[CF-Devel] On teleportation

Mon Oct 27 16:29:28 CST 2003

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003, Mark Wedel wrote:

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      Preston Crow wrote:

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      > On Fri, 2003-10-24 at 16:07, Todd Mitchell wrote:

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      >

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      >>There are already potrals in the apartments,

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      >

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      >

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      > Yup.  I was thinking that the apartment portal system could be revamped

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      > a bit.  My thought would be to change it to have the apartment have a

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      > room that has a gateway to each apartment.  When you first enter the

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      > room from an apartment, all you see is a key and a door.  Every time you

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      > buy a new apartment (and buy access to the room of doors, if necessary),

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      > you open up one more connection.

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        Yeah - could be pretty simple - just put each teleporter behind a door that

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      you need to buy a key for.

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        For that matter, a teleporter shop for money is similarly easy - put

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      teleporters behind timed gates.  Player drops sum of money that activates timed

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      gate, at which point he walks through.

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        In practice, several players could could contribute and probably all get

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      through the gate before it closes again.  Which I wouldn't consider a bad thing.

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        Anyways, back to teleporters on the big world:

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        I don't have a problem with fast transportation to the various cities, for a

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      fee.  So you can eliminate the scorn to navar city travel time to near zero if

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      you want to spend xyz platinum.

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        I do have a problem with setting up teleporters that drop you near

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      'interesting' dungeons.  As said, if we're going to do that, why not just put

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      the dungeon right in the city then?

Ok, let's _answer_ that question "why not just put the dungeon right in
the city then?" ! I think there may be only _one_ acceptable answer and
several wrong. The acceptable one is: let's make sure players have to
_find_ that dundeon. This can be assured with a DiabloII style
teleportation system. One of the others is like "make sure players can't
get there so easily all the time". Why? For the first time - I agree. But
the second? Third? Why? Besides, placing dungeons right into the
town to enable it's access fast and easy is not more crazy than placing
the dungeon far away to make it's access fast and slow.

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        I also think that such a change would make it more likely such dungeons are

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      always cleared out.

Is it (meaning placing dungeons in the middle of nowhere) _really_ a good
solution against clearing out? Of course not. Peepo who know their
locations will still clear them out, the difference will be only that 5-6
minute spent to get there. Or you think that 5-6 mins will change the
_mood_ of the players. Well, as I once said, _that_ would be a mistake,
for peepo _do_ like clearing dungeons (so why changing their mood?),
second, peepo _need_ to clear out dungeons in order to get xp and
treasure. (And cf _is_ a hack-and-slsh game, after all.)

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      Easier it is to get to, more players that will use it.

On the small world maps it was _not_ a problem. I don't think it would be
on the big world maps. And still, a one-way DiabloII-like teleport there
(or near to it) would not be an easier way than the current one on the
small world maps.

I do feel this thing is important. One should make a game harder _not_ in
a way that takes one's _real-time_almost_for_nothing_. A teleportation
system mentioned above would do no more than spare players some time. ( I
didn't say you should put such teleporters everywhere. I mentioned
hot-spots, aka areas, that are common anyway (meaning almost everyone
knows where they are and how to enter). You make a new area, consider
this: Is it important to find your way all the time you want to get there?
Yes - You do not put a teleporter here. (E.g. Rainbow Island) No - You do
put some teleporter there. (E.g. Ancient Pupland!) )

>

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        I don't have as much a problem with teleporters (one way) putting you some

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      spot on the world map.  These should just not be tied because there is a dungeon

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      next to it (example could be 'mid continent along the road'.

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        I'm wary of using teleporters extensively simply for reasons others have

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      mentioned - it diminishes the needs for existing teleporters located in guilds

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      and apartments, or the variosu spells for that matter (town portal, dimension door).

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        As for camping, I have a feeling few players would actually have their

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      character camp out waiting for a dungeon.  Most likely if you have time to play

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      right, you're not going to want to sit by the dungeon waiting for it to reset.

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      The only real use I could think of that might be something like 'time for bed.

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      But let me put my character next to dungeon xyz, so that when I return tomorrow

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      night, hopefully I can dive right in'.

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        As for moon or time based gates, that is fine by me - I also played whatever

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      ultima it was on. There are of course numerous ways to do that.  If I recall

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      ultima correctly, there were two moons.  The phase of the first moon would

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      determine if a particular gate was active, and the phase of the second moon

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      would then determine destination.

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        such an idea is interesting.  Especially, if as I recall, ultima did something

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      like one destination was only available at a certain moon phase.

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        Such a teleportation system, given the size of hte world, may not be a bad

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      thing.  However, under such a system, the gates should still be placed a bit

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      randomly, and not right next to whatever dungeon.  This is what I recall ultima

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      also did - the gates were scattered across the world.  some were near dungeons

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      or cities, but that in a sense was more by chance - many others were for lack of

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      better term in the middle of no place, but perhaps still closer than any near by

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      city.

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