At least don't build quests around the fast travel feature. I mean, working with the Grey Fox was a pain, you had to cross the whole province to meet him, and then you had to cross the province again to actually do the quest. Keep things realist, plenty of quests you get from a certain city should be mostly done, and completed, in or around the city, or a nearby one. You know, a province should feel like a province, I'd be surprised people always needed to deal with someone/something that is that far away. Not that it was that bad with Oblivion, but it was noticeable.

Agreed, the problem with just implementing a hard core mode as an afterthought is that quest design will be built around the assumption of using a fast travel system. I mean I doubt Oblivion would be nearly as fun if I had to hoof it for every quest. The game just isn't designed for that. I think it would be better to design quests so you didn't need to use the fast travel system.

In Oblivion the statement "dont want it, dont use it" wasnt a good answer. Why i would walk if there is little to discover while walking (leveled stuff everywhere)?

If TES lose its freedom and become like Gothic 4
yeah fast travel is'nt needed
if landspace will be smaller than Oblivion -same thing

IMHO TES5 will be like this forum: unstable and useless)))

I'm wondering if anyone played Nehrim here? They had a system where valuable "teleport runes" could be used to teleport to locations that you had visited and had a "teleport shrine". So essentially you could fast travel to all of the major, and many minor (villages) locations at a cost. It then even had some quests to fix the teleport shrines etc. I'd say that a system similar to that - with "memory stones" that allow you to teleport to somewhere you've already been that is reasonably safe (ie. NOT directly outside a dungeon, upon which you get immediately attacked by a monster (a real immersion breaker in oblivion) but instead to villages, cites and landmarks) coupled with a Morrowind like fast travel network would be nice. That would provide the "safe" option, and then perhaps the oblivion system for travelling to these same "safe" locations, but with the chance of being attacked on the way, or a random encounter or whatever.

I say just a Morrowind travel system. This quick travel thing has really killed off the exploration aspect of the game.

I would only want the Oblivion style if the landmass was the size of Daggerfall. I prefer Morrowind's immersive system of boats, mages and animals to get us about.

Why are you walking the same path over and over again? Morrowind's transportation system was a game mechanic that forced you to think ahead and prepare for any lengthy journeys. You needed to stock up on feather potions, restore attribute potions, hammers, and other supplies to prepare yourself for the unforeseen (like heavy loot, poisons, lack of local resupply areas, etc.). Oblivion enabled us to loot and fast travel in repetition until we had more drakes than the Septims. So apart from Morrowind's travel system adding to immersion, it also prevented you from quickly amassing gold and penalized you for not adequately preparing for your journey.

I would prefer the more immersive option (a MW-type travel system with a Skyrim flavor), however I realize the fact that not everyone wants (or even has the time to) walk around a city, wait for a boat, take the boat, walk out of the new city, andwalk to the new location. If I had little time to play a game, and my one hour playing for a week was spent travelling from A to B, I probably wouldn't find the game very fun either.

That being said, build the quests around the immersive fast travel option (which wouldn't affect the OB-style FT people at all) so that it's not a pain in the a** finishing a quest, and make sure there are plenty of options (horse, some other kind of mount, boats, teleporters, animal-based FT (like silt-striders)). If you can get to a location within, say, 10 minutes (in real time), from ANYWHERE on the map, then I don't think we would be tempted to break immersion for convenience. If you still think you couldn't handle that, then the OB people are not the problem.

If I had my choice, I would have the MW style over OB. However, the OB style is there for casual gamers, and since they make up a significant amount of the market, it's not going anywhere. However, there needs to be viable option for the immersion people, because we buy the game as well, and it wouldn't be that difficult to implement.

EDIT: The whole "you could just buy scrolls of mark and recall" option and "you could get attacked while using OB fast travel" idea kind of defeat the purpose of OB fast travel...it is to make the game more accessible to casual gamers, who don't want to spend half of their time walking to shops to buy things and getting pointlessly attacked by animals/bandits. Honestly, the most annoying thing about OB was having some random animal, all of which apparently had rabies and would attack on sight, come out of nowhere and attack me, just so I could spend 10 seconds killing it and moving on.

