I'm glad that Bethesda has put fast travel in their games : Othor Games

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:02 am

It's never ruined my enjoyment of the games just made them more fun to play when I don't want to wander around and to get to where I want to go quickly without hassle

Hence mark and recall, silt striders, guild guides, boats, divine intervention.

WIth a simple You can cast guild guide magic the fast travel wouldn't have been invasive.

Or random encounters that pulled you out of fast travel (like Dragon AGe Origins)

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 9:17 pm

Eh, I use it, but there for a while in Skyrim I wasn't using it at all. In fact, Skyrim would do just fine without fast-travel, simply because they had sprinting and horseback riding.

Plus there was the carts that you could pay to take you to major cities. I still used fast-travel because it's there and it's free, but I don't think Skyrim would have been too tedious without it.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:38 am

Someone did not use Morrowinds mechanics properly.

Mark, Recall, Divine and ALMSIVI Intervention. Get them. Use them. Think.

Morrowind DID have fast travel. You just had to think a little bit and the fast travel made sense. Take a boat. Use a Silt Strider. Teleport from the Mages Guild. Use the Propylon chambers in all the ancient Dunmer Fortresses. Morrowind did fast travel in a better, more organic and immersive way imo. It would get you most of the way to your destination with fast travel.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:05 pm

Plus there was the carts that you could pay to take you to major cities. I still used fast-travel because it's there and it's free, but I don't think Skyrim would have been too tedious without it.

Skyrim was a large improvement on Oblivion in that respect.

Morrowind DID have fast travel. You just had to think a little bit and the fast travel made sense. Take a boat. Use a Silt Strider. Teleport from the Mages Guild. Use the Propylon chambers in all the ancient Dunmer Fortresses. Morrowind did fast travel in a better, more organic and immersive way imo. It would get you most of the way to your destination with fast travel.

Just collect the Propylon indexes and the pilgramige quest is considerably easier

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 7:21 pm

Honestly, I'd be perfectly fine with out fast traveling Skyrim. The carts in the main cities would makes it easy to implement to implement fast travel realistically. You'd be atleast forced to enjoy some of the game world and random encounters, but not long, tedious trips from city to city.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 10:41 pm

Yes, that's pretty much what I'm talking about. If the game's mechanics force you to use fast travel, well not force you per se but the game is made so it would be even more tedious than it should be if you didn't use fast travel, then that's a problem.

I used to RP when I played Oblivion.

Whenever I traveled I literally walked, yes walked, not running and not jogging but walking. Unless I was in a battle I did not run and if I had a horse the horse trotted along, which was a little faster, unless there was some urgency (a quest says hurry up or a battle).

Surprisingly it didn't take all that long to get from one side of the map to the other.

Of course you couldn't pay me to do that again.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 2:12 am

I used to RP when I played Oblivion.

Whenever I traveled I literally walked, yes walked, not running and not jogging but walking. Unless I was in a battle I did not run and if I had a horse the horse trotted along, which was a little faster, unless there was some urgency (a quest says hurry up or a battle).

Surprisingly it didn't take all that long to get from one side of the map to the other.

Of course you couldn't pay me to do that again.

I actually tried this with Skyrim recently. Oh god. I made it through Riverwood and up to Bleak Falls. I ran in the dungeon because that seemed to make sense. Then I got out, opened my map, looked at the distance back to Riverwood, saved, and quit.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:53 am

Fast-travel is one of the worst things you can add to an open-world game (along with markers), and is one of many reasons why Morrowind is superior to the likes of Skyrim.

Silt striders in Morrowind were MORE than adequate for people who wished to get around a bit quicker. Being able to beam yourself around the map at will is just ridiculous, especially in a gameworld as tiny as Skyrim's.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:27 pm

A wild mutant appears :tongue:

?

Riverstyx used ANTI-MATERIEL RIFLE! It's super effective! Wild Mutant fainted!

Ahem...

