Hi,

This is a post concerning the auto-travel feature that was present in Oblivion and will most likely be present in Skyrim. What do you think about it? Personally I believe auto-travel should be limited to between major towns only. I feel the ability to instantly travel anywhere you've previously been from anywhere else took a lot of the risk and chance out of exploration in Oblivion. Some may say that the feature is optional and you don't have to use it but the point is it's there and it becomes pretty easy to fall back on using it when it is so easy and convenient and as such open to abuse.

While I do think that some auto-travel feature is necessary I think it goes too far in Oblivion and would be happy if it was scaled back to between major towns similar to the silt strider in Morrowind.

I think maybe it should be left optional, so you can use it if you want, but yeah, maybe only between major towns so people don't overuse it.

Otherwise, a travel system like Morrowind might be cool. I'm undecided.

If the towns are strategically placed so that other locations aren't too far away (but also not too close), I wouldn't mind that, or a Morrowind-style transportation with something akin to Silt Striders, but faster means such as teleportation with the Mages Guild or other factions, and Mark/Recall.

Remember, not everyone wants to spend several hours exploring.

I've never understood the complaint that it somehow cheapened exploring. Outside of the cities, you still have to go to each location, still have to forge your way through brush and blade and hill and hellfire until you finally overcome adversity and arrive at your destination: all fast travel does is recognise that you've already made the trek and scoot you past stuff that you've already overcome and which you logically would overcome again.

The system's been around in three of the four games, it'll probably be in the fifth, since Bethesda clearly saw some compelling reason to bring it back for Oblivion.

I much preferred Morrowind's fast travel system. It was more atmospheric and immersive to me. It got to the point where I'd work out the best way to get anywhere from anywhere and quite enjoyed it. i.e. Divine intervention will take me to Fort Moonmoth, then a quick Alsimsi Intervention to get to Balmora temple, then a mage guild trip to Ald-Ruhn and I'm where I want to be.

But if they put a similar system in Skyrim, there's no reason why we can't have both. Fast travel would be relatively easy to implement, I'd think.

Those who prefer it can use the silt strider/boat/propylon/Mage guild/whatever style travel.

Those who prefer to just get where they're going can do so quicker with a fast travel system.

And others might use a combination of both.

That way everyone's happy.

Fast travel is always optional, no matter how it's implemented. Case and point: I never use it in Oblivion, I walk or ride everywhere. It gives you a sense of scale and adventure and an opportunity to discover new things. Same in Fallout 3 actually.

Personally, I think they have no choice but to add fast-travel since the previous game had it and the consolers who were introduced to the series via Oblivion will throw a fit if it is absent. I would just ask that they give people who don't want to use it more means of transportation. Bring back Mark/Recall, and have some silt-strider-esque public transport options.

My ideal would be to see a system like GTA4 where you can get into a cab (carriage) and ask them to take you somewhere along a road and you can either sit there and watch the scenery go by or 'fall asleep' and skip the journey. Much more immersive in my opinion.

Fast travel took out most of the fun from the game. You didn't have to use it, but you ended up using it anyway.
I think system that is is cross breed between Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion could work.

Fast Travel System where you can fast travel safely by paying for it (like in Morrowind).
If you don't have the money for boat, caravan etc you could Fast Travel recklessly (like in Oblivion and Daggerfall) with chance of getting diseases, health loss etc. or cautiously by staying in Inns and lose money that way.
Mounts or running can get you there as well, for free with the benefits of finding locations but also running into bears and cliff racers. You'd just have to do that manually to get the benefits.

System like this would reward the player for going for adventure, once you have enough loot and you have done the trip thousand times, you can hop on the slitstrider and pay for the trip. This would mean that the paid travelling would be twice as expensive as it was in Morrowind, if not more. No problem when you have lots of money. The game needs more ways for the player to use money, once you have the gear you need and the house you need you only need to worry about travel costs and keeping that gear repaired.

^^ This ^^

I agree with every point. Also, to add, I think it would be cool if the Morrowind style travel was in real time, so you could watch the whole journey if you wanted to, but make it skipable sort of like GTA IV.

I don't think lack of self control is a good reason to oppose fast travel. I do think requesting an option to disable it is reasonable though. I also think you should have to visit an area first before you can fast travel there. Perhaps fast travel would take longer too if you haven't fully explored certain routes.

For example in the context of Oblivion, if you've explored a path between (I'm not spell checking these so I'm sure some are wrong) Anvil, Bravil, Leyawiin, Cheydinhall, and Bruma then fast traveling from Anvil to Bruma would take a long time in game. Perhaps you could randomly get attacked on the way and have to take control. If, however, you explored the path from Anvil behind Kvatch and past Chorral to Bruma then it would be much faster going from Anvil to Bruma with fast travel. This would mean the game would have to keep track of where you go everywhere, but if I recall Oblivion actually does that.

