Guild Wars 2

Is there a lore or story explanation for the paying of monies to teleport to a waypoint?

According to Angel McCoy?

“It magically disappears from your pocket and into the Arcane Council’s treasury.”

That was her actual explanation… It just gets teleported out of your pocket.

Ironically that interview – which sparked a kitten-hits-the-fan reaction from the lore community due to not only that but the announced calendar change (which was also given a pathetic explanation) and more – has been taken down about a year ago.

Not really, other than a tongue in cheek comment by an ANet person that the Asura running the transport network abstract the coins from your pocket in transit.

In lore, though, it does seem the waypoints require proximity to use — you can’t wp from just anywhere in the world despite game mechanics — and are manufactured and maintained by asura techs who charge for transport.

So this is one of those cases where game mechanics doesn’t or maybe can’t mimic lore?

Yes and no. There are actual in-game lore instances where people mention the ‘waypoint fee’.

It’s not accessible anymore, but in Season 1, shortly after the marionette battle Logan escorts Taimi out and she mentions something along the lines of, ‘Okay! So long as you pay the waypoint fee’. It’s probably no-where close to that, and I’m struggling to find any dialogue related to it on the wiki, but I distinctly remember it since it’s one of the rare moments they mention waypoint fees.

I believe it’s also heavily implied that using waypoints is very expensive (despite how cheap they are in-game) and impractical for most of the citizens of Tyria. As Donari has also pointed out, most NPCs shown using them physically have to travel to the actual waypoint before they can travel to another as well.

To be fair to Angel, I’m not sure if there’s really an easy way to explain your money magically disappearing from your pockets. I suppose she could have just gone, ’It’s a gameplay thing. No lore – sorry!’ but every explanation I try to think of is a bit contrived and silly.

The dialogue you want is at this page! on the wiki. (EDIT: Grr, the ! is not being part of the url no matter what, but wiki “Hold the line!”)

Logan Thackeray: “You’re a child!”
Taimi: “You’re a super genius.”
Logan Thackeray: “What are you doing out here? Who are you with?”
Taimi: “I’m not supposed to talk to nosy strangers.”
Logan Thackeray: “Where are your parents?”
Taimi: “Dead.”
Logan Thackeray: “Um, okay. You’re obviously a long way from home. You come with me.”
Taimi: “By whose authority are you ordering me around?”
Logan Thackeray: “By the authority vested in me by Queen Jennah of Divinity’s Reach. Now, come with me.”
Taimi: “I’m not going with you until I know where you’re taking me.”
Logan Thackeray: “To Lion’s Arch. Then, to Rata Sum. You’ve got no business out here on the battlefield.”
Taimi: “Are you paying the waypoint fees?”
Logan Thackeray: “Yes. Now, come on.”
Taimi: “You seem like a pleasant enough travel companion. C’mon, Scruffy. This nice human is taking us home.”

JayMack.8295:

To be fair to Angel, I’m not sure if there’s really an easy way to explain your money magically disappearing from your pockets. I suppose she could have just gone, ’It’s a gameplay thing. No lore – sorry!’ but every explanation I try to think of is a bit contrived and silly.

Simple:

“In order to use waypoints in the lore of the game, you have to interact with them. This would be shown in-game by walking under them, but they’d have a device, powered by golem-like sentience, underneath (such as seen at the Temple of Dwayna in Orr) where you’d interact with where you want to go, and a place to deposit the fee. The fee is then transfered via miniature gate to the Arcane Council’s treasury. That same device also prevents hostiles and unauthorized individuals from using waypoints, and disconnects the waypoints from the system (making them “contested”) should a lot of said hostiles and unauthorized individuals be nearby.

This would be a lot of work to show in at every waypoint, so we just had the waypoint itself – and it would be limiting from a gameplay perspective if players had to walk to the waypoints to use them, so we don’t have that shown through mechanics."

Nothing silly. All logical. All seen in-game to various minor degrees. And I literally made that up, just now, on the spot.