Waypoints? Good or Bad?

[anathama]

I was a bit dismayed when I saw they would be adding this feature to Guild Wars 2, since I remember strongly disliking this from my short stint in the first Guild Wars.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the waypoints in Guild Wars basically just port your character around the map and eliminate a lot of the running. While this may sound like a great time-saver, I recall that they had them at very short intervals from each other. So instead of running to that town you can see not far in the horizon, you just click on your map and you're there.

Doesn't this sort of go against the immersion/scale of the world-type atmosphere they were aiming for? Like the same reason they decided against adding flying mounts?

[Orist]

I think its a good thing. I wanna say that I saw a video with the devs saying that if you run from town to town you will actually find more stuff along the way, than peeps who just port back and forth once they learn a place. So there is some incentive. I honestly, only pretty much plan to use the waypoints when playing with a friend to get to where they are. Or if I absolutely need to go back to a major city or to a zone wide event I am not close enough to run to. Other than that, my legs are gonna tired

Sorta on topic but I am SO stoked there aren't any mounts.

[Blufossa]

I was a bit dismayed when I saw they would be adding this feature to Guild Wars 2, since I remember strongly disliking this from my short stint in the first Guild Wars.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the waypoints in Guild Wars basically just port your character around the map and eliminate a lot of the running. While this may sound like a great time-saver, I recall that they had them at very short intervals from each other. So instead of running to that town you can see not far in the horizon, you just click on your map and you're there.

Doesn't this sort of go against the immersion/scale of the world-type atmosphere they were aiming for? Like the same reason they decided against adding flying mounts?

It doesn't go against anything ArenaNet is doing, because explorers will be rewarded for, well, exploring!

I see Waypoints more for those who want to go meet up with friends, people who want to shave time off their questing, wanting to get to a DE faster, etc.

[Deleted]

Good, I prefer this way. I want to play this game and not run or fly all the time. Sure, if you would only teleport and never walk anything the whole feeling of a large would die, but that´s not the case with GW. You also still have to discover the waypoints, which means you will get to experience the large world atleast once, but spending minutes and minutes of running just because I need to get somewhere gets annoying.

[Deyadissa]

I'll guarantee Guild Wars 2 towns will be more active and better than any WoW town, just look at the concept art; Lions Arch for a main example.


As always, waypoints are completely optional.


You may decide to use them or not.

[Adoris]

I was supposedly sad at first when i learned there werent going to be mounts, given im was a mount collector back in my wow days. But now that i think about it, i like the idea of waypoints an awful lot more. Yeah mounts represent some sort of "prestige" when they are obtained from raids or w/e, but they are also the embodiment of Grind Eternal.
Also, look at the waypoint system as flight paths, except not taking 15 minutes to fly to where you want to be, and crashing your game when you alt-tab, because you just DON'T want to see the same landscape flying by for the bazillionth time this month.
<3

[Deleted]

So instead of running to that town you can see not far in the horizon, you just click on your map and you're there.

There's plenty of players who don't simply have time to spend 35 minutes just for traveling from point A to point B, like e.g. many people who go to work and have to also take care of their families. They may get 2 hours to play a day if even that much, so atleast being able to travel a bit faster is a boon for them. Similarly, you could argue that if they don't have the time to spend on traveling then they shouldn't play the game, but, well, atleast in my opinion that'd be a bit too harsh.

Waypoints also exist so that you can get to a dynamic event faster. Just imagine you're all the way in south, and then a huge dynamic event starts up all the way in north: do you want to spend 35 minutes running from end-to-end and not reach the event in time, or do you want to take the waypoint and participate in the fight?

Also, if you use waypoints constantly you may miss out on a lot of things. I'm fairly certain ANet developers are adding all kinds of goodies in the world that you can only find if you go by foot.

Personally I find them a good addition to the game.

[Malthurius]

I think Waypoints are a great alternative to mounts. Usually you either want to get somewhere quickly and without hassle, or you want to explore and be immersed.

Waypoints allow you to get where you want to go, but it isn't bad for the game because you are rewarded for exploring unlike in WoW, where you are not.

[Deyadissa]

I was supposedly sad at first when i learned there werent going to be mounts, given im was a mount collector back in my wow days. But now that i think about it, i like the idea of waypoints an awful lot more. Yeah mounts represent some sort of "prestige" when they are obtained from raids or w/e, but they are also the embodiment of Grind Eternal.
Also, look at the waypoint system as flight paths, except not taking 15 minutes to fly to where you want to be, and crashing your game when you alt-tab, because you just DON'T want to see the same landscape flying by for the bazillionth time this month.
<3

I should note that Guild Wars loves making vanity and prestige items, so showing off won't be much of a problem.

[Delias]

From what I've heard, you will be rewarded for exploration.. not sure how true that will be, haven't actually looked into it.

