I actually like both Morrowind and Oblivion's system.

The thing I liked about Oblivion's travel system was that you could go anywhere you wanted in an instant. Saved me a lot of time when I didn't want to run all the way through a dull uninspiring landscape.
What I didn't like was that it didn't fit into the game, it felt like cheating.

The thing I liked about morrowind though was that it all fit into the game, it was limited to boats, silt striders and guild guides.

There should be somewhat to combine the two in a good way.


The way I see it, if Oblivion's travel system was simply a "teleport to X" (which also costed mana) then it would have felt a lot better.

Indice were my personal favorite.

No, but long-standing http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1045189 on ZeniMax's current trademark possessions has led to the not entirely unfounded belief that Skyrim will be the next setting. They sure haven't bothered trademarking anything else, and they've filed for fairly expensive extensions for the Skyrim trademark several times now.

Haha. This is so funny because its so absolutely true. Bethesda was really excited with not having to hand make their game maps. To me, it seems in Oblivion they went overboard and made everything so random it was just bland. All looked the same, all played the same, all felt the same. It's almost like fast travel was just a way to bypass that so they wouldn't hear complaints about the terrible landscape.

Morrowind's landscape was hand made and all parts were unique. The travel system forced one to see every land feature and detail. As a previous poster said; Morrowind's system simply provided for a way to get from the dungeon to town, sell your stuff, then head on to another area to pillage, as most dungeons did not respawn enemies or loot.

All in all, I really love Fallout 3's system despite it being almost exactly like Oblivion's. Know why? The landscape wasn't random as hell and completely bland. Each part had unique features that one would not discover if they fast traveled. It didn't feel like so much of an urge to use fast travel, since you knew you could miss some of those features, but the option was always there if you were in a hurry.

So, really, this discussion isn't about fast travel. No, it is about landscape; we just didn't realize it.

THIS!

I did mention before that it's not really fast travel that's the problem but more the game around it. Main problems there:

-Bland landscape, it just gets boring to see very quickly and if you saw one ruin of a type you saw ALL ruins of that type.
-Really nothing to do on the way, there where so few settlements and things to do and they didn't encourage you to spend much time there. If there where more small places and had more quests you'd simply be encouraged to walk the way instead of just skipping
-Annoyances, honestly the bandits, animals and monsters that kept attacking you on sight where not a challange, they where an annoyance (specially looking at you, Will-o-the-Wisps)
-Simply to spread out, Every quest sent you simply too far out no matter how minor it was. This only made walking everywhere tedious.


In the end you didn't really feel like you achieved anything by walking, it was more like you wasted time on it. Simply fix those problems, have a landscape that's interesting to view, put more settlements between towns and have them contain more (possible random) quests you CAN do, make the main road safer so you don't get jumped by something every 20 steps and have more "regional" quests.
With that you CAN have Oblivions fast travel system without a problem, it would simply be a shortcut but using it you'd just miss all the stuff that's in between the travl point.

What surprises me is that anyone selected Oblivion's system over Fallout 3's. At least in FO3 you had to discover the area first. In Oblivion, you could fast travel to any city right off the bat.

Well it's kinda is a question of logic:
In Oblivion you had a map that had towns marked on it that existed for centuries already
In Fallout you only have a map of the general area that wasn't updated in over 200 years since all vault dwellers where locked up all the time.

Plus in Oblivion you DID have to find other locations first before you could fast travel there, only the major towns where filled in which honestly isn't that far off.
I could agree that you just got out of prison but you DID live on the outside world a while obviously.

lol k whtever. sry for my pointless post :facepalm:

well i haad no problem with OB landscape. i liked Mw landscape alot, and i also liked solthseim. Shivering Isles landscape was good too. Fallout aswell. im not worried about them making some bland landscape, so regarding OB FT, i think not many ppl actually got to experience the "country" of OB, due to being able to teleport eveytwhere. ya you had to find a couple places, but they werent usually quest related. if i remember correctly, when they were quest related, then you had them marked on your map and you could telepport anyway. im not 100% sure if thts the case, so if someone wants to add to this then thatd be good. Although contradicting wht i said above, i do know wht ppl mean by boring OB landscape, so i hope they make it a bit more unique wherever they make the game. i think todd had said this in one interview that he thinks OB didnt really have style, and how fallout has style just like some of there other work. im hoping they keep on putting style in their games, not like in OB(i apologize for the crazy use of STYLE). In response to wht you said, personally, id rather have all tht good stuff when travelling by foot AND have the Mw travel methods with horses. i think tht would be a killer combo.

