Topic

Teleportation limits and their effects on Ur.

I know a lot of people are always complaining about how Ur is dying, and home streets are more useful, or how routes made Ur redundant, et cetera et cetera. Routes have endless series of whatever resource you're looking for, home streets are the most efficient meeting places, and towers stock the best stores in the game. All of this is true, and will always be true. But it seems like a lot of these strengths of home streets are amplified by the fact that you can travel to them at any time, for free, via teleportation.

Access to the world however remains constrained and downright difficult compared to home streets. Teleportation takes skills (five of them), and it still has low map teleport limits (3 per gameday), low teleport points (3), cooldowns, teleport script management, and energy costs. And before you can even teleport, you're either hoofing it, or traveling by subway. The system was elegantly balanced for a world where resources only existed in the world, but that era is over. Now Ur is competing with an alternate world where you can go anywhere, do anything, get anything, instantaneously. It's like a newspaper competing with the internet.

The convenience of traveling to home streets is what's really killing Ur. Its the deciding factor that will always make people meet on home streets, meet and complete group quests on home streets, repetitively and exhaustively gather a single resource on home streets, or pop in for that random resource they need for crafting.

Do you think that access to the world should still be meted out so slowly, with so many constrictions when a level 1 player could alternately instantly travel to any resource on a home street via a site like seriousroutes.com? It seems like the balance of convenience is so disproportionate that it eventually needs to be adjusted.

Would you like to see the system stay the same? Use a similar system with fewer constrictions? Scrap/overhaul the current system? Or maybe completely eliminate them and allow free travel?

Do you think any of these options would make visiting the world more viable or common, and create a better overall playing experience?

If you have any ideas, thoughts, or feelings about the teleportation system, in relation to its impact on the exploration of the world, feel free to post it here.

     

A few of my ideas for tweaks:

Dramatically more map teleports
With 3 per game day, I always feel like rationing them and I'm afraid to use them. Without ample map teleports, players are restricted from visiting areas they don't visit often, or meeting up with players on the streets of Ur.

More saved locations
Are we really expected to only have three favorite places in all of Ur?

Teleportation Hubs
Like subway stations, but for teleporting. Hub streets we can always teleport to via the Map for free, without using a map teleport. Multiple hubs for large regions. This way even if you used up your map teleports, you're no more than a five streets away from where you're headed. Perhaps access to them could be quest or project related, on a region by region basis. Or use completionist badges as a prerequisite.

Condense the skill tree
Let new players gain the ability to efficiently explore the world even sooner. Maybe just three skills total, with lower completion times.

Posted 3 months ago by Haze Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I don't think anything is killing Ur

    I'd like to be able to use a token to TP to one of my saved places
    Posted 3 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You can pay real money for teleports.
    Posted 3 months ago by jiva Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I still like to tool around Ur for my resources, very rarely do I need more beans then I can find in groddle heights. 
    Posted 3 months ago by Tenzing Norgay Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A thoughtful post, Haze. Outside of completionist badges, sloths & foxes, and certain special streets (e.g. the Ancestral Lands, game/fun streets, etc.), there really isn't much incentive to walk around Ur. There's an incentive to save a few of those important streets as TP points, but not really to walk from one place to another. After all, why wander Ur when you can wander your friends' streets and give them iMG, leaving gifts and gathering resources more efficiently? It is sad to see the less-visited areas getting dimmer as they grow lonelier. 

    I do wonder, though, if TS just has something up their sleeve that might make this concern go away entirely. (To me, having parallel universes of home & world seems clunky, and I'm not sure why they must be separated so.) Or maybe the issue will disappear with a massive influx of new players. Ultimately, I'm not particularly troubled by it, but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I think your TP hub idea is interesting, and I also think that TP skills should take a bit less to learn for new players.
    Posted 3 months ago by Melody Pond Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I too mourned the fact that we're too reliant on resource street. I spent some time being lured by the convenience and the mountains of resources given unto me on silver platter from these home street.

