Being a bit bored, I ran from Breezehome to Riverwood trader. 55 game minutes. Spent 20 game minutes selling off some stuff and then ran back to Breezehome. 55 game minutes. Pfaffed around with some other things, rearranged some things in the basemant, then decided to make another run to Riverwood Trader. 4:25PM start time, fast traveled. I'll get there about 5:20, right? Got to Riverwood @ 03:45. Just don't understand how things work in this game....

It's called fast travel because it's takes much less RL time.

How long does it take if you walk from Whiterun to Riverwood? I do that every day but I've never bothered to take a look.

Or, you're using a mod or mods that modify the timescale and you don't know it.

Miscalculation. So choose, either sacrifice in-game time or RL time.

Wait, I thought it took roughly the same amount of time. I thought the calcuations were directly from point A to point B at the speed your character went with his armour.

I always seem to get there faster on foot than via fast travel. Of course, I haven't tried trekking from Solitude to Riften yet or anything similar, just tried it out on smaller distances.

I know for sure that it takes the same amount of time if you use fast travel to go somewhere or if you use a carriage. I don't know about walking/running.

It's supposed to, but it doesn't. Not on the 360 at least. I've tested fast traveling time from Whiterun to Riverwood compared with both running speed and walking speed. The game calculates walking speed.

Oh well, really? I heard somewhere for oblivion that Fast Travel speeds up if you are on a horse. Which is why I always mounted a horse before fast traveling, maybe I was wasteing my time.

Now that I am curious, I'll make a few more fast travel experiments tomorrow. I've often thought that there were some trips that seemed 'off' when fast traveling. Some that were too long (my whiterun - riverwood example) or too short (whiterun to high hrothgar comes to mind). But I've a sneaking suspicion that I'll find that there's not a lot of reason (and little rhyme) for the results.

I'm pretty sure that I can walk from Whiterun to Riverwood and return several times over in 11.3 game hours.... So the game must be calculating the walking speed of the average mudcrab, maybe?

Ha, possible. But for console players there's no "set" walking speed under normal conditions. How far or little you adjust the stick is basically it. Then there's "overburdened" speed, which might be what the game calculates.

I really wish you could toggle between walk and run. Long distance trips start to become murder on the hand when you have to "hold" the joystick in position when taking a stroll. Rockstar gets the shiny gold medal in that area. Press forward on joystick to walk. Press button to run. [censored] simple and easy.

I found that kind of annoying because I pretty much run everywhere.

I've noticed this too on pc. Checked it for fun and shizzles a while ago between Windhelm and Winterhold following the trail. While running myself, I arrived a bit after midday, while fast-travel ended at early morning (next day)... I was just testing it, so I didn't write down any specific statistics, but yeah, fast-travel takes a much longer time in-game.

Something else to ponder would be Cruise Control. Saints Row 2 had it, and while a little quirky, would certainly make trips for those who dislike FTing more fun.

I liked that little feature because you could just hit the LB on the controller and whatever speed your vehicle was moving at the time would stay that way, leaving you free to swing the camera around at will as well as still giving you complete control over the steering.

The only drawback to the system was the game world itself. More often than not you ended up rearending someone in minutes due to all the heavy traffic.

Something like that could work well in Skyrim, though. Might have to restrict it to horesback, but that's fine. Could even use the shout button since that becomes useless while on horses anyways.

I found the "you're the most careless driver in the world" aspect of GTA, coupled with the fact that they had realistic NYC traffic made the game fun.

Personally I've never fast travelled anywhere yet and plan not to do so. Even when I can't run and my horse isn't there I've walked
I have changed the timescale to 10 though, it seems a bit more realistic that way.

If it increases your in game time, I kinda like it, it makes everything feel more epic, I mean, what's grander, an epic quest that takes a year, or one that takes 6 months.

An epic quest from which I still can somewhat remember the journey imho. Otherwise you could've as well hitched a hike on some poor traveler's back and fallen asleep. Doesn't look very epic to me. Unless you're the sadistic type and tried to edge him on with a whip maybe.

But eh, that's kinda part of the fast travel vs. running discussion, you still got a point about the greater duration.

Well, it's more of a hindsight thing anyway. Like, when you are retiring a character and you look at how much time he has spent in the world.