Fast travel in games like Oblivion or the newer Fallouts

[Laser Priest]

A letter to the people who complain about it: Don't fucking use it.

But yeah, I tend to avoid it because I like the exploration. I use it the way it was made to be used: Getting to areas when I'm in a hurry or getting out of areas where I get stuck (which - sadly - has been quite common in Bethesda's buggy games).

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm alright with fast travel, but Fallout has all these cars and motorcycles with working and EXPLODING power cells in 'em. Why can't there be a mechanic to get one working? Fallout 2 had a working car!

 

[MrShadowzs]

I say fast travel is awesome, take pokemon for example when you start out you can only walk and ride your bike and it was a pain in the ass, but then you get fly and its just sooooooooo much better, so yeah fast travel=good thing

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Prefeered fast travel in morrowind where you used boats or stiltwalkers to get around. Was more realistic. Although i can see why Oblivion system worked, especially for dumb fetch quests where you dont want to spend 30 minutes walking to a place, collect an object, an walk back.

Agreed. The boats and silt striders gave the island a largeness that managed to fool me into thinking it was BIGGER than the world of Oblivion (until I checked the maps, at least). I can understand the appeal of the fast travel system, though. While us TES veteran would usually remember to buy mark and recall spells, or at the very least a few scrolls to teleport us to towns we regularly traverse, it would seem like a daunting task to newcomers. Oblivion felt like a new enough game to stand out from predecessors, its own fast travel system is admittedly more intuitive.

I'll probably be called out on this with claims of "you don't have to use use the fast travel system", and you'd be right to say them. Still, I can't help but feel that the fast travel system might ruin the experience for newcomers by conversely offering too much freedom and without the necessary temptation to explore as a consequence of traveling. You don't have to go back to a city transit system like in Morrowind, but perhaps restricting the fast travel to towns, villages, and key outposts would be a better compromise? You could even add a new layer to the affair by having faction-restricted outposts that players can only use when they're a member in good standing of certain factions. Then there'd be more consequence to the choices of faction choosing beyond "Which faction gives me better rewards?" and "Which faction do I want to see on the ending screen?"


EDIT: Also, your avatar makes my skin crawl. Where'd you get it from?

 

[Zaik]

Mods

Mods mods mods mods mods.

Don't ruin the games for people who aren't interested in walking past the same swamp rotated 45° for the 50th time.

 

[Johnson294]

I don't see why people complain about it, you explore a lot in Oblivion and Fallout, you have to explore everytime you're heading somewhere new. But there's no purpose spending 15 minutes just to go to another town. Games are meant to be fun, not monotonous and boring just to be realistic.

 

[LaughingAtlas]

Apart from the big towns in Oblivion, don't you have to physically trek out to your destination the first time? Is there some "know the whole map" function I've been blind to this whole time? I never had a problem with immersion-killing, whenever I went from one place I'd been to another with fast travel, I made up a little aside during the loading screen. "And so, our hero ventured back from wence he came, killing three wolves, a bandit, and a sickly cow on the way" Or "Traveling once more a familiar path, [NAME] enjoyed the peaceful walk through [AREA], making funny pictures in the clouds as he went."
Have some creativity, it doesn't even have to make sense. "On his way to steal the Mysterium Xarxes from Camoran's cult, our hero observed aliens descending from their ship. He considered greeting the newcomers, but thought better of it and moved on."

 

[Zantos]

Now for the people saying "but it's optional!" then yes it is optional in the same way wearing clothes or trying to fight is optional, you can get through the game without it but the game will punish you heavily for it. Additionally it leads to retarded stuations, for example: Say you've just finished a quest or looted a dungeon or mugged an innocent man and you've just arrived at the gates of Bravil, now you want to buysome new spells so you decide to go to the mages guild to get them, so you go to the mages guild in the Imperial City because that's faster to get to than the one in Bravil and it's better equiped. Do you see why that's stupid? Choosing to go to the nearby place or the better place should be a choice you need to think about.

Then don't do it. Easy enough to not fast travel if that's the way you want to play. If someone else wants to play by fast travelling anywhere then they bought the game and are free to play it how they want. It in absolutely no way, shape or form affects you if that's how they choose to play the game. As long as someone has fun playing then that's all that matters.

 

[CheckD3]

When you're trying to collect items after gameplay lengthing, or you want to do the story and don't want to spend half the game wandering back and forth between areas, then yes, fast travel is nice. However, it's purely optional, and some people do it.

I really enjoyed walking around finding locations in FO3, and a bit in NV when I've played. I find it the best part of the game looking around for stuff, but when I want to play the story, I don't want to have to travel from my sidequest doing Oasis all the way down to maybe play in Point Lookout at the bottom of the map, especially because there are Yaoi Guai, Deathclaw, Raiders, mines, and even if I get through it all, I lose out on ammo that's completely needed when I go to the back breed south

Fast travel omitted is as bad as forced fast travel. As already stated, fast travel is helpful, but not necessary, but taking it away wouldn't help. If you really like a game, you'll explore it on your own, if you don't like a game, you won't, simple as that