After the recent PC Gamer preview http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/18/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-preview/ , most of my fears have been allayed regarding this game. But one issue remains for me.

What exactly will be the travel system in Syrim?

I've seen the quote, “five cities and 130 dungeons, all which can be fast-travelled to once discovered” but that still leaves big questions for me.

---

My thoughts on the matter are best summed up by the following comments from me on that PC Gamer preview:

"Fast travel, because I hate the way fast travel breaks exploration and immersion".

"Its not as simple as “if you don’t like it don’t use it”. Oblivion was designed with fast travel anywhere anytime. They did not provide alternative travel mechanisms as per Morrowind. Further still, its not the actual use of fast travel that breaks immersion, its having the option to do so that breaks immersion.

And lastly, I don’t think modding is the answer to fixing what I think is fundamental game design."

"In Oblivion you can insta travel to locations in the major cities right from the start. In Skyrim, according to the quote I gave, “five cities and 130 dungeons, all which can be fast-travelled to once discovered”, you will have to discover the city first. Well, actually, that could mean that you don’t have to discover them all to fast travel there, only some of them, which would then be like the Oblivion system. Hmmm.

But I could swear you can insta travel anywhere, even outside cities, right from the start in Oblivion.

At least they’ve fixed the levelling, but the insta-travel right from the start is a game breaker for me, and I will have to wait ’till we know whether or not its in before I buy the game."

"Its not just roleplay consistency that’s important, you could come up with a clever way to justify almost any mechanic. But exploration is also very important. Being able to travel most places at a click of one’s fingers relegates exploration from being a core part of the game to a side activity you can choose to do or do not. And I think an RPG like this needs exploration as a core part of the game."

---

So to summarise. An immersive and exploration promoting travel system is an issue that will make or break the game for me. What exactly will the travel system be like in Skyrim? Sorry if this has been covered before but I had no luck with the search function,

Pretty sure it will be like it was in Oblivion and Fallout 3 where you have to find the place before you can fast travel. In Daggerfall and Arena you could go to any city or dungeon once you left the starting dungeon. Morrowind was the strange little outlier in the series with its guild teleporters and silt striders, the rest of the main games had fast travel similar to what you're familiar with in Oblivion.

It's fine with me whatever the case.

No, they had to be known locations. Beginning Daggerfall or Arena almost no dungeons were known, while towns, temples, and hamlets were already on the map.

The same as Oblivion and Fallout 3.

but Oblivion and Fallout 3 were different. Oblivion had more in common with Arena or Daggerfall in that you could travel to cities from the start but all the little things had to be found yourself. in Fallout 3 absolutely nothing was visible from the start except Vault 101.

Skyrim will work like that.

Exactly.




Like what? Oblivion or Fallout 3?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I want boats to be a travel option. I don't mind if fast travel is in, as long as there are in-game travel options as well.

In context, I'm assuming he meant the latter rather than the former.

Yup, good question too. Apart from the question of when and where will we be able to fast travel, another question is how. In an RPG like this there's an important difference between clicking on the map and catching a boat or a stilt rider.

I was hoping that was the case. If that is where to and when fast travel will be possible then I very much look forward to playing the game!

Yes, they did. You could travel by foot, as well as by horseback.

This was probably discussed about 1000 times before, but it's still OK since it should be discussed as long as Bethesda figures it out that Oblivion style FT (and awful pointer on compass) is their biggest mistake EVARZ!
Morrowind was a real adventure and I enjoyed playing it more than other games mainly because of that.
I said it million times before and will say it million times again if I have to, return Morrowind-like FT and remove that pointer on compass witch shows us direction where we have to go as if we were retards, but make NPCs give better info about where we have to go and what we have to do instead.
I HAVE SPOKEN! :spotted owl:

(Ignore that last line. :sweat:)

I am a fast travel hater. i Hate Hate HATE! Fast travel like it was in oblivion. but i have to say, in fallout 3 it felt a lot more natural to me, i had already explored the area between this town and the other one, if i'm just gonna be walking the same route again why would i bother with walking when i can fast travel, theres nothing new for me inbetween those 2 places!

