A Return to Interactive Transportation - Airships & Ferry Rides

[JohnLakeside]

YES PLEASE !!!!

[TheDustyOne]

While I'd love to see something like an old-school MMO transportation system as someone who kinda enjoyed those trips to and from Orbis in Maplestory, I think this would only work if you were to advertise it more as a role-playing opportunity rather than any kind of meaningful addition to gameplay. Rather than a set time-table, you just have the option for skipping the ride or temporarily going into a 20 minute or so instance (with the first 5 minutes being a boarding period for other players to join) where you get to explore the deck of an airship/train/boat/whatever that other players can also be in. Add an NPC there to let you "sleep off the trip" so you can be on your merry way and I think that could work as a compromise system.

[Absurdity]

I think one of the big problems with real-time transportation in XIV is the simple fact that it's cut up into a bunch of smaller zones divided by loading screens.

Maybe that's just me but I think it defeats the entire purpose if the public transportation just puts you into a separate instance for the duration of the ride.
A big factor for me when it comes to old-school MMO transportation is that you can actually see it happen in real time, even if you're not using it yourself.
Let's say you're just questing in a zone and this big train with a bunch of players on it goes by. Or you see airships move through the sky in real time.

As the game is right now this just wouldn't work well.