Should there be personal means of travel?

[KentaRawr!]

Final Fantasy XI eventually allowed the player to breed their own chocobos, but they were more of a daily chore than a convenience. So, do you think there should be a personal travel buddy of the non-living variety, such as an airship?

Following the tradition of older games, the only limits involved with an airship would be mountains blocking your path, and not being able to land in water. This might give the player a bit too much freedom and convenience in travel, and make the player feel less obliged to simply walk across and discover more intricate details of the game's environment. The same would go for Black Chocobos and Dragons and Mullets. But looking at certain traveling bits of FFXI while doing missions, it seems like the main methods of travel would have one skipping most of the environment anyway, what with teleportation, NPC-controlled airships, and NPC-controlled boats.

But then there's the question on how it's represented on the map when you leave it. Would it be like the Invincible? Would it never land, just loom over you threateningly? And what if other players have it? A sky full of airships in a popular area would be a bit daunting (to your CPU)!

And what if Chocobos came back, but not needing to eat? Black chocobos can fly, so they could serve the same purpose of an airship. If they were to follow the tradition of only allowing black chocobos to land in forests, that would give limits on the player's travel by air, while also giving the player a sense of freedom while they look down on the ants of the world! Also, black chocobos were able to fly over mountains, but let's just say they can't in this case.

But then there's another question. How do you call these feathered friends? Should they stay exactly where they were, or should they disappear only to be called again by an easily broken (and ridiculously expensive) whistle? Or maybe you should just have to catch them in a forest whenever you want one. But that would kinda make them not-personal, wouldn't it?

Anyway, what do you think?

[VeloZer0]

All I could think of while reading this were the flying mounts in WoW. It sounds like they are the exact answer to the question you are posing.

[Skyblade]

All I could think of while reading this were the flying mounts in WoW. It sounds like they are the exact answer to the question you are posing.

Oddly enough, all I could think of was suddenly wanting a "Reins of the Golden Chocobo" for my WoW character.

[Markus. D]

Mapping to towns and safehouse outposts you've visited... noms.

[Ouch!]

I rather enjoy Final Fantasy XI's means of transportation. Some kind of resurgence of the outpost warps would most definitely be appreciated. In a world so heavily involved with all sorts of magic, this is the quickest and most effective means of transportation. I'll be severely disappointed if this doesn't make some kind of return in FFXIV, simply because it's one of the things in FFXI that I think Square Enix just got right--granted only after they lowered the cost and tweaked the level requirements.

[Apricoth]

If they do allow you to raise your own chocobo I think they should shorten the length of time to raise one. I enjoyed raising it but it was not convenient as soon as I would have liked it to be. Not talking about insta chocobo now as there should be time put into raising a fine mount.

[Zyuu]

Raising a Chocobo is something I'd like to see in FFXIV. Flying mounts as well

[Apricoth]

I wonder what flying mounts they could include in FFXIV.. Phoenixes perhaps?

[Zyuu]

Imagine flying chocobos

[McLovin']

They could do a mix sorta. Like it's still chocobo's as mounts but if you want you can breed it to some extent.

[Zyuu]

Breeding flying chocobos and normal ones, how's that?