I've played a couple of missions where the author transports you immediately from ESD to the space map the mission takes place in. Personally, I dont really like this, as it feels somewhat unrealistic as far as the existing mechanics of the game go. Of course, this is just a matter of personal preference. I'm just curious how other people feel about this?

I don't really like it. But the way the Foundry is designed people are afraid if they put the mission too far away that no one will play it.

While i see it a lot like you do i also can see the other side and on my mission i chose to do it as well since i felt adding more loading screens and travel time might drag for the testers if i find that the mission is sound i might add a bit of travel but seeing as one has to travel to the location in the first place making it a fetch kinda quest just seems a bit much.

Cryptic should find sectors of space that are lacking missions and ask authors to set missions in those sectors of space. Then pick two or three of those missions in that sector to highlight on the site then let the players earn 1 emblem if they play that set of missions.

Everyone wins by doing that. Authors get people playing their missions by the promotion, missions get placed all over the universe and not all lumped at ESD, and players can earn extra emblems they need for the grind to a free Cstore ship.

I don't understand the problem. You can accept a mission from anywhere. Why the congregation at ESD?

Yea you can but what a lot are doing is saying you take the mission its a vulcan mission but instead of going to vulcan to do it you just click on an item in ESD and it ports you right there for the mission.

If you started a mission and it said "Go to the H'Atoria system in the Mempa sector of the Pi Canis Sector block", would you go there or would you just drop it and get another one? I'm not saying you personally would drop the mission, but the fear authors have is that many people will do so. Since everyone has to go to ESD, and everyone can transwarp there, that is where a lot of authors are starting their missions.

The thought never crossed my mind. I just have it set up like the Devs do. No matter where you accept "Mine Enemy," you have to travel to that system to actually play the mission. Since what I am doing is standard procedure, I never gave it a second thought.

If the mission sounds interesting, then yes I would. Interestingly enough, the very best missions I have played in the Foundry do not use this "short cut" tactic. It was kind of hard to put my finger on it at first, but I realized that starting my mission at ESD then being magically transported back when it was over made the mission feel more like a holodeck simulation than a "real" mission that happened in the game world.