Guild Wars 2

So the game has been out for 4 years. We have boats and airships in the game and in the lore…..but most of them are NOT MOVING at all.

On some occasion we see them moving, like airships bombing enemies in The Silverwastes, or dropping supply in WvW (from Eotm), or cutscenes like in LS3 en route to Bloodstone Fen, and the trailer for Rising Flames patch where we see a boat moving, but nowhere to be found in-game. And the only legit moving ride-able airship i know is from the Zhaitan fight – personal story, let me know if i missed something.

I remember playing WoW back in the ol’days(wotlk), and even back then that game had flying airships that circle around the map….which leads me to the airship in Gendaran Fields, which never moves…..dmn. I also remember GW1 had the same problems and had no moving boats, except for cutscenes, which were pretty bad imo.

So, long story short, is it a techonological limitation that the game we love has no moving boats and airships in-game that we can ride and relax on? Its bad enough we don’t have horses in Tyria(and i don’t even care about mounts), then we get to Ember Bay through an Asura Gate and not through the boat that was showin in the trailer(Its kinda funny how we go all around the ring of fire and the 1st map we land on is the farthest one).

TL’DR: why don’t we have moving Boats and Airships that we can ride in the open world.

i would love to see that and get some panoramic view of tyria.
i remember during the crown pavillion event there were baloons, i got so hyped at the idea of flying in ne and than it was just a loading screen like a normal waypoint. but it was 3 years ago, we couldn’t fly back than

yeh it was sad, i was so excited when i saw those baloons in crown pavilion during the 1st bday of the game, but when i rode it and it was just a waypoint, i was so sad….i also remember the catapult in Diessa Plateau in order to get a certain skill point on top of a tall tower also worked the same way, would have been nice to be thrown into the air much like the new mastery in Ember Bay but it just loads you to the tower and you get knockdown’d.

That would also go along with unlocking the airship in the lost precipice guild hall but not being able to use it. Would be nice if when you do guild missions we have the option to load up on it and fly to the spot and get dropped off.

Daiki.6237:

That would also go along with unlocking the airship in the lost precipice guild hall but not being able to use it. Would be nice if when you do guild missions we have the option to load up on it and fly to the spot and get dropped off.

speaking of riding airships and dropping off….it would be fun if airships can drop off people in WvW keeps. obviously it won’t be spammable and would cost a humongous amount of supply, but it would be a fun change for zerg battles. Like instead of people spamming a waypoint to get back and defend a keep, players will be parachuted down/fall down slowly (not gliding). For offensive purposes your zerg would be dropped off inside the enemy keep which basically bypasses the outer gate, but not more than that. Idk it just looks fun.

I think Anet has opted out of boats with a very good lore excuse that they didn’t even touch (and won’t touch for quite some time apparently), since the Unending Ocean (and probably every adjacent sea if you go far enough from shore) is literally a tentacle hentai fest at the moment with the Deep Sea Dragon (he was kitten enough to drive the karka, the largos, the quaggan and the apparently immense and magically powerful krait civilization away from the depths).

As for airships, the only limitation would be travelling across diferent instances; there are very huge maps around (of which ember bay is a good example), and an itinerant airship that travels accross it from time to time would be fitting for some event I guess. We could also have a static airship that keeps going around and we can go to and from it, hell maybe it’s the only safe spot on a map, e.g we’re deep inside Jormag’s territory and after 30 mins down on the frozen tundra we get a nasty debuff lest we get back to itinerant airship or use some item, don’t know how moving waypoint would work though. I don’t think there are any developing or engine limitations: dynamic events happen all accross the map (i.e moving events) and NPCs even before HoT guild missions would be able to circumvent most of the map in a circular manner. Controlling a personal airship would be a problem (and unnecessary, as the asura gates and waypoints, as well as our gliders are hands off way more practical) but having a moving part of the map I don’t think would be so hard at all. Also, this will never happen, but WvW airship battles would just be so hot.

maxwelgm.4315:

(he was kitten enough to drive the karka, the largos, the quaggan and the apparently immense and magically powerful krait civilization away from the depths).

