Okay gang, the last thread went pretty well. There was a lot of balanced, respectful debate. I’ve updated the OP a bit to acknowledge some common points that were raised. If you read the OP of the last thread and just want to get to the debate, then scroll down to the green bits I have essays to write, so I won’t be able to babysit. Happy debating!

The most popular solution/compromise seems to be keep Oblivion’s system, add in Morrowind-esque alternatives, have an environment that isn’t deathly boring to look at for more than five minutes and have a half decent horse system (RDR set some standards, damn it!).

This sound good for everyone?

The “don’t like it, don’t use it” argument is total flapjack
It is. It’s invalid for everything. If someone doesn’t like something about a game, then they have a right as a customer to offer constructive feedback on how it can be improved. Ignoring the parts of the game that they don’t like won’t make the game any better for them.

Leaving that aside, for gameplay features as integral as fast travel, ignoring it is impossible to do while preserving a coherent and enjoyable gameplay experience. It’s like telling someone to ignore the combat - you cannot do it and continue to play the game the way it was intended by BGS to be enjoyed.
This is because of the way that Oblivion was designed. There are three primary factors that severely discourage people from ignoring Oblivion’s fast travel system:

• Trivial quests will regularly send you to the other side of the overworld because quest designers are - rightly - expecting players to utilise the fast travel system that they have been given.
  
• There are no alternatives to teleportation fast travel except for walking, which takes ages, or riding, which is often even slower.
  
• The landscape is boring. Much of Oblivion’s landscape is randomly generated and thus featureless. There is no aesthetic incentive to take the scenic route.

So we have a game that frequently makes players choose between instant teleportation to their destination or a long slog across a boring and repetitive game world that, by level twenty, is filled with minotaur lords. There might technically be a choice there, but gee, BGS really aren’t making it easy on us roleplayers now are they? Which leads nicely onto point 2:

Oblivion’s teleporting method of fast travel makes no sense
Once upon a time, role playing gamers had to gather together in real life for their fantasy hit. This would be doled out by the Dungeon Master, who knew intimately the rules of the game and the intricacies of the game world. They would make sure that everything was consistent, fair and - most importantly - believable. It would have violated the ‘believable’ bit if Tarkwin decided that he wanted to travel to the Mages’ Guild from the other side of FantasyVille and the only price to pay was a shift in time. No random encounters, no gold, so fatigue. Nothing.

Fast forward thirty years or so, and now DMs have been widely replaced by videogames. The purpose of the videogame is to set up a believable world for us to play in and then - in the case of BGS games - let us do whatever the hell we want. The game must be believable to be enjoyable, and to be believable it has to be consistent and it has to have certain restrictions that reflect the behaviour of familiar things. For instance, you can’t kill Mrs X outside in a crowd of people without becoming a criminal; it takes ages to kill a heavily armoured person with your untrained fists; and you can’t teleport across the world by clicking on a map. Wait, what?

Precisely. There is the key difference between Morrowind’s and Oblivion’s respective systems: Morrowind’s requires you to go to an appropriate vendor of fast travel services - a boatman, Mages’ Guild teleporter or silt strider driver - and pay them a negligible but nevertheless present fee for the service of instant travel. Oblivion’s requires you to be outside (which doesn’t make much sense in the game world - only as a balancing mechanic) and open your map and click on where you would like to go. The former gives a believable and lore-consistent explanation of how you suddenly find yourself on the other side of map, the latter is just lazy.

Another word for Morrowind’s fast travel system is ‘intradiegetic’ - “contained within the narrative”. The game is doing its job as DM by giving the player a reason for the feature being there that makes sense within the game world, and levying a believable fee for such a feature. The player uses it without having to suspend their disbelief, and all is well.

And when I say ‘believable’, I mean just that. A believable game world means that you can believe that what is happening on your screen is feasible in the context of the game world. Daedra princes and magic are believable because they are consistent components of the TES universe. ‘Realism’ is a separate concept.