In oblivion, you get out of the prison and check the map "fast travel to anvil!" sure no problem... so why would a character who woke up in a prison cell with amnesia just remember those locations? gut feeling? don't think so =(

i approve of fast travel in easy mode. but not in normal or hard mode, ever seen the old Crysis difficulty selection? i think if you go up to hard you lose your crosshair and the enemies speak korean and you cant fire the guns from a truck when you're driving. the harder the difficulty the more realistic the game was. i would like to see this in Skyrim, i would also want to get rid of that dumb little difficulty slider in gameplay options in oblivion, that thing was worthless, -10% is practically same as opening the console and typing "tgm" +10% was practically opening the console, clicking your character and typing "kill"
what the hell was the deal with that! :flamethrower:

If you're sure about this, then it can only be that Oblivion could never be immersive for you, even without fast travel. That is, unless the option to use god mode (via ~) or have an endless supply of anything you want (via arrow cheat or scroll cheat) don't break immersion for you. There are other cheats and exploits as well. If you can imagine there are trolls and ogres and vampires and fireball spells and magic portals into a hellish world and that you would have any hope of surviving them, then surely you can imagine there's no fast travel.


Now this is a reasonable perspective. I use fast travel, but I'm sure I would enjoy a more immersive 'rapid transit'. Until I installed a mod that removed the initial fast travel locations, I simply ignored them.


Precisely.

I didn't like Morrowinds fast travel system. When I first took a Silt Strider, I thought 'Cool! I get to see myself travel across Morrowind!' but ended up thinking 'Well that's lame. I pay for something I can do for free in Oblivion'
In Oblivion, you could Fast Travel to the major cities straight off, but not everywhere in the game. In Skyrim, you will have to 'find' the cities first (although I think they'll still be shown on your map, in a similar vein to Oblivion.) The game is sounding great, so don't let one little thing like Fast Travel get you down and complaining (like most everyone else :stare:)
Remember Bethesda have other people to cater to, those that aren't serious about Roleplaying and suchwhat. And, as long as there's still horses, and I can walk to the next city, I'm fine :biggrin:
:tes:

I think this time you start with only one known location and i hope all of you know what i mean by that
I liked the way they did it in the Shivering Isles you had to find New Sheoth

Bethesda has certainly proven itself to have the creative resources to come up with lots of great ideas. Why are they "missing the boat (haha sorry, couldn't help myself)" on something so basic as travel? How about transport by giant Snow Sloths!!! Is that unreasonable???

Well... yes.

Ok, it was just an example...but why do you think that's unreasonable?

Well, first of all riding a sloth would be slow I don't think it'd be a reliable/easy way to get around. And it doesn't sound very Elder Scrolls-ish. I don't think it'd be any better than say - a horse and cart.

Hmmm, I dunno...there was one creature in the trailer - I think it was a troll - that had a slothish look to me. Anyway I would expect the implementation to be like it was in Morrowind, where you just pay the fare and arrive at your destination sans travelling animation (though I think that would be nice.)

It's technically not insta traveling in Oblivion. It actaully simulates how much time it would take to walk there. All it does is take out the physical travel time. Unless your actually exploring and not traveling I see no need to not fast travel. It doesn't take any immersion anyway for me. Most of the quests in Oblivion would take tens of hours to complete if you had to physically walk everywhere. I did think it was weird that you can fast travel to all the major cites right away though. As long as they make it so you have to go there first, I don't see a problem with it.

Using the console to cheat is not the same as using the fast travel system in Oblivion, though in my view they both break the game. And yeah, Oblivion was never immersive for me.



Well if they are not really into Roleplaying then they aren't really the target demographic for a Roleplaying Game are they?



Well, that's the thing, imo exploration should be fundamental pillar of the gameplay, as in, not optional.


Now there we agree. And since it seems that's what they will do then we can both look forward to the game without reservations.

I'm beginning to hate that phrase as much as some posters seem to hate fast travel...







See, now you're just being silly. You know that "RPG" has almost never meant that in the digital age.

Heck, many cRPGs don't even give you any choices that'll make a difference in the linear plot, even if they let you build your character. And very few have anything like the mechanisms you'd need to "roleplay" like some people use the word around here.



And it wasn't optional, in either OB or FO3. Before you could fast travel to places, you had to go walk there (i.e, explore) first. (And the "fast travel to major cities" in OB wasn't very different, except in "immershun", from the strider network in Morrowind. You could, before ever having walked to some major cities, go straight to them via a game mechanic.)

Fast.

Lol,I just HAD to come and say this after reading the title.