Why Don't MMOs Allow Easier Transportation?

Rock, Paper, Shotgun is running an opinion piece which asks why the majority of MMOs force users to spend a fair portion of their time traveling around a virtual world. At what point does moving from one location to another become a chore? From the article: "I love big, explorable worlds. They're by far one of my most favourite things about games. Running off in a direction without any idea what I might encounter is a rare pleasure, and one far more likely to result in an exciting discovery in a game's world than the real one. ... Not knowing what's coming up is huge and exciting, and I'd not want to take it away from gaming, not ever. But you know what? Once I've been there, that moment's gone. I've discovered it already. I did the exploring. I don't need to spend half an hour of my time that I've allocated for playing games trudging at whatever stupidly slow speed a game's decided to impose upon me. There is no good reason, whatsoever, to not just let me be there."

Re:Pretty simple

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

More time travelling = more time playing

More time playing = more money earned

That only works provided people keep playing. If they go as silly as say that Penn and Teller Sega CD game where you drive a bus to Vegas, subscriptions dry up.

Re:It is better to travel hopefully

[freedumb2000]

That is actually a great idea. I might start developing a work commuting simulator. Driving to work in real time. Spend up to 2 hours on congested freeways per trip depending on actual server load. With all the great distractions of way-too-cheery morning radio show hosts and spilling hot coffe on your lap (cup holders can be purchased at higher levels, or stolen if you are a rouge character). That is time well spent on those boring weekends or for the unemployed. A game that with a huge potential demographic.

Re:No, the technical term is "Dead Time"

[Anonymous Coward]

if you find exciting video games "exhausing" you must be really fucking fat.

Re:No, the technical term is "Dead Time"

[TheLink]

> Bear in mind that something exciting is only exciting in comparison to what happened before

Peaks and troughs are good.

But left4dead doesn't have you travelling for 5 boring minutes. It's just a short pause before you have lots of stuff happening again.

As for creating a contrast between boring and exciting. The really boring bits can be saved for "real life" when I'm not playing games.

For example, I don't mind boring plane flights that much. I don't want too much excitement when travelling in real life. Especially since respawning is hard for most people.