Now, on to the actual debate (the bit we’ve all been looking forward to because we just can’t get enough of it)

Some good points were raised in the last thread on the actual fast travel issue



Much of the problem with Oblivion's system is its lack of alternatives. While OP would personally like to see Oblivion's system destroyed and never spoken of again, he does acknowledge that some players enjoy it and that simply adding alternatives is a far preferable course of action to almost everyone. Read: OP is not solely saying that Oblivion's system must go.

This thread is highlighting the desirability of added alternatives to Oblivion's fast travel system more than it is waging a crusade against it. While I usually scoff at the idea of a toggle as a get-out clause in debates, I can’t help but wonder whether an on/off toggle for “Oblivion style fast travel” plus alternatives such as mage teleporters, silt strider Skyrim equivalents, scrolls of intervention and mark/recall spells would finally make everyone happy.

A frequently raised point: ”Morrowind’s system required loads of walking!”
Well, leaving aside the issue of “what’s wrong with walking through a gorgeous, hand crafted environment like Skyrim’s?”, there are two main factors exacerbating this issue:

• People not utilising Morrowind’s system to its full extent. On top of the caravanners, mage teleporters and boatmen, there are mark/recall spells that totally negate the boring return journey that is apparently so hated, as well as scrolls of divine and almsivi intervention which instantly transported the player character to the nearest of the five or six major settlements. The spells didn’t require much magic proficiency, and the scrolls were free for all to use. People finding themselves trudging back and forth is the result of those people not using all the tools at their disposal.
  
• Morrowind’s run speed was laughably slow. This was a design flaw in Morrowind, not an issue with the fast travel system, and it made walking from one place to the other horribly tedious. There was a huge disparity between how quickly players were able to take in information about their surroundings and how quickly the surroundings changed. Looking at the run speed in the latest trailer, though, this doesn’t look to be a problem anymore.

Aaaaaaand go.

The most popular solution you've mentioned sounds good, but we would have to be able to travel much much further with travel services than we could in Morrowind. At the same time, the Fast Travel could be limited in some way, for example not being able to fast travel straight into an enemy bandit camp.

Think about this: If there's Fast Travel, both people who don't like it and people who do like it are happy. People who hate it don't have to use it, because the environment is now hand-crafted and beautiful. If there isn't Fast Travel, only the group that dislikes it is happy. And I'm sure BGS wants to keep all the customers happy.

He isn't campaigning against it being in - he's campaigning for suitable, realistic alternatives APART FROM "Don't like it don't use it".

Well then both Morrowind and Oblivion style should be introduced, with an option when you start a game for either.

So if the land in the game, the mechanics and quests are all boring, trivial, and featureless why are you playing it?

You tell'em Greatcarbuncle!

This x the number of cliff racers in Morrowind.

Yes, there should be both fast travel systems. People shouldn't have problems with that, except the people who are selfish and want only the other side to be pleased.

im not a fan of the oblivion fast travel although i did use a few times when after a long long stroll through cyrodill very repetitive landscape i couldnt be bothered to drag my way back looking at it all, however with skyrim being the huge network of amazing vistas (still doesn't right putting them two words next to each other) i dont see myself getting bored of using it.
i did do a run through on oblivion using fast travel for everything and in all honesty, if i was a bethesda desinger (we can all wish :sadvaultboy: ) and i had spent 5 years designing and making every things as detailed and beautiful to find that someone just "teleported" the whole way through and didn't any of it would be more than rather dissapointing.
although they do have small rewards for people who dont use it such as finding amazing places that fast-travelers wouldn't think of (dive rock springs to mind), and easter eggs.
The thing with oblivion was that they knew there would be a much larger audience after things LOTR making the genre popular, so they needed to put something in there for people who werent fans as such of RPG's but liked them, i bet they dont have many complaints for oblivion, Skyrim will build on that market even more so there probabaly will be something...

oh and people should stop hating on horses they were "O.K"ish if you used them in 3rd Person view, although not being able to cast night eye or detect life when im riding around in the dark looking for venison really wasn't fun

I think a system like in WoW would work. You have your hearthstone bound to a specific place of your choosing, Mages can teleport, and you can buy transport between main places. A system like that would be lovely.

