I just did my first experiments with Long Range Teleport (LRT) and here's my feedback:
As it currently stands, I'm very disappointed with it. It currently only allows teleport to City zones, and only one two Hazard Zones. With how easy it is these days to move around most city zones, the requirements to obtain the power and compared to the usefulness of the other new Tier V travel powers, I'm very disappointed in LRT. At the very least, LRT is misleading in it's description, especially Heroside and the large number of Hazard zones there.
LRT needs to allow for travel to Hazard Zones. Currently, only The Hollows and First Ward can be reached with LRT. I sense a bug, but I'm not sure which way it's supposed to be. If they feel it's OP'ed to visit HZ's, then toss in a requirement of some sort - i.e. you have to have visited the zone at least once.
LRT needs to allow for cross-alignment travel, but as I understand things, that's more difficult to implement. That said, it should at least permit travel to co-op zones such as the Rikti War Zone and Midnighter's Club.
Can it be argued that LRT can allow for cross-time and inter-dimensional travel, as long as the teleporter is familiar with (i.e. has visited) the locations in question? I'm thinking of teleport to Cimmerora, and the Primal<>Praetoria crossover. The former should be easy to code and justify, whilst the latter I would imagine being harder.
Another thought in regards to Praetoria - shouldn't LRT allow for teleport to the Praetorian underworld? That's almost a complete city alone, along with the various Resistance safe houses scattered through there.
So, thoughts?
I would imagine that LRT would only work within the part of the game you are playing (Blue, Gold, Red) with restrictions on coop zones.
I was disappointed in this ability for two reasons:
1) I have been hoping for a targetted teleport in the game... an ability that would allow you to pick a target on a map, any target at all, another player, a landmark, a zone marker, and when you triggered the ability it would take you to your target. This is the dimension that I feel is missing from the teleport powerset. It would also be nice if Teleport Self would allow you to pick a target in your field of view such as an enemy or clickie, hit the power, and port directly to that target, rather than needing to pick a floor target.
2) As others have mentioned, the ability to teleport to another zone is diminished as an interesting ability owing to the enhanced ferry/train system throughout the game, as well as the SG and VG portals.
on a side note, If you attempt a Long range teleport from first ward, then you'll only get the options of going to praetorian zones.
Hazard zone travel I agree makes sense, but restricting it to a specific city (Paragon/Rogue Isles/Praetoria) also makes sense. There is a huge difference between teleporting several miles across a city and teleporting over hundreds of miles or even dimensions.
Which Hazard Zones were you trying to get to? The reason I ask is that some zones have a lock of some kind on them.
For example, Cimerora requires you to have not only done the arc to be able to enter the Midnighters Club, but also be level 35 before you can actually enter the zone.
The Hive and the Shadow Shard are other examples where you have to be a certain level to enter.
Or if you are Praetorian, you have to be level 20 and have done the mission arc to be able to go to Primal Earth.
Now I don't know how the details of how all that works, code-wise, but I think the idea was to keep people from getting into zones that they shouldn't otherwise be able to get into yet.
"The part of me that is leaving... is going to miss the part of me that is staying..."
I'm assuming he means the "normal" hazard zones related to the city itself, and we are mainly talking blue-side here. So you should be able to LRT to Perez Park, Boomtown, Crey's Folly, Dark Astoria, Eden and probably Striga too although I could see that being an exception. I wouldn't expect it to let me travel across time and dimension.
Without the hazard zone ability I don't see the point in ever getting it and not much point even with it.
I agree with Kid Einstein. A long range teleport that let me select a waypoint on the current zone map (either defined by me or a neighborhood/store/mission marker) and instantly go there would be MUCH more interesting than an ability to change zones to a static point in a different zone. When I first took Teleport that is actually what I thought it was - pick a spot on the map and go there. I was very disappointed to find I could only teleport to a spot I could see and thought I had really screwed up until I read a guide on how to use it.
While I was participating in the Praetorian Invasion Events, I, at first, went to the train to get to an Atlas Park instance and noticed that a number of them were full. I then went to one of the available instances, but, when the client crashed because of memory loss, I decided to change instances (I was solo) and decided to use long range teleport because it was up at that point. When I used it, I noticed that none of the instances registered as full and I could teleport to any of them. This could have future problems if enough people teleport to a full instance.