Oooh, must log in and reply to a thread with this title!

Minsc and Boo stand ready! Curses, now I want to play BG2 again:/ Will a company ever release such a grand story driven game again?

Anyways. I would have to agree with random encounters being a good thing. If fast travel involves nothing more than clicking on your destination to go there, there should be a chance to run into somebody. Its one thing if you have to run to a guarded caravan location or zap yourself around with magic like in morrowind, but if your just traveling on foot odds are sooner or later you would run into some trouble along the road. Would just add more to the immersion of the game for those that do want the speedup of not running everywhere on foot in real time.

Yeah but fast travel isn't "cheating" that's my problem. You as a player are choosing to not have to spend twenty minutes walking through a area you have already fully explored. It's just like using a taxi in GTA. And with that example I have no problem with fast travel costing gold like it did in daggerfall. Though I don't see the reason for it in terms of Skyrim. Unless you "sleep at inns" along the way or something.

for the record: i hated dragon age origions.
that being said i think the fast travel in skyrim could fare well if it used the same travel system that DA used.

like it shows a dotted path and you moving from point a to point b, and then there might be a chance that it stops you in the middle with an ambush or a senario.
i just hope it comes up with as many ways to discourage fast travel use as possible.

Well thats definitely a one time thing (never happened to me my many times playing morrowind), especially if you get that dark brotherhood quest going and stop the random assassination attempts.

No, the reason you fast travel is to avoid enemies. I do it to avoid a long (and potentially boring) walk. Fast Travel in Oblivion is more like really slow teleportation, it was pretty cheap, there was no downside at all to using it; no gold spent, no chance of encounters, etc.

I wouldn't care one way or another so long as you need to walk to cities at least once. You never needed to do a whole lot of adventuring in oblivion to discover the far reaches of the map.

I agree fast travel is a cheat, but it's addictive! So I put artificial parameters on it. I will only F/T at a stables outside a city or from my riverside house (cause really that house shoulda come with a small stable). Oh while I am in the IC I will F/T to other part of the IC. What I would like is something like NV did with hardcoe mode and stim packs...to where the game turns off F/T at the beginning so you are less tempted...Also it would help if none of the map is known when you start. In OB you could F/T to any city immediately upon exiting the sewer. Im not a big NV guy and it may not be ES material but Id like to see some sort of Hardore-esque alternative to where you have to eat and drink (maybe from a crystal clear stream flowing on a mtn top) in order to keep your stamina bar at max.

You, as a player, can STILL choose to not spend twenty minutes walking through an area you've already explored.

The difference is, this isn't GTA. This isn't a city, where there are taxis just waiting around to deliver you to your destination, while gun-toting policemen patrol the streets keeping law and order.. It's a dangerous landscape with bandits and marauders and crazed cultists with magic and blades laying in wait to kill you and mutilate your corpse for their studies, and most of the roads go not through crowded city streets... but open wilderness fraught with peril.

It's a tool that lets you skip over the endless travel between places you've already visited.

We get that. Some of us (like me) even LIKE it, as a concept. Where it goes wrong is not presenting the player with the possibility of running into trouble... bypassing all the dangers and foes along the way... and simply plopping you down at your destination 100% unharmed and unfazed. How is that not broken? That's like including cheat codes and saying that they aren't cheat codes because the player CHOOSES to use them.

Ridiculous! In the form it is, right now, it is BROKEN.

It's a 100% safe, cost-free trip from one spot on the map to another instantly. Guaranteed.

Folks like to say this is an option, but we all know there are no other options! You can walk/horse your way there... or you can fast travel. No carriages. No caravans. No guides. No teleportation services. Nada. Fast-travel.

It was a quick-fix solution to shut up the people who, (and I'm not pointing out anyone in particular, so you're only going to take offense if you're guilty here), screamed and railed for something to take the -adventuring- out of their Open World RPG.

