Also becomes icky to teleport to a lost novice (without teleport of their own or any more newbie portals), have them follow you, and teleport back to home.

Again, poor novices.

Edit: Yes, I like helping people ... I refuse to think that's a bad thing.

I was Hartstone envoy for the purposes of this report, and though I did comment on totem return and it's usefulness, I didn't comment on teleport at all, as I recall it.

I really don't see this as a bad change. If you're that bloody lazy, get zmud or another program with a mapper and use it. I used to walk off a map, and it'd take me a minute or two, tops, on Prime, to get wherever I wanted to. Then I made some walking aliases and it got even quicker. If you're that bad at directions, maps, and aliasing, ask a friend to make you some - hell, ask me if you really want to, I'm happy to do it in my quiet moments. (I can't guarantee they'll be as great as all these wonderful coders we seem to have, but I can guarantee they'll work except for the occasional cow).

In fact, my alt only ever teleports to her nexus, and she goes all over the place. My only request would be that teleport nexus takes either minimal or no power.

But thats the point of novice portals so they can learn to walk around by the time they are level 21.

Now I've had time to think about it... I'm not so fiercely opposed to it. We have to make changes - concerning power limits and tactics, but I don't see it as a reason to IMMEDIATELY protest for it to revert.

My thoughts on it, though.
When Summon is used in a combat situation, it's easily blocked by monoliths - as well as there being a chance to resist it. The time I use it most is summoning lost novices, or ones that have fallen down a gravedigger pit or accidently walked into a statue.
So, if it's blocked fairly easily in a combat situation, and when used to help novices it frequently fails because they run around screaming I'm lost! and won't stand still... I don't see much reason for a power cost.

It's going to, as someone else said, 'redefine distance' in Lusternia, though, which could actually be a good change in the long run.

I certainly do agree that -
- TELEPORT NEXUS should be free of a power cost, for sure.
- summoning/teleporting to mutual allies should also be free, at least.

There are other things that could be done to temper the changes, like reducing the power costs for them, or making it so that a failed summon/teleport doesn't waste power.

OR how about giving them a significant mana cost? Or some other downside instead of a power cost.

All in all, I say, give it some time. Everyone calm down, and wait and see IN PRACTICE how the changes will affect everything, if we actually make an attempt to accomodate them

And be grateful that we have a team running this MUD that are active and do actually make changes and attend to problems. Not only that, but they DO listen to the playerbase. But, to their own credit, they are patient, and when they implement something they don't just rip it straight back out again if people start whinging, thus preventing further exploration of the idea, or letting our own impulses override the bigger picture.

So all this aside, kudos to the coders for keepin' on keeping on they way they have been

Limited portals starting at ... 11th circle of experience, though? So unless the novices don't do anything besides explore, most of them aren't going to become quickly familiar with a lot of places. I'd imagine most new players to a game are going to be more interested in learning what they can do (thus gaining experience, more lessons, more abilites) instead of taking self-study geography lessons.

If you take 'a minute or two' to walk to a raided village, or a dying mob, or something else the realm design forces us to defend or value, guess what? The damage is already done. Maybe for people who don't fight that works, but it doesn't for most of the realm. I can move pretty quick on prime, but not fast enough in critical situations, and not to some places where you're needed.

Thought about it. Would like to hear why the envoys wanted the change.
I do like the fact everyone is going to have to be organised before raiding/influencing/defending. I'm used to walking around anyway so not teleporting isn't going to bother me.

Either way the novices who start are really the only ones that lose out. I will be asking my Envoy (if its not changed soon) that TELEPORT NEXUS will not cost power or 1 power. I have always used that when I am in a quick fix and have the leave the game now. It already has a disadvange on teleport, so maybe lessen the time it takes for 3 power instead.

To our coders. Good job in these speedy changes

I love the summon one, serves the bastards right who sat there summoning and summoning knowing it wouldn't go through just to spam me. But the teleport seems a bit steep, drop it to one power..on the plus side I shall learn to walk places!

i like it *shrug*

I say drop teleport to 1 or two, this will teach novices and such how power works and also limit how many people spam teleport/summon. I guess its good in a sense that it will teach people some geography It also puts more emphasis on skills for transportation IE: Catacombs and stuff like empress ( I will get lust on all Magnagorians). Anyways, I am rambling so I will stop now.

Hmm... my thoughts...

They probably needed to cost more yes. Teleport and Summon got whored out quite a lot before. Spam teleport/summoning people in raids was very annoying. The only problem I see now is that although teleport still works dandy, if you need to go somewhere, you can... summoning someone... there's so many ways to avoid a summon anyway, it just forces someone to drop a monolith or whatever, power wasted, you're not likely to spam them again. I think it nullifies its offensive use entirely, making it a passive skill to get someone out of a place.

I don't know what the intention was with adding a cost, that's just what I see on the surface. I can't see how they'll pan out yet, I'm certainly glad of my mapper being able to walk places now...

Novices have Portals for one, and will teach them to get to important places with the limited portals they have left after reaching level 11, so the argument of "the poor novices" is not entirely valid. I do agree that Teleport Nexus should be free of charge though.

Other than that the changes make the uniquie guild traveling skills more viable and unique. Besides, everyone should have some idea of how to walk around the world. It isn't -that- big.

The nice thing about teleport before was things like this:

I'm at the arena waiting to spar someone and they need to get over. I can just tell them to teleport, a few mana, a few seconds, and poof, they're at my side now. But now, people have to get worried. What if they've already used teleport several times that RL day and don't want to waste any more power? What if they don't have much power because they live in, say, Serenwilde, which rations power (I think?) and they don't want to waste their power share? Then I'd have to wait for them to march all the way across the globe to get to me. It's just a matter of annoyingness and utility.

In my opinion, being able to get around back and forth quickly with little cost was part of what made combat so dynamic, unique, and enojyable. Now, not only is it stripped completely of whatever small offensive capability it had (the same goes for summon too) since just a few failed attempts will knock a large hole in your reserves, but people who have to worry about their power will also have problems using it, such as novices (notice I said /novices/, not newbies - I know newbies have portals) as Celest, for one, does not let its novices link.

Can I ask what, exactly, is the rationale for this change, anyway?

Stop thinking it's me, just cause I don't use IRC and didn't immediately say, "NERF IT, NERF IT!!!!!!"

Any Hartstone can see my entire envoy report, should they wish it. I still have it stored on my computer (luckily, I almost deleted it the other day when I was cleaning up). My envoy report said this on the entire return subject.

- Return - Totem return is presently halted by monoliths, is very slow and costs 3 power. Suggested that the power cost be lowered to 0 or 1, is slightly faster, and not halted by monoliths or actions (other than attacks).

Travel is not supposed to be simple as that. You want to be somewhere on time? Plan ahead. You have an emergency? Move your arse as fast as you can, or find a convenient druid.

The Rationale is that 2 envoy reports asked for it.

Daganev, that's not the kind of answer I wanted and you know it.

so?


I think plenty of rationals have been given, pick one you like.

I was hoping to hear one from the Divine, really.

Since everyone is complaining about Teleport, I will be complaining about Tesseract... *shifts* Wait... No complaints and what in the blue moon nilh can sting without balance?

Shiro, take two seconds to spell properly, it's damned annoying trying to decipher chickenscratch.

As for Nihilist sting, it's a DOWNGRADE. There is an 8 second balance on it.