Quote:
Originally Posted by Huppy
Once in awhile, a player will log on and ask, "Is there a porter on this server?"
I say "What for?"
They tell me they don't want to run all over the place, would rather get ported.
I have started explaining to them all about the trick to avoiding that. I tell them
not to worry, this server is set up so your toon does all the running instead of you.
You can sit back in your chair, have a beer and your toon will run forever without
getting tired. But don't tell other servers, they will want the script for it. (smirk)
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This worked back when EQ released. Everything was new, fresh, and a sense of wonderment was attached to the game. Exploration was required. There was no in game cartography system. Fan sites were just starting to pop up. Every corner had something NEW to see.
15+ years later, that just doesn't really work as well as it used to. The crowd that grew up with game has seen it all. There's only so many times you can run from Butcher Boats to Kelethin for a Bind then on to Crushbone before it is no longer new, it is no longer novel, it is instead a time sink.
15+ years later, the crowd that grew up with the game have jobs, lives, wives, husbands, children. What we do not have is time for a time sink for the sole purpose of a time sink.
New blood just getting in to the game don't know the paths, don't know the shortcuts, and have hundreds of other games that give instant gratification just for playing. If you're after new players, something has to be in place to keep them after the initial draw, and high travel times aren't going to be doing that.
I enjoy long quests, I enjoy not having my hand held through them, I enjoy rewards on paths less traveled.
There's nothing enjoyable about having to trek across 8 zones just in time to have to log off to do something around the house instead of using that time productively. Even if there's PoK books in place, a few zones require quite a bit of real time to get to, and that's assuming you have some kind of run speed mod.