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the father of modern fantasyWhen Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, wrote "The road goes ever ever on," MMOs took him at his word. A large part of online gaming consists of traveling from one point to another. Whether it is because a quest sends you on an errand, you need to return to your class trainer or you want to buy and sell goods, enormous amounts of game time are drained just getting to where you are going. Aside from running the distance, there are three basic forms of travel enhancement and all of them could use some work. These are mounts, conveyances (horse, boat, gryphon, etc.) and class skills. Mounts simply increase a player's base travel speed. It has the benefit of still allowing people to go where they will by whatever route they choose, though if the distances are great, even double speed makes for a long trip. Yet I wonder that time saving appears to only be a concern for high level characters. Is there a particular reason why a Level 60 should be able to travel at twice the speed of a Level 1? Is their time somehow more precious? I hardly think so! Some might argue that higher level players have further to travel, yet for greater distances conveyances are used, not mounts, so that statement falls flat. A second counterargument is more valid: prestige. I'm all for players earning perks in games, but one of those should never be time. If it just comes down to prestige, give me a grungy donkey to ride at Level 1 and let me work my way up to fancy warhorse. So long as the speed benefit is there, the basic time savings are retained across the board. The final counterargument concerns the ability to race through monsters with relative ease but this is just as easily fixed. The donkey could be made with no resistance to attack, which means a single enemy strike will unhorse the Level 1 while the warhorse requires more damage before the rider is thrown. This brings up another point on mounts. Why do they cost a kidney? In both WoW and LOTRO, if you simply quest and level you will not have nearly enough money to afford a mount and the riding skill by the time you achieve the level where they are available. Generous guilds help out some poverty-stricken players. Those less fortunate (or more independent minded) have to turn to other options. Some who may not have an interest in game economics must resort to barter. Others waste even more time camping spawns for cash. Or they can just wait until much later when they can finally afford a mount long after the required level is reached. Then again, many resort to illegally buying gold from gold farmers. Is that what games want to encourage? And all of this is just to make better use of what time we have to game. It's absurd. The second technique is not-so-quick travel along prearranged routes by conveyances. I say not-so-quick because all too often we are forced to sit through long rides. I recently was playing WoW and had to travel from Darnassus to Gadgetzan. It took twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of just watching a gryphon flap its wings? That's productive game play. I took out a book and read. The sad thing is that this is just one trip of thousands that occur every day in games. So why must we sit through such long rides? Why not make them instantaneous? AC did it. You find a portal and presto, you're on the other side at some distant location. LOTRO does instant travel for a few of their routes, but not for all. In some of these cases, only high levels can travel instantly, while lower levels (who apparently are unworthy of having their time saved) must sit through a meaningless gallop to the destination. EVE's warp jumps are just gruesome; I spent more time traveling on auto-pilot than playing the game. WAR has finally gone back to instant travel, but you still have to sit through a cinematic... why not let us cut that short too?
buy wow gold 8:23 AM - 29/12/2008
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Description wow fans, let's enjoy the excitement of playing wow. Home User Profile Archives Friends Buy WOW GOLD Google Checkout Age of Conan GOLD WOW Gold WOW Power Leveling Cheap AOC Gold ffxi gil Eve isk Ever Quest Gold Anarchy online credits wowgoldoooo vwowgoldoooo vwowgold vwowgoldooo Recent Entries - make players sit through some of their routes - the father of modern fantasy - the time you are fighting in regular battles - The biggest problem - how well this system will work in the reality of the game |