Map Travel: Instantaneous Teleportation, or 3 weeks of Hard Travel?

Building upon the the success of the ever creepy and morbid topic of death in the other thread, I thought I would ask about Map travel.

So, what are your thoughts? Instantaneous teleportation via magic, or simply the game skipping 3 weeks... or a 40 minute run.... worth of ingame time of travel? Honestly it would take quite a while if you wanted to go from Ascalon to Lions Arch, go up to SC and complete the mission so that fellow would give you a lift to Amnoon, then defeat the doppleganger, fight Glint, travel to Drocks via Glint's magic, complete a few missions then hitch a ride to the Fire isles just to get a spell. And to anyone who has actually done this, I doff my cap to thee. I'm thinking an entire 10 hour day, but that's just me and I'm painfully slow.

I always kind of assumed some manner of instant teleportation. For instance, let's take running to Drocks from Beacons. Once you were lead there by a guide (aka a runner for 2.5k) you were able to visualize in your mind and use some sort of very basic magic to go there. There are examples of this in other, much smaller cases. Shadow Step, Necrotic Traversal, and a few others from proffessions I have not played.

Then of course there are always the Asuarian Stargates which seem to do this exact thing, just in a mechanical manifestation.

I look forward to your thoughts, and I remind anyone who reads this that it's a Lore forum and we don't need to be reminded that it's just a game and our avatars aren't real and don't have to walk every where. Of course most of us know that.

Well id say its the 1st one; our magic maps we take with us that appear to show more as we explore also have the power to make us go to where ever we have visited previously.

The Maps are a special magical item manufactured by the Xunlia (thats how they get around) and allow mapping to anywhere with a Xunlia Chest, The Chests and Maps are magically joined (this explains why u can only map to towns and not into explorable areas). Its like a Rune of Recall, every Xunlia Chest the Map discovers and bonds to becomes a new point that the Map can recall us to.

The True question is Who are the Xunlia and what are they up to? I mean they have a magical set of chests that can store anything and all link to one another, could they secretly have demons hidden in there ready to be unleashed in every town? *cough Beta event endings cough* And where is there headquarters? Where is the leader of the Xunlia? And Why do they have a monopoly?

Obviously there is some magic/technology involved, as suggested by this quest's dialogues:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Map-Travel_Inventor

I believe the magic is in the maps. Once the maps are taken to certain places, the magic is activated.

Either the maps are rare, and only heroes have them. (Millions of heroes as compared to the few hundred non-heroes in the world.) Or that the peasants haven't traveled to many places, so their map travel is kinda limited.

i say its a magical way to make you play gw over wow :P

but for ingame scriptures, the xunlai idea makes the logical answer, why cant we travel to the ascalon settlement north of LA? because theres no xunlai i would assume.

I hadn't really ever thought about the xunali before, but your right. Perhaps it is linked to them... Ooo another thread to discuss

You actually go back in time because...well it's too hard for your sorry souls to understand anyway!

It's a type of magic. On the gwo forums' Lore board, they've got pictures of teleportation dials in Nolani Academy (location). So yes, it's magic.

It's real, as proven by the map travel inventor quest in Nightfall.

Unless, of course, the characters in the GW world know about map travel, and do it, and the game not only skips the travel for us, but for them (like cryogenics).

ive always wandered about this
gotta remember thats some things are merely becuase of its a game.

i love venta cemetary when u gotta get to a boat to get back home, whats that about? cant you just map travel away.
another thing: When your party runs thru a portal, like on runs, they cant make you transport somewhere even if your dead.

Isn't that because you have to get those sunspears out of there... I guess not everybody has a magic map

Well what about the end of Hell's Precipice, when you have to run to get a boat?

I imagine the end of Hells Precipice, the reason u dont map is because there is some kind of magical interference from Abaddon, The Door of Komalie, or The Blood/Keystone, so rather than standing around hitting ur map going "Why isnt this working!" you run and get out of there as fast as u can.

I imagine the magic maps in Gw are quite rare and as such only a few have them (namly us the Heroes and a few of the npcs)

Or maybe Glint, telling you the volcano erupt, distracted you.

If you knew the volcano was about to go kaplooie, would you say "I'll map travel!".

No, you'd be like "ZOMGOMGI GOTTA GET OUTTA HEER!!!11oneone!!".

Plus Glint, being old, like some old people, is behind the times in terms of technology and doesn't know about map travel (else she could just travel to Hell's and kill the Lich herself).

This theory makes perfect sense. Think about it. WE didn't question map travel until just now. I see no reason for our in-game characters to not forget about it.

Proof that its magic:

in factions, when u fight the kraken, it in on a certian day: the convocation. you could map travle all you want but it still doesnt change what day it is, implyhing that the travel itself is instontanious

Ya or the convocation really could be every day and the Luxons just make it seem like its an annual thing when really they fight it out every day

The missions dont really count since there all set at specific times, eg Rurik dies in Frostgate yet u can go back and see him again in Nolani, the game wouldnt be as fun if u couldnt redo missions.

"The Convocation is today."

"But that's what you said last week!"

"That's because I've been finding various excuses to postpone it until you were ready, because chances are none of the clans are going to give you the spear unless you earn it. However, if I keep postponing it than Zhu Hanuku's going to rise anyway, so could you please go and do it rather than keeping us waiting?"

It has to be hard travel, why else would there be instances of watching an orange bar creep across the screen from one end to the other when you travel to a distance place, or right outside? Actually, its hard travel speeded up by magic until it only takes about three seconds to get to any town, anywhere. So, the traveller gets their movement speed inhanced by 0% to some uber-godly percent, if uber-godly percent is possible.

Except if you just reinstalled GW. In which case, often your first visit to a continent you hadn't visited since your reinstallation will take ages. Probably uninstalling GW deletes your character's passport, and they need to spend ages filling out forms for a new one. :P

I sold my car and bought a map.... but it doesnt work IRL :-(