Guild Wars 2

“I liked the gryphons because it did always give you a sense of the world size. And gryphons would really only be intra-zone anyway because GW2 is zone-based game rather than seamless”

Loved the gryphon, boat & airship systems in Warcraft (& the tram!). Not only makes the world stay larger, but a bit of downtime is a good thing in games and allows some time & space for people to communicate. But it’s a big feature in terms of development resources.

Bear in mind the idea of immersion means different things to different people and I am no expert in this field so the following piece is opinion, not an attempt at fact.

It’s not the concept of fast travelling that is immersion breaking but what happens when you do so.

When you use a waypoint you bring up an overlay that takes up the entire screen. You then select a location on this overlay, confirm your decision and then have a loading screen replace this overlay until you suddenly pop into your new location. Even if teleporting was an accepted and logical practice, this is not how it would work. Remember in real life when that loading screen or UI suddenly took up your entire view? Neither do I. May that ever happen? No. And you brain knows this.

An example of how something, in theory, could be more immersive is the asura gates. As it stands, you run up to a purple circle, floating text suddenly appears on said circle, you get the loading screen again and you pop in next to another purple circle somewhere else.
Alternatively, were it possible, they could function much like portals in Portal. You run up to a circle, see somewhere through the circle (possibly with some distortion) and simply run towards it until you are there, like in Portal. Although it is not like anything I will experience in real life, like loading screens, my mind can at least be convinced that this is consistent with what ‘should’ happen.

You may then say “But there are loads of things that aren’t like real life, such as third person view and the UI.” This is correct. These things I find do make it harder to get immersed, but since I don’t have to interact with them (except sometimes using the UI which does break things) my mind puts them in the background and concentrates on what is actually happening. I find only having to do things which my mind thinks are wrong breaks immersion.

So everytime I use a waypoint I have to do something my mind doesn’t think should happen. I am reminded that I am simply pressing buttons to make pixels on a screen change colour before once again becoming part of another universe. This does not in itself mean that removing the ability to fast travel would be a good idea but is one of the reasons why I would reduce the number of waypoints.

If it’s only “immersion breaking” because you open a map and click on where you want to go then simply don’t do it anymore.

You are in full control of when you do that. If that’s your reason then there’s certainly no need to take away the functionality for everyone because you would rather walk.

Unless someone has a reason why it’s immersion breaking for people (i.e. players in general) to use waypoints I still don’t see immersion breaking as a valid reason for changing anything.

You don’t need ANet to remove an entire feature because you personally don;t want to use it, they are not forcing you to use it.

I worry how many people use “it breaks immersion” as a catch-all excuse.

It’s not a “catch-all”, but it IS a large factor in game enjoyment for a lot of people, myself included.

Dragons, magic, robot/golom things, tree people, centaurs, all kinds of weird and wonderful things are perfectly acceptable and apparently keep you immersed in the world… but if there’s teleportation it completely shatters immersion!

Can anyone explain some actual logic behind this?

Okay, let me explain my take on it.

Let’s say you’re watching Lord of the Rings. The scenery, the acting, the action, it’s all drawing you into the movie. You’re enjoying the hell out of it.

Then suddenly one of the hobbits says “Hang on a sec” and pulls out a cellphone, and orders a pizza. A few minutes later a car pulls up alongside their horses and a guy hops out and gives him a pizza, then drives off.

It completely shatters your “immersion” in the movie, right?

Another example: You’re reading a mystery novel set in the 20’s, and getting really into it. Suddenly one of the characters starts saying things like “omg then u found teh murderer hiding in teh closet? lolz!” It would snap you out of your immersion in the book.

That’s what the ability to just click on the map and port anywhere does to a lot of people. It just shoves “you’re just playing a game” in your face.

It’s not that “teleportation” ruins peoples’ immersion. It’s that it’s handled in such a way that is completely NON-immersive. You don’t open a portal via some asuran techno-magic device and get ported somewhere. You just click the map and poof, you’re staring at (yet) another loading screen.

While they’re extremely convenient, they’re a very blatant “metagame mechanic” rather than something intrinsic to the way the world actually works. The asuran portals, for instance, are teleportation devices that work within the rules of the world. Waypoints, however, don’t. The NPCs make no mention of them and don’t use them. To the NPCs, the waypoints don’t even exist.

That’s why they’re not really “immersive” to me. They’re something out of place, that only exists for the players to make running around faster.

I don’t want them removed, since I do use them to move around, but they DO make the world feel a LOT smaller.

They’re not out of place, they cause events which if failed mean the waypoint is contested with mobs taking over the area which then spawns additional events to allow the players to recapture them.

And the lack of a portal animation is no reason for a feature to be removed.

It’s nothing like seeing a car in LOTRO because it’s not against the established lore, unless I am missing something?

What bugs me the most, is the fact that you can teleport to the Mist from anywhere, anytime. It feels like it’s in my pocket. IMO every sizable town should have a maximum of 1 waypoint, and none whatsoever in the wilderness.

There is way too many WP’s right now, and it ruins the game yes.

Jestunhi.7429:

They’re not out of place, they cause events which if failed mean the waypoint is contested with mobs taking over the area which then spawns additional events to allow the players to recapture them.

That’s a metagame mechanic.

And the lack of a portal animation is no reason for a feature to be removed.

Where did I say I wanted them removed?

It’s nothing like seeing a car in LOTRO because it’s not against the established lore, unless I am missing something?

Actually, teleportation without any sort of gate is supposedly something that only one little krewe of asura have come up with (they show it off to win the Snaff Prize during the asura starting quests). And even then it’s not perfect.