    I now swear off homes street and explore Ur like it should have been, and it's been amazing :) The only thing I still wish is more people coming out to the world. It feels like barren land without seeing other Glitch mulling around. (I kinda tried to write this sentiment in the forum, but I guess I didn't word it well, people took it as I'm being bored of the game. Ho well... :p)

    Perhaps a reasonable solution is to have houses in real location in Ur, but fully customisable to prevent those herb wars that happen in the past. I don't know how much it would impact the tower economy. But if personally I would have ventured to a lot more towers if they were part of Ur. Young glitches still have auction to rely on if they can't teleport to the faraway towers to buy stuff, and this would also encourage creative ways for people to advertise their tower.

    I dunno. I'm still just a young glitch, still oblivious.
    Posted 3 months ago by purple goldfish Subscriber! | Permalink
  • guano collecting ...... Poop will keep you up late wandering the streets.
    Posted 3 months ago by Dru Id Subscriber! | Permalink
  • POOT TELEPORT HERE
    Posted 3 months ago by Volkov Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I started to write a thorough response to this, but honestly, I think the question is moot.  TS sells tokens, so I can't see them making any major changes to the system as it stands, unless it's to make tokens even more useful than they are now.
    Posted 3 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think going directly to your home street should remain "free"—as should traveling by signpost.

    Going directly to someone else's home street, however, should count as a map teleport.
    Posted 3 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm with Pascale on this one.
    Posted 3 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think it should stay as it is now. Doing otherwise would make the game a lot less social. If I've gotta spend a map teleport to do it, I'm not exactly motivated to visit people (and once I've visited three people in a day, I guess that's it... no more being social for me until next game day).
    Posted 3 months ago by Jus​tin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't the story has completely unfolded yet.  We are simply feeling a transitional phase. I believe TS has more in store for us to balance the game and put more of the power of what  happens in our hands.
    Posted 3 months ago by Webbie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you tp'd to someone's homestreet and exhausted a resource and wanted to restore it - would you have to tp again? That would be 2 out of three for the day. I think the tp per day should be increased. I belong to two groups (Rook alerts & piggy rescue) that always mean a tp to respond (for me, anyway). It does cut back on my general travel in Ur.
    I have never understood the use of tp scrips. I'm not a subscriber, so tokens aren't a consideration. I just pick a spot on the map that I want to go to and use some energy to get there. Why would I need a scrip?
    Posted 3 months ago by Patricia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • TP scripts don't count as map teleports. Imbued scripts are a particularly powerful tool when grinding things like the Licensed Teleporter (Whoa Class) badge (or any TP badge, although you're more dedicated to Glitch than I am if you're willing to shell out the cash to buy 10009 tokens...). Reduces the time taken to earn the badge from 25 hours to about four.
    Posted 3 months ago by Jus​tin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ J.D. - WHOA! Not likely.
    Posted 3 months ago by Patricia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interesting post! The idea of TP hubs is cool. I would definitely love to be able to save more than 3 teleportation points (how about 5 from higher TP skill?) - I feel I would spend a lot more time in Ur then.
    Posted 3 months ago by MyooKat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't like the fact that there aren't any costs to teleporting to other people's home streets. I think maybe it shouldn't count towards our daily teleportation limit, but maybe there should be some sort of energy cost? Like, just a little?
    Posted 3 months ago by Reirei Umezaki Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I came here from a game where each home had a "World Gate" and a "Friends Gate".  Since the introduction of Home Streets I have hoped that something like this may be introduced here.  On the World Gate was access to  all the major Hubs and on the Friends Gate there was access to a maximum of 300 Friends.  I can't imagine a 300 Friends access but a second sign post on Home Streets with access to some, if not all, major Hubs or Subway Stations would be great!

    I prefer to go into Ur and do so daily.  I only use Routes if I have an urgent need for some item.  At this point, I have pretty much everything I need so I seldom travel resource routes.  I do change my sign often and visit Home streets just for the fun of seeing them and to help my Friends get iMG.  I do wish it were easier to access UR.  The system we have now requires the use of Energy or Tokens for the most part.  This limits my travel in UR somewhat even though I do have several Tokens.  My Telepoints cost Energy.  If I want to use Tokens I must select a Map location.  I do find the limits to travel inconvenient and would like it to be easier to get off of my Home Street.
    Posted 3 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just realized that to work on my subway badges (UGH!) I will have to teleport to a subway. So counterintuitive. (Yes, I know I could start somewhere else & walk to one but that's not the point.)
    Posted 3 months ago by Patricia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot in a different post ( http://www.glitch.com/forum/general/26246/ ) hinted that at some point each street would be able to have custom teleports back out to Ur; http://www.glitch.com/forum/general/26246/272522/ which should act like the Hub idea.