I think an option in the beginning of each playthrough should exist where you can choose to enable or disable fast travel, permanently. Some people want oblivion-style fast travel and some don't, why not give people the option to choose? And they could add in a Morrowind-style "silt strider-like travel system" for those who want it.

Personally I hate oblivion's fast travel system. It significantly destroys immersion and removes that sense of risk I felt in Morrowind. I would absolutely love the option to permanently disable fast travel in the beginning of each playthrough. The existence of a Morrowind-like travel system (town to town only) would be an added bonus.

Christ allmighty, some of you people have some serious escapism issues. A game actually recognises that it's a game and behaves as such? How dare they!

Just read an interview at the Imperial Library with the development team of Morrowind, before it was released. Got to a part where they were asking about fast-traveling. I found it pretty interesting.


To bad people complained that it was too much of a bother, so they had to scrap it. They probably could have made so many improvements on a real travel system.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/interviews-MW-team

Well, if they include Morrowind's Mark and Recall, then that would make things similarly easy, and still have immersion.

Personally, I just didn't like that fast travel from Oblivion. 4 hours go by, and I can teleport anywhere!.. I prefer to take the Silt Strider
Maybe even have an option to watch as whatever your on travels, and have a chance of getting attacked by bandits or whatever.

I voted for the Morrowind option.

But, I would like to see it so that you actually had to wait for the Slit Striders to actually go to their destination. Even though they look slow, they're massive legs would mean they'd cover a lot of ground quite fast, so even though it would be as fast as "fast travel", it would still be a lot faster than walking/riding, as well as being much more immersive.

Also, I don't want to see fast travel at all, the whole "you don't have to use it" line used for Oblivion was a cop-out. I almost never used it, but by simply being there almost ruined the size of the world for me.

I'd rather avoid fast travel and have a more "natural" (bad word choice, I know) system to get around. But that's ONLY if they bring back mark and recall. Hopefully with more than one set location (three maybe?) The world felt so much bigger in Morrowind because I ended up seeing so much more of it. Yeah, Oblivion is huge, but it felt so much more compact because you only ended up seeing the same ten cities over and over and over. I actually had to force myself to walk around and remember "oh yeah, all of this other stuff is here too."

if there are horses and our characters dont start the game moving like they belong in a wheelchair then the morrowind system would be the best i think. then the mark and recall spells and almsivi and divine intervention would make a comeback too, and those always added to getting creative on missions that were intense and when you need to go back and by some potions you cast two spells, and then you go to the market and are back kicking ass in just moments.

I would say this, but also that it restricted you from opening map-clicking cave-going there.

You had to work out a route, and that was half the fun :3

I voted for the Morrowind style.

I prefer to walk but if I really need to be somewhere ASAP, instead of click-ZOOF-I'mthere which totally kills immersion, at least I'll have to talk to someone and pay a fee to be taken there first. It made it feel like I was actually travelling, instead of... teleporting at the cost of nothing. I play thieves and assassins, why would I want to teleport?

I have a travel system proposal that combines elements from three different fast travel systems.

Daggerfall’s travel options
Morrowind’s travel services
Red Dead Redemption’s real time travel

Say you’re at one ruin and you want to get to another on the other side of the map. You select the endpoint on your travel map, your direct travel method, and then the major city or two you’d travel through to reach the destination. The fast travel system automatically determines the small towns you’ll pass through on your route, and then you can select the overall interaction with the small towns. Then the system calculates the gold it would cost to travel by the methods you’ve selected, and the number of game days it would take. You can also select the interaction with the large towns,

It might take you a few seconds to fill this out, during which your destination could be loading in the background. If you stop anywhere on the route, the same travel plans stay selected until you reach your destination. The overall selections should be remembered for next time, so you can keep your travel preferences intact for the next time you fast travel.

Of course a lot of this depends on somewhat large distances that can’t be crossed in a couple minutes gametime, so the map might be too small for this. It also depends on time limits on quests, like Daggerfall had.

Overall interactions with towns would be to: Rest, resupply, or stop for item of interest. I expect many pass through small towns to be somewhat samey and not often be worth looking around in. You could spend a couple minutes shopping in the big towns if you thought you might find something. Stopping at relevant religious sites should also be an option, along with the ability to spend the night at the temple instead of the tavern.