[Ynna]

I think it's a good idea. Traveling isn't actually playing, it justs pads the game-length. And since the developers said that traveling on foot will be rewarded in some way you can make the choice of what you want to do depending on how much time you have available. It's like in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. If you have a couple of hours you can travel to your location on foot/by horse and find herbs and enemies and new locations, but if you just want a quick gaming fix you can just waypoint towards your objective and get right into the action.

[Mif]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...ion_Racket.php

So far, MMOs have kind of been wasting your time.

You've got the almighty grind. Hours upon hours killing meaningless mobs to make a bar slowly tick upwards, and see your wallet grow ever fatter. You've got the endless trudging from location to location, nominally a way for them to attach the carrot of mounts to a stick protruding out of your back, but really just a way to tick off another ten minutes of your time. You've got the zen-like trance that you slip into while waiting for a battleground, waiting for a group, waiting for crafting to tick over, waiting, waiting, waiting...

MMOs have been wasting your time, because, quite literally, time is money. If you didn't have all these little, cumulative time sinks, you might get bored. You might even, (gasp), cancel your subscription. So your time is wasted, just enough for you not to really mind, but enough to keep the spread of content thin enough to last to the end of the month.

[Mothhive]

They're good. If you think they're bad, don't use them, simple as that.

As someone who works 40+ hours a week, cooks most meals from scratch, exercises an hour + every day and has to deal with all sorts of boring grown-up stuff, I don't have an awful lot of time to play games, so when I do, I don't want to spend a large chunk of that trying to get from A to B if I don't have to.

Also, the waypoint system helps prevent missing out on amazing world events. If one of your guildies shouts out that something spectacular is happening at a certain location, the waypoint system would help you get there in time to see it. If you had run there or used a flightpath, you may have missed it.

It's there for convenience for those that want to use it, and those that don't want to, don't have to. It boggles my mind that people actually complain about a completely optional system like this.

Also, what Mif said!

[Deleted]

For those against waypoints;
Take the flight point from Darnassus to Tanaris, then tell me waypoints are bad. Heck, take any flight path to anywhere, tell me why a 3min+ flight over the same terrain everytime, is better than instantly appearing at the location.
Also tell me how running on your mount for 5mins+ just to a quest is better than instantly appearing at the location then running to a DE for under a minute.

[Rahzael]

This is the only area so far that I thought Anet could have handled a little better. While waypoints are a good idea, something like this really could have been treated with more options. For instance, consider the mount thing for a second. Why do mounts need to come from items in your inventory? Why couldn't a mount instead come from a stable at a town, have a very short healthbar, and/or get knocked down very easily while attacked, making it so you couldn't just ride through enemies? Aside from being immersion-breaking magic tricks in WoW, mounts were really only a pain because they were used to run through massive groups of mobs, and they sort of unbalanced PvP in some situations. With no world PvP, we eliminate that element(and we just don't put stables in WvWvW or competitive modes), and we make mounts very fragile, few, and far between.

On the subject of flight-paths versus waypoints, you could handle it in a similar fashion where at towns you could be given the option of flying(I'm not familiar with GW2 creatures, so on what, I have no idea), or maybe you even just begin to fly but you can easily skip the entire process and simply teleport.

Although this wouldn't make or break the game for me personally, I can definitely understand people who say they feel like their immersion would be broken. Sure I could just walk my way through the whole game, but it's in human nature to want to choose a faster route if it saves them a ton of time, and I shouldn't have to fight my instinct to be efficient(to that degree) in order to be immersed in this game which has otherwise done a fantastic job of keeping you right in the action.

[Rahzael]

It's stubbornness like that which makes Blizzard such an awful source of entertainment these days. Anet dropped their pre-conceived notions at the door when they started on this game, and so should everyone else.

[Eorayn]

I do approve waypoints good. But I don't want many of them. Just a few.

[IMonstrousI]

I know many other people have said but i just want to reinforce it.if you like waypoints or not its optional and based on your oppinion.

[Rahzael]

If Anet had not added in voice work for random NPC's standing around in the city, I think there would be a similar reaction(not necessarily from you) to any player who suggested that they do so for the sake of immersion. It's not a "real" reason, and you can enjoy the game without it, but it's a minor detail that a lot of work was placed into. There are a lot of things about this game in that regard which impress me, but "You can either travel on foot or teleport instantly" as the only two travel options does not.

When it comes to immersion, some people really need their psychology catered to, and if you cannot understand how teleporting everywhere might be jarring on a subconscious level, I will assume you're not one of those people. Good for you, but Anet is designing this to be a quality product, and it's rarely a bad thing to offer more options to players. If either of my mount suggestions would in any way ruin YOUR gaming experience, on the other hand, feel free to point out how.

[Rahzael]

So what is it about them that you're against? Do you despise domesticated animals? Do you hate enhanced movement speed designed specifically not to impact combat?