Earthrise developers explain how teleportation will affect gameplay

by James Egan Jun 29th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Guilds, New titles, Earthrise

Last week we wrote about the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise and how players will be able to use mechas to establish trade and supply routes or, conversely, to hijack them. This brings up another transportation-related question, or several really. How will teleportation work in Earthrise? What limitations will be put on it? Is teleportation accessible to individuals or is it a guild-level ability? The latest Question of the Week entry from the Earthrise devs at Masthead Studios answers these questions and more.

The game's sandbox setting of Enterra is a massive island with many zones. Conventional modes of transportation may not always be the best option for players who need to get from one place to another, hence the developers have included teleportation (travel, not combat) game mechanics, but characters seeking instantaneous travel will need to pay fees for the privilege. There will be two simple types of teleportation -- short range for within zones, and long range, which can be a jump from one end of Enterra to another. The further you travel, the more you pay. Teleporters will be run by NPC factions, available to players aligned with that faction or neutrals, but Earthrise's guilds will also be able to establish their own teleporters.

Guild teleporters will link up with the much vaster NPC network, providing rapid deployment from site to site but at substantial construction and maintenance costs, plus the teleportation network usage costs. Those costs aside, will it be worth it for Earthrise guilds to have access to this technology?

Earthrise community manager Moll writes, "These teleporters give those Guilds huge advantages, but also cost more to build, maintain and use. Guilds with their own teleports can skip all the drama of failed resource escorts to the nearest city, and can quickly return their members to a siege fray after they have been resurrected at a distant cloning facility."

These are a few highlights of what the Earthrise devs have revealed about teleporation in the game, but there's more info to be found in this latest Question of the Week on the game's official forums. Masthead Studios also put together a collection of related links in their post, discussing other aspects of traveling around in the vast sandbox setting of Enterra.

Tags: community-manager, earthrise, enterra, game-mechanics, guilds, masthead-studios, moll, new-titles, post-apocalyptic, qotw, question-of-the-week, sandbox, sci-fi, teleport, teleportation, teleporters, travel