If I could add my two cents, I think they should keep fast travel but not allowed to fast travel through routes where events are going on as well as getting a notification of said specific reasons(Wars, dangerous forest, sea, bandits lurking there etc) So we get to have more boat travels, running into battles and fighting off awesome beasts without having to do boring walks through a road.

To be honest, I used fast travel to get out of trouble in places where I was probably a goner.

Why though? Why would someone want to cripple the map navigation?

The whole point of the method is to bypass tedium with implied foot travel. Suggesting to limit it is suggesting to limit foot travel; to say that the PC is not allowed to walk somewhere. I don't get it :shrug: ~I've never gotten it, never understood the apparent misconception of map travel, as though it were some sort of premium service that should not be offered for free; or that should have restrictions.

[IMO] Its bad enough that you cannot just choose a point on the map and travel there ~when anyone who can walk, can look at a map and start walking to some random place on it. :shrug:

Fast travel services ought to be included for the same reason that shops and farms and factions should be included. It's part of world building. It makes no sense that we have some this allegedly interconnected economy with different regions and cities providing different resources and services to other regions and cities, but there exists no visible means of transporting those goods.

Carriages, carts, caravans, cargo ships, public transportation should all exist because this is how people move from place to place. Am I supposed to believe that everyone either owns their own horse or walks to every destination? And once we've added in the existence of public transportation, there is no reason to deny the player access to that system. This is about constructing a realistic, believable world. This is a central pillar of the Elder Scrolls experience.

Your last sentence...thats the only thing I dont like about fast travel, and it gets fixed by letting you only fast travel to places you've already been.

Morrowind and Fallout 3 had me running back to safe havens whenever I had to travel through dangerous roads. It has you prepare before going through certain roads. I love that. It makes the game world be something more than just an excuse (or an obstacle) for reaching a quest destination.

As I recall, Fallout has costs associated with it's travel. From basic things like time passing to dehyrdation and potential death from radiation sickness. Would you think the removal of these costs beneficial to the experience?

I can't believe Fast Travel is still a topic within the forums. Fast Travel has always been a CHOICE! You can choose fast travel or not ... whichever your character wants to to do. We should focus on more important and diverse topics in the forums, in my opinion.

Make it like how the original fallouts did it. you have a marker that moves and time passes, you can still be ambushed along the way so it's not a "get away from danger" button. For a more modern example look to how Dragon age: Origans travel worked. You then have a "trade off" use Fast travel and miss out on exploring side passages and such along the way, but get to where your going much faster then taking the long walk. Or Walk the trail in yourself and spend the time and possible run more stuff.

That way, you can move around quickly but still have the danger of having to run it yourself, so you can't just do a insta teleport back to town cuz your heavily wounded in a dangerous area"

Fallout doesn't have any of that; though if you travel without a canteen, you do get dehydrated in Fallout 2. Fallout 3 has dangers along the way, same as Oblivion did... and Map travel is broken in both games. What they need to do is fix it ~essentially copy a bit more from Fallout and add in the potential for good or bad encounters along the way, and have drug timers expire during the trip (so that you can't use Buffout and load up for the long walk across the map ~and get there still carrying the load).

Something like this?
http://img211.imageshack.us/i/maptc4.swf

I think they should keep OB style fast travel, but more importantly, they could just make the journey more interesting so you wouldn't want to fast travel. I'm hoping that their random animal and bandit encounters are better thought out (could be a good use of Radiant AI)

Fallout definitely had time passage for fast travel. Since certain quests (the main one, for example) were time dependent, this is most definitely a cost. Oblivions fast travel had time passage as well, but the game didn't care. Nothing was dependent on you completing anything by a particular date. I could have sworn I've died from radiation sickness while fast traveling, too, but it's been awhile since I've played. I managed to overlook random encounters, not sure how I forgot that. :/

Point is these are all absolutely costs associated with travel. Oblivion had none of this. If things like this were added to the Oblivion fast travel system, it would be a significant improvement. But actual services such as carriages, boats, caravans (which Fallout did have) should also be included because of the reasons I stated earlier. It's part of crafting a believable world.

EDIT: Wait, Fallout 3 had dangers along the way? Am I totally spacing? I don't ever recall having my travel interrupted.

It did, not only that but the terrain underfoot took different amounts of time to cross. But that's not a cost or a price to be paid, that's just a fact of the game. Time passes no matter what you do. You can walk across the town and time will pass, read a book and time will pass (A lot of time if you have a low INt character). When traveling in Fallout, the time spent walking could be days or weeks, during which, the PC heals, and their addictions can run their course.

I misread that myself... I meant that Fallout 3 had encounters (in practically all directions) for regular exploration. (There is a mod that adds random encounters for map travel though.)

As you've said, travel in Fallout was travel. You weren't shaving off a five or ten minute horse ride, you lost weeks going between locations. That kind of time passage was never something you'd see while running around town. So while you could still lose time by staying in town, the discrepancy is large enough to call this a cost of travel, I think. Fallout didn't need to have such large distance between locations, they could have made it a day's travel at most between any given point of interest. I think it's safe to say that the large distances between towns were implemented to require the player to exercise a certain amount of time management, if not just for realism's sake.

