Fast travel is nothing new in MMOS, let alone gaming in general. The ability to zoom around the game world is a convenient time saver, especially in MMOs where game worlds can simply be huge. However, the act of fast traveling isn't always satisfying, or for that matter, fast.
Part of this is simply down to server load times. Some games just simply take longer to load, especially if you're playing on a server that is far away from your own region. Often, we're met with loading screens, and for me, this pulls me out of the world. It's in these loading screens where I pull out my phone, start to browse on a second screen, or otherwise stop paying attention to the game I've been playing.
Yet after using a waypoint in Throne and Liberty for the first time during last week's early access launch, I was blown away by both how fast it was and how it felt like I was literally teleporting through the world rather than simply passing through a loading screen.
This is done by loading the new region during the channeling phase of the fast travel. It still takes a few seconds for the character to channel using the waypoint, and it's here where Throne and Liberty is clearly loading in the new area. Yet, once that's done, instead of shooting the player to a static loading screen to wait, it instead shoots them heavensward, zooming through the sky to land with a splash of magic at the new destination. And it all feels seamless and exactly how I imagine it would feel if I were literally teleporting as well.
This works as well because the loading times are fast. This might simply be because I'm running the game on a blazing fast m.2 NVMe SSD, but testing on both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, there doesn't seem to be any real hitches there either.
As a result, even if I wanted to pick up my phone and pass the time while I waited, I couldn't - I was loaded into the new area faster than I could reach across my desk. Because of the way NCSoft has handled its fast travel, it quite literally is just that - fast travel. I am never ripped out of the experience, and I feel even more gripped in the world.
I'm really hoping that this is the new standard of MMOs moving forward, and that more will see this design and look to emulate it for their worlds. It's really a small thing that I'm not sure I gave much thought to before. Still, the seamless way porting works in Throne and Liberty really adds to the idea that my character is this strong, magical force to be reckoned with (and yes, I know that in the in-game world, everyone can use Waypoints, regardless of Star Fragment status, but let me have my fantasy).
Either way, I hope the jolt of energy that fast traveling gives me in Throne and Liberty takes a while to die down. At some point, the novelty will wear off, I'm sure, but I'm hoping it's not any time soon.
Has there ever been a feature or mechanic in a new MMO that had you excited, even if it seems like a small thing such as this fast-travel animation? Let us know in the comments below.