So yeah, everyone having a personal teleporter kind of flies in the face of the lore ANet’s written.

waypoints allow me ease of travel that would have otherwise deterred me from travelling in the first place. you can decrease them so people have to spend more time getting to their destination, and thus allowing for greater ‘immersion’, but it wouldn’t really do any good for anyone.

i say this because i don’t see the relationship between being able to play the game at your own pace, enjoying the scenery, etc and waypoint quantity.

there isn’t a correlation unless you add to it that you want others to spend their time travelling and playing at your pace too.

Wow, this topic is still up.

I’d like to add something to my view on waypoints. Waypoints actually frame a particular ‘theatre’ of battle when it is used right. Look at the waypoints that lead up to the lyssa statue at malchor’s leap (not the union one, the other one at the base camp).

When someone exits this waypoint and heads to lyssa, a ‘level’ of sorts is created, you need to get up the ramp, get pass the catapults, fight your way to the center, etc etc.

The more waypoints there are, the smaller these theatre of battles become. Intuitive placement of waypoints can actually help the game a lot by using it alongside the terrain to create a ‘level’ in which a person would be likely to undergo to reach a destination. When these are too frequent, these levels get smaller and end up just feeling like the journey is lost.

I am not a big fan of traveling long distances when I don’t want to.

I occasionally stroll about to look at the scenery and pick up crafting materials, but this is very rare as of now since most of the time I have things I actually need to do. Unless I’m 100%’ing the zone I have no desire to run everywhere.

Not to mention I play multiple characters throughout the day and I’ve already gotten tired of seeing the same zones.

If waypoints were removed, I wouldn’t even feel like playing in the PvE environment due to the massive time sink caused simply by running everywhere.

Besides, I already get the “massive world” feeling from GW2 when initially discovering the waypoints in a zone and hunting down jumping puzzle locations, why try and force it down my throat by removing the convenience of waypoints?

dimgl.4786:

Again, this is also not the point. I like the waypoint system, however, and you may not agree with me, using many waypoints is simply not a good design choice for several reasons:

• Waypoints ruin immersion by allowing you to instantly go anywhere
• Waypoints make it easier to skip through dynamic content, so players may never see some content unless they are forced to explore the world
• Rebuttal: the argument ‘simply don’t use them’ is ridiculous. When you are playing with friends, the waypoint system obviously doesn’t let you ‘not use them’, as people would be waiting for you to get to a location. Instead of taking a team and adventuring into a zone, you would simply teleport to the corresponding waypoint. Most of the time, at later stages in the game, it becomes easy mode to travel through the world. I can literally skip through entire areas just to get vistas, skill points, or even group together with a team. Again, I just feel like it’s catered to casual players so they can feel like they’ve gotten something done every time they log on.

There seem to be a select few posting on this which brings up another point against the waypoint issue. If I saw hundreds and hundreds of people complaining on here because they were so infuriated with the amount of waypoints then I think there might be an issue. But there are THOUSANDS of people who play this game who find the current system acceptable enough to not come in here and push a particular play style on others.

And it IS pushing a particular play style. The general complaint seems to be that the game isn’t functioning the way that YOU think it should function because people use the waypoints in a way that conflicts with your perception. But that’s the point isn’t it. People are using them the way THEY want to use them. Does it suck for your play style? Sure, but you don’t need to punish the general (and un-arguably larger) population of players to make the game function as you see fit. MOST of the players on here do not have the same cares and concerns that you do. Does that mean that your concerns are not valid? No. However, what you are asking for something changes the game considerably for many people, a game-breaker if you will.

On your first point? Immersion is subject to opinion and so, cannot be used as a reason. I feel quite immersed in the game as it stands. There is nothing about it that bothers me because it is GW2 game style and so I see that as a part of the world. That is MY perception. Others probably haven’t even thought about it.

On your second point? This is also subject to opinion because not everyone is an explorer and doesn’t care about every event and hidden location or heart. You also have completionists (like my self) who will scout out every corner of the map to find every nook and cranny. The people who don’t care about every nook and cranny don’t need to be punished and forced to find it all.

On your rebuttal. If you were playing with a group every second of the game and their play style bothers you then find a new group. This is still pushing something based on what you don’t like. None of these arguments are present a poor design choice for the majority of players. If people aren’t at an event or walking everywhere or as “immersed” as you, it’s because they choose not to be. And that’s the beauty of the design (In my opinion) it gives the player the choice. What you are arguing is like asking to pass a law where everyone has to walk everywhere they go because cars/planes/trains get you there too fast and we don’t have the opportunity to see the parks and walk into every store and therefore don’t utilize the world around us. It’s just silly. People will make those choices when they feel like it. People will absorb the things they prefer/enjoy.

If your complaint was that some of the events seem permanently broken then I would say that is overwhelmingly valid.

The average age of today’s gamer is 35. That being said, most people at 35 don’t have a whole day to waste just trying to get across a map in order for them to get to a point where they can do what they set out to do; play the game.

wumpusrat.4769:

Actually, teleportation without any sort of gate is supposedly something that only one little krewe of asura have come up with (they show it off to win the Snaff Prize during the asura starting quests). And even then it’s not perfect.

So yeah, everyone having a personal teleporter kind of flies in the face of the lore ANet’s written.

Pretty sure there was actually a quest in the original Guild Wars that involved the son of a woman that invented fast-map-travel. >_>

Edit: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Map-Travel_Inventor
So she didn’t invent it, but just told her son how to do it.