I think it could be interesting, but there'd be a lot of little things to work out. The big one would be setting 'no vehicle' zones or doing something to avoid the horrible vehicle clumping around trainers and other chokepoints. I definitely would give a +1 to making them travel powers instead of some sort of temporary power, especially if they go forward with the plan to have a designated 'travel power' slot.

*Would personally like a Portal-esque travel system*

I'm not sure I like the idea of jumping into a vehicle, and instantly going to the mission site. You should have to still travel there on your own, allows for other actions to happen. I.e. CoX had minions that would attack you en-route to missions.

I'd like to see all travel powers, not just vehicles, start off with a basic speed boost, go into a faster version of itself, & a third tier that allows for zone shifting. The how is more a flavor than anything else, Teleport, Speed, Fly, Drive, Jump, Dig.

Something that would really kill vehicles for me would be if they were like the taxis in SWTOR or WoW, or if they were togglable with a long cooldown. Both of these would -for me- add a sense of tediousness to the game, as i would always be looking at the cooldown to see when i can next move fast. I like the idea however of hoping in a vehicle, screen fading to black and then jumping out at a mission door or something along those lines. Not ideal but the more restrictions we put on utilities like a fasttravel or missions the less fun i feel it would be. This is assuming that the travel power idea for vehicles is a no goer due to a potential lack of immersion. Something that kind of bugged me about SWTOR was not being able to drive your vehicle (your VERY VERY slow segway on a turtles back slow vehicle) inside some buildings, like.... I'm a sith lord on the dark council, you expect me to obey you?

On that note, i can't really think of a way vehicles could be implemented without breaking one of these: Immersion, flow, patience, freedom, or keeping heroes motivated to use their superspeed and flight. To be honest i'm not sure the implementation of vehicles would be the best idea, feel free to prove me wrong, cause i would love to have one!

Honestly, I liked the train as a fast travel mechanic. It was a perfect in-game consistent way to allow fast travel. Here's to mass transit in our new city!

Vehicles certainly were discussed on the old forums. Like you guys, it was agreed they should be a travel power, and that they would have to be customizable. Also, that they are basically, and most importantly, an option for Natural origin type heroes. Think about it, CoH had nothing a hero with no superpowers could realistically take. Vehicles would solve that very nicely. I gotta say though, the discussions going on here about implementation are way better than anything we held back there, this is awesome!

Shadow Elusive wrote:

Think about it, CoH had nothing a hero with no superpowers could realistically take.

Well, other than jetpacks. And they had some mechanical looking wings. Oh, Oh! And the jet board!

Steve

TheMadGent wrote:

I think a combination of tech skins for flight, an acrobatics/parkour style travel power, maybe vehicles and webslinging/grappling if they can manage it.

Webslinging/grappling is indeed being developed. Doctor Tyche has talked to me about it once or twice. The engine can handle it, it's just a matter of developing a working application of it.

Naa wrote:

I do like the idea to limit it to natural origin with no super powers...

I second this - those that have no super travel ability should get cars, motorcycles, jets(packs?)

Tamorand

TheMadGent wrote:

I understand the need to minimize vehicle clutter, but I think limiting the player's power options based on origin is the wrong way to go about it.

I agree. there might be times a "Powered" hero, even one with a travel power, might need to take a vehicle someplace.

For instance:
BlueJay carefully folded his avian like wings close about his body. He did not relish damaging them in the tight confines of the submarine, but there was no other way for him to reach the deep underwater complex.

I say in most cases, the less restrictive the better.

I will only say that the concept of vehicles and the ability to interact with them (ride in/on them, and so on) is at least built into the Unreal engine.

The first person to take this as a promise of anything will get a very annoyed sheep. But the *general* capability to handle it does exist, which means it is not fundamentally "ruled out" (or at least, "ruled as guaranteed to be high-cost to implement") by the engine itself.

Yeah, if you needed to get across town and ran out in the street to summon your "batmobile", it shows up, you get in, and there's a view of you careening recklessly through the streets to pop out at your destination, fine. I would not, however, like to see these vehicles as secondary weapons platforms to use in battle. Kind of like having a non-combat pet.

