To all those who never fast-travel, I have a question. Doesn't it ever get boring and tedious to walk all over the place for some minor quest? Say someone in the Thieves' Guild wants you to do a burglary job in Solitude. You'll have to go on a one-hour walk all the way to Solitude, do the job, and walk all the way back. Doesn't that get very boring? I considered not fast-travelling during my playthrough, but decided against it because it all appeared so tedious.

By the way, I also mean those who don't use carriages to travel from town to town.

No. Beth's game are not about completing quests. They are about exploring a world and playing a character. If an NPC gives me a quest, I could care less unless it is something my character would do. Even then, it only matters when I am ready to do it.

If you fast travel, you are missing most of the game.

If I find myself unwilling to run or ride to my next destination I take that as a sign that it is time to take a break from playing for awhile. I am not in the proper frame of mind to enjoy the game to its fullest when I feel like that.

I agree with you really. I wouldn't be able to take it,

"A man in Markarth wants you to get rid of a sabrecat in his house, get it done companion."
One two hour journey through valleys and mountains later...
"Well done. There was also someone else there who is having a problem with skeevers in their basemant."

Edit:
About not doing that sort of quest, we have to make an honest living somehow without going into random mines and slaughtering poor inocent bandits.

You are mistaken that it takes an hour to get from Riften to Solitude... time it. Even with a dragon fight in the middle, you'll still find it less than a half hour... probably closer to 15 minutes.

Not really, I usually find something else along the way that distracts me. If I don't get distracted along the way (which is unlikely) I usually try to find some quests in my log that are in the area of where I'm going.

If I was on console would be difficult walking everywhere and/or riding the bugged horses in skyrim. But once you get awesome mods like Cowardly Horses and the Horse Whistle mod it's actually great. I took it a step further in my game and setup the No Fast Travel mod to eliminate all tendencies. You miss out on a ton of random content if you fast travel everywhere.

Far as your issue with doing quests, the quests are not timed and you can do them anytime you want. If I ride my horse from Point A to Point B I will complete any/all quests that happens to be between the route to my destination.

Also found one of my best followers to date due to taking the long way. He was a random npc on the path who required help. Once the task was done he offered to join me. If I fast travelled everywhere I would have never ran into him.

this exactly. If I am ever tempted to just use the fast travel option, that means I am no longer 'enjoying' the game and simply trying to finish up something repetitive.

Also, there is nothing that states you have to go to your next quest objective directly. There are no quests that I have found that are 'timed'. Everything happens at the speed of plot. So I complete or advance quests in my area of wandering and then move on. The quest directive just kind of give me a direction to wander towards.

That journey from Riften to Solitude is a huge part of the fun for me. Along the way I encounter all sorts of NPCs, creatures, etc., and probably visit a few dungeons along the way, perhaps even learning a new shout or two or picking up some new quests. It forms part of the story of that particular character.

However, I use fast travel when I get very close to a city, to sort of teleport inside to the center of town or to the Jarl's palace. When leaving, if I am traveling with a horse, I also use fast travel to reach the stables quickly

I have also used fast travel a couple times when one of my followers got lost, or when I needed to quickly return home to drop off some heavy dragon bones.

Eversince i have been traveling on foot I have encountered M'aiq the liar and other random events way more often and I level up my skills way more faster because I always stumble across enemies and caves/dungeons. If I have to travel a very far distance or I want to get something do quickly then I will fast travel. I always just pick a direction on the map then walk in that direction to see what I will stumble upon.

I couldn't handle never fast-traveling, but I enjoy the game more when I walk around.

If there is some quest right on the other side of the map you really want to do, then of course fast traveling makes more sense, but often you can kind of organize your quest schedule so that you do a chain of quests across the map.

There are all kinds of little things that aren't marked on the map, and although walking may seem "tedious" there is stuff happening all the time -- there must be 100 scripted random encounters.

But if you want tedious, do a Thieves Guild job with fast traveling. You will go through literally ten loading screens for five minutes actual action.

I half agree with you but some of the things I find while traveling to another city can be quite rewarding, and after 200 hours of gameplay I still come across random encounters ive never seen before.

That is incorrect. Fast travel takes seconds. I use it from time to time, and I still don't use it for approximately the same amount of time that people who never use it don't use it. I'm not missing anything.

I do use the paid wagon guys if I need to get to a distant city, but otherwise it's walk/horse everywhere. Which can svck if my horse dies to a bunch of bandits, but it adds to the experience I love cutting through woods and finding little ponds or scenic views, it really brings everything together for me.

This would only be a problem if I had horse blinders on.

"Mission to kill a rabbit on the other side of the world!! IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE and run straight there and back!!"

