Fast travel is a short cut to me. I take short cuts in life, too. Sometimes do I fast travel all the way, then sometimes do I travel only half of it, and occasionally do I walk the full length.

What I do not want is to walk the same road out of a town for the 1001st time, again and again. It is what I find most boring.

I know I'm not the only one who does this. Tell me I'm not the only one please!

I work all day, planning and dreaming about my long trip from one location to another. I get home, fire up the SKRIM, go to the Inn, get my rations, go grab some potions, see if anyone wants to come along and then I walk... or sneak to go kinda slow to my destination. I'll actually stop playing the night before a long journey on foot and think, "Tomorrow, after work, I'll take two hours to walk to PLACENAME."

And I actually walk for two hours. Stopping to eat and look at things or side trek into that tempting dungeon, or OH MY a word wall over there! Or chase that 10 point buck. Maybe sit at a campfire, or stop for a drink at a near by village.

I mean, seriously, what else could be more fun? That's how you find things. That's where the whole charm of the game is. Without that, it's fasttravel-city-quest-city-fasttravel-city-quest-sell. I consider fast travel as an option only as like the end of an adventure. Lots of books gloss over the return journey if nothing heroic needs to be done on the way back. Fast travel is like voluntarily skipping the game and only playing the top layer.

I am limited for game time every night. 1 to 2 hours if I'm lucky and maybe a 4 hour stretch here and there. So, my time is precious too. But I've found that my greatest adventures happen in that 1 hour session of walking, not when I'm hitting quest objectives like Delta Force and logging out.

Like the time I was walking along and found an Imperial camp and they warned me about a dragon nearby, up a hill. Really? You guys are funny. Okay, I'll go look. Well, that dragon and I played tag for 15 minutes, and he was a bugger. Never landing long enough for me to engage. Popping up from below the tower I was in, then swooping down when I ran out the bottom. So, I hid just in the door. I shot him a couple of times and he disappeared. Huh... So, I go over to the word wall. Cool. 'Mark for Death'. Now I just need that stupid dragon's soul.... WAAAAAAAAA! Nearly two shotted me. Back to the tower, heal up. Now I'm svcking wind and out of potions.

Just as I'm up to full abd about to step out, I hear the roar and I see this BIG EYE outside the door. CHARGE! Finally got him dead.

Point is, none of that would have happened had I fast traveled. I'm so glad I didn't skip around even though, that night, I only had an hour to play (and just barely got though this episode before full wife aggro hit me).

Fast Travel. Useful for getting home when you know the way and are done for the day. Other than that, walk and get everything you can.

I don't really have time to play.... but I still don't FT. It takes some good stuff out of the experience.

LOL are you trolling? What could be more fun than pretending watching your character eat food does anything? What could be more fun than chasing a deer that has leather and meat that does nothing? What could be more fun than watching your character sit in a chair? You do realize I can Fast Travel to a location, complete my quest, explore around for a bit then Fast Travel back right? Most of the time you don't have the location for the quest you need to FT to, so you FT close by and discover things on your way.

Daggerfall had it, Morrowind had also fast travel, but disguised as 2 spells called "Mark" and "Recall", Oblivion had it. Fast travel really isn't new at all in TES games that's for sure.

I fast travel to near where I need to be, then walk/explore the rest of the way. I will even pick a map marker that is not the closest to where I need to be, but maybe is in the same Hold.

If I have time, I will Walk/Run around the destination for the quest after I am done before I go and complete the quest.

This. You are so right.

'I never use this optional feature, so I think no one else should be allowed to have the choice!'

I never really use it, but I also understand that a lot of people wouldn't like the snail's pace attention to detail I have. Take for example food. I use it constantly. And I can't count the number of times I've seen people post HERP DERP FOOD IS USELESS GET RID OF IT HURR DURR.

If I'm not using fast travel and I'm in a hurry I always take a horse. I'm in a hurry so I'm not planning on stopping to fight which is what gets the horse killed so that isn't an issue. A horse at a sprint can outrun any enemy in the game, even dragons. I've never had an issue losing my horse when I don't stop. When you get to the destination park the horse in a safe spot depending on where you're going, do the quest, and then ride back.

If are walking and you want to do things along the way on a long trip then do it. If I'm walking I typically use that time to explore things I come across during my travels. Nobody is forcing you to walk from Riften to Markarth without stopping to do something else.

Yes fast travel do extract a quite good portion of the appeal of the game, and makes it feel a little underwhelming, disjointed and even natural, you miss a lot of stuff when you do it, and take some risks too, but at the end of the day, im grateful for having it has an option.