You know something is Bad when it makes the Karka flee and make them consider the Fire Island Chain to be a nice Home compared to Fighting with him and yeah. The Krait, they still haven’t recovered from having their Civilisation being destroyed. Even the Skritt are better off than the Krait now ( and some Scratches star Civilisation again )

I agree with OP, its sad that we don’t have moving airships and boats in the open world that you can ride on. Getting to new maps through asura gate is lame. Having airships in maps like in Bloodstone Fen and Gendaran Fields that don’t move is depressing as well, if you don’t have the technology for moving airships then don’t make them airships instead make it a platform. Hopefully in the future Anet learns new tech to be able to make the open world more immersive.

It makes me wonder, how hard could it be to make boats and airships move, slightly offtopic but all world bosses basically are on platforms, none of them patrol the map, it feels like your in an instance or raid where bosses are in a circle platform and can’t move out of them.

Game engine is super limited, they have extended the max they can since its a fork from gw1 engine, stil they did a pretty good job still went old to way to fast, due how Anet managed its progression, way to much spam game, to much thempark, poor guild system, WvW vcould be better explored, and another tons of reason…

I was expecting that dragons could atack on any map place for examples, where players and airships could be a thing.. game dont even support that, due the game shards results being diferent.

Both boats or airships would be with a scripted path like the dull mission of the vanilla dragon.. boring…. all they did was a dumb gimmick for EB SMC, where at the request of many players they had to crease the damage…

WvW system were a total failure to, poor gameplay and poor thinking on to resolve it on the simplest way and better, and now it is very hard to make it better since what is wrong in this game is what they think it is good, all they do now is cover with more aoe spam….cannons.

The landing on the Straits of Devastation would have been so much more epic if the other 2 fronts didn’t have to swim there…

From I can understand, the game can’t handle moving platforms very well.
The Ship in the Zaitan “fight” is supposed to be moving, but you’ll notice that it’s glitchy as F.

Yeh…techonological limitations in this game scks. It would have been a more immersive experience to see boats in lakes and rivers in the game, and airships that patrol around the map.

There are large bodies of water in a few of the maps in the game, large enough to have boats that actually sail and circle around the map, Orrian boats would have been nice if they were moving in the orr maps instead of being frozen in place or sunk in the bottom of the ocean, the latter having a good reason… There are also boats in Gendarran field and Lornars Pass that are frozen on spot as well. GW2’s underwater experience is an upgrade compared to most other mmos of its genre but no sailing boats outside cutscenes is a big immersion crushing experience.

The baloon in divinitys reach during the crown pavilion and the catapult in diessa plateau also breaks immersion big time as others mentioned, as it just loads you to the next spot in the map like a waypoint.

a few charr choppers(helicopters) in the game(orr maps and story mode and LS2), just load you to the next part of the map as well, with a badly made custcene.

2 airships that you can board, which are in gendarran fields and in bloodstone fen are apparently hovering on spot, with no other reason other than technological limitations in the game, is just a sad sad part of the game. Like others mentioned, if Anet can’t make them move, then stay away from airships, because airships are meant to patrol around the map while in the air, just as boast should be sailing in the sea.

I do hope that in future expansions this is changed for newer maps, as i understand that they won’t have enough devs to fix and change this little things for older maps. I hope Anet makes this game a more immersive experience.

The thing with things like boats and airships in my opinion is that the novelty will wear off. It might be cool to take the boat or whatever a few times, take some screen shots and enjoy the ride, but after that it gets old and is a slow method of travel. Once the novelty has worn off people will just take waypoints as usual because it is much faster.

So it seems to me like a lot of work to put something in game that after a short amount of time most people will not use.

Theres really no point unless there is some reason as to why the boats and airships are really needed, ie you can only go somewhere by these methods of transportation that you cant get too by any other methods, otherwise they just become a cosmetic addition to the game which will take a lot of Dev time for next to no return.

the whole point of it, is to make the open world more immersive. It’s not there to be cool or anything, its there because it only makes sense that they are moving and not idle. I love playing rpg’s and get my fix for immersive open world experience like witcher, halo, dragon age, mass effect and so forth, i’m sure its not alot to ask to have that small change in my favorite mmo.