Direct travel methods include: Walking, riding, carting, skiing, sledding, or boating. They depend on what you own or have available to your character.

Paid travel methods include: Trade caravans, carriages, supply ships, keelboats, sailboats

Limited travel methods include: Mages guild travel, giant slings you, dragon ride.

Trade caravans and supply ships are not fast, but they provide protection from harassment by animals and bandits, they’re cheap to travel with, and you are fully rested and fed when traveling with them. You have to wait around for them to begin, so some extra time in waiting can be lost. Keelboats are the river’s version of supply ships, sailboats are the sea’s version of carriages.

Carriages go anywhere the roads are well enough established anytime you want to go. They are relatively expensive, and at a slightly higher risk of being attacked by bandits.

Mages guild teleportation should only be available to mid and high ranked mages in the guild, but it can send you anywhere. You cannot access it from the fast travel screen

Giant throwing is having a giant physically throw you across a gorge, ravine, or river. It’s up to you to cast slowfall. You cannot access it from the fast travel screen.

If you walk up to the station of any of these paid travel methods, you can experience the travel in real time. You get on board the ship or carriage or whatever, wait until it is time to depart, then ride it to the destination like you could in Red Dead Redemption.

All the sections not covered by a travel network are taken care of by the travel methods you have available to you. Costs of the horse (feed, shodding) are calculated into overnight stays, but you will have far fewer overnight stays or stops if you have a horse.

I prefer Daggersfall Style. It worked, didn't feel cheep, provided different options on exactly how your character traversed the land, and kicks the hell out of Oblivion's travel system.

I could go for something like this.

The issue I have with a lot of the... (for lack of a better word) "anti-fast travel" suggestions, it's that it often hinges a bit too much on the "stick" and not enough on the "carrot."

More than anything, what I think would be ideal is not a focus on somehow "punishing" the player for using fast-travel (applying a cost to it, restricting where and how it works, etc -) but in making sure that there's enough incentive for the player to avoid using it.

I still find the RDR example particularly appropriate. I have explored every square inch of that game. I have also (occasionally) used it's fast-travel system. (Paid methods of travel - coach, train, etc - exist, or you can at any time make a campfire - for free - and instantly fast-travel to anywhere on the map, at all.) Probably about 90% of that game, it didn't even occur to me to "fast-forward" my travel, however. Just exploring and riding from one place to another was an integral (and very rewarding) part of the game. To the extent that it's fast-travel system (which had pretty much any option imaginable) existed at all, it was also largely irrelevant to the game, itself.

I think if Skyrim could accomplish something like that (where the benefits and rewards for just wandering around and physically travelling in real-time outweigh the fact that there is no "cost" for insta-travel,) that would be ideal. We're now at a level of technology where quests can certainly be designed in a way where people won't be feeling they're "forced" into using auto-travel methods; but where freedom of travel exists without hindrance, as well.

Again, I don't think it's about trying to find ways to try and discourage the player from fast-travelling - and more about encouraging them to forget that it's even an option.

I say keep the Oblivion style fast travel. I'm lazy and don't like riding horses :shrug:

HERE!!!
SOLUTION = PUT IT IN, and allow the Players to DECIDE for themselves, not for everyone else.
"IT" = Oblivion style travel

That doesn't really work for the following reason: people who disapprove of Oblivion's fast travel want fast travel in an alternate form, namely for-hire boats/guild-guides/spells/caravans/etc. But the alternate form they want is virtually incompatible with Oblivion's travel. So by just plugging in Oblivion fast travel, the other options can't exist (the two mechanics undercut each other), and then there's just immediate no-cost teleportation, or walking. Not much deciding going on there.

Besides that, they probably don't just add systems in a modular fashion. They work to see what would make a better overall game. Look at Oblivion. If they took out fast travel, that game would svck to play because of how many times you have to cross half of Tamriel to get to a quest objective. I say, if they want to take out fast travel, they need to plan that soon, because they're going to have to make some design decisions to account for it beyond just implementing other forms of transport ala boat/silt strider.