Because depending on my mood i have the option too take the long way and stroll around or just getting to business asap, the option here is what makes it good, because if i was always forced to run, it would get tiring faster than a sabercat on your heels. Thats without taking in consideration, that just like in real life exploration: skyrim loses its novelty after some time, when you know the roads by memory, and no encounter is new to you, then running around skyrim is not as fun as at the beginning, when you were exploring and discovering new things, no, is just the same road, the same stars, the same trees, ruins and the dammed wolves....and why spend valuable time in the same place when you can just skip it and see new things?.

And even after that, on the second or third character....it gets worse.

I the end Fast Travel is an option, and a really good one, use ir or dont use it at your own leisure.

I like stories.

Way to tell me what's fun for me.

And I'm not the only one. Considering food has very little actual benefit in game, why do you think Bethesda put it in? For the 1 health it gives back? Why the whole cooking system when potions are much better?

Why make the deer run away of not to chase it down in a hunt?

Why give the option to sit in chairs besides RP?

Why have beds to sleep in when sleep is not required? Why make some of those beds owned and unavailable to sleep?

Why are modders constantly making realism mods where you have to eat sleep, sit and rest, and why are those mods so pupolar with many players?

Yeah, fine. If you like to 'FT' and explore the outskirts of a town a little then head for your objectives, that's cool too.

But there are a lot of us that prefer to slow down and, yes childish as you may find it, pretend we're actually in the game and enjoy the world they've created.

The food system has a ton of recipies and stuff that you might consider boring, but I actually enjoy going to the fire and combining food ingredients to make meals.

ITT: the usual crowd of "True Roleplayers/Fans" bragging about how they don't lower themselves to using game features, and looking down on those who do.


People keep talking about MW like it didn't give you 82 million options to zip around the map without a care in the world. OMG, ran out of potions in a dungeon or on a long trek? Hark! An opportunity to have to use skill and perseverance to overcome the Manly Challenges!? (Mark; Divine/Almsivi Intervention back to nearest town, boat/strider to your house/the shops you need, shop/do alchemy/resupply; Recall. Also available in Scroll or Potion form, for the non-mage types.)

Give it a rest. You aren't More Awesome because you like to walk more than some other people. Protip - even people who use FT walk lots. Because, for one, you need to walk everywhere before you can FT. And even after that, there's plenty of reason to walk around - harvesting plants, seeing sights, having (gasp!) fun..... (Heck, let's get on the elitist high horse - I'm holier than thou because, in my first playthrough, I didn't use the carriages - which means I didn't fast-cheat my way across the map to get places, I actually had to explore. Yes, I used FT alot, but I'm clearly better because every single place I went, I had to walk to first. /intense sarcasm)

t
I do this, but i sprint/run rather than walking. I just dont have the patience. The only exception to fast-travel is if i have walked a long distance and then die, i can fast-travel to the location i were at. Unless i have a save...

I have to admit, much of the roleplaying has gotten stale, and pretty fast.

I'd love to roleplay more, but there just doesn't seem to be any point to it. When I "eat" something, I just go into my inventory, and click on a food item. There's no animation of my character eating, or drinking, even though the animations are clearly in the game, as NPCs do them all the time! Same with sleeping. There's obviously an animation for getting in and out of bed, yet when I go to sleep, I just get a blank screen, just like waiting, so really, what's the difference (aside from the rested bonus, which you don't get as a werewolf)? Why can't I hoist my cup and sway to music, or applaud the bard, like the NPCs do? Leaving all these things out for characters, especially when it is so obviously in the game- just not for player characters, really puts a huge damper on my enjoyment of roleplaying.

Incremental tasks would definitely be a better approach. It's amazing how characters can tell you all you need to know about one specific thing, and otherwise their knowledge is pretty useless. I'd much rather have "Go here, talk to somebody, learn a little bit about the task, get the name of someone else who can give you more information" etc. rather than one person giving me a history lesson and leaving nothing for discovery.

Todd doesn't think the game has been dumbed down, but I think these forums would prove otherwise.

You mean they are arrogant? I see it differently. They have learned that without fast travel can this game be a lot more fun. They see it as a very important lesson. Those of us who played Morrowind did not have this luxury and for us did this experience come with the game. Those who started with Oblivion or Skyrim are being betrayed from making this experience by being offered this feature right from the start and until they learn to not use it. For them is it as much as an important lesson as it was for others in the previous titles. It is an eye opener if you have not already experienced it. This is all what these threads represent to me - people discovering a TES game without fast travelling.