Yes it may take some of devs time, but once a change has occured it will be the new normal and won’t take anymore time than it should for future content. It may be a small change, but theses little details do make a lot of people happy, as other changes on Quality of Life updates have done so when the devs make changes.

I really just want an answer from a Dev if such a thing is possible for our game, and if they ever considered it.

mauried.5608:

otherwise they just become a cosmetic addition to the game which will take a lot of Dev time for next to no return.

I’m really sick of seeing this type of argumentation – doubtful if it’s even a point. With that mindset you could also scrap the whole game. “Why do we need chicken running around in Ebonhawke, it’s just a cosmetic addition to the game which took Dev time for next to no return. Why do we need fish swimming in the water, birds flying in the sky, it’s not necessary.There are more important things in the game the devs should work on.”

If you want a game which doesn’t pay attention/invests time into the design of the environment, then you might as well choose to play pong.

Tekey.7946:

mauried.5608:

otherwise they just become a cosmetic addition to the game which will take a lot of Dev time for next to no return.

I’m really sick of seeing this type of argumentation – doubtful if it’s even a point. With that mindset you could also scrap the whole game. “Why do we need chicken running around in Ebonhawke, it’s just a cosmetic addition to the game which took Dev time for next to no return. Why do we need fish swimming in the water, birds flying in the sky, it’s not necessary.There are more important things in the game the devs should work on.”

If you want a game which doesn’t pay attention/invests time into the design of the environment, then you might as well choose to play pong.

i totally agree, little details make the game from good to better to great. When people reason that any change outside new content because it takes out of devs time is an overly used excuse. We all want to make this game great and going for many more years, and thats why these ideas come out on the forum for a dev to see.

i also do hope this gets changed by devs in the near future.

I remember when the airship to Genderan Fields came about. When they released the pass for it. I was so excited by the notion of Airships.

Back then I used to think, I hoped, that the airship would travel around Tyria, making stops in the various locations that the LS was taking us to. It could have been such a great tool.

Instead, it just sits there, as does my permanent pass.

Telemin.7380:

I remember when the airship to Genderan Fields came about. When they released the pass for it. I was so excited by the notion of Airships.

Back then I used to think, I hoped, that the airship would travel around Tyria, making stops in the various locations that the LS was taking us to. It could have been such a great tool.

Instead, it just sits there, as does my permanent pass.

lol i was the same, i thought it would move out of the spot after a week or 2, either move around the map or move to another map, sadly we got nothing but a platform in the sky.

There are dragons flying above occasionally, and in Dragon’s Stand they even make dive-bomb attacks. So it seems to me that they COULD have airships and ocean ships in the sky moving around, they just choose not to. I’d also like to see things like leaping dolphins and breaching whales in the ocean areas.

Not saying I demand to ride on these things, although that would be even better. But it definitely does help the “immersion” feel of these areas.

It would be cool if someone from Anet could confirm its because of limitation, I too felt teased every time I saw an airship, boat, etc hoping it would move. Little things like that really add a lot to the game IMO. Just a boat that docks and moves between 2 islands in a map would be a small, but immersive thing. It would definitely be my favorite map, lol.

And don’t forget to request that when the boats dock and airships land, they extend or drop their ramps and we all ride out on our mounts.

Blude.6812:

And don’t forget to request that when the boats dock and airships land, they extend or drop their ramps and we all ride out on our mounts.

I NEVER played wow and never intend to lol. I’ve been playing GW since prophecies came out but I still want immersive moving objects, in any game I always think they are fun PS, Xbox, etc

Relating a moving vehicle to WOW is just stupid, it’s probably in most games in some form.

Deadly.3298:

Blude.6812:

And don’t forget to request that when the boats dock and airships land, they extend or drop their ramps and we all ride out on our mounts.

I NEVER played wow and never intend to lol. I’ve been playing GW since prophecies came out but I still want immersive moving objects, in any game I always think they are fun PS, Xbox, etc

Relating a moving vehicle to WOW is just stupid, it’s probably in most games in some form.

What did I do? I never mentioned WoW! It was just a tongue in cheek comment about similar requests like mounts that have no place in the game.T he devs need to waste their time on developing it (them). There are much more important things that the devs should address/fix before addressing personal bling requests.