Fast travel in games like Oblivion or the newer Fallouts

[dolgion]

You do realize you don't have to use fast travel, right? It's purely optional. And Oblivion isn't an online RPG, so there's no pressure to use fast travel to remain competitive. I paid $50 for Oblivion, I don't need artificial "encouragement to explore the world" created by Bethesda. If I want to explore the world, I will. If I want to fast travel, I will.

This reminds me of something I post frequently on the WoW forums; "oh noes, someone is flying over the content instead of running through it; nerf!" People on the WoW forums request that Blizzard removes LFD and flying mounts because they "make the world smaller" and "ruin immersion". You can walk around if you'd like to, no one is making you use a flying mount or teleport to the dungeon. It's silly to try to get a game company to change something simply because people play the game differently than you think they should.

This argument is flawed and has been since release.
Compare the quests in Morrowind and Oblivion and the way Landscape is designed.

In Morrowind every quest had a desription of how to get to the dungeon in question. Oblivion hasn't. It just has that big arrow showing you the direction. Making the quests without using the compass is like looking for a needle in a haystack. That is different from exploring.

Then the landscape itself. In Morrowind there were paths and ravines, or other clues to connect the dungeons with the world. This made them locateable on close proximity, once the quest had gotten you into the rough neighborhood of your target. In Oblivion the dungeons seem to be spread with a salt shaker and have not connection whatsoever to the surrunding world.

You're absolutely right. It isn't about "real" travelling vs. fast-travelling. It's that fast-travel allowed Bethesda to chicken out of actually designing the landscape in such a fashion that exploration is viable and fun. Morrowind has incredible environments that are really fun and interesting to discover. Oblivion has less of that, it's more generic. But you don't realize it because you use fast-travel, it's a shallow fix for an underlying weakness of the game.
If they designed the world to be explored by foot or horse, then they'd have been forced to make the world that much more recognizable and interesting to see. As it is, Oblivion has a shit load of forests and not much variety compared to Morrowind...

For Skyrim, they can keep their current solution of explore-manually-first-time-then-you-can-fast-travel-there, but they should keep in mind the Morrowind fans when designing the environments. I'm actually quite confident that they will.

 

[Silent Biohazard Solid]

I would've loved to see instead of fast travel, some vehicles in Fallout 3. I was running through the wasteland once, and I just thought, "Man, how cool would it be to drive around on a motorcycle, Mad Max style." And it would help get you places faster.

 

[Saelune]

The whole, its optional thing though, has a flaw. When fast travel is available, its encouraged. When its not, there are suppliments. I liked not having fast travel in Morrowind. it made you have to plan. Did you use boats? Silt Striders? Mark/Recall, and the Interventions? Oblivion has NONE of that though, so you are ultimatly forced to fast travel, or be bored.

I have so much more fun exploring in Morrowind than Oblivion by far.

 

[CD-R]

To anyone complaining Oblivion was too easy try downloading and playing Daggerfall.

http://theelderscrolls.wiwiland.net/?title=Daggerfall_:_DaggerfallSetup_EN

You really start to miss that quest compass after awhile.

 

[dmase]

What breaks immersion more walking through the same room 10 times in metroid or fast traveling to the point you would be anyway after the hike. I'd rather have the choice to fast travel if i want to, if i really don't wanna break immersion i'll not fast travel. It makes that long ass hike a necessity only once.

I do walk everywhere at least once. Thats usually how i get through my first levels or get my level skill up and collect gold. I walk in between the cities, everywhere else you have to walk to to fast travel there. Thats a huge fucking map to not have fast travel from any point...

 

[KapnKerfuffle]

I do like to try not to use fast travel, but if it wasn't there after a while, it would be annoying. When I was playing Fallout, I had some great times trying to fight my way back to Megaton with little ammo left and low health. Made the journey much more satisfying. But toward the end, I just wanted to fill out my exploration checklist and it was nice to zip across the map.

That said, I think fast travel should have players give up something to fast travel, like money, or quest time or have only a limited amount of opportunities to fast travel. And then towards the end, one of the rewards for being uber-level is to have a flying mount or helicopter, etc. with unlimited transport.

 

[Bags159]

That said, I think fast travel should have players give up something to fast travel, like money, or quest time or have only a limited amount of opportunities to fast travel. And then towards the end, one of the rewards for being uber-level is to have a flying mount or helicopter, etc. with unlimited transport.

Why? It's optional. This doesn't make any sense; why should it take me longer to travel because you personally don't like it?

 

[KapnKerfuffle]

That said, I think fast travel should have players give up something to fast travel, like money, or quest time or have only a limited amount of opportunities to fast travel. And then towards the end, one of the rewards for being uber-level is to have a flying mount or helicopter, etc. with unlimited transport.

Why? It's optional. This doesn't make any sense; why should it take me longer to travel because you personally don't like it?

Well, I guess for me I like the fact that there is some risk and some chance discovery in my RPG. I guess I don't want to dictate what type of experience you have. But if I were to make a game I would reward players with a little something if they put in the work of exploring a bit. But I wouldn't force you grind miles of travel for the whole game if you didn't want to. If you wanted to zip around the map, I would facilitate some means to do that. If the 'role' you would like to play is a jet-setter that gets around quick without plodding along then it would cost you more points in endurance, let's say. Sometimes players always ask for more than they should have sometimes and would get bored quickly if they had everything. But scarcity pushes you to be more clever and you ultimately have a better experience.

