+10000000 to the OP.

Interesting a fast travel thread in disguise. I have said it 100 times before, fast travel is completely optional, as in you don't have to use it. If you can't stop yourself from using fast travel so you actually explore the map then that is your problem. As another poster said, if I want to explore I will explore. If I don't feel like wasting 10 minutes walking around the wall of a city just to get back to the entrance I wont. Being able to quickly travel across the map is a good thing. Or for all you nostalgia people who love morrowind's system, there is a carriage service this time in the game so you can travel from city to city. Everyone should be happy because you can literally travel however you want. So all in all I would say yeah, Bethesda does get it.

Kiind of is......But yes its the journey not the destination.

Developement of the character and not just being handed god like power.

There are many reasons why Oblivion killed the exact immersion you're talking about for me. I'll try to explain the best I can so that forum browsers of all ages, IQs, and platforms will try to at least understand where I'm coming from.

Lets start off by targeting the very beginning of Oblivion. Sure it was all very fantastic, feeling like you were a part of this crazy plot involving the emperor, being let free by the guard from what could have been your life long prison cell. I truly did enjoy the story immersion presented in Oblivion's starting tutorial for the first few moments, but by the time I exited the sewers I was already annoyed with the way it attempted to force you in to playing every style from the get go. There are no barriers when it comes to Oblivion's character progression. If your character has a lock pick, suddenly you can pick every lock in the game if you have a trivial amount of skill at a mini-game. Somehow (in this example) My Orc fighter knows minor restoration spells, and even knows how to shoot a low tier fireball. This is a great way to casually introduce players the ability to start skilling their magic whenever they want, however as you will recall in Morrowind, your character had to learn spells from a Mage if you hadn't chosen magical skills from the get go. This presented a very real and immersing reason to pay a visit to a Mages guild should you decide that you WANT to learn it.

Further to the point, as you'll recall if you'd ever played Morrowind, you started out in a town. hmy: What a concept, a starting town? It was your first base of operation. There was plenty to be discovered there. Remember back to the axe hidden in the log in the tree? Or the extra stash of gold here and there... an actual interest in saving your money to buy the basic adventuring gear from the local merchant, of which a bulk of the gold was obtainable through the towns various nooks, cranny's, quests and what have you. It was a great starting experience. There was a lot to be done if you wanted to, it was of course all optional, but it really gave that "Okay what do I do on my first night? What do I need to survive" feel about it. None of this came at the luxury of a quest compass, which neatly shows you where most all of your quest items, Points of interest, people of interests or quest hooks are going to be. You actually had to PLAY the game. I know how much you all hate playing long tedious and rewarding games <_<

In Oblivion's beginning you leave the tutorial at the gate of a sewer exit, and you're presented with a few nifty points of interest on your compass just to get you right in some dungeon crawling action! That's great! I really do enjoy the instant action feel. right off the bat I was exploring ruins, and better yet, getting loot! Little did I know I'd be ages away from a town for which to sell it all to, and that's when I remembered... I was to open my map, click on a major town, and suddenly I'm there. Great? Wrong. Exploration was the defining feature of the Elder Scrolls series before, and I was soon learning that I didn't really NEED to do that. I remembered how to get from town to town almost explicitly in Morrowind, traveling the roads to do so, and I fondly remember a lot of the scenery along the way. It was all very unique and had this sense of home to it. Without the compass I frequently missed little caves or places here and there that I would later discover as I passed by again, on my way from one town to another. Every time I found a new one, excitement would fill me to the bone, as I would explore the new site. I had little idea weather or not I'd (Bringing me to another huge issue of mine) be killed by something horrible, or dominate otherwise lowly threats, but it was always that subtle doubt that kept me on edge.

At lower levels there is no risk versus reward factor in Oblivion. I can't head off in to an area with my fresh Oblivion character and expect to make off with something rare, expensive or exciting. I'm forced to spend the bulk of my time in game leveling up to see better equipment, or treasure. Beyond that, I could to some pretty scripted questing, with no real adventure behind it. "head from point a to point b, get this, speak to them, do that" style questing, where if you didn't know where "A", "B", this, "Them", or "That" was, it was all dandy, you didn't have to pay attention to the quest at all, nor did you need to do any sort of research. You simply had to follow the blip on your map, or compass, and suddenly you're on brainless autopilot.

I'm not a Morrowind Fan boy. I simply despised most of what Oblivion had to offer. It took everything I enjoyed about Elder Scrolls, and tossed it for ease of access, or simplicity.


