I think the best would be if we keep it as it was in Oblivion.

Maybe add several other ways to travel like in Morrowind, but stop whining about fast traveling.

Fast traveling is for people who don't care for immersion and just want to rush the game through.
I use it sometimes because I am to lazy to walk/ride.

So, if you want to use fast travel, by all means do it.
If you don't want to, then don't...

Easy as that.

Why a ON/OFF button when you can just decide to walk or not?

I agree with the notion fast travel should be unlocked/or useable only by a certain source(Refer back to Fallout 2's CM Highwayman)

As for the feature being ripped out I say no. People say using it is inevitable due to the large world size and back tracking but really the only solution to that is cutting down the world or a small overworld, not doable in todays worlds rendered infront of you inside video games.

It's all about will, just like choosing wether to shower, workout and mantain weight due to vast amounts of extra energy from food not being used in our society, or even choosing meals and deciding how much food is appropriate enough to eat in a day, and so on.

It's a choice, just a hard one. I feel with Skyrim having a supposed varied terrain the struggle to use fast travel should help.

Of coarse the design with New Vegas(Made primarily by Obsidian Entertainment) for many quests was to take you to locations that was near points of interest you most likely would miss in the game. They primarily expected people to use quick travel during the fetch quests. I do know of some people who never touched fast travel in FO 3 nor New Vegas though.

It seems it'll be standard in Skyrim, I doubt it'll be an unlockable but maybe there'll be an ingame transportation source in place for fast travel rather than from the map.

As for the New Vegas style design, I think there'll be some of those but Bethesda solved the need for themselves to pinpoint to unexplored spots by hand and fetch quests nudging players to them.

And the supposed quests pointing you to a dungeon not explored in Skyrim based on several statistics and your own decision that people fear will be too randomized, I consider it a moot point.

Edit: Also if your self will from temptation or laziness is weak than it's a personal issue, not a general issue to the userbase. Many people use fast travel when locations or roads become too known and common. Or to save time as not all people can invest as much time as the dedicated people who signed up on a forum and talk here.

But also generally speaking, the option to not use it is there. Just ignore it. Lack of will doesn't apply to all.

I couldn't agree more. I really liked the network in Morrowind, with the mages guild teleportation, propylon chambers and boats/silt striders. I agree with ShampooLord that it added more immersion by requiring to plan your route. Of course, it would be nice to also have Mark spell with a possibility to mark multiple (but finite number of) places.

I posted this idea while back. recent publications have revealed that food is going to have an effect on game mechanics. Fast travel "currency" should be food and drink.

The very presence of fast travel as a legit game mechanic completely destroys the immersion. Try playing Oblivion without it - you will cry all the way from anvil to imperial city every time someone tells you to go steal something, and it will make you think twice about making the trip for that express purpose. You will start traveling smarter and it will affect the feeling you get when you complete the quest.

Sure, you can tell people to "just not use it!!!1" but the fact that it's there still hurts the overall feeling. Imagine if cheats were also built into the intended game mechanics. Imagine a tutorial looking like this: "Press "~" and slowly type in "tgm" and press "Enter" to defeat tougher opponents". Would you feel all better if you went through the game without using it? Or would you feel that you have to constantly force yourself to do something the developers didn't really want you to do?

Look at what they did in New Vegas: they made hardcoe mode an option! That meant it was totally legit and you were not bending the game in ways that were not intended.=WIN

There is a huge difference between "you can do it" and "you should be able to find a way to make it work". :banghead:

I dont get it, why do people hate fast travel? I found myself getting angry in Morrowind looking for those damn caves from those accursed quest-giving idiots! There wasn't even a damn compass!

No...

How is the Dragon-Born being casually picked-off by bandits on the road? There's no reason to invent consequences for fast-travel, it's just an alternate method of play and a powerful gameplay tool that can be exploited or conserved at the player's discretion. If you want to be robbed or attacked by animals, hoof it and find the fighting yourself.

People's opinions on fast travel are based solely on how they play games. My sister just focuses on completing the main storyline as soon as possible, the game is just a fun test for her - the more she beats the game the better she feels. Fast travel is the thing for her. I go and do every little thing I can, exactly how I would do it, investigate every corner of the virtual world, soak up every bit of lore/fluff and I do it for the express purpose of having the game grow on me so that when I finally complete the main quest I can fall back into my armchair and slowly clap as the credits roll away.

If only they made a "turn off fast travel" button...I would shut up and be happy, but no, it's impossible! I have to force myself to walk 10 miles ingame instead of taking a fast, free, safe teleport everyone should be using...

Honestly, I don't even use fast travel that much. At least not on the first playthrough, I want to see what there is to find. That doesn't mean i want the option taken away though, it's an option and options are good.
I don't see why people can't just reach a middle ground here, it always has to be taken to an extreme. It's selfish and immature, get over yourselves. This is the way it is, deal with it.

If you truly enjoy the "walk everywhere, explore everything" approach, abstaining from fast travel shouldn't be a chore but a pleasure.

If you find that approach gets tedious, then fast travel is probably for you. At least, some of the time. There's no reason to implement a "turn off fast travel" feature when one can simply not do it.

I totally agree but the way things look now is that there will be no option to turn off fast travel, meaning it will always be there no matter how much you pretend it isn't. There is a difference between tricking yourself and doing everything by the book.

I just want an immersive alternative, it's not that hard :S

There's a vast difference in "choosing not to do it" and creating content around a mechanic. Because fast travel is a feature and not an option, developers are more inclined to write quests that have the player traveling around the world constantly. Now, these quest lines could just as easily be written to be confined to a local presence. If there is fast travel, it is not optional.

