Please remove teleport scrolls

I don't think anyone is looking at this with blinders on. Everyone is making several valid points for both sides of the argument and no one is conceding the "good points" on either side (yourself included).

You have made some very good points about regional trade but what you have failed to mention is why this would be different with or without teleport scrolls. The markets will still be there because people will pay for convenience. They will still buy things from a vendor if its a good deal rather than walk or teleport so there is no real difference.

 

I think you can get them for 175 but that's not really important.

Here's the problem. Because it takes two seconds to jog over to Kingsport and buy Black Pearl for 6 gold, who really cares that it costs 22 gold in Owl's Head? Not many people which is why the price keeps going up! The fools keep buying it and the people that are paying attention are going somewhere else. But they don't seem to be buying from player vendors, that's too much work when there's a perfectly stable NPC in the next town of Kingsport or Holtrot selling them for cheap.

So the market isn't there because travel is too easy in that region. Now let's say for the sake of argument you apply that to a larger space. Let's say from Brittany to anywhere in the Hidden Vale it's going to cost you 22 gold. I would guess that people would just teleport out to wherever and buy their reagents and teleport back. 175 for a teleport scroll? Ok, that's just 8 Black Pearl. We can make that up and a lot more, where's my scroll?

It's a problem of convenience dominating the market. If it cost more to teleport, let's say 20 times more like my OP said, well then I think people would put down the scrolls and start asking important questions like "Hey, does anyone here sell cheap reagents in this town?"

And that's what a player driven economy is all about. Letting the players buy and sell, not the NPC's. Now if you can't understand that my friend, in the words of Roster Cogburn, "I can do nothin for ya son".

 

Well yes, they are. But they're not regional items and they're very cheap. They're actually one of the easiest items in the game to make, I literally have zero skill for making them yet I make them all the time (recall scrolls that is, which is the same basic recipe).

Scrolls would need to be make with the person's name you wanted to teleport to before you used it. This would be wonderful because then if your friend isn't online or in the place you're trying to move to you would be out of luck! This is something I've proposed before but it hasn't really caught on.

 

I know what a player driven economy is and how it works. Removing scrolls would also remove the players buy and sell the components to make them as well as the finished products themselves. Making it less convenient for people to get around could have the adverse effect however, people will simply find where they are selling cheaper and buy as many as they can afford to stockpile them because it will save them the walk next time. If its convenient to get around this wouldn't be the case and the player driven economy is still intact. People will still buy from vendors rather than running back to their stash when they need some because its there and convenient.

 

I understand what you're saying Drocis, but with the number of player towns a few seconds apart- almost all of which with a reagent merchant - I don't think regional reagent prices are doing anything but annoying people and making people sit through additional load screens. I think for this to work there'd need to be a much higher curve / the population and usage would have to have a much, much larger impact on the pricing.

I don't think anyone's actually buying them at 22g. Not intentionally anyway.
And when I was walking on my way out of owls head, and saw a player vendor selling them for 8? I snatched them up rather than zoning out, going somewhere else, zoning in, buying it, zoning out again.
I think this is what you're trying to encourage, and I don't disagree with it. I just think that the scrolls are an irrelevance as they're eating into whatever savings you're making by going elsewhere - the only difference is if you bought a scroll from another player, you're participating in the economy. If you decide to walk, you aren't, you're just inconvenienced more by having to walk. I don't think the "regional economy" argument is a reason to remove them. I think the 'over use" is a good reason, and the "abuse" is a good reason. I think you shouldn't be able to use them as often. I also think you shouldn't be able to use them to get a to a zone you haven't previously discovered. But I think we do need them to allow groups to convene so you don't have 4-5 people standing around for 10 mins while someone makes their way from wherever.

 

It would do no such thing, recall scrolls would still be in the game.

 

I actually like that idea a lot. I know Scoffer is a blacksmith and he can almost always be found in Etceter mine. I'd probably make a whole stack of Teleport to Scoffer scrolls.
I also know another person who usually leads our 'lets go kill things' groups. I could make a teleport to THAT person and have a stack.
Of course, I don't know that anyone would want to buy a scroll of "Teleport to Scoffer" - since they probably don't know who he is or where, but alchemists could then get custom work making people their scrolls to the people they want. That'd be neat.