Mark/Recall and Intervention spells should return as well for transportation/emergency. And ideally the AI for mage NPCs would use these for their own use; hopefully with suitable visual effects for whenever that happens (specifically, the "arrival").

Well I compiled some ideas on "Navigation" which does include fast travel but also issues like the map and compass, I already posted it in another Thread so i will just links to it:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=1044483&view=findpost&p=15187288

Compiled it of older ideas but also overworked them and added new details.

I've never seen why this is such a hot debate. It's not exactly rocket science. As far as the Mark/Recall spells, I've always wondered if there wasn't some sort of technical reason they were removed. It just seems like an odd thing to leave out.

Leave: The Oblivion/Fallout 3 style alone. I like this because I don't want a random encounter every ten seconds when I'm just hauling junk from place to place. Yes, I know it's all immersion breaking for some of y'all..but I don't really care. It's totally optional.

Leave: The horses. Sure you can out run them at high speed, but not all of us are min-maxers. Plus, an immortal horse quest reward like Shadowmere is always fun..now where's my good version? They could have given you one with KoTN or somethin'.

Add: Mage's Guild transportation service back from Morrowind. All you're doing is setting up an NPC with teleport markers, and the most involving work there is like an extra voiced line or three. This should not really be a problem, and it'll pipe a lot of people down. Perhaps even the same thing for members of the Imperal Cult or Nine Divines, for those factions?

Add: Intervention scrolls where it makes sense. Also, the Mark/Recall spells for mages..unless there's a good reason.

Add: Another mode of transportation where it makes sense. If we're in say, Skyrim, you may not get very much use out of boats, and they don't have silt striders. Maybe even some sort of caravan guard side-quest, where you'd only get interrupted if you hit a random encounter. Profit -and- transport.

Alter: Compass, mini-map, etc. Please God, just let there be a toggle option in the menu. I don't mind them, but adding this will save my ears..er..eyes..from threads and threads and threads of whining.

Welcome to the internet where everything is a hot debate

But seriously, you're right, it shouldn't be such a big fuzz, fast travle is THERE to make things easier. Otherwise they could leave it out completely and just say "walk everywhere no matter how long it takes"

One point though is a bit of a pickle, teleportation. You can't really create a tight situation like being trapped in a house or a cave if you just say "I can teleport out of there". Then suddenly saying "teleporting doesn't work here" feels a bit fake, you'd need a reason for that too.
For example you're trapped in a burning, multi story mansion and have to get out. Just whipping out your teleportation spell spoils it, suddenly having a "you can't teleport here" message feels fake because why the hell CAN'T you suddenly teleport? And tying it another condition like you have to make it out with somebody else just makes it feel like fake difficulty.
On the other hand it could allow for strategy, if you say "I could teleport out but i have to take someone along, if i'm powerfull enough i can teleport both of us" or "i got a extra intervention scroll, i'll give it to the other person" it would be somewhat ok again but it still has potential to ruin a few scenarios.

If they put teleportation in i dont think they should make it like you just snap your fingers and suddenly your on the other side of the map. You should need a varla stone or something to teleport and it should take at least 5 mins so that you cant just teleport to get out of battles.

Not necessarily. It's true that if we add all of the transportation methods you mention below alongside a instant-FT system, that will remove much of what I feel is wrong about a FT system. But they still have to successfully design the world without assuming the player will be using FT. And further, a FT system and a logical yet costly system of travel are design elements that are at odds with each other and undermine one another. While I wouldn't have too much of a problem having them side-by-side, Bethesda is going to pick one; they can't and won't include both for style reasons.