Although, i'd prefer not to fast travel in Skyrim at all, because i'd be missing out on the AMAZING scenery.

Agree fully.

A few arguments for Morrowind's travel system:

- Long journeys actually feel like long journeys. No more click on one side of the map and you're there. Now you would have to go to several travel services before reaching a close port, then having to walk to the place.

- You get to enjoy the landscapes a lot more. Not just the first time, but the second, third, fourth time, and so on. With OB's system you get to enjoy them once (the first time you walked to discover it), then bye-bye, practically. With Skyrim's landscapes looking really unique and interesting, this argument alone should be enough.

- You can't travel to every single place you've visited. Only major ports of civilization like big cities, which is logical anyway, since they would require transportation services for running an effective economy and tradership. Being able to travel to every single place, every cave far far out in the dangerous wilderness, without an actual explanation, is just... a big no to me. Mark/recall spells partly does this too, but with an explanation (being a spell), and with limitations, so that it can't be overused.

- It has an actual explanation. The only explanation with OB's is that time passes. Nothing else. If OB's system tried to be a bit more believable, then I'd be more for it. Morrowind's fast travel system is much more believable from the start.

- Sometimes travels can be tough. You could get a bit lost on the way, you could run out of arrows or potions. However, sometimes you could also find interesting and hidden places on the way. Together, this added a whole new level of experience in the travels I made in Morrowind, compared to Oblivion's. After reaching a city with travel services, you were thrown out in the wild. It's an amazing experience in my opinion, an experience just too good to pass on.

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Add an impact to time passing and Oblivions travel system isn't all that stupid anymore. The reason it felt detached was because nothing happened despite time passing. Make actual reasons to want to get somewhere fast and it can peacefully co-exists with Morrowinds merchant based travel system. Merchants cost money and can only be used from settlements but are a lot faster than simply fast-traveling by yourself. Having the choice to drop off at any point of the route would be nice too. Thus merchant based travel would not just be travel between two points but travel between one point and any other point along the roads to an end destination.

A feature which would be nice to have is cut-scenes for fast-traveling (nothing long, maybe long enough to cover up a loading screen), merchant based travel would show you traveling in a caravan or on a boat while the sun and moons move across the sky to show time passing, use your map to travel and the camera swoops across the landscape with the same sun and moons movement as before but faster and maybe ends with the camera zooming in on your character walking up to your destination as the cut-scene ends. all this would convey the idea that time actually passes when we travel and would allow us to admire the landscape of Skyrim even while fast-traveling.

that would be good if the buying transport actually take you there, lie flying on a griffin in WoW, instead of just loading and your there.. you'd get amazing scenery and with a "skip journey button" you could just do loading screen and you there incase you in a rush..
although flying across Skyrim when dragons are about seems to me like a recipe for disaster

What.

I don't like fast travel, so I never use it, and I couldn't be happier. The 'don't like it don't use it' works for me, just like how I don't like spellcasting, so I never use THAT either. Fast travel offers a simple choice, either you can hump the whole way, or you can pretend that the travel took place without you experiencing it. Forcing people to run over to a little vendor with a boat or teleporter THEN skipping on the travel is for those who in my opinion lack the imagination to just assume your character is indeed traveling in the first place.



Personal opinion. In fact quite enjoy hopping from campsite to campsite, or stopping by in a cave, brewing potions from plants I've gathered along the way, hunting, and forcing myself to go into a ruin or fort if the weather looks bad. And... generic landscape? Perhaps to someone who dosen't have much experience in the *real* wilderness. There's enough subtle differences in the trees, rocks, grasses, and topography in any given area for someone with the eye for it to appreciate.