    Personally I wonder how much of the seemingly emptiness of Ur is do to just less players playing from Glitch being in a closed back to beta for so long. I know that the invites have been opened back up for awhile now but I doubt there has been any really type of formal advertising of the game other than word of mouth from the players themselves. No doubt many people are staying to the home streets but the overall game population will definitely have an impact which should be resolved once the game is live again. 
    Posted 3 months ago by Mithax Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Haze, you've summed up many of the feelings I've been experiencing since the new home streets were introduced.

    Thank you for your inventive suggestions. I appreciate it.
    Posted 3 months ago by Arietty Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm using door drinks instead of the teleportation, it's much more fun.:)
    Posted 3 months ago by nekomaki Subscriber! | Permalink
  • How about this idea: Unvisiting Stones.
    Posted 3 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A couple things to respond about:

    I kind of glossed over the fact that many of the long time players believe reliance on streets is making the game less social, with less of a sense of community because you won't run into that many people on streets of Ur. They miss things like group mining, or other opportunities to strike up conversations with players. That was one of the main assumptions of my thread, so the focus was on bringing a focus back to Ur, by making it easier to navigate. I'm sure there are lots of other ways to achieve this (increased resource yields would work rather quickly) but I thought the disparity in ease of travel wasn't talked about much.

    According to TomC, there's 1043 unique locations in Glitch, but there are an ever increasing number of home streets (64k players on leaderboards, maybe 10k relatively active?) where people will spread out and not run into each other as much. I'm not anti home streets, but I just find it odd that when it has so many advantages over Ur (player controlled, customizable, more efficient, routes, stores) that it also the distinct advantage of being accessible at any time with free travel.

    Re: tokens
    I know that the tokens system is one of their revenue sources, but even if teleportation restrictions were relaxed they would still be useful for their no cooldown status alone. Also I would guess most people using tokens are getting them from subscription, not a la carte via credit purchase. There's also the fact that making the game easier to use and more enjoyable to play could have a net benefit monetarily versus any losses in token revenue.

    Re: increasing restrictions for home street travel
    I was going to write something about this originally, but I left it out so my post wasn't super-super-long instead of just super-long. I think this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it was very generous (limit 15 per game day?), but its a really delicate balance. I'm a little surprised it seems to have so much support. Restrictions for home street travel would do things like kill off tower/store visitors and ultimately make the game more difficult/tricky to play. Overall I'd like to see Ur become easier to use, rather than make home streets more difficult to use as some twisted form of travel parity.
    Posted 3 months ago by Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It would be a bit shocking if we were to suddenly need teleportation to visit each others' houses.  The original housing system had shared streets, and we could access any other street merely by walking to a signpost.  To force us to teleport to most other people's houses would be a serious break from tradition, and would certainly encourage us to stay home even more than we do now.
    Posted 3 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My 3 teleplaces are:
    1) An Ancestrial Lands -immediate energy renewal after grinding spices for batterfly feedings.
    2) Robena Range -(secret love) and gives me access to guano route and another entry point into AL.
    3) Flipside-easy quoin route, spice route, and access to Uralia-Cebarkul (Tool vender, Hell jumping-off spot, and connection to Ilmenskie for all your mining, guano and underworld pleasures.

    I have lots of scripts handy, too. Can newbies use gifted/purchased scripts?

    Restricting home street travel? Possibly. Home street signs that have neighbor add-ons, would allow continued 'free' travel. But, when you get to a street without any neighbors listed, your trip ends. Back home you go. This would allow some who like their streets to remain more private be less desirable. (Maybe this needs to go into the ideas forum).
    Posted 100 days ago by bayBi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I do think there should be a teleportation cost to go to someone else's home street via a "Visit Home Street" (maybe not so much with sign posts) but no limits on it.
    Posted 99 days ago by Aliera Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, if you think about it, world-wide free teleportation is not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all!
    Posted 99 days ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree about the imbalance but I think the answer is to make home street teleports slightly more restricted, not to open free world teleporting. The underlying idea of Glitch is to roam the world, harvesting along the way, not to teleport wherever and whenever you want.