No, not really. What's to stop you from turning it back on? Who's to say you won't change your mind or crack under the pressure and just reactivate it? Adding an option to turn it on and off is a waste of time because simply choosing not to use it achieves the exact same result. I'm not trying to disagree with you just for the sake of argument, but I honestly don't see why people can't just choose not to use it and live with that. It's frightening to see how many people are unwilling to make the slightest compromise in todays world, it really is.

I agree with the notion fast travel should be unlocked/or useable only by a certain source in the gameworld related to transportation(Refer back to Fallout 2's CM Highwayman)

As for the feature being ripped out I say no. People say using it is inevitable due to the large world size and back tracking but really the only solution to that is cutting down the world or a small overworld, not doable in todays worlds rendered infront of you inside video games.

It's all about will, just like choosing wether to shower, workout and mantain weight due to vast amounts of extra energy from food not being used in our society, or even choosing meals and deciding how much food is appropriate enough to eat in a day, and so on.

It's a choice, just a hard one. I feel with Skyrim having a supposed varied terrain the struggle to use fast travel should help.

Of coarse the design with New Vegas(Made primarily by Obsidian Entertainment) for many quests was to take you to locations that was near points of interest you most likely would miss in the game. They primarily expected people to use quick travel during the fetch quests. I do know of some people who never touched fast travel in FO 3 nor New Vegas though.

It seems it'll be standard in Skyrim, I doubt it'll be an unlockable but maybe there'll be an ingame transportation source in place for fast travel rather than from the map.

As for the New Vegas style design, I think there'll be some of those but Bethesda solved the need for themselves to pinpoint to unexplored spots by hand and fetch quests nudging players to them.

And the supposed quests pointing you to a dungeon not explored in Skyrim based on several statistics and your own decision that people fear will be too randomized, I consider it a moot point.

Edit: Also if your self will from temptation or laziness is weak than it's a personal issue, not a general issue to the userbase. Many people use fast travel when locations or roads become too known and common. Or to save time as not all people can invest as much time as the dedicated people who signed up on a forum and talk here.

But also generally speaking, the option to not use it is there. Just ignore it. Lack of will doesn't apply to all Individuals. If you can't it can't be pinned on the millions of potential buyers of the game other than yourself.

I know it's slightly off topic but didn't you just post this? i could've sworn I saw this exact post word for word before I posted my previous reply...Do I need to lay off the whiskey or am i actually right?

I do not think there should be any consequence from fast travel other than
arriving, but I do think there should have always been a base chance of ambush,
and a higher chance near cities if people are looking for you. I think that you should
not just arrive with a light purse, but rather have had to fight those that accosted you on the road.

This is how Fallout did it, and occasionally how Planescape and Baldur's Gate did it.

If, if, if. You're opposing a possibility, not an eventuality. Bethesda is composed of competent men and women who learn from their mistakes. There's no reason that complete fast travel and well-paced quests can't coexist in the same game. Some quests should send you to the far sides of the province, and some should be in your own backyard.

The issue, as I see it, is that a developer may fill the space in-between cities and dungeons with randomly generated, monotonous terrain with the expectation that no one will ever bother to explore it. But, ask yourself this: does Bethesda really feel this way about their fanbase?

I'm not sure about you but I can't feel good about myself when I'm trying to pretend that something doesn't exist, when it obviously does and is very much intended to exist and therefore - be used. Or vise-versa one might as well pretend there are werewolves in oblivion but that won't make them appear. If Bethesda can put in fast travel why can't they write up 10 lines of code to make it an option to turn it off like they did in New Vegas with hardcoe mode?

Good idea actually. Worked for eve with there auto pilot. Back in the day I made a suggestion to change it to where it's more like rock stars fast travel. But now that I played eve I guess I could live with it just being shortened. Like when you jump to a location you still have to walk a ways you don't show up on the door step. That might encourage people to walk so they actually get all the xp there missing.

For what it's worth, if the few landscape shots I've seen from Skyrim were computer generated then I wil be genuinely worried about Skynet. Those locations looked amazing, far too amazing to be randomly generated.

That's a bad flaw in TES. Fast travel certainly isn't teleportation, and though currently it does not ~it should have a bit of a risk (if not also a bit of a lucky break, with the chance for a non-hostile encounter).

Actual magical teleportation's safety should hinge on the skill of the caster, and have mishaps for their mistakes.

I suggested this a dozen times for Fallout 3 and NV. Its a shame it was not implemented.

I'm not sure I understand you here... Would you explain what [exactly] you consider 'fast travel' to be/ or mean?

If you've ever watched an early Indiana Jones movie, you've seen when they get on a plane how it fades to an overland map; and later it transitions back to just as the plane sets down. This is so they don't have to show hours of them sitting bored on a plane en-route. Its the same thing in just about any RPG, TES included.
During "fast" travel... The PC has an uneventful trip and you pick up the game when they arrive. Its not meant as a cheat.

The "turn off fast travel" button is
a ) easy to make
b ) won't hurt anyone
c ) will quiet down people who share my opinion
So why not put it in? Is it cyberheresy to have it?

Yea, they could have put it in Oblivion too. Travelling from a corner of the country to the other with 1 hp and getting there alive seems impossible.

Fast-travel is not meant to be used. It's there, when or if you need it. There's no shame in taking advantage of it when the idea of hiking from one end of the province to another is unappealing. If that throws off the rhythm of your journey, it's your own fault.

The ideal we should be aiming for here is a fast-travel system, implemented in a world that's so interesting the player never needs it.