You don't have that in the real world centuries ago, but in the world of QFG, there is travel by flying carpet, and teleportation. With those, tourism become a fair extrapolation.
You're both right AND wrong! You see, while there is indeed a fair amount of magical transportation, it is very rare, and very expensive to accomplish. In QFG 2, when you're talking to Abdulla Doo for the first time, he says that the Sultan made him 'wealthy beyond his wildest dreams' after he gave him the magic carpet as a gift. This implies that magic carpets are rare, and apparently very valuable if one possess them.
That's the first thing. The second thing is that magical ritual transporation, like the one's we've seen in QFG 3, 4 and 5, are difficult. It requires a fairly big ritual and lots of energy to accomplish, or so I can summise. In QFG 3, it took a whole ritual with very precise timing and work just to get four people (Uhura, Simba, Rakeesh, and the Hero) across. Do you really think it would be possible to do the same for hundreds, or possibly thousands of people per day? And at very frequent occurances? I don't think so. It would require too much on part of the wizard, and the potential for accidents are plenty. The same applies to the fourth and fifth games. At the end of the third game, they tried hard to teleport the hero into Mordavia directly, and they would have succeeded entirely
if it weren't for the interferance of the Dark One's cave!
How much do you think it would have taken to teleport 500 people across? I'm sure you've been to an airport before, so think for one moment how much magical power would be require to teleport that much people and cargo across the world. IF you can imagine that, you'll quickly realize that it isn't as easy as you think it is.
So for all practical purposes, magical transport is only available for a few select people and under a few select circumstances, too.
Contrast that to the feudal states which existed in Europe later; slavery faded, as it became possible to travel to a new realm within a short time, and rulers were less and less inclined to chase after escaped slaves for property owners that did not pay them taxes or owe them fealty. Christianity also had an influence here, slowly working through the logic of St Paul's writings, moving from chattel slavery to serfdom, and then to freemen.
You're refering only to western civilization, I'm refering to civilization as a whole. From the mesoamerican people of Central and South America, all the way to Japan, China and southeast asia.
Further more, our hero is a major adventurer that goes all over the world. He went all the from various European settings, to Middle Eastern, and even African. And that's just him, how many other adventurers had more milage?
And by the way, serfdom was not a Christian invention, or even done through Christianity. When the Roman Empire turned Christian after Constantine I, Slavery remained as it is for centuries. What brought about the end of chattel slavery
as a norm was the customs of the various barbarian groups that took over. These people didn't have the same organizational skills of the Romans, and instead they implimented a system based on vassals and military service. We know this system as Feudalism, and BTW, it wasn't always 100% uniform as we know it. In some places over in the Scanadavian regions, Serfdom was rare, and most people were free, and the landowners could actually ELECT their king, and dispose of him in the event that he's incompetitant or they just don't like him anymore. Variations on this system were very different from place to place. It wasn't all black and white, and we know that.
With respect to QFG, Spielburg and Mordavia are feudal in nature, and with the lack of centralization in government, slavery is unlikely. Slavery would be most likely in QFG2, the liontaur city in QFG3, and QFG5. All of these are, of course, modeled on real world cultures which did have slaves.
I wouldn't really call them feudal. Spielburg didn't seem to have any serfs, or anyone else who was bound to the land. The only farmer that we see was Heinrich, the centaur. Although I'm SURE that there must have been more farmers and possibly some herders who raise animals for food or other goods, but we don't see those due to the simplification of the game -- it would be a programming and artistic nightmare for the game makers if they were to show everything!!!
And you're right. In QFG 2, they make it clear that there are slaves. In fact, that woman you see near Zayisha was a slave, and they don't hide that fact. Also, we can assume that the women in the harem are all slaves, too. But they are apparently very well treated and are very friviouslous and flirtious, so they don't mind.
Hehe just kidding guys, but serious, you're going to give yourself an ulcer trying to figure this stuff out...when I don't think the publishers even TRIED to make the time periods tie in with each other.
Most game makers don't go into such details, and QFG is not intended to be a true fantasy world, but more of a parody of the real world that we live in. Also, you're right about the time periods not existing over there, but I do have a problem with QFG 5, which really falls out of the line of the other games in the series, but that's a discussion for another time.
I'm in the middle of creating fantasy worlds to write stories in, and the single biggest thing I want to make is realism and believablity. I've done a lot of reading about people who complain about the lack of realism in stories, games and other such stuff, and I do my own research and more or less join the bandwagon. I have no intention of doing total crap like some fantasy games in the genre, neither do I intend to use inheritly contradictory technology and concepts and ideas that would really destroy all the 'fantasy' feel of a game that many Role Players would noramally not give a damn about.