Internal Town Portals

[Hypotemabus]

Good day all!

I was having a few thoughts about how to get between important parts of my town at opposite extremities. Often I spend a decent length of time getting to my storeroom and back to the surface (on a minecart elevator people keep busting) wishing there was a faster less stress educing way to get from A to B. The infinite pearls perk is pretty damn awesome but I had a thought this evening. What if towns at level 25 had the capacity to set a very limited number of internal portals (perhaps 1 paring of portals) which can link two parts of town allowing instant movement between two important points.

An additional idea is you could toggle the level perms on the portals making them only accessible to members of a trusted level in town.

 

[MasterAegon]

Hrm, I was headed into a very elaborate thought on how I'd rather see people use nether portals like Hidden Caverns and Dragonstone had but....we don't have a nether anymore. This seems interesting and would likely be good if they were spawned structures like industries and territories (many people don't grasp the golden axe very well). Perhaps once you place both then one will automatically take you to the other and you can destroy and replace them as needed.

Despite that a town needs to be a fair size, I think it would be used commonly enough. I would say as a flaw it should allow any player that steps into it passage, just like nether portals. Perhaps then even with its added benefit you'd still have to take measures to secure it. Anyway, that's my two cents.

 

[Hypotemabus]

I agree with the point that it may best allow passage to all players. Regarding the spawning structures might it be difficult to customise it to the town theme if it teleports you while you battle to hang up its new wallpaper? I like the axe system because it allows for portal frames to be creative. However I certainly see your point regarding the flaw with axes. I remember the lengthy kerfuffIe I had back in Eros when my command ineptitude was in its prime :')

 

[MasterAegon]

Agreed. I could go either way on it. I've never had trouble defining regions and such. My only thought was the younger ones that don't really get it, but everyone has to start somewhere! If they've created a town then they'll have to learn sooner or later.

 

[Cryptite]

I believe this may've been tossed around as a level 24/25 perk in the past as well. Sounds like a pretty good one to me too.

I think if we can better educate people about how to set town portals, they can carry that over to create these other portals all the same.

 

[Ajaxan]

I like most of the ideas on here but I honestly disagree with this one. The idea of making travel more easy shouldn't be something granted to you by magic powers. It should be something rewarding you get from making your town well. Good planning of your town and well designed contraptions should be what get you there faster if its really that important. Part of one of the cool things about Loka is the fact that teleporting is very limited. I think this should remain a key component of Loka.

 

[Hypotemabus]

My town is quite well planned with direct wide roads and a clear system. I am rather adept with Redstone so clever contraptions are numerous. But that is simply the problem. There are too many well designed contraptions. Take for example my storeroom, I have built an all item Auto Sorter. Its a beast. Its deep underground and secure. However it takes an ages to get in and out of because it is huge. Not to mention town members on lower end computers struggle to cope down there never mind if I added any more contraptions to get in and out quickly. Furthermore Redstone contraptions such as clocks near by start to get a bit funky with tick timings. The Minecart elevator we have now can be temperamental if lag starts to play up and carts keep getting broken so its just a massive faff and a chore to get from A to B. It is perfectly within my capacity to make some very interesting and rewarding means of quick transport but I know it just wont work like it should. I feel this might be a problem for a lot of towns once they reach a certain level of development. Things start to feel a lot further apart even with infinite pearls and speed boost on roads.

 

[Cryptite]

I personally don't feel like inter-town teleportation really betrays our "few-warps" policy that we have. There are also additionally some neat things you could do with inter-town portals. Consider a floating Mage Tower that requires a portal up top. You could seal off the portal on the surface with a zone so that you could have a cool 'high-level member zone' area.

I think it's neat anyway.

 

[Strongeee]

I like the idea of portals. Especially when having a minecraft elevator/ladders Looks really ugly in builds, a portal will be a nicer thing to look at. + people can design around it to fit there build

 

[Ajaxan]

I stand by my idea and clearly others do to. It isn't supposed to be easy. If you want to claim more space you'll have to deal with having to travel longer to get from one end to the other. And as for your redstone problems, a Minecart elevator, from everything I've seen is the fastest way from point A to point B directly up. And ours has never broken since the moment it was constructed even though it is used on a daily basis. Even our item sorter works like a charm and causes no problems for any players nearby so there is a way to do it that works well.

Anyway back to my main point. I still believe that if you want a bigger town, you're going to have to deal with a longer travel time from one side to the other. That's life. Loka has shown us its got nothing against being brutally hard from time to time and I certainly don't want them taking it easy on us by giving us the ability to teleport all around town.

Consider a floating Mage Tower that requires a portal up top. You could seal off the portal on the surface with a zone so that you could have a cool 'high-level member zone' area.

I do love this idea. This would be a best case scenario though as I'd expect many more people would simply use it to get from point a to point b or as a trap for raiders (depending on its implementation).

In general though, this just doesn't seem like what Loka needs. We need to give Newbies more help, expand on the content here, and make the server even more fun. I don't think adding a tool to let big towns get bigger faster is the right direction to head in. Realize that while I say this I'm in the middle of building a 180x180 block wall all around my towns territory and its going to take me a long time to travel from side to side. The point being that I understand what your talking about i just feel differently about it. I feel that instead of complaining about how much land you have, be happy you have it to begin with.

 

[MasterAegon]

A two-way portal to different points in a single town is not going to influence much, Ajaxan. Hidden Caverns and Dragonstone both had a nether hub that functioned like this and allowed us to move around the entire town in seconds. If this were added it would only replace a mechanic that we've removed because of the absence of the nether.