Steve

Unless the vehicle takes off after depositing you at your destination.

I can empathize with the sense of a loss of ownership and uniqueness when a whole lot of people around you have the same thing (vehicles, in this case), but that's the reality of MMOs. If someone chooses to have a vehicle as a travel power they'll have to contend with the knowledge that, sooner or later, they'll run into a bunch of other people hanging out on the same or similar type of vehicle.

Vehicles may very well have to be subject to a certain amount of handwavium (Now twice as rare and powerful as unobtanium!) in order to be practical and reduce clutter. Do [i]you[/i] want to be the superhero who forgot where he parked?

What about first making vehicles available as temporary powers? That would provide feedback on them in general and, if nothing else, could get people used to the idea of them spawning and despawning. I can't recall anyone ever complaining about having that huge raptor pack appear on and disappear from someone's back.

Bwahaha submission; head to towing company impound. Parking Gestapo towed your wheels! Beat up the Parking Meter Maid Gang to reclaim your ride.

I wanna see my motorcycle fold up into a suitcase. Of course, It'll still weigh 800lbs...

Steve

*hopes for her own Katt-mobile*

*looks for a booster seat and pedal extenders so she can see out the window and reach the brake and accelerator*

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

*realizes she's not old enough to drive, but doesn't let that stop her from dreaming about her own Katt-Kopter and Katt-A-Maran, too!*

Yeah, after it's up and running, I could easily see the streets filled with "batcars", especially if normal traffic is on line with what CoH had, the supercars will far out number the rest! :)

One idea though, was that if you had a vehicle, it acts like the transit system did in CoH; You call for it, it shows up and you get in, then it arrives at your destination and you get out and it takes off.

Steve

To me, there is a difference between personal vehicles and something larger. I can see a motorcycle as just a mode of travel. You go about as fast as someone with superspeed, and you have to drive to your destination. Jetpacks, wings, gliders, same basic deal.

Cars on the other hand, and helicopters, and spaceships, are just too big. I'd rather see those work like the Tram in City of: you climb into your cool, customized wheels, zip off, then arrive and step out. Just a big aesthetic difference for me to see a bunch of people on motorcycles, and a bunch of cars (probably clipping each other) crowded around an npc.

The Defiance MMO lets everyone have a vehicle, from a tiny ATV (one of the more useful) to a giant RV. When there is an arkfall mission and everyone comes running, you get a crowd of nearly identical Dodge Challengers, dune buggies and ATVs. But they disappear quickly, because they are only for transportation. Can't attack from inside them, they can't avoid attacks, so everyone bails out of their vehicle to fight. Still breaks my immersion somewhat to have a post-apocalyptic car convention roll over the hill at the same time.

tl;dr version: I think cars and larger vehicles should work like the tram did in City, dropping its owner off at a mission door, or designated zone location. Motorcycles and smaller vehicles could just be animations for a travel power like super speed.

Or perhaps an instanced mission or two

MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Yes, my slaves.. drag your master around in the Night-Carriage. And next week we shall parade around Titan in the Night-Zamboni!

When it comes to summoning vehicles, I always loved how Bulma would grab a capsule and throw it and *Poof* a sporty little vehicle would appear.

Darth Fez wrote:

Vehicles may very well have to be subject to a certain amount of handwavium (Now twice as rare and powerful as unobtanium!) in order to be practical and reduce clutter. Do you want to be the superhero who forgot where he parked?

Reminds me of a time, right after they added a Theme Park mission arc in SWG, all the speeders parked outside a base on Naboo and players running around trying to figure out which one was theirs so they could continue the mission!

Amerikatt wrote:

*hopes for her own Katt-mobile*
*looks for a booster seat and pedal extenders so she can see out the window and reach the brake and accelerator*
ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
*realizes she's not old enough to drive, but doesn't let that stop her from dreaming about her own Katt-Kopter and Katt-A-Maran, too!*

That reminds me that the Longbow copter in my CoH SG was Amerikatt's bed! :D

ooh I made it to the end of the thread!! :)
So I'm just going to go back into my old thread and drag all those ideas in here with me where they really belong. Then we can talk.

