The cost of waypoints is too damn high. I’m level sixty on one of my characters and it feels like I need to start walking everywhere or face a loss of wealth so major that it feels like we’re being taxed in the Middle Ages. That’s not to say it isn’t fair for us to pay a little for travel, but at the same time it becomes a big hindrance to enjoyment at higher levels. The cost to go somewhere is fine, but the cost to return to a major city is what gets you.
Of course, you can go to the Mists, travel through the gate, and reach Lion’s Arch, tag a free waypoint, and head to the city that you wish to go to but that seems unnecessary. Why don’t we just make travel to any major capital city free? That just removes all the extra loading, walking, and loading in order to avoid the couple of silver that you end up paying. Especially since traveling anywhere at the lower levels is totally manageable and affordable, but the higher you get the more it costs. That would just make the gameplay smooth from start to finish.
Now, let’s go one step further before the huge World of Warcraft like problem cements itself in stone. Right now, everyone is converging on Lion’s Arch. First, it’s free to travel to through the Mists. Second, it has gates to all of the other major cities (which you’ll take before heading to a waypoint to save money). Third, it’s the meeting place for finding groups. Let’s go ahead and nip this in the bud and bring a global chat to all major cities.
That’d make it where players could pick and choose which city they wish to conduct business in without having to all pile into a city that is constantly full. You could choose to go to Divinity’s Reach and watch the festivities or go to Hoelbrak and stare at snow while you’re looking for a group. Right now the queue is pretty long during primetime to even get to your world’s copy of Lion’s Arch. So this would alleviate that problem.
You’re wondering about the WoW reference. Well, at the start there was no global chat and travel was costly and expensive. So everyone converged to Orgrimmar and Ironforge. Hilariously enough, Stormwind did not have auctioneers for fear that everyone would just use that city and avoid the others. The joke is that they just piled into Ironforge. As time passed, these cities became lag fests and remain mostly that way as Blizzard took too long to entice players to use other cities – not to mention the travel times.
So I think we should lower the cost of travel first by removing the cost to waypoint into a major city and then entice players to use all of the cities, not just Lion’s Arch. That way we can pick and choose where to do our business when we’re done with adventuring and the sting of waypoints cost a lot less (or is less cumbersome to travel).
- Xerin
Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats has a great new article up today that addresses the lower concurrency of players we’re seeing in-game now that some time has passed since launch. In many ways this is indeed a positive thing since mid-level content now feels properly epic when it’s not being zerged down in a matter of seconds by an angry Tyrian mob. As Ravious points out, however, there is also a potential downside to having too many quiet places in-game:
“The sticky part for ArenaNet is that they have already committed a large number of resources to all these quiet zones. Are they going to continue to give reason to re-explore these zones, or will they become silent speed bumps as alts and new players pass through on their way to Orr or the cold north? I am pretty sure we’ll get good stuff with the Halloween celebration and new zones/expansions are pretty much expected further down the road, but I hope ArenaNet can share what their goals are with regard to the current content sooner.”
Be sure to head over to Kill Ten Rats to read the full article: Quiet Places
Have you ever noticed that the waypoint icon used in-game on maps and elsewhere is a diamond shape, yet the waypoint itself is actually more of a hexagon within a triangle?
The moral of the story: The Branded Devourers found in the northern part of Blazeridge Steppes can be an excellent source of Crystal Shards!
Comments
I left a comment on that Quiet Places article, which I'll copy here:
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I keep seeing all these reports of lower concurrency - but I don't see it in world.
My guess is that, having taken a smell the roses approach to leveling, I was not in the zerg pack - I saw huge crowds on launch day a few times, but mostly not. I started with Charr - and the big cats seem the least popular so maybe I missed the zerg even on launch day.
I've always seen a good number of people everywhere I've gone, and still see them. And about the same number of them - everywhere I go.
Across 8 characters, I've yet to go above level 43, but have only two below level 20 (one of them almost).
For me - the crowds today are the same size as always. I can find people pretty quickly when I need to, and have quiet time when I want it.
I suppose had I been speed leveling or single character focusing, I might have been in zerg packs in the past - and so might wonder where they are now... but this seemed like burning the candle too brightly to me, when we started, so I avoided that pace.
I spent the first few days slowing myself down by talking to -EVERY- NPC I met (and as a result, I am #2 on achiev points in my guild, and double the next person down. The guy above me was in closed beta and open beta, so he's got an inside track on efficiency, but I'm closing the gap fast). Mostly because when a zerg pack would do a circuit (or so I read), by standing there talking - I'd end up starting several DEs on my own and doing them with the 3 to 5 people nearby.
(Half the time I see people say "DE X is broken, hasn't started all day, I walk over, talk to an NPC and then do that very event - a lot of them -are- broken but just as many, people never learned how to trigger.)
Maybe concurrency is down - but I just haven't seen it. Curiously I see more people to play with in GW2 than I do right now in WoW:MoP. So if people have left, they didn't go there.
With downscaling, the dungeons will always remain viable. With the farming nerfs - they will remain more engaging for those who just want to play them. It will end up, in time; a bit like it was in City of Heroes until they 'added' farming into that in the last year or so.
But they will need better communication tools for us to find each other - and that is NOT a random dungeon finder that assembles a PUG of hostile players for us. It is a good lookup and invite LFG tool, easy travel INTO the cities, and maybe, just maybe... I can accept a global city channel.
- But only AFTER they get a handle on gold spammers.
I know you can always get to Lions Arch through the Mists without spending coin, but for some people the long load times make it best to just pay the silver and go. On that note... All travel within the city is free, so I would love to see A-Net make travel to all waypoints within the City cost the same price for people who are outside the City. If I'm willing to pay the silver to avoid load screens I shouldn't have to pay more to go to Traders Forum than I would to go to Mariner's. It's just sucky.
Also, if I'm dead and the waypoints closest to me are contested please allow me to rez at the one that is 100 miles away for the price that the contested wp would have been. Yes, I was doing that event, and yes I was killed, and if someone else tries to rez me they're going to be dead too. I'll run further to get back, but should the death penalty really cost more than it would have if the wp weren't contested? I can understand that A-Net doesn't want either an instant influx to contested areas, or a death zerg, but paying more to rez at a wp because the area is contested isn't pleasant.
But yeah, all waypoints in all major cities should be free. It's already possible, easier on the servers and faster for the players. We should always be able to go home.
On another note: I've been using my HoM portal stone as an AFK fort to keep people from reporting me as a bot, or leading beasts to me to have me killed while AFK. It works like a charm except for the loading screens.
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