And that being said, it was an okay start. It's fine, until the 300th hour you've played it... and you realize that, even if you WANTED to walk, the world is just too damn big to do it and get anything done. There's no incentive at all. There's no plus. And there's no disincentive to NOT fast travel. You don't -miss- anything by fast traveling... except of course for anything you would have experienced along the roads.

But! It -can- be fixed! Easily!

It can be made to work in a way that actually COMPLIMENTS the gameplay, rather than rendering it fairly moot. Make it cost money to stay at an inn or hire someone to transport you. If you stay at inns and travel by caravan, your player arrives safely. 90% unharmed, Guaranteed. You also arrive at daytime. If you travel by foot, and stay at an Inn... it takes longer, but costs less. If you travel by caravan, but plod through day and night, your risk of being attacked increases. If you travel by foot all night and day... it goes up even higher.

Add in some risk. Add in some cost. Add in something to make it a part of the game.

Otherwise it's just an instant god-mod teleport spell without any magic cost. If you made a mod like that, it'd get lumped in as a cheat or god item.

First: then sleeping you should see your character go to bed, has a mod for that in Oblivion and it adds to immersion without getting in the way as you don't sleep to often.
It would also give you a realistic penalty if attacked while sleeping as you has to stand up and draw your weapons as npc has to.

Random encounters while fast travelling, ok if pretty rare just so you don't start to fast travel with 10 health. I do not want to be interrupted 3 times travelling from IC to Bruma.

As I understand the game calculate the travel route then you fast travel so it should be possible to interrupt and place you at a location along the way in front of an enemy.
High stealth should reduce the risk of being stopped, makes sense and stealth players has a handicap in this situation.

I think, after much consideration, adding random encounters would be a good idea. Fast travel is too good for surviving danger. Also, for fast travel, it should force you to take a route you have already been on, or follow a road, so you can't find places you have not yet discovered like you would with proper exploring.

And this would be precisely how it chooses where to stage your -encounter- as well!

Besides, not all encounters should be BAD! There should be tons of random folks and things and -fun- stuff to encounter as well, not just mindless enemies. Why make it 'You have been waylaid by enemies' all the time? Why not have it sometimes be 'You encounter a group of traveling bards, camped out for the night' or 'You come across the broken-down carriage of a handsome noble couple' or something like that? "You happen upon the camp-site of a traveling merchant..." could always be a nice refresher as well.

Traveling, no matter WHAT method you -CHOOSE-... should be an experience. If you don't like it, then you're playing the wrong kind of game.

I would like it to be morrowind, I want to sleep anywhere and get interrupted by some random rat

Exactly!

First thing that came to my mind as well! I voted 2 and 1, I like the idea but a single assassin/enemy would have an easier time sneaking up on me than an entire group.

You should only be able to fast-travel between towns/settlements.

You should be attacked by what every is appropriate (pack of wolves, lone bear, groups of thief-takers if you've been naughty)

Go for the eyes, Boo!!

Could you imagine being awakened in such a way by Minsc, as he sics Boo on you. Ha!

Anyway, I think there should be a chance of a random encounter while fast traveling, or sleeping outdoors. i'm hoping there's other options too, such as taking a carriage from city to city, as a means to fast traveling...with the possibility of being attacked by bandits. I mean, why not? You get attacked traveling by foot rather often, so...

I had forgotten about fast travel to quest locations in Oblivion - so I would agree. Fast travel between settlements/cities only.

How about just fast travelling between cities, roadside settlements and roadside inns? Basically, let's take the roads as a safe place (relatively) and the wilderness not safe enough to fast travel in. Also if at all possible only fast travel FROM roads, inns, settlements and cities too. And of course only fast traveling to places where you've already been at least once. Traveling along roads can still be an adventure after all, even if that pack of ambushing bandits gets less surprising the second time it happens.

hardcoe mode: Only being able to fast travel on horse.

Then again, traveling on horses doesn't take that much time in the first place. But it would make people want to buy a horse anyways.

