A Return to Interactive Transportation - Airships & Ferry Rides

[colonel_spyder]

As long as there's a skip button

Of course. I am simply suggesting to have it as an available feature for those who would enjoy it such as myself. Not replace the current system.

[Fawkes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUgeChLVgGA

It's kinda what I was hoping Ocean Fishing would be, but they made that very minigame-y.


FFXI had a repeatable quest for airship rides, presumably to give people something to do during the ride. It was essentially the "Skinchange We Can Believe In" GATE. You were given a dropped item and shown a randomly generated NPC to return it to, and there would be a bunch of similar looking NPCs on the airship. Maybe they could add airship rides to FFXIV as a way of bringing back a version of that GATE?

[MikkoAkure]

I believe this feature was a thing in 1.0, similar to FFXI (I always enjoy the airship rides). Didn't take long to go from one area to the next within minutes, certainly not weeks (unlike raising your own Chocobo in XI which took about a month in real time). I think the way it worked was similar to an instance; you're on an airship but the world below was made smaller to make you believe you are well above the clouds. Same with ferry/boat rides. The possible reason I suspect they did away with that stating in 2.0 was "to respect or player's time" and not offer that as a choice as it would also save on resources required.

We had ferry journeys from Limsa to Vesper Bay in 1.0 where we had to be on the ship the whole time with no skipping cutscenes. Airships were instant, but we were told that the intention was for it to be like FFXI where you would spend the whole time on the airship and the airships even arrived to each city on a schedule and you could see them flying in and out and even overhead in the world zones according to the schedule. But the airship rides were never implemented for whatever reason and they even took the ferry away from us.

How many days or weeks of actual game time would players realistically tolerate to travel from Limsa Lominsa to Tuliyollal? The cutscene is about two minutes long, but the implied in‑universe travel time is 2–3 weeks. The Limsa to Kugane voyage is even longer, around 3–4 weeks in lore.

Even the train from Tuliyollal to northern Tura, which is one of the shortest “major” trips in Dawntrail, would take 6–12 hours in‑universe. The cutscene compresses that into 30–40 seconds.

FFXI managed to have ferry rides to and from Aht Urghan, which was on a different continent just fine despite any lore problems.


Travel in 1.0 and in FFXI was tedious and FFXIV is a much faster-paced game and the lack of an anima system for teleportation or WHM-only teleports means that there's just not a reason for it, despite how neat it would be.

[SkankyRoe]

Only if it's optional and not on a forced schedule. I frequently utilized the airships in RO back in the day and the novelty wears off VERY quickly for some of us

[DiaDeem]

I'd unironically would love a train line that takes you from place to place.

Trains are on a schedule, and rides take 10 IRL minutes. They take you through wonderful areas not normally seen, and you can sit on the car, or walk around, and of course there's other passengers!

I'd spend hours just riding that all over the place.

[ThreeBeastSmile]

I'd get behind this. Puts me in mind of when in Everquest II there'd be a ship voyage to even get to another land for the first time, that were later removed (or made optional, I really can't remember). They were access quests. You still had to wait for a boat to arrive to take you places, until that was made optional too and you could just click a bell (again iirc, it's been a long time).

Maybe I'm just more chill when it comes to PvE, but I'm really not bothered by having to wait for transport to arrive and in real time. I also still use chocobo porters when the mood takes. It's my way of divorcing myself from the perpetual rush rush rush that seems to be so pervasive in real life (or most online stuff honestly...) and I don't want it to creep into an RPG. When on business (suchlike once in an instance and etc.) I tend to be full throttle so I need a balance. Those pauses to travel are nice for that. I'm quasi in-character for most of my playtime too so I appreciate the immersion.

Likely pipedream stuff though, this. Sadly. There does need to be more ways to engage with the world around asides from text-heavy stuff.

[Themarvin]

I think it would be awesome if you needed 5 to 10 minute rides towards various regions with airships or by ship or submarines and the likes...

But I wish the areas namely expansion in games would carry greater weight for the game play overall for the max level.. every single expansion offer next to no content for max level.. not even Dawn Trail.... you now more or less got all empty regions in the game, which is sad sad sad.

[Luluna]

In 1.0 you could do this I have a lot of old screens on my very old pc gathering dust but I do need to dig them out.

I loved this in FFXI is was fun waiting or missing the air ship and the ferry from carpenters landing in FFXI where a NM might pop while you are travelling along. In 1.0 you could sit inside and out and enjoy the calm although sometimes there where storms and a lot of lightning. I loved it and I know a lot like the rush rush but for me I like to take my time. I am older and prefer the older more laid back gaming experience.

[Haventale]

That is an adorable idea and I love it!

[OdrN]

Airships were instant, but we were told that the intention was for it to be like FFXI where you would spend the whole time on the airship and the airships even arrived to each city on a schedule and you could see them flying in and out and even overhead in the world zones according to the schedule. But the airship rides were never implemented for whatever reason and they even took the ferry away from us.

And we can find remnants of airship docks in the game like the one in South Shroud.

It's a nice idea even if in that game that would result in: place of origin > queue for a travel > loading screen > travel > loading screen > destination.
But since they didn't even bother to make cinematics for the few airship journeys already available (only the ARR zones have them, I was very disappointed when they dedicated a quest to restore the airship travels between Eulmore and Crystarium just to have a loading screen...), it's very unlikely that this will happen.

In the next MMO maybe, if it's a real open world with no loading screens. I would use it.