Instant Travel With Player Owned House Boats

I know getting boats to actually sail the great blue seas is something that may come online in a episode 2 or 3, if at all, but I have a suggestion that would make player owned boats a little more interesting and worth the upgrade.

Player owned boats should behave like the skiffs that take you to various locations currently do. That is, a player should have the option to configure their house-boat as a ferry.

1. Boat owners should be able to select a destination that his/her boat can fast travel to.
2. The property sign should change color (or a "ferry banner" should go up on the boat) to indicate that this boat doubles as a transportation hub.
3. Other players should be able to walk-up to the sign, double click it, and instant travel to the set location (note, travel is one-way as the boat doesn't actually move).
4. Alternatively, the boat owner should be able to set their vendor to collect a transportation fee. Once collected, the player is automatically transported. In this way, a player can select from a list of multiple locations with different prices set by the boat owner.

Of course, the boat should only be able to travel to coastal locations.

I am proposing this because it would:

• Give players different quick-travel transportation options.
• Pull players to different parts of the city and town maps. Currently when you land in Ardoris you head for the center of town because that's where you can "do things". This would make some of the port spots interesting and pull players laterally benefiting all those with vendors in the area.
• This would allow boat owners to setup a business and build a name from their transportation service. I could see whole guilds being devoted to providing safe, affordable quick travel throughout the land (e.g. "The New Britannia Travel Company").
• Fulfill RichardGarriott's core belief and hallmark design philosophy that every item should have a function.

 

Hmmm, I am against instant travel. Why should boats carry you instantly to the destination it would otherwise take you minutes to walk there? Boats are no teleportation devices.
I think, as long as there are no sailing ships in the game, there should be some artwork showing a boat on the sea and this artwork should stay for as long as it would take you regularly to reach this destination.

 

Would you need a housing lot for every place you went and visited? I am not sure how this would work. I like the Idea in principle, but maybe not instantaneous. However you might have a riot on your hands if people think that you would be able to sail everywhere to trade and have no need for a lot to let you "dock". This might be more feasible after the sailing is implemented.

 

So .... you don't use the lunar rift?

Great idea, @MadHermit. Very nice.

 

A Lunar Rift or a teleportation spell would be something different as this is magic. Travelling with a boat is not magic and should take time.

Maybe I should have written that I am against instant travel by boat

 

Well ..... let the boats be magical!

 

We already have that. It's called, the scene loading screen. The thing everyone wants reduced.

But seriously, the suggestion is not to be able to take people to every point on the map, but to take people to coastal points that the devs decide are appropriate. There may be other ways to get to inner-areas but that's another idea altogether.

If we are creative enough perhaps we can come up with some interesting affects of sea travel. Perhaps the smaller the boat the more you get tossed around and so you arrive at your destination with "travel fatigue" that impacts your attributes in some way for some duration (say 1 day). The better/larger the boat the less of an impact the sea travel will have on you.

Some creative solutions might help offset the benefit you might perceive "instant travel" provides while giving the players more options.

 

I like the idea.. it Adds a little function to the lot ..

I never looked at boats as instant travel its just not represented in a way for you to feel different of that's how it appears to some. So I would per pose and its been on my mind for some time to request a splash screen for boat travel anyway .. example .. 3 screens with the boat fading into the horizon instead of the Load bar .. this would be nice if all load screens could be this way but boats to me would be the first and foremost thing to start with .

Great Idea @TheMadHermit.

 

I am not trying to knock your presentation at all, I just see some obstacles in your way. Being that boats are limited to Royal founder/founder status and only above the baron - LOTM, some would cry that this is unfair, and possibly utter the P** *o *in scenario on this being that only a few might be able to use this. If this was implemented and port decided to sell more boats to appease the masses then you would have a bunch of High level backers that would be upset because boats where only supposed to be available via Pledge reward or a rowboat via the stretch goal. How do you perceive handling these obstacles?

 

i know dragon boats were designed specifically for the ability to travel upland via rivers for the norse to raid with them. - why not expand the number of locations to towns with any water access from the ocean..just higher prices if river access.


