Carriages? That's awesome. Yeah, I can live with that Hopefully with a quest system to improve their availability/service span. I.e. one departure a day to closest city in the beginning, while at the end of the questline I've opened up several departures per day and more "direct routes" (compared to MW silt striders).

But compared to fast travel, yeah I guess anything will do.

Nice news

Given the quests in Oblivion ("talk to this guy in Leyawin; he says find someone in Anvil; he says talk to someone in Bruma;" etc, etc, etc), walking places often in OB would be pretty ridiculous too.

That's because quests were made with the assumption that you'd be fast traveling. One design decision affects others.

Depends on the mood I'm in and the amount of gold in my pocket.

A mix of both (well, actually, all three), just like I did in Read Dead Redemption. The world in that game was so beautiful it made me want to travel across it on my horse. Sometimes, because of time constraints, I would use the fast travel, and some other times I decided to have a nice scenic carriage trip.

Edit: I need to make something nice and clear. I really thank Bethesda from the depths of my heart for this. Its just the premise of listening to their fans, and providing an alternative so every player can have their cake and eat it too. Thanks.

I just hope it's not "cinderella magic pumpkin" carriages. Skrim really seems more like an ox-drawn wagon or open cart type society. Hate to see something out of Victorian England.

Also, boat transport? If there aren't long boats and ferries along rivers and over the sea, I'd still be pretty upset.

I will use both as well as the run, jump, swim option! I'm glad they provided both. I like to use a more immersive method as with the Carriages, but fast travel meets my real world needs to save time and actually accomplish something in game within my lifetime.

Peace, +Petrose

"Carriages" sounds a little civilized for Skyrim, i'm going to call them wagons, and use them over Oblivion's style fast travel when at all possible. I generally walk where im going if im not quest crushing, anyway.

I'm not a fan of any of this, nor i'm a hater.

I used my magic map if my destination was way to far. Let's say my home. In my home I had a piece of armor that a suddenly wanted to use, or a weapon. No way I was going to make that journey just to take the armor :/ Instead, I used fast travel to go there, and the again back to the place I was before.

Sometimes, I liked to walk all the way, discovering the places between my current position and my destination.

I think the best thing to do is give the players the options, so you decide if you wan't or not to fast travel. If you don't like it, don't use it!

well "both" refers to both types of "fast-travel" the third method isn't really fast-travel. i think we will all want to see Skyrim's beautiful landscape. we'd be fools to pass that up


^this

Never had much of a problem with the OB style, but I like the MW style as well. I think I will use both quite a bit.

I'll probably use both although I'll only use the Carriages to discover new locations. Now if I'm roleplaying a character then it's Carriage all the time unless I want to use a warp point system as an alternate to Fast Travel.

I'd like to see an option in the Options menu to turn on/off the map travel.

I have never liked the idea of it being there, but because it's there, it's almost impossible for me to resist using it.

When looking at the map, seeing that the next place I need to go is all the way across the continent, I find my finger clicking the map before my heart has a chance to object.

Perfect for me would be, in the Game Menu, under Options have:
- Map Travel: On/Off
- Carriages, Guild Guides, Teleport Spells, etc: On/Off

It seems like it's pretty evenly divided between people who prefer map travel and people who don't, so having both in the game seems like the best option.

I voted "Wait until I get more info" because if the carriage system is similar to Silt Striders in MW, then that might not be quite enough. I would need also the teleport spells (Mark/Recall), and Guild Guides, UNLESS the carriage system is fairly complex, allowing transport to many locations. The Silt Striders in MW only went to a few places, sometimes making it necessary to take a few of them to reach a destination. Having, also, the other options, Guild Guides, Teleport spells, etc added a nice variety to the Fast Travel. At the very least, I would need the Mark/Recall spell, so I could teleport back home after a successful dungeon raid. Without this (even with the Carriage System), I have a feeling Id leave Map Travel on.

But even if the carriage system is well-created, if the Map Travel is there, it will be tough to resist. I'd like a way to turn it off, giving my heart a chance to object before my finger clicks the map....

