Do you consider travel as part of your adventure?

[Barkloud]

I had a debate with a friend the other day regarding travel in lobby games, open world games and games like Neverwinter that fall in the middle. Both of us have been playing mmorpgs with the same people since UO launched and have played most of the mmorpg games out there over the years. Each of these games has had their own spin on travel. I was wondering how a community like mmo-champ looks at travel


Do you consider travel in WoW to be part of your adventure or does your adventure start when you arrive at your destination?

Do you find travel fun?

[Dellis0991]

Traveling in some open world games is fun.....traveling in Neverwinter is a pain in the ass.

[Barkloud]

Traveling in some open world games is fun.....traveling in Neverwinter is a pain in the ass.

Neverwinter is tough without the VIP sub.

[Dellis0991]

Neverwinter is tough without the VIP sub.

true, so true.

[kaminaris]

Do you find travel fun?

No. I alt tab when I can (actually look at stream on other monitor). And I dont travel unless I absolutely have to.

[Soon-TM]

In WoW, I used to consider travel as part of the adventure, that is, before the annoying map design from WoD onwards. Atm it's nothing but a boring chore. Imo GW2 is the MMO that does the travel (and general world characterization) part best.

[seleri]

Absolutely. The giant open world is one of the best parts of WoW. I can't stand MMOs where you have to go through a loading screen (no matter how short) constantly. Which is actually one of the few complaints I have about BfA, I wish you could swim/fly/take a boat from Zandalar to Kul Tiras if you wanted, instead of having to go through a load screen.

[Gungnir]

In older iterations of WoW? Sure.
In a world with flying, not really.

[Mightytasty]

Absolutely. The giant open world is one of the best parts of WoW. I can't stand MMOs where you have to go through a loading screen (no matter how short) constantly. Which is actually one of the few complaints I have about BfA, I wish you could swim/fly/take a boat from Zandalar to Kul Tiras if you wanted, instead of having to go through a load screen.

Yep the lack of loading screens and feeling of a connected world was one of the things that set vanilla apart. The world feels smaller now, and as a result, the little time you do spend traveling feels annoying.

[Sharby]

Traveling in WoW isn't fun at all bc there's no incentive to take scenic routes or travel outside of quest routes.

There's no treasures, no bonus events, no special spots that award achievements, no way points, most of the important scenery isn't even made to be seen at an adventurous route. Not to mention actually moving in this game isn't very interesting at all for most of the classes and spending extra time moving is more cumbersome than anything.

FF14 is kinda like this too, honestly the only MMO where traveling actually was a blast was GW2.

[Mellrod]

Travel really used to be part of the adventure.

Back when I was a lowbie Night Elf in late vanilla/early BC, I wanted to get to Stormwind to quest with my brother who made a human. Since there wasn't any direct way to get there, I embarked on my first journey to Stormwind by foot. I made a lot of different friends on the way a lot of them guided me through parts of the journey, past higher level mobs and whatnot. It was literally my first experience with WoW and it's what sold me on the magic of this game.

WoW has potential for those kinds of journeys, but in it's formulaic state it's very difficult for them to pull off. They are doing a good job with the secret mounts/pets/toy items. Those have encouraged grouping with friends, and have you travelling around azeroth for a very satisfying and unique reward at the end.

[bufferunderrun]

I had a debate with a friend the other day regarding travel in lobby games, open world games and games like Neverwinter that fall in the middle. Both of us have been playing mmorpgs with the same people since UO launched and have played most of the mmorpg games out there over the years. Each of these games has had their own spin on travel. I was wondering how a community like mmo-champ looks at travel


Do you consider travel in WoW to be part of your adventure or does your adventure start when you arrive at your destination?

Do you find travel fun?

travel is fun in open world games designed for exploration like skyrim were you may find that tower full of bandits or a dungeon or a dragon/monster suddenly attacking, wow world is too small and too static to be entertaining plus addons mostly spoil the fun and rewards aren't as nice as open world games.

[rda]

I had a debate with a friend the other day regarding travel in lobby games, open world games and games like Neverwinter that fall in the middle. Both of us have been playing mmorpgs with the same people since UO launched and have played most of the mmorpg games out there over the years. Each of these games has had their own spin on travel. I was wondering how a community like mmo-champ looks at travel


Do you consider travel in WoW to be part of your adventure or does your adventure start when you arrive at your destination?

