Honestly, that doesn’t even seem to occur much anymore since we’re able to solo or do our own thing most of the time, so our characters are all over the game world by the time everyone gets online and decides to do something.

That is another point that I’m likely to rant about when I get some sleep and free time to do so. Or maybe I’ll rant without any decent amount of sleep… I bet that would be interesting.

If you’re already in a group traveling/adventuring, that’s not quite what I was getting at. Honestly, that doesn’t even seem to occur much anymore since we’re able to solo or do our own thing most of the time, so our characters are all over the game world by the time everyone gets online and decides to do something. That’s where my example applies, because that seems to be what happens most often. At least to me. Sure, if you know you’re doing Raid X tomorrow, take care of the necessary preparations and park your character at the door. But for impromptu “hey guys let’s do [content]” travel time is going to apply and take away from the total adventuring time some people may have on any given night.

BTW - one of the strengths of VG is that the combats aren’t that instant and you don’t need to constantly react to everything - you can actually chat, type things to guildies, etc…. at least I could. I wonder if that is why the tank called me, “the healer that never heals”?

here’s two bloggers I read and respect

Thanks!

Second of all..

I don’t think “meaningful travel” is defined by a random scattering of mobs or even a random scattering of mob camps every few feet. If something is there, it should be there for a reason that is either easily discernable by the player or there are hints as to why it is there, possibly leading to a side quest or further exploration.

I’m going to call that “meaningful mobs” not “meaningful travel.” I agree, mobs and other things should have an actual reason, story, lore, whatever for being who or where they are. But that has nothing to do with traveling.

I think I misrepresented myself here which is what I often do because either my mind is working faster than my fingers or my slacking… err… break time at work was interrupted.

The context is that a lot of WoW folks were citing “meaningful travel” and using WoW as an example. They didn’t like how Vanguard “felt empty” when moving from one spot to another. Really, WoW has tons of little camps and stuff for you to plow through on your way to the next location, but that doesn’t make travel meaningful… it just means you get to pummel stuff along the way.

Let’s look at your analogy:

I’ve made the analogy a few times now that I could drive from New York to Los Angeles and the only “meaning” when I arrive is that I’m there. It took forever, my back hurts from sitting in the damn car for a few days, I’m tired and cranky, but by gods I’m there!

No imagine you took that drive with three of your best friends. You chatted the whole way about various things, cracked jokes, stopped at dinners, oogled some hotties, etc. It’s a completely different trip right? The meaning isn’t getting there, it’s the journey. If there is no journey then you miss out on those moments with friends.

Prime example is my group of buds traveling from Tursh to the Lyceum (on Thestra in Vanguard). Two of them ran into nasty fairies and got killed… harassment of death by fairy ensued. Suddenly our tank falls behind, his health drops and he dies. All we hear over TeamSpeak is “Fucken chickens” and we knew right away he had run into some cockatrices. Death by chicken jokes ensues.

Probably some “You had to be there moments” but we wouldn’t have had them if travel was instant. In fact, most of our talk in TeamSpeak would only be about combat and which porter to take if there was no travel in the game.

The game stops being social.

That’s not to say that combat can’t be fun and make memories, but combat (especially in recent games) has become very VERY fast paced, often being resolved in under 10-20 seconds. It also tends to be constant or you constantly have to advance and kill more. There isn’t a lot of time to chat about general things with your buds. I think this is what ended up burning us out in WoW (I played with 2 of my 4 MMO gamer friends), it just felt like we were constantly clobbering things and very little else. Griffin rides were time for getting a drink or letting a drink out. Prep time was done before or after logging in… maybe we were just too efficient, but it all started to feel mechanical and unfun.