Anyway, I prefer fast travel but I like having teleport spells, traveling services, and the like in the game too. Those forms of fast travel do occasionally have their uses; getting to town to sell your loot before dark or being there for something that only happens at a certain time of day for example.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 7:49 am

Fast travel from anywhere to anywhere with no trade-off or explained mechanism is just dumb. In Morrowind, it made sense that you could get from one city to another without having to deal with monsters when you were paying money to ride on giant silt striders. It made sense to be able to get on a board and end up in another coastal city without getting killed by slaughterfish. But in Oblivion and Skyrim, it is utterly stupid to be able to autopilot your character from anywhere, to anywhere, without any risk of encountering enemies. Fast travel + random encounters aren't so bad. Having to do some kind of quest to clear roads so that you can fast travel along them also isn't so bad. But you really shouldn't be able to teleport (even if time passes) from one isolated area in the wilderness to another.

Yep.

Also, Morrowind had fast travel, just implemented in the correct way.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 4:05 am

I agree, it helps on those tedious return trips

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 9:14 pm

Do not pray for easier lives, pray to be stronger men - JagarTharn12 (I said it out loud just then, so I can remain a real man)

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:53 am

Sometimes I use fast travel in Skyrim, and sometimes I don't. It depends. The carriages are good also. But fast travel comes in handy when you want to go back and clear out a dungeon. What I do a lot, is dump all the gear just outside a door of a cave or a fortress and go back and forth to the merchant of my choice until I've retrieved and sold (or keep) all the gear.

I've got no complaints how it's done in Morrowind. Recall is very handy for clearing out dungeons, and you can even be over-encumbered. I admit I've played several games with my Mark set right in front of the Scamp.
Lately though my Mark is usually at where I'm living, and I typically use Recall when I'm way out in the wilderness, but not always. There is always the closest town you can head towards.

My current character has all of the propylon indices and living in the propylon chamber at Hlormaren. I've been going around that way as well as using all of the other ways---the silt striders, boats, mage service, Divine Intervention, Almsivi Intervention, depending on what I want to do and where I want to go.

Both systems as used in Morrowind, and that as used in OB and Skyrim are OK with me. To use an overused phrase..."it is what it is".

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 7:52 am

Oh I absolutely love fast travel...

The way it was done in Morrowind, with spells and travel services.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:01 am

Having grown up playing games that had no fast travel at all (Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda are a few that come immediately to mind), I find fast travel in any game to be a veritable god-send.

Oh, and for all you people who hate fast travel and think it's the worst thing to add to an open world game? Go play Dragon's Dogma and try to do every quest in the game. Have fun, and make sure you come back after forty hours or so and affirm your love of walking everywhere.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 6:54 pm

I don't think anyone who hates the newer forms of fast travel dislikes the Morrowind fast travel mechanic i.e. a FT mechanic which actually makes sense in-game, and not a teleportation mechanic without casting any spell.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:06 am

Yeah, with proper use & combination of all the travel abilities in MW, you could pop all over the place with quite a bit of freedom.

That said...

I've flip-flopped on this issue quite a bit, but recently I've come to a better understanding of what makes Bethesda games fun. The problem with fast travel in Oblivion/Fallout 3/Skyrim is that it trivializes the challenge of adventure. It gives the player the ability to voluntarily make the game much easier without a penalty. It would be like playing poker and being given the option to see one card in every other players hand. That idea seems awesome when you think about how much more often you would win, but then it would make playing poker boring by removing the challenge of the game. It's plenty easy enough to get where you need to go in Morrowind if you have enough coin, are high enough in level, and know where you're going. If you don't have one or two or any of those three things then it will be hard and challenging, like a TES game should be.

...I love FT in Oblivion/FO3/FO:NV/Skyrim. Mostly because I use it to avoid vast amounts of mindless tedium, not adventure. I love exploring, adventuring, finding new things and places. I also love picking up everything that's not nailed down - I'm a huge packrat. After every dungeon I explore, I need to clear my inventory. If I had to trudge on foot, back along the same empty roads, to Whiterun (sell & stash loot) and then back to whichever region I happened to be "adventuring" in? I'd probably play these games alot less. I really don't see much interest (or challenge) in adding 30+ minutes of make-work & tedium to every dungeon dive or ruin exploration.

