Let's get three things straight:

• Those who see nothing wrong with fast travel will never agree with those who are against it. Both sides are fundamentally ill-equipped to understand the mindset of the other. If you can't understand why someone would choose to make the game more tedious by avoiding fast travel, please do not try. Likewise, if you think anyone who likes to blip hither and yon using fast travel all the time must be pretty shallow, you are probably wrong. Just accept that people like to play their way and while some love the fast travel system, others feel it makes the world seem wrong.
  
• If you are arguing for Oblivion's fast travel system, but you haven't played Morrowind, then you are basically bringing a knife to a gun fight. It's not that your points aren't valid, but without intimately knowing the system other people are comparing Oblivion to, you are mostly just being a fast-travel shill.
  
• Those arguing against Oblivion style fast travel don't want to remove it! If you take away anything from this thread, please understand that. We understand that FT pushes units, and more units sold mean TES VI, VII and VIII on the horizon. What we're looking for is the Morrowind equivalent of fast travel which does not exist in Oblivion. The presence of map-click fast travel obviated the need for any immersive means for fast traveling. Many people see absolutely nothing wrong with this. But it's not a "you're wrong, I'm right" issue; it's a preference. Just like some people choose the PvP servers in MMORPGs and some people choose the PvE, or RP servers. Anyone in these three groups can't understand why someone would want to submit to the ganking/pointlessness/foolishness (respectively) of the other groups, and I suspect the same thing is going on here.

We don't want to take away your precious fast travel What we want are concessions for those who don't use it, and in addition perhaps a means to optionally disable fast-travel altogether. Contrary to popular belief, we fast-travel haters don't like tedium either, so give us an alternative that allows us to move rapidly around the world, but grounded in justifiable explanations within the context of the game world.

For a nerd-friendly anology: To me, Oblivion style fast travel is like breaking out of character in the holodeck to say: "Computer, take me to X." It gets me where I want to go, but it also reminds me I'm on the holodeck.

Perfect logic here. :goodjob:

I always felt this way, but could not find the words to bring it forth.

Thanks for perfectly doing so.

Oblivion's Fast Travel svcks. I like walking through the wilderness and seeing all the beautiful landscapes. But it was way too tempting, even if you tried to ignore it. One day, you just have to use it.

I understand the anology, but IMO its flawed. Its not one of "Computer, take me to X" on the holodeck, it is one of, Picard saying, "Mr. La Forge, Data, Number 1, meet me in engineering." ~and then they are all suddenly there in the next scene!! Wow! (but it only took like 2 seconds! How'd they walk there that fast?).

They didn't... They just walked, and the show picks up in engineering. Its a method of skipping the mundane; and it needs to be there.

What many of us do not quite 'get' [certainly myself at least], is how a paid transport (with fade to black) prior to the long trip, is somehow "right" and okay, but a fade to black prior to an implied trek (on foot) is somehow not. :confused:

**Edit: I think we all agree that random assault should be a risk, but I would add random good fortune to the list; and the notion of having help fending off attackers when traveling by commercially (with a guard). Paid travel can be assumed as being faster than on foot, and so would be incentive to pay ~if they would only implement time specific quests & events.

Except for most of the ring of ancient Propylon Chambers being situated well away from the cities, Mark and Recall working from anywhere to anyplace you put the Mark, and the two Interventions working from anywhere to the nearest Tribunal Temple or Imperial Cult Altar, the rest were from city to city.


In that case, it IS optional, and I could easily see it as a checkbox in the Game Settings menu.

Forgive me, I didn't read the whole thread so don't know if this was suggested:

What about just making it so that every major city needs to be "discovered" before the player can travel there? Honestly I don't have nearly as much a problem with fast travel as long as the player has made the trek to the location at least once in the past. That way they have seen the landscape and what is around the city and should get a greater feeling of immersion because of it.

This implies that everyone plays TES as if it were a film playing out, which skips all the "mundane" bits. It is this idea which is flawed. Do not tell yourself that no one could possibly enjoy experiencing every minute detail. I for one would be interested to know what "La Forge, Data, Number 1" are thinking, or discussing with each other before they even get to engineering, even though it may have absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the episode at hand. This is called world-building.

They must hate it when their dog breaks wind then.
It doesn't imply it ~it takes it for granted; This is how RPGs are meant to be played ~never 1:1. Total VR is a different kind of intended experience, and makes for an awful RPG, and an awfully limited experience when you are used to the scope of a major story arch.

