Waypoints? Good or Bad?

[Mif]

Guild Wars 2 will not feature mounts. Ergo, having no mounts is perfect.

On the other side of the fence the complainers are more or less saying: "Wow features mounts thereby every other MMO must have them".

I don't think it's people thinking GW2 is perfect, more people just get sick of people QQing that it isn't like Wow.

[MalazanFan]

I'm not going to go back and reread all the posts for people wanting mounts, but I don't recall anyone's point boiling down to what you quoted. In my brief scan of the past couple pages, the only mentions of WoW were people of people saying they didn't like how they did mounts - not praising it. Just because someone says they want mounts, doesn't mean they played WoW or even video games in general. Mounts have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In several cases, it seems people 'defending' GW2 are the one's bringing up WoW and not the person looking for more choices. If GW2 implements mounts, it won't make it "like WoW".

Edit: Added the following.

Guild Wars 2 has been created from the ground up to not feature mounts. Adding mounts would be completely unnecessary because of that. Or if they added mounts, they'd probably remove a couple of the waypoints, or otherwise the mounts have no use, and waypoints are, to a lot of people preferably over mounts.

I don't necessarily think this is true. First of all, necessity shouldn't be the only deciding factor in what to implement in a game. GW2 has many unnecessary things in it, but that's what makes it so good - 400 dyes, many choices regarding how to complete a DE, etc.

Second of all, I don't think the scenario you put forth would happen. From the videos I've seen, it looks like there is still a ~5 minute walk from a waypoint to the midway point between another waypoint. Even if there wasn't that much of a gap, the mount still serves a purpose, and that is to give players a choice to ride 5-10 minutes across a couple waypoints instead of teleporting. What's wrong with more choice?

[Merendel]

I got the impression that in those videos where it took 5 min to get halfway to the next waypoint had more to do with someone brand new to the game rubbernecking(with good reason) instead of traveling in the most efficent maner possible. The waypoint to run back to that sunless dragon event was not any closer to the event than the midway point between your avrage pair of waypoints and yet when players made a Beeline back it took them maybe a minute to run there. Remember it takes so much longer to get somewhere when your stoping every 20ft to look at something or fight something. That can make travle time seem deceptivly long when your watching it from a video.

It seemed more to me that most places were 2-3 minutes away from their nearest waypoint at the furthest and thats plenty close. Your not likely to miss out on that epic DE compleatly even at that distance unless you port in near the end to begin with.

[MalazanFan]

Second of all, I don't think the scenario you put forth would happen. From the videos I've seen, it looks like there is still a ~5 minute walk from a waypoint to the midway point between another waypoint. Even if there wasn't that much of a gap, the mount still serves a purpose, and that is to give players a choice to ride 5-10 minutes across a couple waypoints instead of teleporting. What's wrong with more choice?

The travel time isn't really the issue. I should have just taken that line out. My main point was that mounts would still have a use, and that adding them wouldn't lead ANet to remove waypoints. The two are not mutually exclusive. They both have different costs and offer different benefits and everyone would still likely use both because the factors that go into choosing which travel system to use change.

[Durzlla]

link to lore behind waypoints if you would, if its explained then thats nice atleast

BOOM

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Unsettling_Rumors

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Map-Travel_Inventor

Lore has been in the game since launch (first link) and was reinforced in second link, in addition they could also be using the portable asura gates that were explained in the 2nd book... Mounts have no lore to stand on, at all...

[Deleted]

I think they're like flightpaths in WoW, only instant. As long as they're not too close to eachother, it's ok.

