I hate fast travel.

Unexplained fast travel that is only available to the player through a menu at almost any time, almost anywhere and for free is totally immersion breaking for me. On the other hand, fast travel with an explanation behind it is awesome. I want Morrowind-style fast travel back, where there was a legitimate way to get to places without walking and without suddenly teleporting yourself somewhere, with no in-game explanation of why you could do so other than "PC can't be bothered to walk".

I didn't like ME 1 travel
I liked ME 2 travel

I liked MW travel
I didn't like OB travel

I liked Fable 1 travel (cullis gates)
haven't played the rest of them.

I didn't like the campaign maps from SW Battlefront
I liked the campaign maps from SW Battlefront 2

There is a pattern.

Oblivion/Fallout style fast travel is bad, because it's lame and boring and makes devs too lazy to put in something as simple as a boat or carriage (or a silt strider) to provide a fast travel system that's actually more immersive than just walking everywhere.

What Troyatz said.

I didn't like Oblivions kind of fast travel. You did your quest and then just clicked on the map to go back. If you had to go to a fort somewhere and already had that marker, you just click and there you are.
I did like the system they had in Morrowind though. You could always get to another location that is closer to your destiation, but you had to walk the last bit. I mean Morrowind had like 5 fast traveling systems (Almsivi intervention, Divine intervention, Mark & Recall, Striders and mage guid teleporters). Soit was never really that hard to get anywhere.

You're forgetting the boats.

And wasn't another fast travel system added in a patch, something with teleporting crystals in the old Dunmer fortresses?

All I want is a Morrowind type of fast travel i.e. explained within the game's boundaries using boats et cetera. Fast travel is not optional to me because there is no other option other than to walk around the game world. Fast travel would be optional if it is combined with another form of travel like I mentioned (boats, carts and other forms of transportation - apart from walking).

Heck walking wouldn't be so bad if the gameworld was interesting. However, I'd only call FT optional if there are other methods for transportation available.

I voted A A A B A.

Fast travel is a necessary evil in large games. Using it CAN break the immersion effect if it's not done wisely. Fallout and Fallout 2 had world travel in ways where an encounter element was always possible...disrupting travel so you could deal with it. Fallout 3 just had fast travel, and it was unrealistic because you always should have the risk of a random encounter.

So long as the game incorporates a good mechanic for fast travel that fits the game (shuttles in the Citadel in Mass Effect, travel caravans in Morrowind, etc.) it's not an immersion breaker or a cheat.

Haven't read the thread yet...

Fast travel (as I perceive it) is...
Not an 'Immersion' breakerI'm not really hung up on the whole immersion thing. Hey, kudos if they can make a link to the lore/game setting, but I don't really care. :shrug: Also, I think the whole immersion thing is a bit of a bandwagon/trigger point for many people. If it breaks immersion (and what's immersive is subjective), then my cynicle self says that people will just have a knee-jerk reaction, or use it to start arguments

Not a kind of cheating (39 votes [68.42%]) How is it cheating? It's not against any rules, openly avavailable (unlike figuring out how to duplicate items or stack spoons), and one isn't competing against anyone else

Time compressed conventional travel to a distant location Yep, or I think of it as teleporting. No real skin off my nose. It'd be nice if they did include some random encounters, but at least I don't have to Gather My Party Before Venturing Forth!

A positive feature for a large open world RPG Interesting. Never really thought of it in terms of game scale. Walking would definitly make a world smaller, and its all about size, right? Yet a smaller game world would nesecitate a more in depth area to explore, story, readings, puzzles, etc. That's a good thing, right? Wait, so thinking this part through, removing fast travel might mean a more in-depth game? I could go for that

Something I often use (36 votes [63.16%])
Yep. As I see it, the point of the game is to complete quests, gain treasure, and solve problems. Ambling along a road for 5-10 real minutes in order to get to the target area really doesn't advance the game for me :shrug:

I truely don't see a difference other than a few coins with the following:
Hop a boat, have the screen blank out, load, reappear and you're there.
Click destination, have the screen blank out, load, reappear, and you're there.
Very little differnce, and it doesn't affect me.

Now if you let me shout, and I kind of warp to a destination that I can see, while others can see me and I might get attacked, knocked out of the sky, smack into the side of a cliff, etc....that's be tres interesante! BUT, this is still a form of fast travel, right?

Off to read the thread and/or percolate my ideas

Good lord, we don't even role play every [censored] day in a DnD session where the next town over might be a month out. Thirty sessions of walking down a road fighting random encounters, yea that sounds fun. I think not. It's just silly really, completely silly.

Fast travel is fine with me in games - I use it when I choose to. It makes for more replayability in games, when I am on my umpteenth playthrough I don't want to keep going along the same road - I already know what is there. If there are other means of fast travel (say a-la Morrowind) then that is a good combination too but in the end I used "coc" in the console instead of dragging to the nearest fast travel point.

Yes, let us have fast travel and let us choose whether to use it or not.

Fast travel for me is an optional and quick way of going to one place to another, for people that have no time nor patience to walk, and a resolution made by the devs to please all those people that where annoyed by not having it in Morrowind.Yes, lots of people complained

I don't hate fast travel. I hate instant teleportation to anywhere you've been before with no narrative explanation.

There is a difference between Morrowind's and Oblivion's respective fast travel systems that makes Morrowind's infinitely better: being intradiegetic. This means being contained within the narrative. Morrowind's fast travel system is preferable to most because the game is being consistent with its essential role as DM and clearly giving you limited methods to travel quickly that make sense within the game's universe.

