PSA: Teleporting Random People

Announcements
#1

Hey everyone,

Just a general PSA. Please refrain from teleporting random people. I know it’s done in jest as a fun prank, but I’ve received a couple of complaints from newer players who are frustrated about having to walk all the way back and confused about what’s happening. Obviously we want, as a community, to put our best foot forward, and not leave a bad taste in the mouth of new folks.

If it’s your friend then go for it, but please refrain from doing it to random strangers. In the future I may have to modify the mechanic such that you choose to accept the teleport. I’d prefer not to do that since I think when used properly it could be a fun feature (e.g. in the Wilds it could be interesting). But we’ll see how it goes.

Let me know if you have questions. Thanks!

3 Likes
#2

Maybe it can be disabled in the starting area?

#4

do people really do this?

waste of a reagent to grief a complete stranger

#5

The best thing I can think of is making the teleport only work when you start outside the collision of the teleport and have to move into the teleport portal. This way players who get the portal spawned inside them, will not teleport.

Lets say you use 2 collision boxes. One for triggering the teleport, and one a bit bigger than the first collision box where you need to be standing outside before you can walk into the teleport. Or even better a 3rd collision box to detect when you are outside the area but still close enough for someone to potentially start walking/teleporting into the teleport. So the 3rd box should be alot bigger.

Something like this (for the 3 box scenario):

bool AllowTeleport = false;
bool DoTeleport(){
 if(playerCollisionWithBox3==true && playerCollisionWithBox2==false){
    AllowTeleport = true;
  }
  if(AllowTeleport && playerCollisionWithBox1){
    AllowTeleport = false; // Only trigger returning 'true' for the teleport once.
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}
#6

I’m shocked people would port new players. Not sure what the fun is for that.

#7

Just make it so you are marked as Away when the headset is removed.
Those who are “Away” can’t go through Portals.
Also have the Away be removed after like 30 seconds of movement so they don’t go through the portal when putting on the headset.

#8

That only solves half the problem.

I’d go with Riley_D’s idea. where you have to confirm the teleportation.

As for alleviating his concern with taking some possible fun away from PVP, i’d suggest, to either, not require confirmation when in the wild’s, or when a player is marked for PVP, or some combination of both.

#9

A confirmation screen is just lame in my opinion.

2 Likes
#10

Agreed. I hope we can get the community to self-regulate a bit and keep this from being necessary.

(Side note: if we do end up needing to add the confirmation box we should make sure it doesn’t happen with teleport portals you yourself opened, as that would be super annoying)

1 Like
#11

I don’t like the idea of a confirmation pop up. I like how organic it is right now and I think that’s an important aspect in VR, more so then traditional games. I like @Scott’s idea about making it so you can’t go through the portal when it is summoned on top of you.

Or maybe they can actually make the portals into mystical doors that go through space and time that you summon in the air and you need to open to go through, I think that might be cool.

2 Likes
#15

its beta…i’m glad folks “tested” that this would work now before the game went live.

honestly though, orbus seems to have one of the nicest online communities (we’re still relatively small in beta) around. i’d be pretty shocked to see folks griefing newbies on purpose past the just checking to see if it would work.

#16

I did come across a few new people in the jungle who were pretty confused about how they got there, who I sent back to Highsteppe, Might’ve been getting lost, might’ve been some kinda of respawn bug, but it was likely someone teleporting them there.

I agree about the community, I’m hoping we can kinda set the tone for the community moving forward as being positive and civil so even when we grow we can help avoid it ever becoming a cesspool.

In terms of putting a confirmation window on teleporting, I’d say if it continues/gets bad enough, I could see it being added when you aren’t in someones group/friends-list/fellowship, to mitigate trolling.

#17

If it gets to the point that it requires some kind of confirmation to go through a portal I’m a big fan of this idea. Having a mystical door appear, beckoning you into a new area, but requiring the use of the knob to confirm would be a much more organic way of incorporating the portals than just adding a pop up window. It doesn’t have to be a door either, but since the model already exists in game it seems the easiest to implement.

#18

If they were ever able to pull of true “portal”-style portals where it’s basically an open wormhole between locations you can see through, the trolling would be largely resolved because you could just walk back through the opening, even if they opened it under you.

#19

Provided you weren’t AFK when this happened.

#20

Ah, right, that’s good point.

#22

I guess in stead of a confirmation window, you could just require the player to interact with it (e.g. grab or click it)? There would be no immersion breaking window, but still a safe guard from getting teleport-ed against your will.

You could also alternatively, add a cool-down on the casting of a teleport spell. it would dissuade a player form using it at will. This would go along the lines of adding cost as Kamina suggests.

Or, just having fun here, but would be cool to see: there could be a “void hall”, where your put into an in-between. where if the portal is cast on you, your not teleported to the final destination, but a “hallway” that takes you there, which you could always turn around, and go back the way from which you came. But I could see how this could be hard to control both from a technical, and a balancing stand-point. (how do you prevent people from using this to “evade” PVE and PVP mechanics). not to mention keeping a cast location in memory, or even an instance spun up.

And finally in regards to portals (I guess this could be Beta feedback). don’t know if it was/is already coming down the pipeline, but it would be awesome to have distinct portal graphic that depicts the portals exit point.

#23

I like this solution, or possibly ensuring that the portal is summoned in an empty area. However, I don’t know the intended “feel” of the spell, if it’s supposed to feel like a direct teleport then these would compromise the spell.

You could also make it clear to the teleportee who had cast the spell. Some kind of accountability generally stops people abusing things.

#24