 

That's kind of my point. This is one of many steps needed to close the economic gaps in the current implementation of the game.

The devs aren't stupid, they know it's not working right now. All they would need to do is adjust the thresholds and a place like Owl's Head would stay high priced for longer periods of time and the prices would go up even faster than they do now. As people moved out to POTs and PRTs and other story towns the same thing would happen and it would force people to travel more and shop at player vendors. That may very well be what happens sooner rather than later.

I don't know if seeds are being impacted by this yet, but can you imagine if Cotton seeds started selling at say 45 per? I think that days is coming and I think most people are not prepared for it.

 

I would actually love the idea of pre-set name scrolls. If it could be also be done to player vendors you could hand them out as advertisements.

 

There you go @DarkStarr, after 12 pages an idea some people like.

Require the name of the person you want to teleport to, be placed on the scroll during crafting.

 

Devils advocate though, it wouldn't solve your issue of how it effects regional economy. Just means more people would have stacks of scrolls XD

 

I feel like it would be very helpful. I like this solution as a good step towards restriction, balance, and fun.

 

Yeah, but Scrolls have weight...and you'd have to buy so many different ones....it would make it a lot more difficult for people to do the hop-about that they do now. Think of the clutter!!
I also think the required alchemy level should be higher to make these custom things, I mean, you'd have to really know what you were doing to channel the energy of a specific person into a piece of paper right?

 

I think Portalarium messed up by implementing teleportation to soon IMO. Now people are addicted and hooked on fast travel. I remember threads warning of this very thing a year ago. I actually think that my suggestion is the most practical and in line with how the game was meant to be played. I know many people are using emotional situations to try to guilt people into breaking the game mechanics but I try to stick to the facts. The game is supposed to have regional economies. This has been planned from the very beginning (fact). It is a core feature of the game and so are the control points(fact). Richard always wanted to balance fast travel with the time/effort of what it would take to walk overland. He has stated so even with moongates that they should have a cost.(fact) He has stated that the reason for control points is to not make it easy to trade in other regions. Yes you can bypass them but it would take a long way around. (fact) It is his vision for regional economies to work, and thats why he has stated many times that if there is fast travel then there should be a cost. This is why I say that we should have a monetary price on the /foot. 1gp for every 100 ft, or something. It can be adjusted. So when you teleport you get a context pop up that says this will cost you x amount of gold to travel to y spot. This total would include distance and weight and control point fees. This would make it fair for everyone and have the "cost for instant transport". I think this should be applied to ships also. There should not be a way to bypass content for free. This creates a world market instead of the regional market the game was designed for.
@Lord British2 , @DarkStarr If you would humbly look at this suggestion...

 

Let me get this straight...

seems as though the local economies are not completely player 'controlled' (which is good, that the devs can make adjustments when needed). The teleport scrolls can indeed teleport players across the world, but also they have to be made by players. This means that players are getting paid for the scrolls or at least had to gather the resources. If a player were to use separate accounts as teleport dummies (well at least they paid port for the account which supports the game and hey big deal). Also having lots of real friends in game is sort of a good thing for the longevity of the game too.

In light of that, if teleportation actually did negatively impact local economies they can always adjust the cost of NPC vendors in different regions to offset this. So a player vendor might have good prices in one town but the NPC vendors in that town might not be good, and then the teleportation merchant will then have to use another scroll to buy reagents from another low price place some place else ... or something to this effect.

At least that's what I'm picking up on here in this thread, and in the chatter and rumors in game.

 

It would be awesome if you could buy teleport scrolls with peoples names on it for PVP.

Wait for them to zone into a PVP zone..then teleport to them and kill them.

EDIT: Even better if you can make the scrolls without their knowledge.

 

If you're on their friends list, it works that way right now.

 

After lurking around this thread for nearly 12 pages and reading both sides of the argument, I don't think any solution is that simple. It seems that the main issue that is perceived to be in need of fixing is that the regional economy feature is not working well. One potential cause is thought to be teleport scrolls (I hope my understanding is more or less correct).