Dubious. It's no more suspended-disbelief-wrenching than the menu screen you use to sort through items and quests.

In my opinion, it is the other way around. Forcing me to pretend there are travel services is the worse offender here. I have imagination, I need some fuel. I see the effort for reaching a travel service as natural. By all means, I agree fast travel is ignorable. But what else can you offer me?


I agree it is personal opinion and must be left out this discussion. In my opinion, Oblivion could have offered more variety in landscape, unique landscapes, a better leveling system, random encounters... But the issue here is not how to walk, instead it is how not to walk without using Oblivion-map-point-click travel.


Menus are necessary in our interaction with the world. If they can be presented in game, better. Although, in my opinion, traveling should be presented ingame as it was presented before. Looking at other games and their fast travel methods, Oblivion's is the lowest form even compared to other titles in the series like Daggerfall.

I want to repeat, the issue here is not how to walk, instead it is how not to walk without using Oblivion-map-point-click travel. It can stay. I don't care, it is ignorable.

Your anology to spellcasting doesn't work. You don't have to use spellcasting precisely because you have alternatives of combat and stealth. Imagine if Bethesda were to remove those options of defense from the game, leaving you with magic alone to defend yourself. I bet then that "don't like it don't use it" would no longer work for you, because it would force you to either utilize a part of the game that wasn't fun for you, or to ignore this function that the game was built around and you have no alternative to and have your gameplay be far more tedious than it should have to be. Furthermore, the topic of this thread isn't saying to remove the Oblivion-style FT system. It's asking to add in a Morrowind-style one to complement it. Nice touch with the underhanded insult of calling people unimaginative, though.


It may very well be his personal opinion, but many others share his opinion, as well. That's what this thread is about, actually; that there's a considerable group of players who have the same personal opinion that they don't like Oblivion's fast travel system, and would like an alternative to it. Not a replacement, but an alternative. Alternatives offer players choices, and having that choice doesn't harm you if you don't want to use fast travel at all, nor does it harm the players who want to use Obliivon's fast travel system. In the current manifestation of the FT system, the only people being hurt are those who would like what they feel is a more immersive style of fast travel. Also, I appreciate the second underhanded insult of saying people don't have the eye to appreciate the oh-so-subtle differences from woodland cell #738 from woodland cell #542 that 90% of Oblivion's exterior was.



"Personal opinion". I find the menus to simply be a necessary medium between player and character. I don't feel any less immersed. I have enough imagination to think that when I mess around and look at my menus, it's because my character either instinctively knows how good he is at casting spells or swinging weapons, or because he's rummaging around in his bags to throw out things he doesn't need. What I don't have enough imagination for is to fathom how my very unstealthy warrior walked 50 miles through a wilderness with minotaur lords and ogres every 20 yards in every direction, past 5 bandits into the middle of their camp, and doing this all in broad daylight.

Edit: me gud speler

That argument being flapjack depends on what it is argued against. Nonetheless, it is not wrong because of the reasons you present.



But I have done it.




Were they rightly Expecting me to use Oblivion fast travel in morrowind too? Because those same kind of quests exists in Morrowind as well.




Fast Travel isn't teleportation, and walking isn't often faster than riding a horse, first there are different horses with different speeds. Secondly, you need to specifically build your character around speed to be faster than the fastest horse in Oblivion.



Subjective, and I disagree. It would also be pretty hard for http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1169831-i-have-been-converted/ guy to have the experience he did, had Oblivion landscape been all boring. That right there is your incentive to take the scenic route.



Strawman, you have dressed it up to be something it isn't, in order for you to rip it down for being something it isn't, it OB FT isn't Teleportation, it is as much Teleportation as Waiting is Time Traveling.



Nope you still can't teleport across the world by clicking on a map, because OB FT isn't Teleportation, we can't go further here, unless this is realized.