TL;DR

The combination of the poorly implemented compass, level scaling, fast travel, And a lack of use from store merchants, or a solid starting town, or experience is what could potentially ruin Elder Scrolls for ME

If we could have the option to turn off the compass, fast travel, and possibly the level scaling, I'd be happy, you'd be happy cause you can simply leave them on. We can all be happy, we just require the support of our devs. They seem to be stuck in one of those "Majority rules" states.

i think that fast travel is a win/lose scenario, and is not better or worse than the Morrowind, but since it appeals to more people, it is no wonder Bethesda embraced it. Honestly though, I think people compare the methods of fast travel in MW and OB just so they can complain about something, since they are very similar. Why? In oblivion, 95% of the time you fast traveled from city to city or from a dungeon to city. In MW, the fast travel was from city to city, and while there was a cost, it later became insignificant. However, if I went out into the wilds and discovered a dungeon after 5-10 minutes of traveling, I do not want to repeat the same path again. I want to spend more time doing fun and immersive stuff. And I am not convinced by the argument that FT feels like teleporting. In OB, it felt like teleporting from place to place. In MW, it felt like teleporting from Silt Strider to Silt Strider. Now, most of you would say that you just use your imagination to fill in the game, to which I say yes, but can't you do the same with Oblivion? People spend way too much time arguing over FT - Oblivions system is simply more refined and allows you to play and experience the world more efficiently. Seriously, the combat in MW or the Level Scaling in Oblivion were far more detrimental. I think these pointless arguments should stop. Honestly, I have no trouble avoiding fast travel in Oblivion, so I don't see why I can't use that argument. By the way, Bethesda does 'get it'. Just because they do not agree with you does not mean they are ignorant.

Didn't Bethesda already say there is some carriage system for fast travel in Skyrim?

If so then why is this thread even up?

All I can say is.... your experience with Oblivion was not my experience with Oblivion. :shrug:


(Personally, I played MW once, screwed around with MW mods a bit on a second character, and then played Oblivion, one right after the other. This was a year or two after OB came out. And thought they were both great games. I've since played a bunch of other characters in OB, with a variety of mods. Haven't played MW again - that one had been loaned to me by a friend, and I haven't felt compelled to buy my own copy. It was a good game, but not some sort of life-changing experience. Only problem I had with Oblivion was the level scaling - and it was clear enough, by the time I played it, that the scaling was terrible, so I modded that for my first play - I've never played "vanilla" OB. But, again, only gameplay change I made was the scaling. Fast travel, points of interest, quest markers.... no issues there.)


...as I recall, my first character went from the sewers to the IC. And then walked to Weynon Priory.

Haha funny & ironic title OP. I think I should start a thread called "One thing average gamers who have never designed a game don't get".

When Bethesda started making Oblivion it was their first shot at a next gen game. It had backing from Microsoft and was highly anticipated. Pressure was high and resources were tight. They decided to design the game with procedural terrain, instead of hand placement like Morrowind. They had to because of time constraints and because they had some experience with it, Daggerfall and Arena. The realized the game wasn't going to be as interesting to explore and as such it might not be as fun to walk everywhere. They added fast travel.

When you design a game you have to make it fun and Oblivion was very, very fun. These threads are getting old, after five years........

Hey don't fret though OP because Oblivion was a huge success it has given Bethesda a huge amount of resources and now they can go back to a hand placed world. Skyrim will be awesome to explore and most people won't use fast travel as much. I hope you get some comfort from that guys. bliviongate:

This.

So hows the weather up in the clouds these days?



Wasn't aware that the Silt Strider could take me to that backwoods Kwama mine out on Red Mountain. I'll have to check on that next time I boot up Morrowind. <_<

Morrowind was a tad too hard to find stuff, especially in the early Redoran quests there was some lady that needed help with mudcrabs or something......I looked for that ***** for 2 hours once. lol But I understand, Oblivion travel was way too easy.

MW vs OB

But why can't you simply ignore the fast-travel system and just travel on foot? If you're that determined to feel connected to your character, just don't use fast-travel, that's what i did.

The environment was extremely dull, so it was boring to explore in Oblivion

Fallout 3 had a pretty hand-placed world (you could tell in all the interesting arrangements of details in the sewers and ruins). And was made with a bigger budget & more time. And it had fast travel.

(And the fast travel was both fine, and didn't harm "exploring".)

In open world games I explore as much as possible.. I always get 300 plus hours of gameplay out of these games. It's pretty easy to do so. however I use fast travel on occasion.. especially if it's a back and forth quest. (go to town B...pick up C.. take to A.. pick up D.. take to B.. etc.) I find those quests boring. And for people that do want to speed through the game then that's their priority. Some people just don't have the time to play a game for 300 hours. Some it might take a month just to get 30 hours into a game because they have a busy life schedule. So for those people .. I'd say fast travel in an open world environment is a necessity. And who's to say what is a rewarding experience or not? For me a rewarding experience is taking my time and smelling the flowers. For some a rewarding experience is completing fight after fight or challenge after challenge. What Bethesda has done is create a game where both can be accomplished. So why limit the way people want to play a game?

