Your statement is false. The only way you ever miss exploring the world is by not exploring the world. If fast travel uses up 30 seconds of your two-hour Skyrim session, then you have one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds remaining. If you choose to use none of that time exploring the countryside, it isn't fast travel stopping you, but your own lack of curiosity. Fast travel doesn't use up that one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds; you do.

Let me answer this question with an example:

Earlier today I was doing the main quest. I got the quest to That meant going from Riverwood to an area right by Markarth. It's quite a long walk, and I considered going to Whiterun and taking a carriage to Markarth, then walking from there, but instead I decided to take the long way and walk with the two of them. Along the way, I saw a dragon, and they decided that they'd meet me at the designated location instead of helping me fight. Fine with me, since I'm Dragonborn and all. I'm only level 10, and I'm playing on Expert, and haven't made any use of Alchemy (though I do have restore potions I've found along the way) or Smithing or Enchanting, so it was quite a challenging fight just to start off with. Halfway through the fight, and dozens of arrows later, I suddenly notice a few NPCs approaching to join the fight... A really interesting turn of events that helped enhance the sense of urgency in the main quest and make everything feel more dynamic and real.

Skip ahead a little bit, I find another dragon near my destination. Again, just something that really enhanced the feeling of the game and made it feel more real and unpredictable.

Of course, i could have just fast traveled there and had nothing interesting happen at all outside of the scripted events of the game.

I agree with this. Although, I do fast travel occasionally.

I think the random encounters are what really holds the charm.

For example, I had 4 guys come up to me while wearing steel plate and using warhammers. They gave me a bottle of ale, and left.

Precisely. ever since Morrowind I have never FT. For me it`s the experience of the adventure, finding new things and just randomly ruinning into stuff. I`ve had some great unscripted experiences that no script could replicate!

Sometimes it gets a little quiet, but that`s excatly how I like it. When something happens it can be a sudden shocker... I also keep the action music off as well so i don`t get warned by it, I keep my eyes open.



I just explored Skyrim for around 10 real time hours even before getting to the MQ. It`s great way to make the game really last and get immersed.

The Cart travel (like with morrowind) is fine though. I don`t mind using that.

I had this happen to me as well. It really annoyed the hell out of me because I was in the middles of the quest you do for the Orcs, It took some time, but eventually caught up with the fellow I was supposed to be following.

You forget, hardcoe players crave tedium! (J/K) How else can they justify grinding repetitious and mind-numbingly mundane tasks for 8-20 hours real-time, that would drive the mind of an average player completely mad? (J/K) These are the same type of gamers that think that the game is unplayable unless the nights/dungeons are pitch-black, a 7-hour quest should net you only 5 septums in reward money, and spending twenty hours real-time just to gain one point in their skill of choice should be off-set by an increase of 80-90% in the monster's HP and Damage abilities... Which of course, I fully understand and encourage, but only IF the player had already chosen such demands with their gameplay style, and not to force/expect this on/for other players!

If you choose to fast-travel, and someone has the gall to criticize you for it, then you should demand that they pay for your next game! Seeing how they think it's their right to tell you how to play a game that you paid for! ...BTW, I proudly use fast-travel myself when I've been to another location before, the only time I don't fast travel, is when I choose not to!

I actually don't play in order to solve quests in the meaning of 'ticking a checkbox'. On a beautiful day it is a lovely view to descend a mountain.

I try to play it like Morrowind, i'll use the carriages, and then i'll also "mark" one place I can recall to with the map marker.

So to asnwer your question, yeah if I did the same run 100 times it'd get tedious, but with the above setup it's a good compromise as you still have to plan travel somewhat instead of just warping around everywhere, but you also get exploration when you crave it.

I think the question is really just about what you enjoy.

For me BY FAR the best part of TES games is wandering and discovering things, if the part you like best is questline progression and accomplishment, I can see that fast travel would be right up your alley, nothing wrong with either choice.

There is a TON of cool stuff that happens traveling on foot though, if you never do it you are missing out IMO. Also, I find it more immersive to actually be forced to know the terrain, so I turned off the HUD, and try to use the map infrequently.

Lol. I`ve met lots of different people on random things. Met a woman who was on some quest. I asked her to let me join, but she said she could handle it and left. Met some wandering elves who spoke briefly. One said, "I can show you why we are not be messed with." I was going to say `Why?` But he left... It dawned on me that finding out `Why` might`ve been a mistake.

Etc, etc... there`s much fun not FTing.

Not really.

Because:

1. I Still use carriages

2. I have my wolf-form (or horse) if I want to travel large distances

3. I don't play the game to complete quests per-say. That's obviously the goal, but what I'll do is I'll ignore a quest unless I feel for some reason it is urgent and I want to complete it now, until I am interested in going in the general direction of where the quest takes me. In other words, I currently have about 3-4 quests completed from riften, so I need to return there - but I've been doing a different quest on the other side of the continent, and I've got a quest taking me in the general direction of Riften now. So i'll probably group all those quests together and get them out of the way since they are in the general direction of each other while I "explore".