In my opinion should fast travel become a perk in a new skill tree, like Cartography. Fast travel, sprinting, the map, compass, ... all such elements could go in there. No one shall fast travel at start, but within only a few levels could one gain the ability to fast travel. It still would be an option and if you want to can you not use it and instead use the perk for something else.

I totally agree. It's very annoying not fast travelling when you have to walk across the whole map to ask someone a question.

You just sound like a jealous kid who would rather accuse people of `elitism` and belittle with crass sarcasm than understand what is actually being said because you don`t want to have to use the required brain power to.

Agreed. This thread is full of fail. Fast travel makes new players...lazy...? Wow. If ANYTHING it makes the devs lazy. The only people who abused fast travel are the devs. This ties in with quest markers. Now we have to use markers to find anything because there aren't any directions for quest locations.

For those of you who want to walk everywhere...awesome. For those who don't...awesome. I don't know about the people who consider fast travel ridiculous, but I don't want to see and do the same thing over and over. Like many people I have started a few new games. I have seen and done nearly everything. My advice is to not fast travel and run to a location when you feel like it and when you don't want to retread the same ground, fast travel. Also, I don't know how many times I've went into a cave or ruin while running only to find that I would have ended up there anyway as part of a quest.

If I'm on an important quest and being a hardcoe roleplayer then I should finish this quest like yesterday. If I'm not fast travelling how do I quickly get to my objective? There's only one way. Ride a horse and don't stop. I do that sometimes, but I don't see the difference between riding a horse and not stopping and fast travelling. Except that one method takes longer than the other. Play Red Dead Redemption (a game without fast travel, although you could take a carriage you didn't get a loading screen) and see how differently horses were done. However, RDR's map was also a lot smaller than Skyrim's, so riding on horse was bearable, even if it became tedious after hours of gameplay.

The other day I ran from Riften to Windhelm. I had 0 bear claws in my inventory. When I got to Windhelm I had 20 bear claws and a giant's toe. Woot? But it was fine because I wanted to run and see the same thing I've seen a hundred times. New players aren't missing anything by fast travelling now and then.

Yep this.

I usually do the quests first then explore the countryside later. I dont think I missed out on anything.
edit: and if the complaint is 'realism' then technically its not fast - time still passes during fast travel.

I'd quit the game.

If I decide that my PC should travel to a nearby town, I want to be able to send them there and resume after they arrive.
*If it was an uneventful trek then I missed nothing... and if every trek is eventful then I've missed out on believability. I have no qualm or issue with condensed map travel; I expect it and find it annoying when it's missing in a game.

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Me too sometimes.

Dude, that avatar is creeping me out.

I don't like to use FT too much but the idea of completely taken it out is ridiculous.
If people want to use it, fine. I don't use it much simply because a) I like the challenge, b] FT kinda ruins the romance for me.
Not ever fast-travelling doesn't make someone an ultimate roleplayer.

What I do really like is the option to use the carriage to get to the other holds. It's a nice substitute AND it doesn't hurt the immersion for me personally.

As for making quests more incremental (so there are things to do between Riften and Markarth, for example), .. I like the game as it is. A simple "numbers job" for Delvin of the thieves guild will lead you to all the hold capitols. I don't think it would be good to have incremental stuff to do on those types of simple quests. If you want to do things along the way there are plenty of miscellaneous quests, and so it's just a matter of aligning what is in your journal with your whereabouts in Skyrim.

I would like the option for paid (commercial) travel via carriage or other means ~along standard routes, and private travel (like horses or rented carts) for travel to arbitrary locations; and foot (map) travel for any location. An advantage of paid commercial travel could be the inclusion of an armed guard on the trip ~and someone who will help defend against ambush. Rented carts could allow additional carry weight, but have limits on what terrain they could traverse; while foot travel remains unrestricted, but lacks the benefits of the other options.

** Incidentally... I would still of course want the option for condensed map travel regardless of which travel option I have elected for... But travel time should be a factor. Foot travel (generally) taking the most time; but it would impress me if the game acknowledged a broken bridge or obstruction that did not hinder foot or horse, but prevented a cart or carriage... and/or added hours or days to traverse an alternate route ~And this could (or should) perhaps mean arrival by carriage would be too late to make an appointment... for example.
(IE. Forcing you to leave the extra loot or gear behind if you wanted to arrive in time.)