Guys,

We set out to make a seamless world with meaningful travel and no overland teleports. I've always said there was a plan B (velious stlyle teleports) if this didn't work out, but it looks like it *is* working out. Yes the continents are large, but you have a wide variety of mounts, and we've been able to make an interesting world. This, to me, is meaningful travel.

But just like the Earth, there's more water than there is land. And it's also a LOT harder to make water interesting. In fact, while sailing on the open seas is cool, other than being attacked by sea monsters and pirates, if there's no land in sight, it gets boring. And again, combine this with there's a LOT of water area.

One idea came up... get rid of how much ocean there is. That would make travel times lower and address a lot of issues. But it would also make things less immersive and impede our ability to add islands, continents, and everything in-between at a later date. No, we needed to keep the scale.

So while it turned out teleports were not necessary overland, they did turn out to be necessary over water. And I don't mean to nit pick here, but I never said there wouldn't be overwater ports. And there was really no way of knowing until we got the ocean and ships really working.

So the reality is, there is no meaningful travel over the ocean without some teleports.

Now, we still don't know how many we're going to need. But we will put enough in where you still have to sail. Again, you're not teleporting on continent to another. Ship travel is still integral in EVERY way it was before.

Also, ports don't go very many places -- they will mainly be placed to eliminate long empty sections of the ocean (although we have some other cool gameplay ideas, like ones that port you randomly and such, adding some gameplay elements, but I'm talking here about the regular ocean ports).

So there is no hurting exploration, the need for ships, and the world is still incredibly large. If you focus is on getting from point a to point b you will still need to sail, but you'll use the ports (assuming you know where they are). But if you're heading out to that island you just heard about that has some cool dungeon or areas to build houses, you won't use a port, because the port won't exist. Again, I can't emphasize enough how this doesn't affect sea travel negatively at all, nor an immersive world, nor meaningful travel.

And as for what happens when we continue to add to the world, to add islands and continenents, and everything in-between? Then we may move or delete some teleports if they're no longer applicable. But then I would also imagine we'd be increasing the size of the ocean to over time (in fact, I know we will be) so in Expansions, new ports will be needed.

I guess the bottom line is you have to have sailed from Qalia to Thestra or vice versa. If you haven't, no offense, but you don't have a clue how big this world is. I have -- ships are important to me and I want them used big time by beta 4. So I've been working with ships and ocean travel. And let me tell you, it didn't take very long before it became obvious we would need teleports. And when you do the same thing, I can guarantee you 95%+ will end up agreeing with me. In fact, if any beta testers who have sailed with me helping me test want to speak up here, feel free to be released from the NDA in this respect. Perhaps you can word this better than me.

If I'm still not making my point, then I apologize, but you'll have to wait until you experience it yourself. Bottom line: I either shrink the heck out of the world so we can make ocean travel meaningful and abandon the large map of the full world we have that is the plan for the next 7 years and somehow shoehorn it in later, resulting in a pretty lame layout of a world just so I can avoid ports and have enough content (islands, etc.) to make ship travel meaningful and fun, or I keep to the plan, keep the world laid out according to the long term plan so we can easily add to it via patches and expansions and eventually realize this 7+ year plan and have some cool looking ancient teleporters in sections of the ocean that can be moved/added/deleted/adjusted as necessary. And without hesitation, I choose the latter.

ps. oh, or I literally make ships go 300 mph, which is ludicrous from so many standpoints I won't even go into it.

pps. Maybe I'll post a section of a map, showing the 2km by 2km regions that make up the world and then also show a direct ocean route between Qalia and Thestra passing through the Kojanese archipelago so you guys can really understand the scale I'm talking about -- a picture is worth a thousand words, they say.


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