[Glytch]

BOOM

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Unsettling_Rumors

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Map-Travel_Inventor

Lore has been in the game since launch (first link) and was reinforced in second link, in addition they could also be using the portable asura gates that were explained in the 2nd book... Mounts have no lore to stand on, at all...

waypoints lorewise are more like res shrines which also have a foothold in lore with the ghostly priests, the luxon/kurzicks guards standing near the ones in echovald/jade sea(giving buffs) and the shrines themselves in factions and nightfall where you could give an offering to whichever god the shrine is dedicated to for buffs

Waypoints/res shrines have lore behind them the 2 map travel quests i wouldnt consider "canon"

[Blznsmri]

Waypoints/res shrines have lore behind them the 2 map travel quests i wouldnt consider "canon"

Anything in game is canon.

[Sunseeker]

The purpose of waypoints is to get into action quickly, if there's a cooldown then "quickly" becomes less well defined. The cost of waypoints already acts as a small cooldown, as (depending on the cost) people will be likely to use them in moderation. As the cost increases with distance, and asura gates being free (last I checked), it'll likely be common practice to wp to city a, gate to city b, then wp to your destination, assuming that route is shorter and cheaper than wping directly, which, again, adding a cooldown would prevent such a practice.

For non-combat abilities, cooldowns just add to the time played, (usually) without having a purpose other than to keep you playing. Since GW2 is B2P, the encouragement for you to continue playing is in having fun, not having time sinks or grinds associated with other MMOs.

My take on waypoints is from Oblivion. You could "fast travel" to just about anything in the world. You could do it whenever you wanted(aside from in-combat) and personally I found it far too easy to simply port around the world and actually miss all the exploring. Money is never hard to come by in a game. So I favor a short cooldown on it in order to force you to at least take your time and run around the local area while you wait. If you can port straight from the cave to the city, you generate the same problem as the dungeon finder. An empty world.

[NotValidAnymore]

Instant teleports to a few places in the world isn't really that bad. It's just to save time if you want to get to a specific town, outpost or zone faster.

Honestly, I love exploring myself, but having to run across several zones just to get to where I want at certain points isn't very fun. And flight paths are not fun either, if I wanted to cross over to someplace slowly, I'd have ran there in the first place.

Depending on how many waypoints, or how large the zones are, having no mounts is fine to me. Remember, there's gotta be room for these dynamic events and those things to happen.

[Merendel]

Anything in game is canon.

And anything that fits in said canon is ammunition. If it does not fit we just need a bigger cannon.

Ya I know its off topic but couldnt resist.

[luedieniel]

I once walked from stratholme to booty bay, walked! Not ran.
I'd rather have waypoints and let me play the game rather than spend hours on end walking from one place to another, don't like it? don't use em.

[Deleted]

On the other side of the fence the complainers are more or less saying: "Wow features mounts thereby every other MMO must have them".

I don't think it's people thinking GW2 is perfect, more people just get sick of people QQing that it isn't like Wow.

This. If you like the way wow does stuff, GW2 is not for you. Unless you fancy a change.

[Blznsmri]

And anything that fits in said canon is ammunition. If it does not fit we just need a bigger cannon.

Ya I know its off topic but couldnt resist.

Bah-dun-tish!

[Glytch]

Bah-dun-tish!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKdcjJoXeEY

[Blznsmri]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKdcjJoXeEY

Fuggin love it.

[Deleted]

The only reason I'd like to have mounts is this:

After I have saved the village from the horrible horrible centaurs, how can ride to sunset without mounts?

Walking to sunset sounds a lot more lame.

[Exerionx]

Imo, they're good! You get rewarded for manually travelling to long distance towns/cities/landmarks ^^

[Suilenroc]

While I'd like an MMO which makes it work without any easily accessible form of quick travel, I much prefer waypoints to flight paths. Flight paths have lost their charm over the years and are now little more than a forced AFK.

[Durzlla]

DE's and I think there are a few traits that you pick up from exploration. I don't remember exactly.

I distinctly remember them saying that people that are HUGE explorers will be able to find things such as a giant castle in the mountains where you could open a book getting a reward for doing so and unleashing a whole bunch of enemies and causing an entire DE chain to emerge, and if no one explores and finds it, those DE's will never be seen