Fast travel (so called) is optional. If the player wants total VR instead of a role playing game, then why not walk the distance, as you surely would have to if it were real, and there were no paid transport. That's the thing see... In such a setting, if a guy doesn't want to trek to the next town to deliver a note, he pays someone else ~the PC in this case; so the PC must trek to the next town and back. If there were easy transport that cost less than paying some stranger... they would likely just go themselves. "Fast travel" does not save them the trip, it only allows the Player to skip the mundane.

The problem is you can't logically have map fast travel and alternatives. If you have fast travel and, let's say, coaches from city to city, the coaches would have to cost money. Who would take the coaches then (except for maybe people looking to rp) when you can map click for free? No cabby in any city would take you somewhere for free in real life, so if they had it free to balance the system it would remove any sense of realism. An alternative could be using transport services for city to city, village to village but map click ft for dungeons and stuff after you found them. But then that doesn't make sense either because why couldn't I walk to the main cities that come on any map of Skyrim? This is a subject that no matter how it is dealt with, not everyone will be happy.

It's easy. When you decide to walk somewhere, you are in control of the journey, putting one leg in front of the other. It smacks of absurdity that you should black out and then wake up after having walked to your destination. I mean, you walked the whole distance. Doubtless you experienced something on the way.

OTOH, when using paid transportation, you are relying on a third party to carry you there, meaning that you could sleep in the back, or twiddle your thumbs, but basically you're doing nothing during the journey. Fade outs and fade ins make sense in that situation. You could even show the whole journey by default, and a keypress would optionally skip it.

I'd just like to say I'm against the whole random-encounter thingy while fast traveling. The people who became used to it in Oblivion won't like it, and it also doesn't satisfy any desires of those who don't like fast travel. Punishing one type of player to make another type happy doesn't make much sense to me.

All I'd like to see is an alternative Morrowind-style system provided, and an option to disable map-click fast travel from the outset.

Sure you can (and I mentioned it a few posts back). Fast travel is free and on foot ~it means in the wild you are alone while at risk, and it will take longer to arrive (game time I of course). Paid coaches would run regular routes (Only!) and get you there in less [game] time, and you'd have help if attacked on the road.

Fast travel is the default, and could become the last resort once you could afford coaches. Personally, I would like them to lift the restriction on being outdoors to use it. If they implement the risk of assault during travel, then I would like to be able to "fast travel" around the dungeon (back to places I'd been).

It's not really optional when there is no alternative. In Morrowind, I didn't have to walk from one end of Vvardenfell to the other, but if I eschew fast travel in Oblivion, I am required to make the hike, whether on foot, or by horse.

A Morrowind fast travel system, along with all the teleportation spells would be a valid alternative. The big difference is that these devices are explained within the context of the game world.

Nothing forces anyone to avoid the tedium by using time compression, they do so only at their own whim. The RPG Arcanum lets you walk anywhere in real time, and lets you use map-click travel if you wish. Its recommended though, as unlike TES, walking across Arcanum would take you 48 actual hours of playing time.

I wouldn't Mind OB style fast travel as long as it fitted in RP wise. Eg. it was a Dragon shout that calls upon a "taxi dragon". I know its cheesy but other suggestions of how this could be done better would be cool.

Otherwise I'm all out for Morrowind Style Fast Travel that offers more options to of place to travel to.

Unless they implement quest time limits like in Daggerfall, trip time is inconsequential. Also, not all coaches would run to every city or village (if they follow the Morrowind model) so you would have to travel from one city to another to another if you wanted to get across the map. If they have transport vehicles (boats, coaches, etc) then the pc can 't be the only ones using them (only makes sense if they have fixed routes, which they should). So what happens if you take the coach to one town, but miss it for the next?

I'm not sure you're understanding the gist of the discussion. I don't want to remove fast travel; you can continue to use it. However it is my personal preference that I feel map-click fast travel is immersion breaking. I'm not saying that map-click fast travel is wrong, only that it is wrong for me.

Complimentary to this argument is that Morrowind had a fast travel system that was definitely not as convenient, but felt like you were actually interacting with the world as you used it, rather than passively moving through it like some kind of ghost. Because of Oblivion's fast travel system, the Morrowind fast travel system was removed. Thus if you didn't like map-click fast travel, you had no alternative but to walk the entire distance. This seems unfair to a certain player demographic.

