione, which one of the features should be ADVENTURE and EXPLORATION, after all.

I really liked for example travelling to Camp Revenant's Toll (the northern camp in Mor Dhona) on foot, waiting for mobs to move and having care avoiding agro, especially on the last part. Add to that the fact I had miasma for half of the trip and that Mor Dhona is the best zone in the game

[Jynx]

So much cinicism from people who can't wait to have nothing to do, no reason to explore, no reason to do anything besides grind.

Why walk when you can teleport?

[viion]

A lot of people are forgetting there is also chocobos lol. I garauntee more people will use chocobo than airship a lot of the time.

[Aion]

Isnt we only have one port for each region? so basically we still arent "going anywhere instantly using airship"

[Mikita]

It doesn't hurt my immersion at all, and I really like having the teleport option.
It saves a lot of time when I'm in a rush or when someone is waiting for me.
And when I'm not in a rush I just run to my destination, even if my anima is usually at 100.

I'll probably enjoy the instant travel airships and chocobos too.

They are options.
We're free to use or not use them. ^^