4. I almost always avoid radient story quests - aka the filler crap that guilds give you like "rescue X from dungion" or "steal X from home". Partly because I get enough normal quests from exploration and doing full side quests so I don't really -need- anymore, and partly because the Radient Quests are terribly designed and only take into account places you haven't been. There's no account for distance, belivability, or the situation - they will almost always take you to a land far far away... even if you are just killing a simple wolf in a house, and will always give terrible rewards. So yeah, I don't do those at all. I'll probably do a few if I got nothing else going on though, as they can take me in directions of places where I can run into *real* quests.

I could never play without FT in Oblivion because none of the quests were designed around not using it, the world was so boring to run around in without it, and they implimented no system to get around fast for people like me. At least in Skyrim they have carriages when I need to get somewhere far and I don't want to walk it, decent horses when I am on foot, and the ever-useful werewolf form.

It's not about efficiency. It's about exploring and role-playing.

I just started my first no fast travel play through and I have to say that it is a lot of fun. It's adds much more to rping and immersion than fast travel would.

Personally I try to avoid fast travel where I can, I will admit I am not all that strict on this and do use fast travel from time to time but for the most part I dont use fast travel and I will only use fast travel if I have traveled the road a few times before.

That being said I dont travel long distances for one off jobs, for instance I would not travel the distance between Riften and Solitude for a one off burglary job, I probably wouldnt even take the job unless I had other buisness that required me to to travel the distance, I usually try to make the most of my time in each town completing whatever jobs do not take me too far out of my way while leaving others till whenever what buisness I am currently on takes me to the next town.

I tried to do this for awhile but couldn't handle it... Yes it gets boring, extremely boring if you never use fast travel... Anyone else who says otherwise is either full of it or lives ignorantly in bliss... The problem is almost NOTHING happens... Yes occasionally am interesting random event will pop up or an interesting NPC will show up with a scenerio... Problem is these are so few and far between. Maybe 10% of the time I traveled long distances by foot would something like this actually happen, otherwise I was just looking at the scenery while constantly getting attacked by wolves, bears, trolls, bandits and dragons; which are generally the only enemies that in habit the roadways... If the enemy types were more varied through the world and there were plenty more of these random events, npc's that appeared based on decisions you've made during your journey or actual signs of an active civil war, this would make traveling by foot much more interesting... As it stands now I fast travel because foot travel feels like a waste of time and I don't feel I am missing out on anything exciting.

I was against fast travelling for most of the game, but after exploring every location, travelling long distances does nothing for me. Do I really need to see that wandering bard again? How about fight the same wolves or bears? Nope, I just want to get on with the current quest.

Of course, I gather like3-4 quests to do in Solitude, then walk there and do them all. I would never walk there by foot for a single quest, that's insane indeed.

I fast traveled with my first character but I haven't with any of my other characters. It changes the pacing of the game, makes it too easy to complete quests. Without Fast travel I have to plan out my expeditions more carefully, and be careful what I pick up for loot. I prefer the slower, more methodical pace. My characters even sneak most of the time. I never use a horse.

I do occasionally use the carriages, though, mostly to get back to my home. Being in Windhelm, laden down with choice loot, and facing a trek to my home in Markarth without picking stuff up is too much even for me to contemplate.

It doesn't get boring for me, it's realistic. I have to journey to my goal. It's as much a part of the quest as the final dungeon. If I don't have the resources to get there and back, my expedition is a failure.

Actually, yes you are. The next time you fast travel, make a note of the day and time before traveling. For best results, try fast traveling to Marakath from Riften. Or from Riften to any of the northern holds like Winterhold or Windhelm. Check the date and time again when you get there. I guarantee you that you'll see a significant difference in the date and time. I will also confirm that fast travel from Northwatch Keep, located at the NW tip of Haafingar hold, to Riften in the Rift hold, is a minimum 24 hour ride through cyberspace!

pretty much this every "random encounter I have seen are not interesting at all I fast travel as much as I can yet I have gone through most roads and have seen many of the random encounters it just doesn't interest me to spend hours going down a road I have already gone Down to find a random encounter i have seen way too much

I guess some people just aren`t into `immersion` if it`s not happening at a fast pace. It`s what Rpgs have always been about, but all to their own....

actually, it's alot more fun than accepting a quest> opening up map> fast travel > complete quest > rinse and repeat

For me, I only travel across the map if I have multiple quests in that city. For example, if I have to do a bedlam job, sweep job, misc. quest, that all 3 drag me to Solitude, along with part of say, the MQ or something. Then off to Solitude I go. Otherwise, I get to that 1 measly quest when I get to it. I'm not going across the entire map for one quest unless it's worth my while, otherwise yes, not fast traveling would become extremely repetitive if I played like that.

I use fast travel to get back and forth between towns when I'm moving junk around and doing enchanting in Riften, and need to run around getting raw materials for stuff. Quests? I like to travel the road. It allows me to explore. The devs will appreciate the fact that some of us explored every pixel of Cyrodill in Oblivion. I tried to figure out how to get to places we weren't supposed to go. A few times I get stuck in the map and have to fast travel out. But the worlds are so detailed they are worth exploring. I don't need to fight everything all the time.

I always felt that part of the fun of a game like this is riding your horse through the country side enjoying the scenery.