Additionally, this doesn't boost the expansion of a town. While it helps get from one point to another in a timely manner, there are far more other factors that are exponentially more impacting. Design won't change the time it takes to run even the shortest route from one end of a town to another either. I completely understand your opinion and while I'm almost always against things that make this game easier, I'm still more focused on my first point. I wish we were able to replace the ability to make nether hubs in full. Few people understood how to link portals between overworld/nether and seeing players develop like that was always great to see.

 

[gabrosen]

I do love this idea. This would be a best case scenario though as I'd expect many more people would simply use it to get from point a to point b or as a trap for raiders (depending on its implementation).

We most likely don't have to worry about this, we could just make it so only town members can go through it. Also if we do make it so that it can be "zoned" as in only town owners can use it or for example "only level III and up can use this portal" that would not be to bad. so I'm not worried about the raiding.

 

[MasterAegon]

We most likely don't have to worry about this, we could just make it so only town members can go through it. Also if we do make it so that it can be "zoned" as in only town owners can use it or for example "only level III and up can use this portal" that would not be to bad. so I'm not worried about the raiding.

I would say if implemented, any player could walk through the portal. Outside of that you could zone the area around it for specific levels and keep it locked/enclosed, much the same as nether portals once were.

 

[Ajaxan]

Hidden Caverns and Dragonstone both had a nether hub that functioned like this and allowed us to move around the entire town in seconds.

Few people understood how to link portals between overworld/nether and seeing players develop like that was always great to see.

This represents the exact point I'm trying to make. I love people who learn how to use the mechanics of Minecraft to make their lives easier. That why we continue to create technology in the real world, to make our lives better and easier. So when I see the same thing in minecraft I find it fascinating. I think its a huge bummer that we can no longer make nether hubs but I don't think spoon feeding everyone a simplified version of this is a proper way to address it. All the mechanical machines and contraptions that make the game easier for players are hard to build. People spend hours and hours developing, discovering, and refining these machines to make them usable. So something as significant as teleportation, shouldn't be something given to players on a silver platter. It should be part of the physics of the game that we learn to control and manipulate for our own advantages.

Heck I could even make an argument that Town Portals are too easy but that's a discussion for a different time. XD

 

[Lazuli73]

To be fair back then towns we a lot bigger, easily double the size we are aloud to have now. But since they are so small I personally don't see any real need for inner-town portals.

 

[MasterAegon]

This represents the exact point I'm trying to make. I love people who learn how to use the mechanics of Minecraft to make their lives easier. That why we continue to create technology in the real world, to make our lives better and easier. So when I see the same thing in minecraft I find it fascinating. I think its a huge bummer that we can no longer make nether hubs but I don't think spoon feeding everyone a simplified version of this is a proper way to address it. All the mechanical machines and contraptions that make the game easier for players are hard to build. People spend hours and hours developing, discovering, and refining these machines to make them usable. So something as significant as teleportation, shouldn't be something given to players on a silver platter. It should be part of the physics of the game that we learn to control and manipulate for our own advantages.

Heck I could even make an argument that Town Portals are too easy but that's a discussion for a different time. XD

As I've said before, I'm almost always against things that make this game easier but I'm simply not convinced this is something that significantly impacts gameplay or makes things overly advantageous. To say people are being 'spoon fed' by replacing a mechanic we removed is exaggeratory but I take your meaning. I'm afraid both sides of the argument have merit albeit neither are worth quite so much as what we're giving it.

To be fair back then towns we a lot bigger, easily double the size we are aloud to have now. But since they are so small I personally don't see any real need for inner-town portals.

Dragonstone, the town itself within the wall, was 150m radius. The max is currently 200m. I still had much use for our nether hub.

 

[Ajaxan]

The main reason I'm against portals is because they were, as suggested by dark, easier to build and much more efficient than any other method. Which invalidates using any other method. There should be many options for every level of development in a town. Despite how insignificant you may find it, teleportation is a big deal even if it is only within a town. So towns should have to work their way up to this very efficient form of travel and not just be handed it from the get go.

Hopefully this helps clarify what I'm arguing against. I know I claimed earlier that I was against teleportation in general but I'm warming up to the idea. Now, my only real problem is keeping things balanced and keeping options open. If you want towns to be able to create portals, make them a goal to shoot for that only very advanced towns will be able to access. Obviously I'd prefer a method like the nether hub where building one is not simply a matter of resources but of knowledge and understanding. that said, I'd be willing to settle on something that simply made the portals themselves difficult to create.

Sidenote: Making them a level 25 town perk is an option that despite meeting my request for being for late game towns only, it feels like cheating. I'd prefer to see this as a technology that exist outside of towns that needs to be discovered instead of granted access to.

 

[Cryptite]

I'm with Aegon on this one. This would be a level 25 perk, that takes months to get to at least. That's a pretty significant amount of work for a reward that's really a fairly minor convenience for a town. Considering other perks do stuff like allow for infinite pearls, no hunger loss, no fall damage; those seem like way bigger deals.

Allowing one two-point fast-travel within a town doesn't seem game breaking. Considering we're also adding a 'hearthstone' to the game soon, our argument that there are few teleports in the game is becoming a little lesser and lesser.

 

[Lazuli73]

What do you mean by 'hearthstone'? Is it a surprise?

 

[Cryptite]

What do you mean by 'hearthstone'? Is it a surprise?

Not really, it's the Recall Stone