Reason why carriage system is awesome:

Fast travel was too tempting to use for everything, because everything was too far away, and there was no cost. It discouraged exploring after you have found something the first time.

With these carriages, not only do you only go between major cities, but also you have to pay, making their a cost involved and subsequently encouraging you to limit your use, which long term leads to more open exploring. Also, going only to major cities or large towns means you still have to travel off further then you might otherwise to get to smaller towns or dungeons. You still have fast travel but with an intermediate alternative (between discouraging exploration and forcing constant exploration) you feel like it is less necessary to use it (If you don't use FT in Oblivion you had to walk REALLY FAR to get ANYWHERE).

I also am looking forward to Skyrim's beautiful landscape. I have little doubt that it will be more eye-satisfying than OB. But, then again, I imagine that the same reasoning concerning the beautiful landscape was there when comparing OB to MW.

Oblivion's landsape by far outclassed Morrowind. With newer graphics capabilities, there should have been little doubt that it would happen. But, as nice as Oblivion's landscape was compared to Morrowind, when travelling the road between the Imperial City and Chorrol for the 5th or 6th time, it seemed like travelling it again was getting tiresome.

And, in fact, I thought it was breathtaking at first, going down the road, looking off the hill and seeing White Gold Tower off in the distance. It was stunning. But, even with that stunning view, after having seen it a few times, I found I didn't stop and look any more. I think this same thing will happen in Skyrim, no matter how beautiful the landscape is.

I know I'm going to love Skyrim's landscape, the mountains, trees, rivers, and of course the occasional dragon that flies over... But I have a strong feeling that, as breathtaking as it will be, after having seen the same road a few times, I'm going to want a way to get from here to there without taking that road again.

I hope there is a hardcoe mode that disables the map travel. I think many hardcoe players would appreciate it, but i also hope there is an option to turn it on if a hardcoe player wants map travel, and any other hardcoe option.

as far as resisting the magic map... I was able to do it in oblivion, so this alternative will only make it easier to resist.

i dont think a poll is suitable i would use fast travel in morrowind if it was avalible due to the fact that i dislike the landscape now oblivion i would fast travel if i needed to log off soon and i wanted something done before i get back, if its late at night, if its before school or if the adoring fan is chaseing after me. I also role play by walking if i see an inn and its at night or sun down i stop. personaly i dont have a problem with those who fast travel than those who walk. Its a single player game the people who play it decide whats fun about it.

I'm not sure why people think or why Todd and company have alluded to Skyrim being backwards country and inovationally inept, when this province has been around longer than the Empire, as well as being one of the strongest provinces in Tamriel so much so that it chewed out pieces of Highrock, hammerfell, and Morrowind. so all this talk about things not advancing much is a load I hope doesnt follow through when the product is actually released, alot of Skyrims cities are older than sin, they aren't that much of a bunch of rockbashers....

People think of the Nord Civilization in Solsthiem, which was sorta cut off from the more civilized world. you're right, Nords in Skyrim should be much more civilized, having been part of the Empire for centuries.

Nord's still love thier mead though... so they can be rather rambunctious

Definitely this. Even beyond that though, they made the carriage rides really neat in RDR by having you be able to talk with people and explain the situation while you travel. It was great, and really connected you to the npc's without you having the nanny them on the route.

So many times those knights of the whatever in Oblivion would charge the enemy and die in a lava pit so I couldn't recover their necklace or ring, it really got to be annoying.

I'll try and stick with carriages when not going on foot, but I'm not going to make a whole trip crossing the map for a book or something silly.

Oh, and come to think of it, if they have both, do you think there will be more of a limit on the magical fast travel system? While I do appreciate a carriage system entirely for the fans, do you think there will be advantages to it?

Perhaps they will add random encounters for magic-map fast travel, which would make it feel a whole lot less magic to me. I would want encounters when taking a carriage too, but way less often. If you map travel with a horse you should also be less likely to experience a random encounter.

I'll use the map the majority of the time, but I'll still check out the carriages.

I prefer to explore on foot the first time. After that I have nothing against fast travel. If I'm already in a city I'd use a carriage though.

I'll only use the carriage if I am to be ambushed along the way and have to fight bandits a la heroic badass.