Does anyone do this?

I've been trying to get into the habit of creating guidelines and self-restrictions for my use of fast travel. Basically, I was thinking that if I know exactly where I'm going, especially if I'm timed, I'll click on the place and fast travel.

Otherwise, if I don't care where I end up because I just need to stop at any city to sell stuff, I'd rather try and set out and see which city I stumble across first. Or, if I plan on returning to Daenia to put money in the bank, I'd rather walk across the border and ask for directions in the first place I come across, rather than fast-travel.

Two main reasons for doing this:
1) I want to experience the long journey. Strategically planning my route so I come across inns at the right time, reaching the vast shore and then switching to my boat. Just the feeling of finally coming across civilization after miles and miles of empty wilderness that can only be simulated, poorly, by fast travelling.

2) I want to increase my chances of stumbling across a witch coven by chance.

The more I do this, the longer I find I can do it for before getting bored. However, my biggest issue is that I don't have the free time to play video games that I used to have and I don't want to feel like I'm spending most of the time I have to play Daggerfall, just looking at the back of my horse's head. On the other hand, it creates huge gaps of time in between the other repetitive tasks, like dungeons and guild quests. So, in that respect, it has the potential to keep me engaged in the game for longer. Not to mention, the rewarding feeling it gives when you finally reach your destination as well as the fact that it makes the world seem more real.

Anyway, I wanted to hear from the other players, especially the veteran players.

Is this your idea of fun? Who has tried it? Who does it regularly and who does it just now and then? How do you keep yourself entertained during your long horse rides across the Iliac Bay? If I want to stumble across a witches coven by chance, is this really a viable strategy?

Is this your idea of fun? Who has tried it? Who does it regularly and who does it just now and then? How do you keep yourself entertained during your long horse rides across the Iliac Bay? If I want to stumble across a witches coven by chance, is this really a viable strategy?
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I have not tried it, and no, it does not sound like fun. The only time I get on my horse is to ride quickly across a large city.

Your chance of finding a witches coven this way is practically non existent. There is, however, a logical way of finding Daenia's witches coven (with a hugely better chance).

From what I understand, if it isn't in a house in a city, the only ways to find a witches coven are to either find the map in a dungeon or use the uesp.

Daenia is my home-kingdom, so if there's a strategy I'm not aware of, I'd appreciate a hint.

P.S. I just manually rode my horse all the way from Graybrone Court in Daenia, down to Longleigh in Shalgora, last night, while watching TV. It's rewarding, in a way, but cumbersome, as I described above. Came across almost no civilization the whole time. Just some ruins, an orchard, and an angry orc shaman that threw a spell at my cart as I passed by. I plan on completing the journey to Daggerfall before I allow myself to touch fast travel again.

Manual travel is not fun. You think you'll come across something interesting, surely, because there is so many locations, but it is very easy to never come across a single settlement or even find your destination by manual travel (even by using your compass well and tracking your progress on the world map). Consider that although there are over 15,000 locations in the game, they comprise less than 5% of the game world; that's a lot of empty space to get lost in.


Although, there is an amusing glitch to be found by crossing a kingdom border by manual travel: start in one kingdom, hike into a neighboring kingdom, and find a settlement. You'll be surprised by the topography Even better to try it in a mountainous region.

You're aware of it. Find the map in a dungeon.
The nice thing about finding maps as random loot (I once found a map in a treasure pile in a temple) is that every map you find is to an "undisclosed" dungeon.
Daenia has ~54 undisclosed dungeons. All you have to do is find (at most) 53 dungeons and the next map you find will be the one to the coven. It's really not as hard as it sounds.

You do have to keep track of the dungeons you've found. Find new dungeons by doing quests (only accepting quests to new dungeons). I usually find about 1 map per dungeon (I've found as many as 7 maps in 1 dungeon, but there's been plenty where I haven't found any). In Daenia this would mean ~27 dungeon crawls in the worse case scenario. As you disclose dungeons the chances of finding a coven map improve. In similar cases I've found coven maps after disclosing only a relatively few of the areas dungeons.

(The Fighters guild, at times, gives you a dungeon map as a reward for doing a quest, however, these maps are not always to "undisclosed" dungeons).

I'm pretty sure I've only gotten one map as loot so far.

If I get a coven map will it say that it's to a coven, or will it be some dungeon name?

I found at least one coven map. It was marked as such. I have also found a couple of dungeons just by riding, but that almost never happens.

Yeah, I've noticed that even if you're headed straight for a dot and you get a message "you are entering 'so and so'," you still don't necessarily see anything.

Passed straight through Longleigh today, supposedly. Didn't see a single building.

Wait what? I was sure you can't just walk around in D-Fall?? :confused:

I thought I tried it and hit an invisible wall?

I'd enjoy the game more if that was true, its what I love about Oblivion.....

It's true.

I've walked from city to city before.

In Arena, it was impossible to travel any where the hard way. You had to fast travel. In Daggerfall, not-so-much.

There are invisible walls only on the edges of the world map.


Good luck hamsgoo, walking around in real time. The only real time travel I always do is walking from Privateer's Hold to Gothway Garden.
Be sure to tell us how long you lasted.

If there were actual roads linking the towns and villages, I might have tried walking/riding from one place to another.

Though with DaggerXL, it's interesting to travel in real-time since the view distance http://daggerxl.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/dxl_foilage71.jpg.

I died halfway between Longleigh and Daggerfall and decided just to fast travel.

What I do is keep something heavy on the button and watch TV.

It would be wayy more entertaining if the view distance was better and if there were roads, I agree with that. I always thought the difference between travelling cautiously and recklessly was the difference between following the roads and walking a straight line. One of the reasons I wanted to manually fast travel was to experience what the fast travel only simulates. But, with no roads and locations being so easy to run right by, the novelty is kind of lost on me.

I travelled from a random dungeon (where I get the lich dust) on Balfiera, to the nearest town. Passed it three times and ended up in the ocean before finally finding it. I would manually travel way more often if it weren't for that type of thing. Getting pretty excited about DaggerXL now.

Well, what's the point in renouncing fast travel if you don't properly live up the exciting experience?

Actually, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:SAVEGAME.DAT_description#Increasing_View_Distance to improve the view distance in regular Daggerfall as well.

Speaking of this... at one point I made the trip to the Cybiades island. But it was 100% water due, I think, to exactly what you're describing here. Is there any way around that? Have you gone there?

Only if you cheat-open the map. There's a single hidden dungeon, but since you only get assignments (and also maps got as reward/loot) into the current province, there's no legitimate way for this dungeon to be revealed.

Alright, thanks. I'll probably end up cheat opening the map to get its coordinates, reload, and set off there from sentinel.

Are you sure. You do know how massize the game is right?

Speaking as someone who manual-travels EVERYWHERE in Oblivion.. manual traveling in Daggerfall is not a good idea. The game just isn't set up to handle it. There's NOTHING interesting, no random encounters, no change in scenery really, and your chances of finding a coven are small.

It IS worth doing once or twice just to see how massive the world is though!

There ARE random encounters, but they are few and far between