I don't think teleport scrolls are the real culprit here. While they may be exacerbating the issue of the lack of a true regional economy, I think there's a bigger problem here, and that is the way the world set up does not lend itself well to a regional economy in the first place. It's extremely easy once you're level 30 to get around, and getting to level 30 won't take many players long. At that level, I can run though most control points and either live, or die and find an ankh and resurrect at my intended exit. I can get around the world map quickly even with control points, or run around control points still relatively quickly. I haven't used TP scrolls in a few releases, mostly because they rarely worked for me before when I ended up crashing while loading into my next scene and it used up a scroll. So now I simply walk everywhere and that's how I've learned to get around quickly.

Now, I do some mining in my spare time, I'm no power user or anything, but right now, since the world is not even fully populated by players, my experience has been that Owl's Head is a great place to unload my ores. I always walk there, never TP, and ignore other towns. This is an issue that I feel is more of the real culprit here. Why do I ignore other towns? Because I don't want to spend time zoning, trying to find the town center, or spending a minute or two walking there only to find that not many players use that NPC market (I'm sick right now so I can't think of the right word lol). I just don't have the time for that, I have a taxing full time job, and I know I'll get a price that's fair to me in Owl's Head, and that most of my stuff will sell quickly.

Now, this could be an artifact of having a partially populated world. It is also, however, an artifact of the way the market works: I need a guaranteed sale because I cannot afford to pay the listing fee AND/OR to have my items sold at vendor prices if nobody buys my items within a week. So, I head to a place with a known market where I will be able to sell for a price I feel is worth my time.

All that said, I don't think teleport scrolls are the real issue. Doing away with them will only result in people who want to play the market to their advantage finding another way to do their business quickly, and there are many ways to accomplish this. Players will be forced to run through a currently boring overworld map with little to no real trouble, just a bit of a time sink. But with the world the way it is, having nothing to really do but run over the map, that time sink feels rather unnecessary. Add to that somewhat weak control points and other work arounds and you will not foster a regional economy.

Some of what I said may have sounded negative, but in honest, we are still in early access. I love the idea of the overworld map, and I'm hoping it will end up becoming much more engaging and interesting (and not just with random encounters but with more fun stuff!). I'm hoping that control points will be more challenging, but not overwhelming, because combat is a bit off right now. Once they fix combat and I don't miss most of the time, I welcome a bit more of a challenge.

The world is a system, not to be bound by one simple feature. If you want to fix the way it's working, it will likely need many aspects to be tweaked to work properly. I've only listed some of my thoughts, I'm sure the issue is much more complex even than this, sadly.

TLDR? There are a ton of reasons why the regional economy appear sto be broken, we need a more holistic approach to fixing it rather than getting rid of teleport scrolls because that will only deal with one small aspect of what could be plaguing the growth. I think we should wait a bit to see how the game develops before asking for such rash measures of all or nothing.

 

In order for the regional economy to be sustainable, each region will need to have reasonable amount of players staying there building the day to day trading among other players. Right now we don't have that many players to fill in the entire Novia. Everyone wants to be in Owl's Head or Brittany. Taking away teleport not only encourage people stick at certain centralized location, it also will be the detriment to the social aspect of the game. Let's say you're in the middle of a hunt with limited time to play. Couple of friends requested assistance, well now you have a chance between spending 10-20 minutes to help someone for a few mins or would you rather spend your valuable time continue with your own schedule. Same goes to the turn out numbers on any events. People will be even less likely to want to show up at any events because it will take too long. At the end of the day, the game will be left will few big guilds that have enough time and resource not to worry about overworld travel to obtain in-game resources.

In any case, the most valuable resources in this game is the players, both in game and out of game. People play games because they are fun, not because they enjoy this theoretical regional economy. Anyway, I am not saying that teleport must stay no matter what. However, if it's gonna away, there needs to be a better game play feature that motivate people to go out on the overland and do things. Perhaps roving encounters may be the golden factor?

 

Nope, not a great idea. Only way the majority of players would get behind this is if the teleport to name scroll was cheaper AND the regular teleport scroll still existed.

Remember for the game to be successful it needs players and good reviews, difficult/time consuming/meaningless loading screens don't entice new and continuos playing. Simple efficient travel on the other hand is critical to the average players "quality of life".