Anyone who thinks this travel system is palpable or tolerable is fucked in the head.
Most people playing the game in area chat and forums agree it needs to be toned down with some quality of life additions. It's damn near 60% of the chat I see in Area on US East.
Wouldn't take much and people agree. Early game is grabbing attention to players and when you are traveling for what amounts from Undercity to Tarren Mill on foot at walking speed over and over and over again because the POI's are so fucking spread out, you will lose people because of it. A lot of people who are tired of that game mechanic and want to play, not run/walk.
Doesn't surprise me - most of the Bozo's running the show here at Amazon games came from SOE. So any critique will get met with some idiot ego fuck who thinks their design model shouldn't change in the last 20 years with a new generation of gamers. Which will result in a churn rate of 35% of which "Oh so we fixed travel in the new update here 6 months later come back we sucked then we are better now" because some of these jack wagons cannot see the forest for the trees.
As I understand it, though, as you level up, fast travel azoth cost becomes a minimal barrier; just like respec (at least initially for respec, I don't know if it scales/increases over time/use). Its not a very big world so in order to give it any scale they have to keep travel times somewhat slow. One thing I found interesting last night is you can't flag PVP and fast travel. If you flag, it has to be done is a sanctuary and then you have to run to wherever the fight is. There won't be teleporting gank squads roaming all over Aeturnum.
I mean, PVP isn't my thing but the flagging combined with the slower travel is a big part of PVP strategy. If you speed up the travel, you fundamentally change how the PVP is played, and since the PVP is conducted in the Overworld and not on a separate map like ESO or GW2 or in arenas like WoW, it's a core concept that can't be easily changed.
Edit: One other thing about this world more than others, that makes it a little bit more like EQ: This world is intended to be seen at a slower pace. Its not just made up of the big POI and instance entrances like in some MMOs. The world between isn't intended as filler. There are resource nodes, really actual vital spots, that can be found off the road hidden back in areas that are meant to be discovered. Iron Veins, Platinum Ore, High level plants and ores in lower level areas, all would be potentially missed if you were speed through on a mount, for instance. You can find players mining by listening for the sounds of picks while running, or unexpected animal spawns by the sound of muskets firing. I found the/an elk spawn by the sound of multiple muskets shooting at something and going to check it out.
It was right at an Invasion site, which turned into another cool ad hoc/emergent moment: I got sick of the level 25 Brutal mobs preventing the Elk hunt from going forward, so as a level 20 with my Life Staff I starting trying to single pull the Invasion mobs and just wear them down. I got the Adapt way down and a couple of other Elk hunters joined in and we started trying to clear the invasion site or at least make it so we could hunt without being overwhelmed, and one of them got too eager and overpulled, now its 6 on 4, and just then
a 25+ level Invasion clearing crew with an Azoth staff rolls in and saves our bacon, we follow them and clear the rest of the Invasion sites in the area.
I am playing this rather than FF14, which I just started and really adore as well, knowing this is going away in less than a week and I will have to start over. I think they have something here.
Will it last? That's up to how the Devs manage their own reactions to the community and the meta.