@ravicus - boats in stretch goals too.

 

I have some input, if something like this would be in at all.

1. Owners of water plots might be able to buy a place-able ferry boat, and this might better suit the purpose than the house boat. The reason is that you would expect a houseboat to disappear once someone embarked on it, and everyone that's on the house boat at the time to go wherever the person is trying to go.

2. Likewise, any ferry boat that has been recently used might disappear for a while. What would be really nice is if there was a small animation of it rowing out to sea for a couple of seconds.

3. To do this, an NPC servant must be hired as a ferry captain, and must sit in the boat during the part of his schedule when he's available to offer his service. Such an NPC servant will require more in wages if he's scheduled at night, so might charge more fees from players wanting a ride.

4. Services would only take players to locations where non-player owned (NPC owned) ferries would take them.

I feel that you're kid of taking for granted boats as some kind of game device, and skipping over all concerns about realism/immersion. Naturally, compromises are always made on this part. But I think you have to at least think that part through, instead of forgetting it. Especially if the argument for what you want is based on realism.

 

Well I understand the point you are trying to make Mad Hermit and it is an interesting idea. So my dreams for boat travel are definitely there. I am so hoping we have it. I do want to 'sail' the waterways of SOTA, but I want to feel the ocean spray on my face and
wind thru my hair and sails of course lol, and fish from my boat I don't think I want it to be instantaneous at all and I want everyone to enjoy it. For example getting on a boat in wow seemed it would be a cool idea and for a second you were actually traveling on a boat and then it
became a load time to your destination and while that was fine because that is how it was done in that game. After experiencing a bit of boating in Archeage I saw boating possibilities and the most gorgeous water. Now since in archeage you can't enjoy your
boating experience that long since you must constantly fight for your life or at least fight to keep your boat from being damaged, your enjoyment is short lived, well except if you feel like a sea battle every second that is

 

i hope these boats on waterfront property act like the rest of the boats in the game so no players who haven't bought one of these pledge levels don't complain that people bought a super power that nobody else can achieve in game.

The only thing special about these boats should be that they are really big and you can live in them.

 

Should they have to undock (and disappear from the town) and then redock?

 

yes. Therefore wherever they land they need to find a pier that has an open space or they need to anchor the boat some place and ride on a dingy to land. Maybe certain towns will have safe places for boats to anchor out in the bay.

Although since it is a house boat or bigger I would hope it doesn't just disappear when not used for a few days like they did in UO. Maybe the house servant could drive it back to it's home port. Also having a waterfront property should allow for such a boat to have a command to return to home or something like that.

Other than that that let these boats operate like any other boat, just a bit bigger maybe.

 

I'm afraid getting everyone "on board" (ha! you see what I did there) with any idea is an impossible task. We must not let that prevent us from making suggestions.

To your point, skiffs (like the ones you see in the game) could be something a player is able to purchase with in-game gold (or via the add-on store) if you like. I see no problem with that.

New players would be happy, and existing players probably wouldn't complain because house boats were never marketed as something that would be able to sail the seas.

If they were granted this ability it would be a bonus, with the added bonus that it would also double as a house.

Anyway, the suggestion isn't designed to create controversy, just a cool way to make the boats that line the docks do something other than look pretty. I would probably jump on one if I knew it would take me to a destination lickety-split!

 

My suggestion was never based in realism. Realism would be that these suckers leave port but that's not something we will be seeing in Episode 1. My suggestion is an interim solution that would be easily implemented in Episode 1, and add value in the ways I listed in the OP, that's all.

 

I'm with you. In the long-term that's what I want as well. Sailing in the early Ultima's and exploring the world was a cool experience. We are just not going to get that in Episode 1.

 

maybe moving around on the top map and would have to encounter sea monster attacks along the way

 

It would be nice if boat houses/houseboats had some sort of function to make them more desirable. If you're not lucky enough to get one at a port city, you're doomed to be out in the middle of no where with nothing but other boats and far from a city to get back and forth. Great idea Mad Hermit!