I think Bethesda gets it quite well. Offer different means of completing a game to the widest range of people as to get the most sales from that game.

Don't Like it, Don't use it.

This is my philosophy on these disputes. It is your game, play it how you choose. If you wish to fast travel everywhere you are only experiencing part of the game. You will miss the views, random encounters, etc., however it should be there for the "casual" gamer.

Agreed with this completely....also for some reason when i complain about ft/compass and things people keep telling me FO3 did an amazing job with it all.....but i honestly hated fast travel in fallout 3 as well as the compass......really....wtf

[compass]points you to points of interest as you get close - detracts majorly from exploration, game basically holding your hand showing you where to go
[compass]dont know about skyrim but in FO3 it showed where enemies were as you got closer to them - hated this - detracts also from the game imo
[compass] points you to exactly where you need to go at all times - detracts immensely from exploration/feeling of achievement and everything

[Fast travel/quest markers] Holy crap i keep getting referred to FO3 and getting told how amazing their markers and FT were....wow really. You listen to a holotape and find out your dad went to vault 112....then it somehow magically appears on your map and you know exactly where it is. What is that. Idk quest markers almost ruin the whole thing for me, i think theyre terrible. I also personally feel like changing to voice acting is partially to blame.

Also Zzar i agree with you in that working to get where you need to go is so much more rewarding...In morrowind you can get anywhere you need to go super fast with clever use of scrolls/striders/boats/intervention

This is far too convoluted.
Just state your grievances, and why.

You don't need to write two dozen paragraphs to say: "This optional feature takes me out of the game," it was work having to read through your post.

The thing is with Fallout 3, your PIP-Boy is a serious piece of kit, tech well in advance of most of the rest of the world. Enemies on the radar and the like make sense here. No such excuse for the Elder Scrolls though. "let me mark that on your map - fine, let me show you where the chest is on the third level underground, and oh look, there's a fort on the other side of this mountain, have to agree, no, no, no.

"Enemies on the compass" in Fallout 3 also had to do with the fact your character had a "Perception" stat, seperate from the player. Those red marks were your character noticing things. Which it could do, without your input. So I'm not sure how that could "take you out of the game". It was something that 1) made complete sense, and 2) you had some control over (you could buy down your Percep at the beginning, and not wear +Percep glasses and hats).


(Additionally, in a game with so many high-powered ranged combat enemies, having a bit more warning is useful from a gameplay perspective. It was also nice for those of us who had bad graphics cards and had the view distances turned down - Perception 5 was enough to give me enemy marks on the compass, for enemies I couldn't actually see on the screen. Couldn't have played a sniper-type character otherwise.)



...but yeah. I don't expect to see enemy warnings in Skyrim. There's no character-based "perception" to need to model, and the combat tends to be melee rather than ranged.

I agree....but like i said....when i voice my complaints with these aspects...people refer me to fallout 3s aspects/questmarkers/fast travel/voice acting which was apparently amazing. But ya i played it and all those things i guess people loved i didnt like.

Didnt care for how quest markers magically popped up, you somehow knew where everything was, while being provided with absolutely zero direction. A huge step in holding peoples hands
Didnt care for being able to fast travel everywhere with no consequences. I dislike fast travel altogether though so i must be biased.
Didnt care for game pointing out points of interest to you, took away a ton from exploration and everything.

Also you say the pip boy is a serious piece of kit and that it has no place in skyrim....id like to point you to the 3d map lol. Specifically stated by designers to be similar to google maps.......those crafty nords.


Having a bit more warning is useful from a gameplay perspective?....i disagree completely with that lol....idk i just hated it. And you basically just defined it as hand holding...which is exactly what i think it is. You could have played your sniper character like an actual sniper maybe? Taking it slow and scoping everything out as you stealthily move through terrain? Or then again what was i thinking, its fallout3...you could just fast travel around and whenever youre in range the game tells you when there are enemies....sniper character...got it. Hand holding at its best. I also dont expect to see this in skyrim and i will absolutely hate it if its in....i just mentioned it because its one of the aspects of fallout i keep getting told to look at because they did such an amazing job with it.

edit: also what is your opinion on the other parts of my comment? besides defending the enemy tracking alone.

You've lost your creditability right here...

@Dark et al -

You know when you invest a lot of time into carefully writing out a post, filling in every detail and explaining yourself to the best of your ability, and maybe five people on the entire thread actually read it and respond to it, and the other 25 just say, "TL/DR"?

Now - imagine that you got paid for writing those posts. Further, imagine that you got paid specifically based upon how many people read the post your wrote.

If that was the case, would you continue to write the sort of posts that would only be appreciated by five people and would be ignored by the other 25, or would you write posts deliberately intended to appeal to those 25, even if the other five were disappointed by them?