Oblivion's fast travel was "click and teleport". The problem with this system is not that it feels cheap (although it does to many) or that it is extradiegetic (arguable). It is the small issue that the game is invariably built around players using it. You can throw your arguments about it being optional out of the window right there: if BGS (or any other game developer) are not prepared to design their games in such a way as to make fast travel optional then it is not, regardless of technicalities.

Now in a large, open world game fast travel is always going to be preferable to hiking it at some point. I make no bones about that. However, if fast travel is going to be necessary at any point in the game I ask that developers put some effort into making it intradiegetic so as to avoid breaking immersion. It's not that much to ask. Indeed, it should be a no-brainer.

I don't mind fast travel, as long as it isn't the 'Warp here for no reason other than I'm too lazy to walk.' The fast travel with say, a recall or teleport spell, or a sort of taxi service like a horse and carriage or silt strider, still keeps the immersion while still allowing me to speed things up a bit.

Uggh, that would svck so much.

I use it all the time

I don't have anything against it. If I want to be more immersed in the game or I'm doing general exploring, then I don't use it, but if I'm on limited time to play (which I usually am) then I use it frequently.

It's something you can choose to use. No need to take it out of any game.

Actual credit for inventing the rather funny expression goes to hlvr, but the only reason I ever hear why Oblivion's fast travel is so supreme and the only method having right of existence is 99.99% of the time "omgz lulz just turnz it off".
The only other option is walking while disapproving OB's method isn't necessarily a disapproval of every form of it. We had fast travel in MW too.
The difference is there were options and these options were believable (strange word in a fantasy context) and immersive.

It's odd there were no visible signs of transport in Cyrodiil besides horses (which were slower than a character having attained a high level in speed and/or athletics, beats every meaning of using them) while in Morrowind people could travel by means of silt strider, boat, spells, mage's guild teleportation...

It's silly that the mage's guild and even the Arcane University (and in fact also the whole transport sector) in Cyrodiil were more [censored] than their peers in Vvardenfell since the former hadn't figured out how to teleport with magic.

The Imperials even didn't seem to know the wheel, but the introduction of Morrowind ("They have taken you from the Imperial City's prison, first by carriage and now by boat, to the east to Morrowind." That's already two possible transport options!) proved this wrong.

Immersion may be important in a role playing game, hence I think implementing a system other than *click and from anywhere in the wilderness POOF to wherever you want* is justified.

In FO3 you had to discover the locations first which was a slight improvement, but unfortunately, thereafter it didn't leave any other option than just walking everywhere or playing it the OB way.

A little addition: I like to avoid the usage of fast travel because I do think it's a kind of cheating. On your way you can get killed by dozens of hostile beings or the environment, while slaying your enemies while on the road is a good way to earn experience.
You'll punish but yourself if you choose to avoid the perils of the road, because missing out on those experience points may potentially keep you from leveling up faster.

Still beatin this dead horse, I see. good luck with that. :facepalm:

alot of people keep using that argument that its optional and you can choose not to use it. it is a stupid argument. in skyrim i just cleaned out a cave and want to sell the loot but i have too much for one trip. now i could walk all the way to town and then back again for a second load, but i wont cause its just selling loot. im forced to use fast travel simply because its there and there is no other option. it is not optional..........shall i repeat it for those who dont get it. ITS NOT OPTIONAL. its the only form of transportation available outside of walking.

my question to those people who keep using that argument is what do you have against having fast travel in game that makes sense in the game world. whether its hiring people to "guide" you to a location like the STALKER games or magical teleports like any number of other games ive played. what is sooooo hard about walking up to a stable in skyrim and asking for a ride to another town. do people svck at games so much that they dont have enough money to pay for a boat to another city or to use a mages guild teleporter. is it really that hard to walk a bit to a person that will take you somewhere.

i dont want to hear any person here who says that oblivions fast travel was optional to complain about their favorite race looking crappy or the magic system svcks or two handed weapons svck cause all you going to get back from the rest of us it...................."IF YOU DONT LIKE IT THEN DONT USE IT, ITS OPTIONAL." see how dumb that argument is when its used for something else in the game.

edit: i think it should be clarified in the poll that your talking about oblivions fast travel system. almost everyone wants fast travel, if its done right like STALKER, daggerfall or morrowind.

Nice, without saying even once "Morrowind". :rock: :clap: :tops:
I'll follow your advice and let them experience the invalidity of that argument. ^_^ :happy:

Edit: now you destroyed it in your own edit. :pinch:

in my defense it was listed after the other games. i could also include the witcher, two worlds 2, dragon age had a real nice "map travel system" with random encounters.

Indeed. :biggrin: Kudos!

Fast travel (as I perceive it) is... Not an 'Immersion' breaker
Fast travel (as I perceive it) is... Not a kind of cheating
Fast travel (as I perceive it) is... Time compressed conventional travel to a distant location
Fast travel (as I perceive it) is... A positive feature for a large open world RPG
Fast travel is... Something I often use

That is good fast travel, as it should be, with a sensible in-game transport network underpinning it. Bad fast travel is Oblivion-style teleport-anywhere. This is an immersion breaker (not directly through the travelling, but through the lack of in-game transport network), and a negative feature in open world RPGs.

From a purely Fallout perspective, I like fast travel, because traveling on foot is the most common form of travel in that universe, so simply fast traveling and not having to go to an important location to travel quickly is completely reasonable. Would prefer node-system though.