Unfortunately, it can't just be a menu toggle. If there is the ability to toggle it off, it's got to come with the assurance that the player will always have an alternate way of finding the location. In Oblivion, a lot of quest objectives were impossible to find without the quest-marker. You could indeed toggle it off by selecting another active quest w/out a flagged objective. But you'd be no closer to reaching your objective because that quest-marker was the only way to know where it is. No directions in dialogue, no written directions, no other means by which you might discover where you need to go. Things get even more complicated when your target is a moving person with a schedule (though not impossible; I've had ideas in the past regarding how to provide non-quest-marker ways for the player to discern an NPC's schedule). So making the quest-marker toggleable requires a lot more resources than just an on/off switch buried in the menu.

Because of that, the same position I talked about above can easily apply to the quest-marker. They are at odds with one another. If Bethesda is going to devote all the time and resources to make the quest-marker unneeded (which they should), then there's stylistically no reason to have the quest marker any more. If they're going to go the extra mile, then they've obviously taken a different stylistic approach to the concept and won't be needing the old method.

M/wind with horses with mark/recall brought back. I like the convenience of fast travel but I think it takes a lot away from the game, and I've lost track of the number of times I've intended to play without it but ended up using it as a quick (and unsatisfying) fix. Perhaps even a way to turn it off?

"Adjusting" Mark/Recall to only function outdoors would put some limits on players using it as an emergency exit in the middle of quest events, dungeon dives, etc. With a more reasonable gradual regeneration rate for magicka (not the Oblivion "quick charge"), the massive drain of casting it should be enough to limit its use to only once every hour or so. Having a deeper pool of Magicka like Morrowind, with about 5% of the regen rate of Oblivion, would be the best of both worlds, in my opinion, and the high magicka cost for teleportation should leave any low-to-mid level Mage without much to work with for a while. Consequences are GOOD, especially when they're optional (such as using an Enchantment instead, so then you need to recharge the item instead of your own magicka).

Obviously, ALMSIVI Intervention won't be all that popular or even available after the Tribunal's fall from godhood, so only Divine Intervention to the nearest altar would be needed, and I can picture an amusing quest event where such a location gets "subverted" for evil purposes.......

I suspect that the "consequence free" aspect of FT was done so "casual" players could just jump between fights without a lot of exploration, NPC interaction, or other "filler" in between, whereas that "filler" was the main reason why a lot of veteran TES players bought it in the first place, and were strongly disappointed when it turned out to have gotten the proverbial "short end of the stick".

I was thinking if the player is standing in the boundry of the main road then the player may fast travel.

I never played Oblivion as far as fast travel on the map. But it sounds good. It sounds a lot easier than when I played Morrowind paying for fast travel.

I've always liked how fast travel is done in Daggerfall.

I don't know if it work as well, since TES5 wont be in such large scale as Daggerfall.

Morrowind sans horses. I'm not a horse fan, take them or leave them. A flying insect mount, interesting.

Levitation. Pretty please :twirl:

MiniMaps: I take the point that having map 'float' in you field of view is far from realistic. However, consider the little map that lives in your head, it's there right now allowing you place yourself in a mental image of the room in which you sit, of the room within the building, of the street outside etc. I see in game minimaps as my characters memory of the immediate surroundings, including the occasional nearby door etc which they may see even though I may miss it.

I like the take on interesting scenery vs endless visceral combat. The latter to be avoided as much as possible, the former to be enjoyed time and time again. I find it very difficult to remember a journey in Morrowind when I wasn't distracted by a door, a path, a building, the general scenery, distracted at times for days - Slow Travel at its best.

Instant Fast Travel. You think in game life would become a bore when you can travel out of any situation with a snap of your fingers, in truth nothing is further from the truth. Un levelled encounters, ie RUN, notwithstanding, I always find myself pushing a little further than I should with a little less health than is wise but with greater caution and the added involvement and tension that brings.

Uhm, you CAN'T get out of a situation by just fast traveling out of it, when you're in a fight the game won't let you. A small porblem that was probably an oversight is that you can fast travel while you fall making it possible to escape a potentially lethal drop by fast traveling out of it. Also you can't fast travel out of dungeons, so you mght wanna rethink that "getting out of everything" argument.
If you mean getting out of a dangerous area, yea that is a point but a lot would argue it's better to have that way out than being stuck and dieing over and over again.

... You can in Morrowind

That's teleportation and needs to be overworked as well

No fast travel please. But with other options to travel like horses, walking, mages teleportation, etc...