I'd love to see more varied transportation methods again. And as for those people that chant their hymn "don't like it, don't use it" constantly, let me add a little perspective to the matter.

Morrowind travel options:
Silt Striders/Boats/Ships/Gondolas, Mage Guild teleport, Almsivi/Divine Intervention, Mark/Recall, Propylons.

Oblivion travel option:


All people ask for is to have a more realistic and complete set of options for travelling. One of the devs back when Oblivion was just released said it would have taken them only a few minutes to put Mark/Recall back in, so it's not as if people are requesting the impossible.

Regarding the GPS compass. By all means leave it in as an optional feature for the people that want it, but don't have it point to the exact spot of an item inside a cave you've never visited before. Having it point to the cave or general area should be sufficient and still give people enough to go on. But bring back the Journal with more detailed quest information and just do a 'here, let me mark it on your map' for those that like to add a little more manual exploration to their game. The regular N-E-S-W compass is great; no need to clutter it with flashing markers.

So a suggestion for optional modes regarding the compass:

Compass Assist: Full (Like in Oblivion, exact pinpointing and undiscovered locations show up)
Compass Assist: Normal (Leads you to general area/cave/city, but will not function in interior cells. Undiscovered locations show up)
Compass Assist: Off (Like in Morrowind, you have a N-E-S-W compass and that's it. Undiscovered locations don't show up and you have to use directions in your Journal and questgivers only mark the location on your map)

Just my opinion on the matter

Well Arkane Studios joined Zenimax, that doesn't mean they'll be working on TES. They're actually probably very busy working on Arx Fatalis 2 or another project they started after Dark Messiah.
Sure they might share a few ideas or tips. That's all. They're two seperate studios.

Personally, I loved Morrowind's mode of transportation. Seemed more 'plausible' having various trade routes you would take to get to a location, using silt striders, boats, teleportation, etc.

And as White Envy mentions, quests such as the silent pilgrimage quest would be completely void with fast travel, as you'd be able to get to the shrines in seconds, and the issue of not taking transportation wouldn't be an issue.

First, I can't picture guns fitting into the TES universe. Between archery and magic, they pretty well cover the same territory, so there'd be no need to develop guns, even if they were invented.

Second, FT is only "optional" if there's a valid and useable alternative, and walking isn't a valid alternative if there are no useable directions. "To the North" doesn't cut it on a map of that size, especially when the actual location is closer to NW than N, and it's a good 15-20 minutes of footslogging even if you know exactly where it is. On the other hand, FT can be very useful in some situations, such as when the quest giver is mobile, and it's an absolute essential for some players. Personally, I don't have a problem with FT >>IF<< there's a more immersive alternative available for those who don't want to use it. Boats, carriages, caravans, Guild Guides, or a 3-werebear sleigh with jingle bells would be better, in my opinion, than "click on the map" (well, maybe the 3 werebears might not be all that immersive). Myself, I'd use FT in limited situations, such as when you've got to make 3 long trips back and forth between the same two points, and you know that there's nothing new to see after the first or second time. Mostly, I'd use in-game alternatives, if available, and probably even go it on foot either the first or second time, depending on the urgency and the weather.

The quest compass can go away, or become "optional", if the game provides useable directions as an alternative. If those are "voice only", then I've got another problem, because I may or may not catch half of what was said due to background noise (in game or RL), or not recall all of the details from one sitting to another, so journal entries, a map handed to your character, or a marked location on your world map with notes would be better.

The game is still in development, but some things are pretty well "set in stone" by this point, since changing them would involve changing too many things which are dependent on them. Other things are less critical to the rest of the game, so there's still some room for changes. Something like the combat system is probably pretty well defined by now, and the various AI routines, animations, and overall balance are probably being tested, "tweaked", and perfected, rather than being subject to fundamental changes at this stage. Other things, like textures, music, and voiced and/or text lines, are most likely being altered constantly as needed, although the underlying structure is defined.

You forgot about the Index.

No, it's really not optional. Sure, I can walk everywhere, but the landscape gets boring after seeing it so many times. Also, the game is built assuming you'd use fast travel. The fighter's guild in Chorrol wants you to do a quest in Leyawiin? What the [censored]? So it makes that a bit of a problem to those of us who walk.

It's not that we're against fast travel, it's that we're against how poorly it was implemented. They could have done it like in Morrowind with travel services, Mages Guild teleportation, Mark and Recall, etc. Instead we get an extremely watered down version that gives us quest objectives that make no sense at all in regards of where you receive the quest to where you have to go.

TL;DR - The argument that people who don't like fast travel can just ignore it is a very poor one at best when the game is designed assuming you'd use it. A lot of us don't want rid of it, we just want it to be better and in the form of travel services etc. And come with free pudding and cake.

You can mod Oblivion to have travel options:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4520

It even turns off fast travel. Just throwing it out there.

I think that by this point the fast travel question has been answered. They've either got it or they don't. To change it at this point would mean rewriting many quests since, as someone mentioned earlier, they write the quests with fast travel in mind. If they've got Oblivion style FT, then the quests will involve "travel to the other side of the continent to find the boots of something or other. Return here and I'll give you a healing potion." Massive travel for tiny quests. However, if they've listened to the majority of the posters on this site, then the quest will also serve as a bit of a tutorial on the 'new and improved ft system' - Travel to the city of X where you'll find a caravan leaving for the port of y. There, buy passage on a ship travelling to the far off port of Z. Be careful because en route you may randomly encounter pirates/sea monsters/ flying monkeys. Return here several months later for advancement in the cobbler's guild.