A Cannon, just like in the cartoons where a cannon appears out of no-where and then shoots your character Ba-Boom all the way across the map, all zones. During flight there should be a whistling sound like a bomb being dropped, with a resultant explosion off in the distance of the target zone. This would not be uncontrolled, you would be equipped with a glider and a parachute, and zones would appear in glowing text as you got near them so you could always drop down in your parachute or steer right, left, or keep gliding straight until you got to your destination.

An air balloon, even an airship or blimp, a 'rare' animated method of travel this one would float you up and allow you to slowly float towards your destination, perhaps an exclusive extremely rare drop from a boss. One friend was screaming and crying for a rainbow colored air balloon. Another was demanding porky pig and the green goblin. I was partial to the blue and purple one from FF9 with purple fins that came out of the clockwork dock myself. But also you might consider the 800 balloons tied together as a massive blimp from Disney's "Up" for inspiration,

6 different fantasy airships in this FF9 music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQB623adVV8

Continuing on,

Powers and travel, the power to summon a horse, which could then be augmented with a horn, or wings, and thereby become a flying mount, or later be augmented with fire breathing and become a fire-breathing flying unicorn.

The power to summon a lizard which could be augmented with horns and wings as well to have a horned, winged flying dragon, and then augment it with an ice ability. Change the color of it, size, the style medieval europe vs. chinese, have all sorts of fun.

The power to summon a cloud which could be augmented with light to form a rainbow path upon which to walk or run, the cloud follows behind the hero and moves opposite of where the player turns so if you turn right it would turn left and project the rainbow to the right.

In the game wonderland online (cartoonish manga style) igg.com. I spent 3 months building a steam-ship, very sweet ride let me visit all the islands that were otherwise inaccesible. Later i built a car, a ufo, and a weather balloon. Each one had gasoline which was hard to find/farm and either craft yourself or pay someone else a lot.. I had 8 accounts auto-farming for me full time just so I could play and go on adventures when I had time after work. Luckily the game had built in automatic play mode so this wasn't a big deal.

There's nothing saying a ufo has to be the size of a lost pyramid either. In a game like CoT, I would expect any such vehicle to appear big on the inside, maybe as a portable house? But be small on the outside. Like Dr. Who's police box. Say the size of a hero for believability. BTW, I have always wanted my own house to be a mobile gypsy caravan, same principle of bigger on the inside. In truth it could simply be a place holder object for a personal portal. Although I have a feeling that wouldn't work with game theme.

Another thing I really need to bring up is that unless you are in a mission, a raid, a dungeon, or a PVP zone, I think you should have a 'go home' button available to press at any moment. That could be your car ride and it would instantly take you to the nearest home portal.

Taxis, I love the idea of being able to /whistle taxi and have one drive up to you and then maybe you sit down and get to select which Point of Interest on the map and maybe it charges you a few dollars to go. Like a particular club or Park or Shop. That way newbies could get around to the basic areas without getting lost too much, it's a pain when you don't know where your going, don't have the travel powers to get there and nobody wants to stop to give directions. That's where taxi's would really be handy to have and basically let them move at about a fast run so you can still get orientated in the new areas without getting bored, and you'll be able to power there later on.

This one friend I had on Freedom would roleplay a satanic devil worshipper and he would cast teleport other on people who agreed to sell their soul to him to send them from Sewer zone to Atlas Park. Then he had all of the names of souls he'd stolen listed in his bio. :)

Grappling, my brother and his friend programmed a custom server on UT 2 arena online where they were able to do grappling hooks easily. The hard part was figuring out how to bind the release like when you were half way across and wanted down, and also running into walls so they changed something about the properties of the walls to make it work so you didn't lose your life when you bumped into a wall. Other than that, it was a trick of binding the right keys, and then travel became x to fire and up into the air and then x to release and then you targetted another spot and x to fire again. Targetting was a laser beam pointer. Umm my brother is looking for work as a game designer/programmer and I could probably mention to him, but he needs paid work. Grapple also doubled as a short range weapon, you could just grapple an enemy with your device and splatter. :)

Teleport, would be neat if you could teleport specifically only to water or fire locations, like a limited version of teleport, not sure if it belongs more in powers or travel. Water would be water pools, waterfalls, fountains, streams, rivers, ocean. Fire would be torches, bonfires, campfires, NPC caused fire, burning cars, and so on.