Are you against including a Morrowind-style fast travel system as a compliment to map-click fast travel in Skyrim? Remember that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

I imagine that only a tiny portion of skyrim players would want a not-slow-but-slower-than-fast-travel system from morrowind. If you really want to teleport from a mages guild or boat then you can just constrain yourself and only fast travel when you are stood outside a mages guild or on a boat. It just seems like a waste of developers commitment to add this feature when a faster more convenient fast travel system is readily available

They tell you when the next coach leaves. :shrug:

*Another aspect of FT. You can leave when you want and to where you want; not needing to stick to fixed routes when you're just walking.

A large number of posts in this thread would indicate otherwise

Also some people value faster and more convenient quite a bit less than game-world cohesion and immersion. It is wrong to assume that there is only one type of player who wants to speed though as much content as fast as they can.

Well... its been so over used, but its true... FT is a choice. If your PC is out in the woods
and you don't have any option other than walking back to town ~you walk; if you don't want to sit through the trip, you use time compression. :shrug: (Ideally, you should run equal risk of encounter).

If your PC is in a town with no travel options... is it a good use to spend time wanting them, or just walk where you want to go? No one (that I've read) is opposed to alternate travel options, its just that part of the people (I would hope most) treat FT as a non-issue. :shrug:

I don't see the point.

The carriages in RDR were pointless in my opinion. I say this because I don't miss their sudden dissapearance in Undead Nightmare.

The RDR rebuttle is slightly misunderstood because RDR had the EXACT SAME system of travel as Oblivion did (now with bonus carriage rides!). RDR just implements it better (minus the campsite fast travel; wasn't a big fan of that. Clunky and tedious.). RDR was also released in 2009, whereas Oblivion was initially released in 2006. This is the natural progression of games and we'll have to wait and see how the horses turn out in Skyrim. Todd is hesitant to say if mounts are in because they know what the bar is now. He wants to make sure they'll clear it before they show them.

In essence, what you're really asking them for isn't an alternative to fast travel, but better implementation of horses. If BGS did the horses as well as or better than RDR, I wouldn't use fast Travel nearly as much as I did in Oblivion.

Say you live in New York, and you want to go to San Francisco. Let's not deal with any troublesome trains or airplanes. They're on restrictive schedules and you need to schlep yourself to a station or airport before you can board. It's probably best just to start walking from your house, because then you can start when you want, and don't need to stick to a fixed route.

As I read it... What's being asked is for plausible (usually commercial?) methods of travel to be made available everywhere. I'm not against this in small measure, but I would expect they'd pop up all over, and you'd have (IMO highly improbable) teleportation vendors in every town. I wish someone would explain their discontented difference between paying a mage for teleport to another town, and the usual time-compressed walk ~if they both result in the same general fade out/fade in. Why is the mage option not as offensive?

Say you're in 1780 when you're doing this.

It sounds to me like you have never played Morrowind. No, I wouldn't walk. I would have been smart and set my Mark spell in a nearby town and then Recalled to it. Or I would have cast Almsivi's Intervention to transport me to the nearest temple. Or used the Propylon stones and chambers to get at least nearer to civilization. My last resort would be to walk, if I had none of those other alternatives.

In Oblivion, none of those alternatives are even in the game.



The issue being addressed is that there are no alternatives but walking in Oblivion. The Morrowind system was removed because the developers assumed everyone would just use fast travel. If it is your personal preference not to use fast travel, then there are no game mechanics to use except walking, when Morrowind had a plethora of diverse options. We would like to see those options restored.

I agree that Oblivions fast travel system was a bit unrealistic,but i hated it in morrowind when i forgot to buy some arrows, or only wanted to go to a town to check shop inventories, and i had to either waltz across the map at 2 miles an hour, or hunt down a silt strider. (the latter wasn't difficult)
I do approve of the realism, but also of being able to hop over to Bruma to pick up my sword.
Alternatives to go with Fast Travel (may have been suggested,i didn't read it all.)
- Stop you partway for random encounters.
- Add some incentive not to use it, not that i can think of one... Other then pretty-ness
- reintroduce automated transport (that was never intercepted... surely some bandits can stop caravans...)


forgotten the other one...


anyway, i never found fast travel 'immersion breaking'. no more then walking across a field and having 'Loading area' appearing on the screen. and i'm quite sure when i leave my house i don't sit in a void for 40 seconds waiting for a bar to fill, while the exterior cell loads.