So I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot, and here are some general thoughts.
My original hope was that similar to how in the old days of WoW Mages would sell portals from cities to various locations, Runemages would spend time in Highsteppe or Guild City and offer to create portals for other players. However, while that does seem to happen frequently for big events like planned World Boss raids, it doesn’t really happen a lot of the rest of the time. Part of that is because I think in a VR game you are less likely to just stand around in one spot for 3 hours making portals, and then another part is that at least thus far, no central place in the game world has emerged as the spot where everyone gathers (which to some degree is by design).
So, if there’s not a friendly local Runemage on every corner making you a portal, does that mean everyone who hasn’t done the Runemage questline or just can’t cast the portal spells for lack of practice or other limitation should just be unable to fast travel? I would say no. At the same time I do think Runemages who can cast those spells should still have somewhat of an advantage, I just don’t think it should be to the extent of “I can fast travel and you can’t at all”.
Probably the best way to balance that out is to allow Runemages to continue doing what they’re doing, which is to say they can create portals from anywhere to any stone, and then introduce a mechanic where non-mages can travel only from certain locations to any stone. So that way it’s still advantageous to be able to cast the portal spells, as you can be in the middle of nowhere and quickly get someplace else, but at the same time if you aren’t a mage or can’t cast the spell, you can still get from e.g. Highsteppe out to the Desert dungeon quickly. It would still cost a Runemage reagant so using the airship would still be the preferred option especially for lower-level players or if you’re just not in a big hurry, but for high-level experienced veterans who have farmed up a pile of reagents, spending one to get where you want to go quickly is worth it.
Other than the fast travel, in terms of traveling overworld more quickly, we will be introducing a device that allows you to move much faster than you can currently while out of combat, but it’s something that you would not acquire until you are higher level.
Anyway, I will spend some more time working on that concept and see what we can do.