That's all I have for tonight :)

Dutch0524 wrote:

Even though they are hover vehicles and, therefore, avoid the limitations of a ground-bound vehicle, CO has shown that vehicles can be done. IIRC, they are limited to use outside of indoor missions.

Actually, CO should be considered an example of how NOT to implement vehicles. I'm pretty sure there is no restriction to where they can go, because I've seen them indoors. Rooftops, inside the bank, inside the powerhouse, inside the tailor, inside the AH, inside pretty much everywhere, all clustered together just like we don't want to see them. They also have defense and resistance ratings independent of the character's, carry weapons, and are used to fight. I don't think this is what we want in CoT. They are very much like what you'd want in a game like Auto Assault, but they don't make much sense at all in a game where all the PCs are superheroes who can fly, superjump, etc. Remember, in CO each character is FORCED to take two travel powers at specified levels, so we are not talking about an alternative travel power or travel substitute for characters whose concepts won't justify the given travel powers. Bring in the fact that each one is "only available for a limited time, get it naiow", are more expensive than anything else in the shop, and are the primary excuse for the execrable lockbox system, and... no, just no.

After ghosting this thread awhile, I see no one has mentioned how fast travel and personal vehicles are handled in LOTRO.

Fast travel: Rent a horse from any NPC who offers the service. Horse spawns, you mount, popup menu lets you choose your destination, horse gallops off at high speed, sticking always to roads and paths. If you stop before your chosen destination, horse despawns and your character is deposited right there (you'll have to walk all the way back to town if you're in the middle of nowhere). You cannot interact with anything while mounted, and if you stop to try to do so, the horse immediately despawns as previously stated. If your chosen destination requires crossing into another zone, the ride is abbreviated as you reach the zone portal and poof, you've arrived at your destination.

(There are other fast travel methods that are either consumable temporary powers whose destination is defined by the consumable, or permanent abilities with long cooldowns that can only take you to your owned house or to your character's "racial capital city". I consider these to be more like the Ouroboros Portal, the WW/BM teleport pass, and the Pocket D VIP Pass, and not in the same class as a vehicle power.)

Personal vehicle: You can buy horses, as many different ones as you want (but you can't buy more than one of the same type), and there are many types that look nothing alike (some come with fancier tack, harness and saddle than others for a higher price). You receive a permanent summon power for each horse you own, but only one may be active at a time; using any summon despawns any other horse currently summoned. Use the summon, mount appears, character mounts it. You can sit still on an owned horse, or travel at any speed (generally faster than character's run speed) anywhere in the open world space. Character cannot interact with objects or enter an interior cell or instanced map while mounted; attempting to do any of these things causes the horse to immediately despawn, or the character to zone and arrive unmounted. No cool down, so horse can be immediately resummoned if you made a mistake, but summon powers are grayed out in interior cells and instanced maps. The owned horses cannot fight, and you cannot fight mounted. If attacked for sufficient damage, the horse despawns; if damage is extremely minimal, the horse may remain so that you can try to outrun whatever is attacking you.

So we have a fast travel method that, unlike CoX, lets you see where you're going as you travel it, though it probably lends itself better to a taxi or bus concept than to a tram/train/monorail/subway/airline. And we have personal travel that is faster than running, can go anywhere outdoors only, but can't be used when training, selling, crafting, interacting with NPCs, or fighting.

Just throwing it all out there as a different example. Apologies for the monolith.

Superpersonage wrote:

Fast travel: Rent a horse from any NPC who offers the service.

This is basically the rail system. I certainly would not object to being able to use buses or taxis in addition to rail (subway, tram, train, monorail, etc., etc.). They could each keep their typical strengths and weaknesses: rail is often faster but has fewer stations, buses reach more areas but are slower, taxis are expensive and may be unavailable.