What actually happens is: I accumulate quests constantly everywhere I go, and quest markers appear all over the map. Once I've done everything I want to do in the immediate area, I can either pick a quest and start a long journey, or I can just check the map to see what would be convenient to do. Oh, a guy wants me to look for a sword in a cave just a few minutes from here. So I go do that. Then I see something else interesting to complete between me and the nearest other town. So I go do that. Eventually I get to the new town and have a bunch of stuff to do there. And I get loads more quests in the meantime. So I just keep on keeping on. If I have absolutely NOTHING to do anywhere nearby, I will take a carriage, depending on the character. Some characters like to take carriages all the time but others disdain them; these latter will just start walking and investigate any dungeons or other POIs on the way.

Some of us are time poor, so yes, I use fast travel, and I also wander around the bush.

Quest are not the primary thing you do, adventure is. You can have several quests along the road or only to explore or both. When you go out to do a quest it gives you a direction for an adventure but it isn't the adventure itself - it's just one part of it. I also like to eat and rest in taverns sometimes along my travels. (If you fast travel and never use inns you can miss several side quest and other interesting features. I think it's more boring to do so and live without surprises.)

I also want to say that I didn't set out to "never fast travel". I didn't make it a goal for myself or tie a string around my finger or promise myself 20 push-ups as punishment for using it or anything like that. I just played and played and at one point I was like, hm, that's far away, maybe I'll FT .... wait a minute! I haven't FT'd for the last 10 hours! It didn't even occur to me during that time! So it was only after I realized how natural and fun it is to play without FT that I consciously decided not to use it.

No, my statement that you miss most of the game with fast travel is quite correct, I assure you, because doing so means that you miss exploring the world and that is the entire point of Beth's games.

With fast travel, the entire world might as well be a simple text list of menu choices. Same thing.

Trust me, as I have tested the experience both ways on both consoles and PC. Most of Beth's games comes from simply exploring on foot (or horse) around the world. By "most" I mean the majority of their content is based on this, not on completing quests they offer.

I went on a horseback once only to see if there was a difference between Oblivion and Skyrim.

I walk-jump-climb all the time (yes, I miss athletics and acrobatics... and Icarian Jump). I tend to mark all the active quests and plan the quests I should follow up on from one end of the map to the other. Plans change very often, so there is no way I can get bored.

Well the one characer that I don't allow fast travel with isn't much of a quest guy. He might randomely wander into a quest and complete it if it is right there but generally he just pokes around in caves, towers and ruins. He also doesn't smith, enchant or brew potions. So far this has netted him a ebony sword, ebony shield and one of the dragon priest masks. He has a full set of steel plate with a pair of plate boots that offer 40% shock resists. I think he is level 21 or 22. At the moment he is wandering down around Riften.

I'll fast travel if its my thrid or fourth unbroken trip between two places.

Though the world isn't as big as it seems anyhow. Horses or Werewolf form can take the distance pretty well. Even sprinting to half stamina (so you keep some handy for random attacks) is pretty quick, especially augmented by Whirlwind Sprint (once you get the hang of aiming to not snag on small obstacles)

I regret having not walked between quests instead of rushing through it with fast travel. Keep in mind, "rushing through using fast travel" still translates to 135 hours of gameplay...

But the game world is absolutely beautiful and stunning, and I just skipped all that. So yea. And there's really no replaying it since you know the outcome of all the quests you've done.

Not using horses, running/sprinting/ or carriges is silly though, but I see why people would do it. It just doesn't make sense to me when the option to ride a horse exists, to "walk" to solitude or something like that. Like, just go first person and RP that you're travelling. It's not like you can't walk that fast IRL...

I'm looking forward to launching some DLC and ride my horse from place to place instead of fast travelling. Take in the sights... While I still can. Oblivion, by today's standards, looks... kinda awful. Makes more sense to fast travel there.

And even if it's a "one hour treck", that'll feel more vast/epic. Like that thing you just did has actual weight, rather than serve as completion. You just miss out on a lot.. Plus, Skyrim seems to have a few "random events" happening outdoors. I've walked the same path from the same save game multiple times with different outcomes. That's exciting to me.

Thanks for the mod suggestions

To be fair, although I very rarely fast travel (for me, carriages are ok but I try avoiding them) when I have fast travelled I have run into some very good random encounters. For example, fast travels have resulted in 5 dragon fights out of 6 fast travels, and the last fast travel ended up with me next to one of the random event "spawn locations"

As an archer relying on Alteration for magic protection, I take the carriage to Winterhold, then walk over to the dungeon the trainer is located, pay to train up, and return to Windhelm where a new carriage awaits. By the time I get there I typically have leveled up the rest as well.

? s?nn g?r nu dagan

In 250 hours I have no yet completed a line of quests, only misc stuff (maybe I've done 50 quests total) and exploring. With previous character I pretty much mapped out everything topside. With new character, using mod to hide compass POI's, I'm "stumbling" over so little it's ridiculous - pretty much just as it should be. And when I do quest, I tend to do only what that character would actually do.

Don't understand the need to "speed quest". I try to play the game as I remember from ancient dice games, where we got distracted for like a year until we reached our destination