I use it sometimes to sell stuff

but for quests I walk/run there

Have never used it and never will. If I′m in a hurry when I play because I have to be someplace soon, I just don′t play at all. Fast travel ruins the experience that is Oblivion

I don't typically use fast travel, but I certainly don't dislike having the option. I very much enjoyed having it during my first playthrough so I could get around quickly, especially with the lack of any silt strider-esque option, or Mages Guild teleporting service. Now, though, I like it much more without fast traveling. I typically walk everywhere on foot with the music turned off and with a sound effects mod. It's quite an enjoyable experience, and I find that it's during those "dull" moments of walking from point A to point B that a character really comes alive and you have time to reflect on your current objective and the general on-goings of Cyrodiil.


Never?

Nope, and here is why:

:thumbsup:

I've set forth my personal stance on Fast-Travel many a time. Don't mind doing so again. I simply don't do it. Haven't since part way through my first play-through. Admittedly, I will occasionally fast-travel to diagnose glitches and/or double-check fixes. At those time no quest-lines are advanced. Nor is the game saved. Thus no harm befalls my role-play / immersionistic ego.

I didn't even care for Morrowind's Silt Striders. Saw them as little more than gussied up fast-travel. I did, however, take advantage of the Teleportation Mages available in Morrowind and Daggerfall. Seemingly instantaneous travel in that scenario made perfect sense. (And in Daggerfall's case, its wilderness was rather lacking in interest.)

-Decrepit-

when you have gone every were on foot possible and played the game threw already fast travel saves you a 10 min or so if you have to high tail across the map for the 1000th time

If you were able to turn fast-travel off, so it is actually impossible to fast travel with a particular character, I probably would have fun not using it. However, as long as it is an option, the tempation is too great

I play multiple characters, and for those who use fast travel, it's worked into my role playing. I have "rules" about it.

I use a mod that adds "visited" markers to the map for wayshrines, ayleid wells, and runestones (and allows me to edit the marker labels.) In my version of Tamriel, a traveling mage can tap into the magic of such places to teleport to another similar location. So I can fast travel from one wayshrine to another, or from one runestone to another, etc. The rule is that my character must be at a teleportation site in order to use the ability, and can only go to a corresponding other location which has already been visited.

No, I hate fast travel. It's metagame, and I want a decent travel system that's not just "PC couldn't be bothered to walk, so he/she just randomly teleported with no reasonable explanation as to how this is possible". I'm lazy, though, so I allow fast travel along the major roads and between cities, to simulate some sort of transportation system.

I'm not going to BS and say it ruins experiences because after I walked around cyrodill like twice I used it because I don't like having to walk all the time. Some people think they would actually "svck" by using it and I laugh at that.

This is my biggest problem with people's complaints against fast travel.

It is not random teleporting. It is fast traveling. It is as though you are watching a movie and there's a "fade to black" sequence, that then fades in with the character(s) in a new location. When watching that movie, you wouldn't say "HOW DID THEY JUST RANDOMLY TELEPORT?!" you would acknowledge that they took the time to get there by walking/driving/flying/etc and the movie merely spared the viewers from having to watch hours of traveling. Fast travel is that fade-out/fade-in moment. You have to use your imagination to tell yourself that your character merely made the trip back to where ever it was he/she was going without any noteworthy incident. Time passes the same way when you fast travel as if you had made the trip manually.

It's the same as using the "Wait" feature. Your character isn't just standing there with a blank expression for an hour or more. Just imagine that he/she is sitting down, taking a drink, getting a snack, bandaging wounds, etc.

All it takes is a teeny tiny bit of imagination and suspension of disbelief and you're good to go. I never heard anyone complain that, when paying for a Silt Strider service in Morrowind, that the player suddenly teleported to a different area of Vvardenfell.

I don't place restrictions on fast travel because I view it not really as part of game play, but as an administrative function like saving or exiting the game. If I want to simulate that my character made an uneventful trip from A to B, then I would do so. I don't try to roleplay it into some transportation system although if my character travels by ship or carriage, then fast travel can help us simulate that. All that said, my character and her horse are very well equipped to travel the roads and wilderness areas for extended periods and thoroughly enjoy doing so. Therefore, although I don't restrict its use, fast travel gets used very little.

Edit: I see Velorien was posting the same time as I and that our feelings about fast travel obviously share much in common. :foodndrink:

Yes, this is how I looked at it when I was playing the game seriously (following quest lines, working toward goals.) I'd probably still think that way if I "needed" to be on the other side of Cyrodiil, and didn't want to take the time to play out the "elapsed time."

And your example of the "wait" function is perfect. I imagine the resting/bandaging/eating in that time.

^That is exactly how I view fast travel. I use it when I don't have a lot of time to play (which is not uncommon). I work two jobs so I simply don't have the time (IRL) to spend wandering about Cyrodiil, unless that's what I want to do in the first place.

It is kind of a necessary evil, I avoid fast traveling as much as possible but there are circumstances where it is good have the option. A few days ago my game kept freezing just outside of anvil when I started going up the hill on the road that leaves town. Well I tried a ton of different things to get around it including using a different route, clearing the cache on my 360 etc.... After about an hour of trying different things I fast traveled to a nearby inn that is on the gold road. After that I was able to continue on my journey to the Imperial City with no more problems without needing to fast travel after that.

My first character never used fast travel at all. After that, the next four used it more and more. My current character uses it all the time. But I normally do not travel directly to a destination, I travel to a nearby landmark, usually a tavern or a wayshrine, then walk or run the rest of the way.

The only time I use it when I about go to bed or go to work so I can finish a quest of.

When I first played the game, I would fast travel all over the place to save time. Then when I started to make athletics one of my characters' staple skills, I don't fast travel anywhere anymore (to train it up). With Skyrim coming (for those of you who have read what's happening to some of the skills)... that may change again. Although I've also come to enjoy the landscape of Oblivion running through the wilderness (gives my character an excuse to stop and rest once in a while )

I don't like using it, but it's just so tempting