Continuing my post as I was editing it when the power went out this morning...
This this changes:
1) encourages us to learn how to fish (gawd knows I need to train it)
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2) makes the trip more challenging for evil races - which is as it should be (you didn't think those stats/regen were free did you?).
3) quests in the area that were made when traveling was slower to now function again.
4) further increases the value of ports like druids and wizards (there will be more porters when/if this goes into effect)
Having said all that... do we have the population to help compensate for the downtime? Back in 1999 there were more people, and more porters. That had to reduce the frustration somewhat. Additionally, traveling on the boat was fun the first few times (or fun everytime if you're like me). Translocaters are not boats and shouldn't be confused with them - they're not fun in the same way.
I really don't think it's a problem though. I know people complain, but if you're making the trip that often then you should rethink your plans. I'm absolutely honest when I say that traveling from one continent to another is something I do very, very rarely (haven't done it yet). So having to wait is not a problem for me. Instead, it's an opportunity to get a fishing pole and fish while I wait. Now, if I was bound in freeport and hunting in OOT, it might get me mad. But overall, I think most of the population will rarely use the boats/translocaters. If anything, this mechanic will decrease the numbers of people that hunt in OOT or zones that're in the path of the boat/translocater. I expect casters to still go to those zones since they can bind in them without having to translocate.
And before anyone tells me I don't know what I"m talking about.... I do. I played when everyone used boats. I had to take a boat to get to get to velious. I had to take a boat to get to erud's crossing and erudin (which I did several times in my career). I took the boat from freeport to faydwer as well (even tho my corpse was lost at sea because of a boat bug). I did lots of fishing. I remember it very well.
Btw, the need for binds has already pushed me to make a druid alt. That's one more future porter at your service.