Do you find travel fun?

Yes the first five times, no after.

[Jester Joe]

Traveling in WoW isn't fun at all bc there's no incentive to take scenic routes or travel outside of quest routes.

There's no treasures, no bonus events, no special spots that award achievements, no way points, most of the important scenery isn't even made to be seen at an adventurous route. Not to mention actually moving in this game isn't very interesting at all for most of the classes and spending extra time moving is more cumbersome than anything.

FF14 is kinda like this too, honestly the only MMO where traveling actually was a blast was GW2.

Im not saying you're wrong for not enjoying exploring like that, but you're definitely wrong that there isn't rares/achievements/treasures.

There's a lot of random stuff off the beaten path. Sure you can download add-ons to show where they are like someone pointed out, but there's tons of achievements based around random exploration and rares.

[nyc81991]

Not in WoW anytime recently. However, back in the day I probably would have said yes.

[Exxord]

It depends. In Shadow of the Colossus, I remember the long travels with the same, if not more, love that the colossi fights. In Breath of the Wild, is almost the same. Those are games where the exploration, the discovery, is part of the gameplay. Some people criticize the open spaces with "nothing" in it, like it is a waste of space and a mean to artificially have a big map, but I think that those are needed to get the right atmosphere, the right rhythm.
In WoW? No, generally speaking, travel in WoW is annoying. Maps aren't made with travel in mind, and really is no fun when you're just trying to explore and every two steps trivial mobs daze and dismounts you.

[MasterHamster]

Travel is very important in order to make game worlds have a sense of scale and being interconnected. One of the things I disliked with Guild Wars 2 was how traveling was merely a few clicks away. Yes it's convenient, but it made every zone feel like it's own little secluded pocket.

In contrast, things like Flight Master Whistle, multiple ways to hearth to different places, portals, and fast flying makes the world feel smaller. You can't, and shouldn't replace game scale with loading screens.

While it's not something that lasts forever, if you play on a private realm, the game world feels so much more massive because your only real way for "fast travel" is a 1h hearthstone. It makes you make actual considerations when you use it, and when it's on cd, then yes you will be slowely making your way back. That gives the area between you and the hub feel like a large world.

But, you can't just make travel slow and inconvenient without making sure the world is actually interesting in some way to traverse. And sadly most of that is removed in WoW nowadays because Blizzard has added mob scaling, much smaller aggro ranges, mobs being almost laughably weak compared to players, few, if any, random roaming elites. There's no danger in the World of Warcraft. So as Blizzard adds more and more means to travel quickly and effortlessly, the world becomes a tiny bit (even) less relevant. It's a real waste.

[draynay]

In classic on a pvp server, roads were where interesting things happened. I got my first HK on the road in the Wetlands, a huge zone without much in it. Travel was more interesting there, but the first few times through a game, travel is exploration, after that you've seen anything and there is nothing new to the trip. It can't help but diminish over time.

[MoanaLisa]

I used to live in the Pacific Northwest and on my drive home from work I would have an absolutely magnificent view of Mount Hood majestically laid out and towering over the horizon. For a while it was the highlight of my day to travel home from work and see the mountain off in the distance. It was beautiful and was even more so for the fact that the highway home ran along the north side of the Columbia River as you began to enter the gorge. It was true tourist scenery as anyone would agree that's been there.

After a while it became commonplace and was no longer interesting since I was driving it five times a day for many years. This is how life is.

I think travel in Azeroth is part of the adventure but there are limits and it's expecting a lot for travel in the EK (for one example) to stay fresh and interesting for twelve years.

Going to a zone that I haven't been to in a long while feels better. That's one reason why I would wish that Blizzard's developers would use their world a lot better than they do.

[Aeula]

I love it in RPG's. Sometimes these long adventures between locations can be some of the most fun parts of the game.

In MMO's? Not really a fan. There's usually not much to explore or when there is it's not worth the effort since you just get a randomized box of trash items or gear weaker than what you currently have. WoW in particular doesn't have a very interesting world outside of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms (Which there's no reason to visit or explore). Every expansion we're locked to some shithole island that's more annoying to navigate than fun due it it's themepark nature and lack of openness.