There's 5 transitions from Castrum to the Sunderers Gate...

[Farmboy2003]

... And while I'm in favor of keeping the immersion, and against shortcut transitions, I find it rather horribly tedious gawping at load screens, when I could be playing the game. I'm not on the fastest machine though, I may the only one bothered by it.

Is there way the number of transitions could be lower?

[thaelis]

Is there a way to speed up transitions?! Or is the answer..."get a faster internet connection" ><

EDIT: My transitions are also horribly slow compared to other players.

[wangxiuming]

Maybe the transition from the stairs up at the barracks could link directly to the portal room, instead of having to go back through the Sunderer's Gate area?

[Memnoch1962]

My Internet is a 3G Verizon air card. My video card is a PNY GeForce 9800 GT. I've noticed that I can transition faster than some on DSL. Just my two cents.

[Talleyman99]

How fast you transition is normally based on your machine. one of the people I commonly run with has a slower older computer and well can load new area's slowly even though there net is ok speeds. But yeah the barracks to portal does have an extra transition or two that could be removed to clean it up. mainly going up to the portal form barracks you go right there, coming down you have to cross the bridge for what ever reason.

[thaelis]

Maybe the transition from the stairs up at the barracks could link directly to the portal room, instead of having to go back through the Sunderer's Gate area?

Good idea. I always Dimension door past both those transitions and straight up onto the bridge ><

Another idea would be hitching a ride with one of the merchants for 30-40gp. Should cost slightly less than the cold climb one, as less dangerous/arduous. (takes you straight from near the Sunderer barracks to...Exigo Trading Post? and visa versa)

[Farmboy2003]

Good idea. I always Dimension door past both those transitions and straight up onto the bridge ><

Another idea would be hitching a ride with one of the merchants for 30-40gp. Should cost slightly less than the cold climb one, as less dangerous/arduous. (takes you straight from near the Sunderer barracks to...Exigo Trading Post? and visa versa)

I like this idea more. If you'd like to skip 5 transitions: gold sink!

[Kitsunestume]

Maybe the transition from the stairs up at the barracks could link directly to the portal room, instead of having to go back through the Sunderer's Gate area?

This already happens, the reverse does not, however.
Barracks -> portal, while
portal -> gate -> barracks

[Edit: Snap, beat to the punch by Talleyman, but mine is slightly more simplified]

[GodBeastX]

Transitions are part internet and part data loading. Data loading tends to be the bigger reason for it taking awhile, but how areas are setup makes the internet portion take longer and is responsible for crashes in general.

[Farmboy2003]

I'm playing on a laptop that has it's own graphics card (as opposed to an in-built one), and 8mbit of download. If I were packing technicalities like an engineer I'd still find it tedious to transition 5 times in a row. It's also disruptive to RP that you have to transition all the time. It makes it hard to talk'n'walk when there so many short areas.

Using dimension door to circumvent them is nice, but seems a waste of arcane power.

This already happens, the reverse does not, however.
Barracks -> portal, while
portal -> gate -> barracks

[Edit: Snap, beat to the punch by Talleyman, but mine is slightly more simplified]

Are you saying by this that there's a transition by the entrance to to barracks by the gate, that takes you directly to the portal room? instead of: Gate Area->barracks interior->bridge->portal room? I can't make any other sense of it, honestly.

[Saulus]

Maybe we could add a short-cut but mechnically I like having the bridge as an extra security layer. I certainly can understand the pain of too many transitions, after all we did add a world map point to the second wind inn.

Part of it is we didn't want the city to be somewhere you could walk back and forth 50 times effortlessly, it should take a bit of walking, or at the very least only be easy access X amount of times a day, so it doesn't take away the travel required without making things 'unfun'.

[Farmboy2003]

Maybe we could add a short-cut but mechnically I like having the bridge as an extra security layer. I certainly can understand the pain of too many transitions, after all we did add a world map point to the second wind inn.

I understand that. When you cross back and forth a few times while there's a low population on you kinda forget that those places are great setups for events. How about an NPC-based shortcut, that can be banished at a click when you want to make an event? (I know you could do that in nwn1 with the DM client)

Or something else that could be destroyed and would reappear after a reset. Maybe there could be a legionniare you could bribe to get 'first in line' as long as you had the proper papers?

Part of it is we didn't want the city to be somewhere you could walk back and forth 50 times effortlessly, it should take a bit of walking, or at the very least only be easy access X amount of times a day, so it doesn't take away the travel required without making things 'unfun'.

easy travel once or twice a day, seems fair. I can understand how the transition could be representative of the papers that needs to be shuffled, access points that would have to let up etc. But that's had to remember when you're reading the same old hints 5 times straight. What if those transitions had custom 'hints', that would reflect the things that 'took place' while you transitioned? I saw custom hints on the loading screen on another server once.

As I wrote at first, I'm very fond of keeping the sensation of travel required. I'm glad that you see it the same way.

[Kitsunestume]

Are you saying by this that there's a transition by the entrance to to barracks by the gate, that takes you directly to the portal room? instead of: Gate Area->barracks interior->bridge->portal room? I can't make any other sense of it, honestly.

you transition directly from the Barracks (where you can buy a pass) to the Portal, but on the return, you must transition first to the little ramp at the gate before you can transition to the barracks

Maybe we could add a short-cut but mechnically I like having the bridge as an extra security layer.

Apparently this might be a uninteintional.

[Gamling]

I think the less shortcuts the better. The more areas you have to travel through adds a sense of grandness to the server rather than teleporting 200 miles from viridale to Schild mountain.

The more areas you walk through means more chance of encountering role play as well.

[Doubtful]

I'm with the others: I'm all in favour of people having a more immersive world with distances represented by transitions, maps and ambushable points so long as I can avoid it myself.


(In all seriousness though, we could probably do without the Gate>inside>outside>Wall Portal>City Portal>Castrum chain of transitions. Gate>Inside>Portal>City Portal>Castrum would be enough. That 10m of bridge means an extra transition of annoyance. Though it does look funky.