I think people aren't bothered that much by exploring wilderness, but rather by traveling back and forth across the world for a quest.

imagine using a console command that moves you to another location free of charge and you cant be attacked. imagine a console command that allows you to escape danger simply by getting far enough away from enemies so that you can immediately end up in a safe area. imagine being out in the middle of the wilderness with no repair hammers, your gear is almost completely broken and your out of health and magica potions. wouldnt it be great to have a console command that takes you right to safety. oh silly me.............there i go mixing up console commands with oblivions map travel service. :rolleyes:

I'll not be brainwashed! :toughninja:

Topic related, yes I would like the option. Will it effect me? Probably not in the beginning. I'll be exploring in every which way to see where is what.

I'm actually hoping that you can find the towns yourself. On one level it was nice to fast travel to the town of your choosing, but it also didn't make sense (unless you wanted to reason that your character had been there before).
I don't know. I'm for the option for random encounters via travel or sleeping in any case. :shrug:

Bandits waylaying travelers is a great idea and they should do so in large forces. I think every fast travel should have no less than two encounters on the way. That is still probably 10 fewer encounters than you will likely run into if you actually travel there normally.

definitely a good idea. Would hopefully encourage people to explore a bit more.

"Your carriage has been targeted by a band of violent brigands..." ---> Game drops you in at some point along the road, surrounded by brigands who attempt to take you hostage for a ransom.

"You happen upon the campsite of a troupe of traveling minstrels." ----> Game drops you in at some point along the road, where a group of bards are camped for the night. They offer you food and play music, while also sharing rumors from other parts of the land.

"Your progress is suddenly halted by the sight of something strange lying in the road..." ----> This encounter also occurs along the road, and drops you in with some random object spawning just a few feet in front of you. It could be dropped bag of gold, or the body of some unfortunate bastard to pass through before you. It could even be an ambush. Random chance will determine.

"You slow to a pause as you come upon the broken-down wreckage of a nobleman's carriage..." ----> You get dropped into the game near by a broken down carriage carrying a couple members of the local nobility. Offering aide will put you at risk of being attacked by bandits or thieves, but earn you a sizable reputation boost with whatever place the nobles hail from.

"Marauders have circled around and prepare for the attack. Defend yourself!" ----> Fairly straight forward battle with a number of heavily armored types. Numbers and level may vary.

"You chance upon a naked Nord seemingly stranded in the middle of the road ahead" ----> Yeah... couldn't really resist. Witch hunt!


And this is just things I'm pulling off the top of my head...

... imagine some of the fun, curious, or downright scary things that could happen when the system is designed by people who have months... if not years... to implement it creatively. You'd get all kinds of awesomeness. Bands of local Guild-types. Goblin Warparties. Local Cultists. Dragon-Hunters. Traveling merchants. Traveling salesmen, Bandits and Rouges, Homeless Beggars, Hunters, Mining Camps, Bards and other Performers, nomadic warriors, and so on.

There's an insane amount of gameplay value there, and it gets missed when you design your game to have an 'Easy Button' like Oblivion does. Oblivion's dungeons and combat encounters get stale after the first couple hours. The only REAL action is all in dungeons. Anything else is boring. They're all sporadic and random. It's always one or two enemies, never anything interesting, and so damn repetitive that eventually you WANT to just skip it.

But when you have interesting encounters, where the battles are engaging and the miscellaneous sorts are fun and captivating, you begin to -enjoy- the experience of traveling again. You'll fast travel from one place to another IN HOPES of getting one of these encounters, because it will mean new treasures and new quests and new chances to earn fame or infamy.

That's what fast travel ought to be about.

I agree actually. However if I'm sleeping in the wilderness I do want be ambushed by enemies from time to time.

Besides if you could choose where to sleep (like in RDR) it would add another thing to the game, strategically choosing where you want to sleep in order to stay safe.

You must gather your party before fast travelling forth.

"Hey Mike, look at that guy. He looks like he's carrying a lot of sweet loot, let's get him!" "Naw man, he's fast traveling, just leave him be man, leave him be." I agree with the OP.