(And again, I could do the same in Morrowind - Mark the spot I was at, Intervention back to nearest town, Strider/boat to wherever my house was, sell/stash, Recall back. And actually, even more freedom in MW, since I could do that from within a dungeon.)

So yeah. Fast travel. Love it. Use it all the time. Because it greatly enables my ability to explore. :shrug:

I don't think anyone who hates the newer forms of fast travel dislikes the Morrowind fast travel mechanic i.e. a FT mechanic which actually makes sense in-game, and not a teleportation mechanic without casting any spell.

I find this kind of amusing, since MW was the game with plenty of teleportation mechanics, whereas the other games just have Fast Travel (which isn't teleportation - time passes.)

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 8:51 am

Actually, the worst quest would have to be this one temple quest.

You get it in Vivec. It ends in the Sheogorad region. You CANNOT speak to anyone, including travel people, so unless you went there and set up a mark before getting the quest...

That's actually one of my favourite quests in any TES game :tongue:

It's a quest that is about exactly that which, for me, is the core of the TES experience. The journey itself is made into the quest content. I found that much more enjoyable than the 'kill some stuff in a dungeon' that the vast majority of quests end up being.

It also helps that for a change the destination is not a promise of fat lute or monsters to slay, but a (usually fairly) quiet place of religious or historical significance. The Temple pilgrimages were all a lot of fun for me to do.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 7:49 am

That's actually one of my favourite quests in any TES game :tongue:

It's a quest that is about exactly that which, for me, is the core of the TES experience. The journey itself is made into the quest content. I found that much more enjoyable than the 'kill some stuff in a dungeon' that the vast majority of quests end up being.

It also helps that for a change the destination is not a promise of phat lewt or monsters to slay, but a (usually fairly) quiet place of religious or historical significance. The Temple pilgrimages were all a lot of fun for me to do.

Exactly. It would've been a piss poor pilgrimage if you could just fast travel teleport there.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 7:53 pm

One of the best things about Morrowind is having to travel all the way to some cavern or fortress or what have you then do the quest in there then you have to travel all the way back or cast the recall spell after marking outside the entrance then go to some city then see if you can travel to where you need to go. How realistic and immersive that was, one of the worst quests in Morrowind was the puzzle box and I hated it. I joined the forums because of that. Fast travel is optional anyway and posting this is redundant

I agree.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 5:54 am

Yeah, with proper use & combination of all the travel abilities in MW, you could pop all over the place with quite a bit of freedom.

That said...

...I love FT in Oblivion/FO3/FO:NV/Skyrim. Mostly because I use it to avoid vast amounts of mindless tedium, not adventure. I love exploring, adventuring, finding new things and places. I also love picking up everything that's not nailed down - I'm a huge packrat. After every dungeon I explore, I need to clear my inventory. If I had to trudge on foot, back along the same empty roads, to Whiterun (sell & stash loot) and then back to whichever region I happened to be "adventuring" in? I'd probably play these games alot less. I really don't see much interest (or challenge) in adding 30+ minutes of make-work & tedium to every dungeon dive or ruin exploration.

(And again, I could do the same in Morrowind - Mark the spot I was at, Intervention back to nearest town, Strider/boat to wherever my house was, sell/stash, Recall back. And actually, even more freedom in MW, since I could do that from within a dungeon.)

So yeah. Fast travel. Love it. Use it all the time. Because it greatly enables my ability to explore. :shrug:

There are much, much better ways of implementing fast travel that make sense within the game, and don't trivialize travelling vast distances, that would still enable you to dump your loot without it being tedious.

Also, I'd much rather have infinite carrying capacity than instant fast travel to and from any explored location. Even that would be more sensible and less immersion-breaking.

» Sat Jun 23, 2012 12:11 am

I don't ever use fast travel in Oblivion or Skyrim so it doesn't really affect me. If only they added carriages to every major city I'd have no complaints.

» Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:18 pm

I find this kind of amusing, since MW was the game with plenty of teleportation mechanics, whereas the other games just have Fast Travel (which isn't teleportation - time passes.)

Ho ho ho, so amusing.