New Portal concept / architecture

After having read all those hot discussions for footfall and its pro / contra, I am quite sure that this idea will find a lot of flaming also:

I want a new/better/simpler portal / transport system for normal planet-wide transfer and a reworked system of inter-planetary warping. To achieve this, I envision 3 main parts:

  1. the portals which allow transfers between two 1*2 portals on the same planet, with mostly everything as you use it currently. If you have a “destination token” from a portal, you can link a starting-point portal with that destination and then use it as you do it now. The cost is as is and the “opener” player (the starting-point) has to pay opening cost as well as maintenance cost over time. Shops and/or public places may make their entry portal usable by providing free (???) tokens to everyone whom they want as customer (remember: they make money by SELLING/BUYING stuff).

With my point 3) I will add some possibilities to expand the use of this type of portals.

  1. interplanetary portals are installed and maintained AS PART OF THE GAME, inheriting a lot of the already available functionality of the right side portal in the sanctuary. EACH PLANET WILL HAVE EXACTLY ONE such portal at a fixed place and a protected surrounding which can not be plotted by players. The building of a city nearby is OK, but the portal (the “STARGATE” ?) will not be property of any player.
    Any player wanting to use this portal, has to get to this place and enter the portal. portals of type 1) can transport a player from his base to the planetary protal (or see 1.b) point).
    He again needs a destination token, which he “activates” before entering the portal. He will be transferred to that planet and when he enters this portal again, he will be send back to his starting planet. There will exist several options to gain a destination token.
    The cost for maintaining these portals has to be defined, but can be a mixture of the current sanctuary costs to jump to different planets and/or some new algorithm.

I believe that the “planetary gate” has to be “found” by a new player and activated (level-dependent, skill, survival capabilty etc) before the player can use it for any specifc planet jump. Something like that totem augment to get the token for a different planet may be possible. I guess, we can develop several nice ideas (quests?) how to handle gaming progress for planet jumping.

With point 1) and 2) we can simplify the use and building of the transport network as well as significantly reduce the costs to maintain our current thousands of portals. —> wonderstruck will be responsible to keep the planetary part running :slight_smile:

Now for the third point:
3) Each player shall have a “wallet” - parallel to his/her inventory - where he/she organizes all known portal tokens from 1) and 2). At any time, the player can select one token for interplanetary transfers between two portals as well as ONE token at a time for defining the link between his current planet and a given destination planet. This selection can be changed at any time to allow jumping from one planet to the next etc (or even direct jumping).

This wallet is not really needed for the points 1) and 2) but it offers a few additional features:

1.a) multiple starting-point portals could select ONE destination portal and so reduce the need for many portals at a gathering place. The token set into the starting-point portal would always remember the individual link to use for a individual transfer. It is a difference to the current system, that the token will NOT be stored in the starting-point portal, but the player takes it with him in his wallet and to find back also!
1.b) Beyond that it may be possible to allow a DIRECT transport from any planetary starting-point portal via a inter-planetary portal to a different planet in ONE jump (cost tbd) - perhaps also to a specific player base on that planet.

Tokens can be created just as we do it currently when we have access to a destination portal and we could also sell/buy them (?) or give to alts / friends.

So much for this “revolutionary” change to a central game feature. How about that? Can it be a start for some better game experience as well as provide more fun and efficiency?