Options are a good thing though. I don't support removing fast travel to prevent people from using it, but I do think people should be able to disable it if they want to.

In my opinion the game would be too boring without fast travel - oblivion's world is enormous and fast travel keeps you in the action a lot more often. Besides, half the time you have to go and find the place anyway (and with an athletics skill of 30 / useless paint horse it takes forever). I hope they don't take it out - I found it hard to go back to Morrowind's version of fast travel after playing oblivion!

Optional or not, you as the player still have the ability to just simply walk to your destination... :rolleyes:

I couldn't really see a problem having it or not. Im an immersionist so I just walk and run everywhere in Elder Scrolls games.

Or maybe only fast travel to the main cities only. Small villages, forts, caves, etc could be left out? :shrug:

My whole reasoning for disliking fast travel (the way it's done in Oblivion) is it's just not fun to me. It's not immersive, and it feels like an extremely lazy solution to the problem of needing travel in a huge open world.

I think Morrowind did it the best out of the Elder Scrolls games, but it still didn't do it perfectly. It was more of a step in the right direction, and I think it really svcks that they decided to scrap it rather than expand on it. Read DonTheDunmers post (a few posts up), I think he really hit the nail on the head, and I think it's one of the best solutions. Just have everything, but balance it out.

What is the context of fast-travel? Is it a spell like mark and recall? No. Is it a transportation service like a silt strider? No. It completely breaks the illusion of the game with a feature that is tantamount to cheating. Breaking the forth wall I think is the term used.

It's easy to say, don't use it. The problem is since it is there quests are inevitably going to be designed around it in which the developers may think 'We'll make this fetch quest in the middle of nowhere in a real difficult to get to location, since the player only has to make the journey once it isn't too bad'. What about the players who don't want to fast-travel, they have to make the journey there and back. And are they rewarded for this extra effort? No. Fast-travel rewards laziness, and those that go out of their way to explore the game are disadvantaged.

To those that want fast-travel, what's wrong with limiting it to between towns? You still get to move around quickly and yet the sense of exploration and distance in the wilderness can be retained.

That's not entirely true. Time goes by when you fast travel. I disagree with limiting it between towns. I think limiting it to areas you've visited makes sense though.

Because if you're looting a cave (think Rockmilk or Robber's Glen), you don't want to have to walk for 2 minutes to get there every time. You want to jump right there and get in the action. Remember, not everyone who plays this game wants to wander around in awe at the plants and wildlife EVERY time they only have 30 minutes to play / are in a bad mood.

I think the best option is like Fallout new vegas - have a choice of having it enabled or disabled at the very start.

Well fast-travel initially started out as a simulation of your character walking from point A to point B (ala Daggerfall). You had disadvantages to try to balance it out, but they still needed it because the game was so enormous.

For me I still think it's just a lazy solution to either allow instant teleportation to locations, or to just make everybody walk everywhere.

Just look at any other game that has big open worlds. You usually have to walk everywhere from the start until you "pay your dues" and you finally get something that makes it much easier, and usually is incorporated with lore rather than breaking the forth wall. Now this is fine and all and I could deal with that because it's at least an attempt to make travel fun. But in Oblivion it wasn't fun at all. It either felt like I was doing a speed run (using fast-travel), or extremely boring (having quests where I had to run from Cheydinhall to Anvil and back).

Look at the end of the day it's a role playing game. If people want action, action, action they should think about spending their time with something like CoD. Even WoW doesn't have a use anywhere, anytime fast-travel option, and that's as casual as things get for RPG's these days.

It's not breaking the fourth wall. Your effects/potions wear off while you travel and time passes.

I want fast travel removed, and travelling system added (Like in Morrowind). So you are able to actualy fast travel, just with a much more realistic way, and only from town to town (Using ships or some land transport)

So you're saying we should all spend 20 minutes in real time running to the next town and back 5 times to complete a quest? If you want to do that, you should be able to have the option yes - but people who just want to get the quest done and play it casually should also have the option to do it in their spare time, should they not?

Everquest, a far more unforgiving game than WoW ever was from what I hear, has means of travel so you don't spend too much time doing nothing but run around.

Actually the WoW comment was wrong. I was told you can join a group and get instantly teleported to their location.

It isn't about "action action action" it's about not wasting real life time. I fully support having to have traveled normally first, but restricting the options others have makes no sense. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's just plain silly to insult others in a roundabout way for using an option in a single player game. If you want other options that's reasonable, and if you want the option to turn it off for yourself that's reasonable, but to want it gone so no one else can use it is a tad strange to me. You have no business telling others how it's appropriate to play a game.

Thank you Zeopard, for making my point a little bit clearer

Here's a question. Fast travel involves running, so why don't you gain athletics?

Not at all. I'm fine with instant transport between towns or even spells you've earned throughout the game that you can use anyway, such mark and recall. My problem is fast-travel anywhere, anytime.