    I think it should take a normal amount of energy or a token to teleport to another player's home street unless you have a key. You can use your sign for a free/unrestricted teleport to a home street, but changing your sign would take enough iMG that changing your sign vs. using energy would be an interesting choice. Going to a resource route using a map to a resource-rich area of the world would basically cost the same. Visiting stones would become more fun/useful since they are a free teleport into the housing world. I'd also add a requirement that a yard has at least two neighbors to sign up for visitors so players don't get stuck at a dead-end yard with low energy and nowhere to go but home.
    Posted 99 days ago by Lucille Ball Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Many of the suggested actions in this topic are coming uncomfortably close to "people should be required to play this way instead of that way". The overarching assumption of the OP and of many of the responses are that people spending playtime on home streets and not in Ur is inherently a bad thing. This is arguable at best.

    "I know a lot of people are always complaining about how Ur is dying, ... " Certainly many people are complaining, but claiming that Ur is dying is a whopper of an assumption. It's certainly open to debate and I would argue that it's not dying at all.

    "Access to the world however remains constrained and downright difficult compared to home streets."  This is demonstrably not true. How is access to the world constrained? Anyone can go anywhere. If one cannot teleport, one can always take the subway or walk. Downright difficult? Sorry, but that claim frankly makes no sense.

    ". . . many of the long time players believe reliance on streets is making the game less social, with less of a sense of community because you won't run into that many people on streets of Ur. They miss things like group mining, or other opportunities to strike up conversations with players." I honestly do not see the connection between home streets and less-social. People can be interacted with exactly the same whether they are in Ur or on Flowerry Pott's street.

    Besides this is the kind of thing that has to happen naturally. If anyone wants to be social, then be it. If anyone wants lots of other people to mine with, get 'em together and do it. It isn't the fault of the home streets or an issue in the game design if it doesn't feel as social (whatever that means; I'm sure it has different meanings for different people). Numerous times I've wandered the streets of Ur and started up chats with other players; most often they're absorbed in what they're doing and don't notice. It's possible that that why the game doesn't seem to feel as "social" - people are doin' their thing. But people are plenty social when they feel like it - like just the other day at the nekkid party in Cebarkul.

    ". . . I think the answer is to make home street teleports slightly more restricted, . . ." I believe the rationale is that home streets exist in the imaginations of all the Glitchen so restricting access or incorporating some other kind of cost to moving about home streets seems out of whack with that scenario.

    Besides, where is the fun in that? Wandering aimlessly through the home streets is really great, because of all the variety. As more decoration options are implemented, they're only going to get better and more interesting.

    Ur is wonderful and I adore it, but frankly it's a bit static. When you go to Groddle Meadow, you know what you are going to see. When you go to Kalavana, you know what you are going to see. I'm not saying this like it's a bad thing - it isn't. But surprises await on the home streets. Why would restricting access to that make any sense at all?

    But I have 2 larger points in all this.

    1. I've seen a number of discussions or comments about this subject (Ur "dying") in the last few months, but the most frequent - and usually first - suggested solution is that TS needs to implement something or other or change the parameters of the game in some way - such as restricting access or requiring teleporting to home streets - in order to create a "solution" to the "problem". Why is that? If the players honestly believe that Ur is dying, why not try some things themselves first themselves? There is certainly not a shortage of creative people in Glitch. If anyone really thinks it's important that more players play in Ur, what can you do to attract them there? If anyone thinks there should be more "social play" or more group mining, make it happen yourself. Get people together and go do it.

    In short: the carrot, not the stick. Become the change you wish to see.

    2. Players using home streets =/= neglect of Ur. People using home streets =/= home streets being superior to Ur. I would bet currants that the vast majority of players (statistically speaking, all players) are in different places at different times. Sometimes they are in home streets, sometimes Ur, sometimes Game of Crowns, sometimes Arbor Hollow. That's the beauty of Glitch; we have all these choices and just because we sometimes use one, does not mean we don't use (and treasure) the other.
    Posted 99 days ago by Flowerry Pott Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "The underlying idea of Glitch is to roam the world, harvesting along the way, not to teleport wherever and whenever you want."

    But I do it already, except when I want to roam the world.
    Posted 99 days ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The underlying idea of Glitch is to roam the world, harvesting along the way, not to teleport wherever and whenever you want.

    Says who?
    Posted 99 days ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink