Brokenbone wrote:The Pirate Isles used to have "stand around on a deck awhile, with everyone else that boarded with you", scenes. You could talk to the Helmsman who'd give estimates on how much further to go. No encounters were tied to it though. Think DMs could "stop" the trip and add boarders like lacedons or whatever.
That sounds like a neat way to try out the "instancing" stuff which I think Basilica mentioned last week.
The Northern Cormyr caravan system had you sitting in a caravan with anyone else who took it with you. Looking out the windows would give you an estimate of how far you had gone and getting out of the caravan early dumped you an approximate distance along the road.
However, I can imagine the interest level in "being stuck on a small ship's deck... possibly alone due to not portalling with friends... and possibly subjected to encounters, all alone and unable to escape" could vary. High level solo on a ship's deck with a bunch of chump friendly NPCs, blasting some smattering of lacedons, piece of cake, fun trip. Low level just trying to find game on a neighbouring server, being attacked by doomcreatures without allies, less fun.
Could just vary the chance and danger of an encounter by average level of anyone on the deck. That way your solo level 2 has a very low chance of an encounter and when one does appear, it is not entirely threatening.
t-ice wrote:Would be nice if the same double RL passage time would eventually be in place for Amn<->TSM as well, but that there would be a direct connection.
It could be doable. I imagine Silverymoon gets ships from many different places, despite its very northerly location.