I have already seen lots of topics about removing or lowering the travelling costs to waypoints (indicating a demand), but I haven’t seen any good countermeasures/suggestions to back it up (correct me if I’m wrong, though).
First of all: argumentation to why removing the travelling costs: best to demonstrate with an example which I’m sure happens a lot to many social gamers:
When I’m on teamspeak (or ventrillo), I hear guildies of mine asking for help all the time. They cry out for help to get to that one POI guarded by several veterans or other nemesis’. I’d love to lend them a quick hand, but then I see that they are pretty much on the other side of the map, and I tell them that my help is not worth the 8 silver I have to pay to go back and forth. And the worst thing is: they understand! Obviously, I can’t imagine that ArenaNet wants their highly socially structured game to be looked upon like that, I presume!
Brings us to the suggestion: remove travelling costs to waypoints altogether!
Now the countermeasure: obviously, the main reason for travelling costs is the money-sink, which every good game-economy needs! Imo, to countermeasure the loss, I believe you can introduce new money-sinks in the following fields: accessing (stationary) banks + guild banks; accessing crafting stations; and if that’s not enough: accessing (stationary) merchants.
Let me evaluate:
banks and guild banks will obviously become very easily accessible and for free when there are no travel costs anymore. I believe an access rate should be introduced once you would like to access your (guild) bank storage, and will remain free afterwards for the entire time you stay in that area (say: Lions Arch). The moment you move to a different area, and you return to Lions Arch, you have to pay again! Golem bankers or other none permanent ways to access your bank storage will stay free, making them even more desirable (imo, not a bad thing!).
Crafting stations: the same idea! Imo, crafting, or at least some crafting professions are quite cheap to max (some (like jewelling) are even possible without any money-sink whatsoever). I believe ArenaNet should introduce an access fee whenever you access a station (and therefore also accessing your bank), more expensive than accessing your bank, and again, make that station free for the time you stay in that area. On top of that put in a very small charge for your process per crafting level, with the first 10 levels (or the equivalent to the access costs) for free! Make these charges automatic, and only warn + halting them if they do not have sufficient funds.
If all these new money-sinks are not enough, you could next to the aforementioned, introduce a system where you have to pay an initial fee whenever you talk to a merchant, make these charges scale per character level (making merchant costs free the first few levels).
I’m sure that would be enough money-sinks to counter the lost travel-sink!
TL;DR:
Suggestion: remove travelling costs to waypoints altogether!
Argumentation: quickly lending a hand to friends and other guildies is mostly a no-go due to these costs. You’d rather stick to your own story/area.
Counter-measure for lost money-sink: introduce new money-sinks: (stationary) (guild) bank access fee! crafting station access + crafting lvl progress fee! (optional: (stationary) merchant access fee).