Or something to that effect.

Agreed on both counts. It's not much, really : just before creating a character, that we get to set parameters to play with - among which the possibility to disable fast travel, quest compass and the damn pop-ups for this one char, with no turning back.

Don't you guys just love when somebody claim that they speak for the majority? :rolleyes:

I don't like the gun idea either but to tell people who want it to go play Fallout instead is just :banghead: :facepalm:

You could atleast suggest them to play a game which actually resemble TES... oh yes i forgot, there is no such game.

I don't think anyone want to get rid of fast travel, they just want a system similar to Morrowind. That's a completely different thing.



How would you know anyway? are you working on Bethesda or something. :facepalm:

Lets not keep whining about having or not having fast travel. What really should be done/debated is a REAL travel system. Boats, Silt Striders, Carriages or hey! we could even tame Silt Striders and ride them! But to implement a cheap game breaking mechanic like "fast travel" it just showed laziness and mass appeal on Bethesda's part. Honestly just clicking around the map is lame, and horses were useless and rather annoying to use. Anyways, my point is, add a travel system! Don't be lazy, I'll pay 120 Gold to go from Anvil to Bruma.

Congratulations, you have an opnion!
Everyone had different priorities, and you have no right to just say their ideas or bad.

My opinion is: Nobody should be shot here. o.O"

Ok, theres too much talk of fast travel here. Im opening a new thread for it.

With Oblivion I'm actually pretty good at ignoring fast travel. I have no qualms with running from one end of Cyrodiil to the other (which only takes maybe 2 hours real time, despite what devs implied prior to release). Still, alternative forms of fast travel similar to Morrowind would be greatly appreciated.

THIS!

I would rather have fast travel be like in Fallout 3 where you have to discover a location before you can travel to it. If Fast Travel is changed I would want some type of a Warp Point System put in place. That way you would only be able to fast travel to the different warp points and not the dungeons.

The level system needs to be tweaked a bit from what Oblivion had. I wouldn't get rid of the skill level system but I would make it easier to get +4 or +5 in an attribute. Also quest rewards shouldn't be leveled like The Ring Of The Vipereye should always have +10 Agility +15 Magic Resistance instead of being level based.

Hopefully the Combat stays the same as I see nothing wrong with what Oblivion had combat wise. To me it was perfect in had enough action but it wasn't hack and slash.

Yes well except from the major cities, you had to do that in Oblivion too.

so...pretending that your character WALKS across the map to get to a place you've ALREADY been to. or pretending that you have a map of the area in you inventory. telling you how to get from city to city. unbalances the game? im sorry but thats just stupid. i always have and always will support the way fast travel in OB worked, and hated it in MW.

and im pretty sure your 90% wrong that they couldnt be bothered...imo there is more important things to put in these games. than "but i wanna see my character travel, so i can feel immersededer in the worldzor".

seriously i really cant see any justification to the complaining about, speeding up the tedious walking, and walking some more, through the same place time after time, and once more. its not like everything is already mapped out, and you can just pop up anywhere you want to at the start of the game. you LITERALLY HAVE TO FIND A PLACE, BEFORE YOU CAN FAST TRAVEL TO IT. there is no problem with this.

when i play i explore all kinds of things and places. but when my inventory is full. i DO NOT, want to have to FIND a boat somewhere to bring me back to town, so i can sell all the junk i picked up. and then get back on the boat, and walk all the way back to where ever i was. no sir. ill just "RP" that my character WALKED, to and from my destination.

Really? Because after a certain point I never used it again. Not in Oblivion and not in Fallout 3. It IS optional. If you can't exercise a bit of willpower to not use it then that is just plain sad.

Exactly! Good suggestions.

Somewhat. I love it more when a horde of people chime in to show that this somebody's assumptions are just that, and derail their attempt at "Harken unto me, for I speak for all of ye!"



Four words...word one: "Mark." Word two: "Recall." Words three and four: "Divine Intervention." Not only do the fast-travel "ZOMG, I gotz 2 getz in 2 teh actionzzz!!1!!" junkies get theirs, you aren't even limited to where the game's designers put map waypoints- you teleport to town from the last chest you looted, sell off, and teleport back to exactly where you were standing. How this is inferior to Oblivion fast-travel beggars the imagination.

How people think Morrowind fast-travel, which was limited to transport between various cities new and old but included these versatile spells which fill in all possible gaps is something bad in comparison makes me think perhaps Darwin was terribly, terribly wrong. :blink:

Morrowind had darts in addition to bows for those who want guns. But seriously guns in a magic fantasy game is just not applicable...

Also there are always options, more options like mages transportation and mark/recall are good. Being transported from a city i knew to another city i didn't know at all by the mages guild was always exciting. you ended up in the middle of the city and had to go out and figure out where you are. Using your brain is a good thing despite what society is trying to impose on us nowadays

I am always glad to help the torch and pitchfork people in an upstanding case like this one and now that i know it also entertain you, it just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. :laugh:

Morrowinds had Mark & Recall spells for those who wanted a quick way to get back to sell loot and a quick way to come back again in the cave/dungeon.