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Airships.... what would we RPGamers do without them?
Travel by foot over dangerous snow-covered mountains? Nah...
Traverse vast oceans on a dinghy? Nah...
Get to the final dungeon before the final boss does? Nah...
I use airships as a general term for the usual flying vehicles that the game eventually gives you at some point. And just like every airship we find out there, these modes of transportation are basically used in order to get from point A to B in as little time as possible. In large worlds covering vast oceans and tracts of land, airships are normally the best transport available, ferrying people to far-off places in record times, allowing you to go to places you've never been before or have been to already.
But why is it that the games with expansive world maps never EVER give you access to an airship at an early point in the game? I've read posters on message boards in many sites yammering endlessly, demanding access to these flying thingamajiggers as early as possible. The main point they try to press is that the lack of an available multi-purpose transport gives the game such a degree of linearity and restriction that it turns the game into an "1-2-3-4-5" connect the dots progression. They claim it to be a very restrictive system in a game that should give you multitudes of options as a role playing game.
So it begs the questions: Is the lack of airships as an early availability a restrictive factor? Should RPGs let you have access to airships at the earliest logical instance?
My answer is no. While airships do give you the freedom an RPG should really have, it presents a whole multitude of problems developers would have to face. The most basic issue, of course, is the storyline. Giving you an airship basically gives you the utmost freedom the game can provide you, and this would give developers a hard time keeping the storyline in a logical progression. The reason the game doesn't give you the airship, concerning the storyline, is that the developers want to let you experience the story in the order that it should proceed, letting you experience the story as they made it. Letting you jump around from place to place gives the developers the difficulty of maintaining the integrity of the story, as they would have to adjust the story depending on the places you visit. By not allowing access to certain areas, the developers can effectively control the flow of the story as they deem it should.
Another is the issue of certain dungeons and sensitive areas. This would include dungeons that one is not supposed to be going to yet. By letting the player have access to higher level dungeons before they should or are prepared for, this would seriously screw up the balance of the game by allowing a massive amount of powerlevelling. While powerlevelling is good in certain extents, having access to progressively difficult dungeons will simply destroy the game's difficulty. One-hit kills on bosses, anyone?
And as a corollary to this, having access to high level enemies would force you to have access to higher level items and equipments. Imagine having the best buyable equipment while fighting the game's 5th boss? This will destroy the game's difficulty even more.
For me, however, the most important reason for not having an airship early in the game is the restrictive desperation factor. In most RPGs, as you end up fighting the baddies, the main challenge and overall "heart" of the game is the challenge of defeating them despite the fact that they have access to much more powerful weapons and technology. More often than not, you are the underdogs fighting almost insurmountable odds. One of the reasons I like RPGs so much is the need for you to do what you can with the minimum that you have access to. The game slowly builds up the story and the characters by giving you a lengthy quest that has you slowly travelling from one destination to another. Through this method of progression, you slowly turn a rag-tag team of wannabe fighters into master swordsmen. By following them on their slow but progressing travels, you see how they evolve as they get stronger. As they learn about themselves, each other, and the evil that threatens to wipe out everything they hold dear.
Something you can't do when, only at level one, you're already leaving on an airship.
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