[1] You walk there, you don't suddenly appear there. That is why it doesn't cost you anything.


[2] Fast Travel is a mechanic for the player not the character, Morrowinds portrayal of a traveling system is great for explaining how people got around, but it isn't necessary for Fast Travel to be tied to it, which is only a service for the player.




OP is misrepresenting what OB Fast travel is though.




I disagree, Mark/recall are spells and traveling fast, but they aren't Fast Travel, they only act as such as a side-effect, they also leave players of magical characters more convenience than players of non-magical characters. Basically, if people want to utilize Morrowinds fast travel mechanics, they are sho horned into roleplaying a specific character if they also want convenience of something which is supposed to be a mechanic for the player, not the character. I can't play a brute bararian who hates magic and mages, who's obviously not going to use magical items. Then there's the issue of mark/recall being only one place teleporting, and intervention spells also being specific place teleporting, and it's always the nearest shrine, you can't choose which shrine.

Apart from that I'm all for choices, I agree fully. :goodjob:

A commendable post, OP. You know, there was a time when I could sympathize with those against Morrowind's fast travel: it was (outwardly) messy and inconvenient, not to mention the fees were so cheap that it basically was the same as Oblivion's system.

But with the vastly overhauled AI schedules in this game, I think if anything there's more pressure on Bethesda to bring back some of Morrowind's systems. I mean really! Merchant vessels could depart coastal cities every other day, transporting NPCs to different towns and bringing new products for shopkeepers to sell. The player could either pay to hitch a ride on one of these ships, or otherwise sneak on. Simultaneously, the age-old merchant caravan suggestion is completely plausible now. I mean, if there'll be roving dragons stopping at towns now and then, why not NPCs?

The absence of Morrowind alternatives wouldn't scream "developer laziness" in Oblivion, but they would in Skyrim. So much untapped potential.

You people against the Oblivion style fast travel, you are aware that you have to find a location to be able to use fast travel to get there? You can't instantly go to any location by fast traveling until you've EXPLORED the many areas around and FOUND the locations.

It's all ok to delete the fast travel entirely - except that within two years nobody will talk about Skyrim anymore and produce any more mod. In a world such big you should take in account the replayability of the game.

Within the first 100 hours it's like "oh wow I have to properly walk and explore anything, it's gorgeous awesome ..."
From 100 to 150 hours it becomes "Meh, If I could fast travel it would be nice though"
After 150 hours either there is a mod implementing fast travel or the game is no more.

But I can suggest an improvement: make the fast travel really happen through a map and interrupt the travel with proper random encounters - after all it's just reasonable that the second or third time I go in a place it is still as dangerous as it was the first time.

im not against it as much as quite a few people as it could be useful sometimes if you want to get something done quick.. the main problem with the whole must find the location thing is that alot of the people using fast travel would simply go to closest place they can and simple go straight to the destination without much exploring..
in short i did like it as it would let you get somewhere quickly if wanted, and yet at the same time it would take away form the whole open world thing as it would cut down the exploring of many people.. however it doesnt stop people doing it if they truly wish to, although with other problems in the game such as every bandit seemingly in best armor available to you, it did kind of put a big damper on whether its worth it or not

Personally I'd prefer a return to something similar to how it worked in Morrowind, but also pushing it a step forward. There could be ships traversing the coast on a regular schedual that you could pay for a ride on, hopefully even in real-time, with an option to rest until the journey is over, also with possible random encounters interrupting you during the journey. Or like someone stated you could sneak on-board, although you'd then risked being put in a cell or why not being thrown over-board and left to swim to the shore. For inland travel there could be merchant caravans, and then also teleportation services or scrolls and whatnot. I wouldn't mind if they still kept the insta-teleport OB fast travel, although with a well enough made travel system it wouldn't really be necessary to keep, what I don't like though is when there's no option for those that want some kind of in-world travel system.