Guild Wars 2

Let me preface this with – I have read each Users posts regarding the Travel System as both envisioned and implemented.

The actual central ideas that the GW2 Travel System either promotes fast travel, breaks immersion, should be harder/easier/less expensive I understand but do not necesarily agree with their sentinments.

IMHO the key issues of the Travel System is that it flat actually does not enable fast travel, and also discourages Grouping, inhibits players not already self endowed with more Gold than they will attain thru normal adventuring, & questing. and thereby contradicts the spirit of the ‘Manifesto’ that Anet offered to promote how GW2 stands apart from other MMO’s.

The Waypoint system and the its seeming Archaic/chaotic World Map dispersion of Zone by Tiers make the Travel In Tyria a very tedious and time consuming process. It also discourages Players from bothering or even wanting to try out a different Profession or Race based solely on it’s cumbersome and wasteful implementation.

As far as viable solutions/suggestions I have thought of in my Travels both in Beta and now In Game after launch are:

1. Reduce the number of Zone Portals available as indicated:

a. A single Centralized Master Zone Portal in Lion’s Arch that graphically displays the destination hub portals available to it on the World Map: e.g. Capital Cities of each Race, The Mists, and other key Town/Quest Hub Portals(s) as necessary.

c. Sub Portals at these destinations that display only the available destination Portals in it’s own regional area.

My own interest in this regard is that Anet should streamline the entire theTravel System into one that actually Promotes vice Discourages players investing their time or willingness to Group with comrades on the opposite sides of the World/Map.

Does this further break Immersion? To some I am sure that it would… but the pursuit of the Mythical Immersion that players value so much is thwarted even more by the system in current use just as it is standing outside a Dungeon entrance spammin /says of LFM every 10 mins until you actually have a full group!!

Do I want to bypass the excitement/enjoyment of combat in each zone? Yes & No .

I’d prefer a logical/responsive Travel System that enhances both vice requiring player the current slogging thru multiple Zones without being hampered by delays from content they have already quested in.

It breaks Immersion to have to conform to this unnecessary time sink in order to experience new content or joining distant groups. It does not actually promote Replayablilty of Zones… It cheapens the experience I wished to have with an an Alt/native to a given Zone or geographic region for the ‘first time. I’d prefer not to pharm lower zones with my Main who will soon achieve Lvl 80. The current Travel system will actually diminish my desire to actually play any of my four Alts in their own Racial Areas as first time explorers. Too much been there/done that for my blood!

- Z

You call the existing system a time sink so you want less ability to quick travel?

I’m confused…

Regardless… I disagree with everything that you posted.

It’s not only unclear what your problem with the system is, but also what you’d think would fix it. And your suggestions for changes are completely baffling. I don’t understand what they have to do with anything.

For me, I just want waypoints in capital cities to be free from anywhere in the world. Saves on load screens having to go from WvW to LA to whatever other city and then to the waypoint of your actual destination.

I’ve read through this post three times now and I have to say, I don’t understand what your message is. Maybe it’s a non-native-language issue, I don’t know, but what you’ve written isn’t clear in most places, and pretty garbled in many.

“IMHO the key issues of the Travel System is that it flat actually does not enable fast travel, and also discourages Grouping, inhibits players not already self endowed with more Gold than they will attain thru normal adventuring”

What? Could you support this with proof? Because asura portals ARE how you fast travel, and they DON’T break grouping (if I assume that you mean that if one person travels through a gate, the rest of the group somehow can’t? Because that’s entirely untrue.) And the cost is there as a bit of a gold sink, yes, but also to encourage exploration rather than leaping from point to point. I was able to fast travel right from the start with my first character as soon as I hit my first or second waypoint.

I also can’t understand your solution in the slightest. You want to…make fewer waypoints, so fast travel (which you say at the moment isn’t fast enough) will be slower, because the current system of fast travel is a timesink, and somehow slowing it down further and bottlenecking it will be…less of a timesink? And then something about immersion? Which, IMHO, isn’t an issue with the current system since Asuran technology is part of the actual mythology of the game.

I think I disagree with your post, but I’m not actually sure I understand your post in the first place.

What I don’t get is this “money sink” people keep talking about. Only once was I ever hard up for the meager cost of waypoint traveling, and that was when stupidly overbought stuff on the trading post.

If someone wants to bounce around the map all day long chasing any and everything, yea, sure, that can get expensive. But if they even want to do that, chances are they have other playstyle habits that probably provide a nice nest egg.

Heck, just sell one less yellow than you salvage, and you’ve got enough for the next waypoint.

As to the Op, as others have said: conflicting interests. You can’t reduce travel time by removing waypoints. The only way to reduce the cost is to, ya know, reduce the cost

Abledawg.1253:

a. A single Centralized Master Zone Portal in Lion’s Arch that graphically displays the destination hub portals available to it on the World Map: e.g. Capital Cities of each Race, The Mists, and other key Town/Quest Hub Portals(s) as necessary.

i do believe lions arch already has centralized portal area. differentiating between them is a matter of reading the gate names and/or looking at the npcs directly besides the gates and/or memorizing them. it isn’t a difficult or deterring task.

the mists’ gates are set aside in lions arch but you have a 24/7 openly available port to the mists right in your H window and WVW tab. honestly i don’t think any uses the mist portals in LA anyways lol

Travel hub Portal in each Capital, Major Town, or Play Style Hub which displays only Lion’s Arch and the sub Portals specically availble from it including only the zones within their it’s specific geographic region/coverage area.

c. Sub Portals at these destinations that display only the available destination Portals in it’s own regional area.

if i’m understanding this right, you’re saying that each city should have these sub-ports to its different maps within the same region. so divinity’s reach would have a main asura gate that allows travel to LA, and areas like Queensdale and Kessex Hills even.

while i can’t say i particularly disagree with this idea, i find it awkward for asura gates to be on every single map. in general, the asuran gates are used for long distance travel to key areas whereas waypoints are kind of convenient check points.

travelling can get expensive at higher levels, but when you’re in your lower levels it’s not but 10-20b per travel and you’re getting 1s+ per heart already at level 20. factor in drops from leveling and dungeons and your travelling fees should be covered so long as you aren’t porting around everywhere for no reason. hopefully later on mounts will be added to the game so travelling on feet isn’t so slow.