Wait, but aren't you fast traveling to Cheydenhal in the first place? Lol unless this woul dbe like a 1 time select which place you want, go anywhere from there and then your stuck with it... Or whichever two places you want. Or if you meant you could only fast travel to Cheydenhal from anywhere but from Cheydenhal you could only go back to where you came from?

I doesn't really make much sense though does it?

If Oblivions fast travel is meant to simulate walking, then why would the character be limited to walk back to where they came from when they first had the option to go anywhere? It is a solution to some peoples concerns, but it doesn't offer any sort of explanation.

Just using the First Aid skill a few times will waste the day. I honestly believe that its just time, and the way time passes.. I don't think it was for time management ~though you do have to manage your time.

The engine pre-dates the the setting and story, and the game originally had time travel on the table while they were brainstorming it. Its true... There were other timers in the game originally, so you may be right... but I honestly don't think that is the reason.

evidently your view of pleasing both sides is heavily favoring one side while thowing a few scraps to the other. meaning with all of these limitations people wont want to use fast travel and some may not even wish to walk the long distances to get to places. now i know what your going to say "thats what horses are for" but horses take time to get to a destination. meaning people might enjoy the game less or may not even buy it at all. now i personnally dont care about fast travel but i personnaly think the better solution would be to have time pass when you fast travel maybe even throw in random encounters or a chance to catch disease or loose some gear during your travels.(which can be found out in the wilderness by travelling on foot and finding it yourself) if fast travel must be changed that is how it should be done.

@ OP:

Okay, here's the thing:

-People like you, who don't like fast travel implemented

-People like me, who do like fast travel implemented

Bethesda must please them both, but your suggestion, makes things easier and very comfortable for you, but instead wrecks everything a guy like me would want.
And you're even trying to "force" it down my throat, thats worse.

However, with the current fast travel system, people like me get what they want, and people like you, can just not use it, in order to please themselves.

If you're tempted to use the fast travel system, it obviously means that if the fast travel system is say... removed, than you will eventually get sick of it like that, and need it back.

Fast travel's in, deal with it.

may have been a bit strongly worded but i really agree with this

That's exactly how it worked in 'Realms of Arkania'. The regular game was 3d FPP, but travel was on an overland map like in Fallout. Unlike Fallout... Characters (traveling unprepared) could fall in water, or get rained on, and potentially get sick. Their shoes could wear out, and they would have to continue on bare foot (at greater risk). I even had one fall off a cliff [permanent death], while crossing the mountains (on the overland map).

So essentially OP want's a more proactive, non-magic based mark/recall system? Sounds alright to me

It might have already been said but the REAL issue with the Oblivion Fast Travel system was not that people were tempted by it, it was that they were practically forced to use it. Oblivion didn't have nearly the same amount of travel options as Morrowind so if you ever wanted to get ANYWHERE you either had to trek it or fast travel. As long as they have as efficient as a fast travel network as Morrowind there shouldn't be a huge problem

I don't mind it ~as an option (but I don't understand the need for it).

I also don't understand how one is 'tempted' by it. :shrug: To me its... well it almost as though I'd been told that some players are tempted to use the right mouse button in combat, but don't want to.

In the absence of an Oblivion styled fast travel system it would be nice to have something akin to Mark/Recall. Heck, even with Oblivion's system I still missed Mark/Recall.



I think you are miscoloring the issue. Fast travel is an alternate to normal travel, people are arguing over the form of its implementation. Combat is not an alternative to anything, it is self evident as an addition to the game.

When people say they are 'tempted' by Fast Travel what they mean is that they want to have a more 'realistic' travel system (instead of pressing a button and traveling anywhere you want) but since they are only given the option between an incredibly time consuming method (walking/riding) or an incredibly fast but unrealistic method (time warping, unstructured fast travel) they choose the unrealistic one because even though it hurts their immersion and experience of the game, they don't have all day to sit around and play videogames. Thus they are 'tempted' to use the faster option because the only other choice hinders their ability to play the game in a timely fashion. What people want is a REALISTIC methods of fast travel, including: fast travel spells, tangible transportation (boats, convoys, silt striders), and/or Mage Guild (or their alt) transportation. Not only does this make travel a PART of the game rather than a feature in the menus but it requires thought on how you're going to get from place to place.

Even though those methods are quite obviously not more realistic than walking? Very obviously not more realistic.

so is this like in mass effect galaxy map wherr the "mass relays" were connected to 1 other relay thus oyu had to go through series of them in order to go to your destination?

But I would (quite honestly) say that map travel is self evident. :shrug:

I don't see this in the game; Time passes with fast foot travel. I don't understand how its not viewed as realistic.

I am not one to consider the presence of fantasy aspects in a game to be an open flood gate for 'anything goes', I can accept fantasy elements as realistic within context; but for sake of example...
You have Mage teleportation, providing instant travel to 50 miles away (lets say he'd do it for you for free). You also have Map travel to the same location. Now, in this example I will consider teleportation as unrealistic because its not real... while considering map travel as completely realistic because its my character out for a walk.

In both instance, use of travel results in the screen fading to black, and then fading back into view in the new location. I see posts by players that call this unrealistic in the case of using map travel, and I don't understand it. Would anyone care to explain this in excruciating detail?

**EDIT: I do consider Fast Travel to be broken though, as in TES&FO3 you cannot be ambushed, and you can exploit the process. However this does not affect realism for me. Its a mechanics flaw.