February 15 2012
An online world can be a big place, so almost every MMORPG has systems in place to get you where you need to go without doing too much running. Instant travel is usually available in some form, but many MMORPG fans find quick travel systems immersion breaking. The wonderment of exploring and sense of size that comes with slow travel is greatly diminished if you're teleporting from one place to another.
If you played a game like EverQuest back in the early days, you probably remember doing some painfullly long and boring runs to get to a group of friends. Or you may recall World of Warcraft before the Dungeon Finder and summoning stones, when you actually had to get to the entrance of the instance to participate. On a PvP server, a trip into Blackrock Mountain to reach an instance was often a dangerous, and sometimes quite entertaining, experience. Of course, it also often meant delays in running the instance as you tried to assemble your group. Now, with the Dungeon Finder, your group is automatically teleported right into the instance, meaning you rarely even need to leave town.
There are several common ways to speed up travel through online worlds without instant teleportation, such as the ever-plausible mount. Another rather eloquent solution is a fast travel system akin to World of Warcraft's flight points, which provide a rapid connection between key areas but still render the entire trip. The nice thing about the way these are implemented in WoW is that they give you a bird's eye tour of the zone, and you can actually get to the areas you are traveling over. Some other implementations don't maintain the illusion as effectively. One gripe I have about the fast travel "taxis" in Star Wars: The Old Republic is that you are often forced into using them even though you're only traveling a short distance. You should be able to run there, but you can't because artificial barriers are placing in your way.
Remarkably, even fast travel systems are too slow for many players. Understandably, some people don't want to spend any time traveling - they want to play. Furthermore, getting there is rarely any fun in these games, particularly after you've made the trip numerous times, and getting to the fun should not be a big effort. At the same time, something can't be "far away" or "remote" if you can get there instantly.
It leads one to wonder if instant travel is the only reasonable approach, or whether travel could be made more entertaining. Some danger is called for, perhaps along the lines of bandits on the road, although I'm sure there would be objections the minute they interfered with the raid schedule. Unfortunately, entertaining travel is a pretty tall order and there are many ways it could go wrong, so I don't expect games to change a lot in this respect. Teleporters and the quick travel are likely here to stay, we can only hope that there are some limitations imposed to make distances in online worlds meaningful.
