Does instant transportation effect game immersion?

[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?

[lackofwords]

The novelty of traveling on an airship such as the one in FFXI was enjoyable the first dozen rides. Afterwards, I've become jaded to the experience and usually went AFK while riding an airship or ferry. Same concept applied here in FFXIV's ferry.

As for teleport, it is true if you're only focusing on doing leves, which has been trimmed down over time to cater to mostly causal solo players. Taking that target group into consideration, those players usually do not want to 'stop and smell the roses'. If you're heading off to a grind party, usually you have to run on a foot a bit to the target location as you do when you teleport in FFXI. (E.G. Puks and Skeletons at Nanawa Mines)

In short, exploration is nice the first time, such as running between the three city-states the first time. However, it's not exploration anymore if you've seen the area once already. It becomes a daily routine if you are covering the same terrain again. (E.G. running between Ul'dah to Nanawa Mines) I feel no more immersed in the world traveling the same terrain multiple times.

[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"

[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.

[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. ^^

[Delsus]

All game devs need to come to a compromise between immersion and conviniance. If you think teleports kill immersion and destroy the game for you then you can run everywhere, but this takes along time in the large world we have, which is why they give the options to teleport/use the airship or run.

Imo ffxi did this wrong because the time the airships took to get to sandy windy and bastok took that long it was faster to teleport and ride a chocobo to the cities than go to jeuno, wait for the airship then fly there, an airship should be faster than teleport and chocobo or the airships will go unused.

This does not kill immersion for me, it adds to conviniance, I dont want to have to run for 1hr-1hr 30 to get from LL to Ishgard (when its open) if I can use and airship or teleport I will.

Also I dont get these immersion arguments, first people say teleports and airships kill immersion and destroy the game, but then they want unlimited inventory, while it is more conviniant than being limited to 100 spaces, it is worse for immersion than teleports and airships, how many items can you carry on your person at once? Wheres the logic in these arguments?

Finally the reps have already said that instant airship travel is only tempory because everyone was crying about wanting them, SE gave us them and will refine them in future patches, we got what we asked for and everyone still complain, quit whining and let SE work on them like they said they would.

[Lyndis]

I think both Jynx and Azurymber have it right. I agree with this topic and sadly I know I'm in the minority here.

Immersion is a key point of the Final Fantasy series, just as much as airships and chocobos. In fact immersion is key in any story. Also I believe that seeking immersion in another world is what MMO's are supposed to be about.

So please people, support this idea and give it more thought. I can think of so many reasons why Immersion should be a focus for this game but I'd be typing all night. Maybe another time.

[viion]

cant fly to mordhona or fly to coerthas (right now) or fly to iron lake, can fly to limsa, and what do i miss? i miss a bit of Thanalan that i've seen 4 million times repeatative, but i still have to run from limsa to iron lake, or take choco.

Could fly to Grid and miss a bit of Thanalan and a bit of grid that i've seen countless times. Still have to run/chocobo from there to get to my final destination.

[Zuellni]

I don't have a problem with instant airship travel. It will be enjoyable when they add the optional cutscene/airship ride, but it will also be convenient to be able to skip it sometimes as well. What I do have a problem with is the fact they spent the development time to create the inter-city airships when all they're really going to be are glorified inter-city teleports. They could have nixed the Anima cost for teleporting to cities and saved some resources. Perhaps divert the airship team into making player owned/controlled ones.