I agree, fast travel should have some sort of penalty. It really is essentially cheating. That's kind of stupid. It's no different than opening up the console and instantly appearing somewhere via a command. I'd consider that cheating, so what's the difference?
Now while you all may have noticed my dislike for Oblivion's fast travel system, ^this^ kind of comment really annoys me. It is not cheating if BGS put the mechanic in the game, give you a tutorial pop up to teach you how to use it and then design the game
around it. No, that is playing the game that way it is intended to be played. My argument is that the way Oblivion was meant to be played was flawed itself.
The only right (that's right), is the right to purchase it. One can (if the company accepts such) offer comments... But its (rightly) no different than a customer offering comments to Disneyland about how to improve the Magic Kingdom rides. There is no 'right' to be heeded, and rightly, no obligation by the game developer. I (personally) find the notion of such hypothetical 'rights' disturbing, because it would seem to lead down a path of preemptive paranoia for the developer ~and result in poorer games, not better ones IMO.
... I was speaking more about the right simply to voice opinions on something that one has paid a significant amount of money for. I wasn't saying that the developers are obliged to listen: I'm saying that other forumites are obliged to be polite and not use bogus arguments with a distinct tinge of ad hominem.
What teleportation? Seriously, what teleportation? The only teleport that I encountered in the game (IIRC) was in the Mages Guild where they had these transporter rune/symbol tiles on the floor.
I feel that this 'Oblivion's system is essentially teleporting' quip has got out of hand to the point of being used without any context or explanation. My mistake, but please do not think that I am under the impression that my Oblivion character is just jumping around Cyrodiil at random points in space and time like a fantasy themed Desmond Hume, and that that is what is bothering me: it isn't. What bothers me is that my character is able to walk from one side
of the country to the other in a couple of days without a scratch. Not only is walking what is supposed to be such a vast distance an absolutely foolhardy method of travel for someone with a job to do, it's also rather jarring that this is the only (barring the sloppy horse system and, let's face it, few people bothered getting on their horse to pretend ride through the loading screen when they fast travelled) choice. It grates on me that any kind of open world has been realised without
any evidence of organised travel networks. Civilisation in Cyrodiil is evolving along a strange path indeed if the White Gold Tower came before the wheel.
The reason that Oblivion's fast travel is so often referred to as 'teleporting' is because people are alluding to the phenomenon of, in light of the total lack of any kind of explanation for the population of Cyrodiil's mobility, completely giving up on trying to consider the game's travel believable at all. At least that's why I say it...
Ah... this is insightful for me. We agree on the lack of random encounters (its the 2nd reason I always considered FT in Oblivion broken), but I haven't a clue about what is meant by "no gold", or the notion of 'paying' for a 'time shift'?? Why would my PC pay gold to walk to the next town ~and to whom? Now that is something that I would find jarring and bizarre ~an immersion breaker of the 'impossible to ignore' kind.
My dear man, must I clarify everything absolutely? I was talking about a system that levies no in game fee for extremely convenient fast travel, and was merely using gold as an example of how future games might go about re-integrating a small price for fast travel - with an entirely different system of fast travel to Oblivion's. I was not suggesting that a gold charge be crudely grafted onto Oblivion's setup. That would be daft and, frankly, I'm concerned that you think that that is what I intended to say.
That's not lazy, that is just a strange way of looking at it IMO. The lore consistent explanation is obvious, no? Look at the time shift... what does that tell someone? Imagine for a moment that a quest in the game involved the PC being a stow-away inside a trunk on the back of a carriage. How would that play out in the game? I would imagine that the PC enters the trunk and the lights go out. Now the game could conceivably play 10 real minutes of carriage sounds and (if using Night-Eye, show the inside of the trunk) ~but why do that instead of simply fading to black and fading back in when they arrive and open the box? When one uses the so called "fast" or "instantaneous" travel ~it is no such thing. The designers expect the player to realize that 'fading out' in one town, and 'fading back in' at the next town implies a long walk by the character. :shrug:
I believe I've already answered the question of why simply thinking "my character took a leisurely stroll for a few hundred miles" is invalid as an explanation for fast travel. As for your use of the word "fortune" - it is entirely the wrong one. Only a small fee should be charged. Its role as a gameplay mechanic is not to inhibit fast travel at all - it is to add believability to the representation of a fast travel network.
Reading through here (and some of the other threads), I've seen some good ideas and some ideas I'm not fond of. I would like to suggest these points: an Oblivion-style fast travel system that included stoppage for random encounters would be annoying to me if it were the only choice. The reason I use fast-travel in the first place is to go immediately to the point where I want to go. I do not wish to be interrupted by anything, for any reason. So, if that were to be implemented, I would say that the fast-travel services ("Morrowind-style") should be implemented with it, giving players a choice (choice is good, right) for fast-travel that included no possible interruptions.
This I like.
Two systems: a revamped Oblivion's and a revamped Morrowind's.
The first works pretty much like http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1162378-fast-travel - a Dragon Age: Origins type system that allows you to fast travel from anywhere but has the inconveniences of random encounters (and not all random encounters have to be a fight, by the way) and the short delay as you see your character's icon travelling across the map. Not only that, but travelling on foot like this is quite slow, and you have to discover your destination once before being able to get there.
The second system is basically Morrowind's with a few upgrades. Mark and recall should return, and they would teleport you instantly to your mark. I'm not so sure about scrolls of Divine Intervention, but they could work. On top of that there's the network of Synod and College of Whispers teleporters that can get you to your destination instantly. Finally there're the vast merchant and caravan networks that cover more of Skyrim, but aren't instantaneous - although they travel faster than the lone Dovahkiin and are
far less prone to being attacked. However, the teleporters' and caravanners' services are only available during business hours (and perhaps one of the institutions only offers their services to members?), the recall spell takes it out of your magicka reserves (you are teleporting after all) and catching the merchant convoys is down to a bit of luck.
So now we have a comprehensive travel system. It caters to people who want to get anywhere on the map quickly with a DA:O style system (although I would see the icon move across the map slightly faster than in that game. Ugh) while including a Morrowind-esque alternative that travels more quickly and safely at the cost of gold, a little convenience and the arguable irritation of having a smaller network of places to be able to travel to (although places need not be unlocked by getting there first with this system).
Thoughts?
Or just RDR's system. Whatever.
» Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:32 pm 
) 