 

[Flishiz]

Personally, I would find nothing cooler in Fallout than having a motorbike to use as a fast travel. It would be far faster than walking but none of that insta-teleport bullshit that the regular system has. Yeah it's nice when you've got a zillion quests to speed things along, but it makes the game feel like going through the motions far more than you'd like.

 

[Lyri]

Just...don't...use...it...

Don't make us suffer for your precious immersion.

Is there a fast travel mod for Morrowind, btw?

Yeah, silt striders.

 

[Vern5]

I personally like the Fast Travel system in Oblivion and the new Fallouts. You have to know where something is (i.e activate the waypoint) before you can find your way back to it and, since you found it, you already know what's there so no point to re-discover it. I think the problem with the fast travel system was that there was no alternative fast travel so you're either left with running or leaping through time to get to a faraway place.

Oblivion had this problem covered with horses so I hardly see the complaint some people had about travel in that game. Fallout 3 / new vegas do not have an alternative fast travel so that is somewhat annoying.

I've seen mods for the new fallouts that add motorcycles into the game so you can just zoom around everwhere. In fallout2 you could repair a car to use. Makes me wonder why Bethesda didn't just throw in some vehicles or mutated horses or something.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

It's optional.

You keep saying that, but they completely designed the landscapes and quests and everything else around a feature and you seem somehow unaware of the difference. It's like you think playing Oblivion and just ignoring fast travel will somehow simulate the experience of playing, say, Morrowind. It won't- not even remotely close. You would spend tens if not hundreds of hours crossing the (featureless) landscape because the quests/world/spells/infrastructure/transportation services etc just weren't designed for it. Even the main quest, which takes you all over Cyrodiil, would take several times as long to complete because there are no travel services, no spells, and no consideration for geography in quest design.

Additionally, most people find it unsatisfying to erect personal artificial gameplay elements, especially when they are forced to. Having the option to turn it off would help, I suppose, but this isn't the real problem. The problem is that actually trying to play Oblivion without Fast Travel as you suggest would be insane. Not even the modding community can make it fun in Oblivion like it was in Morrowind. Trust me on that.

In a perfect world, they would design the world and quests based on the assumption that the player would not have fast travel, but give players the option to turn it on or off. Now everybody wins.

 

[Romidude]

I am not walking the Mojave Wasteland to tell Cass to get off of her drunken ass. Fast travel makes the game bearable.

 

[WolfEdge]

In a perfect world, they would design the world and quests based on the assumption that the player would not have fast travel, but give players the option to turn it on or off. Now everybody wins.

How is this any different to what he's been saying...?

If what you're saying was actually true, then why was I constantly finding caverns, abandoned mines, keeps, and ruins to explore while playing Oblivion? Keep in mind that none of these places are accessible for fast travel until you find them. And, assuming I'm just trying to get from one area of the map to another, which I'll be keeping to the marked paths in order to expedite travel anyway, why NOT let me fast travel from one major city to another?

As far as your claim that the game was poorly designed BECAUSE of fast travel, there's a phrase that's very popular to bring out on this site: "Correlation does not equal causation." Bioware has stated in multiple interviews that the world of Oblivion was intended very much to have a "High Fantasy" feel. The game was INTENDED to have a down-to-earth, almost mundane feel to it, especially compared to the likes of Morrowind. They've since stated that Skyrim is going to stand as a middle ground between Oblivion and Morrowind, so take from that what you will.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Just...don't...use...it...

Don't make us suffer for your precious immersion.

Is there a fast travel mod for Morrowind, btw?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:COC
Type something like COC Balmora to instantly go to Balmora.

 

[Kortney]

Fallout: New Vegas has excellent system. You have to visit the places before you can fast travel there.

This.

I'm all for exploring the World, but the 89th time you have to go to Town B from Town A it does get a little scale.

A game needs fast travel, and the best way to do it is how Fallout 3 and New Vegas do it: You have to explore first, then you can travel.

Bioware has stated in multiple interviews that the world of Oblivion was intended very much to have a "High Fantasy" feel. The game was INTENDED to have a down-to-earth, almost mundane feel to it, especially compared to the likes of Morrowind. They've since stated that Skyrim is going to stand as a middle ground between Oblivion and Morrowind, so take from that what you will.

I assume this was a Freudian slip, but just in case it isn't, Bioware didn't develop Oblivion .

And by the way, if that is true than it was incredibly stupid by Bethesda. Making a game feel mundane should never be a goal for a fantasy project - especially after previously creating arguably the most immersive and unique world ever seen in a video game.

 

[Etherlad]

Anybody remember your way of fasttravelling in Fallout 2? A FRIKKIN CAR! It even involved a sidequest to get all the spare parts for that sweet ride and you had to spent quite an amount of money AND you had to fuel it, but it made perfect sense because you had to achive your first Mainquest in a certain time and the Car made you travel faster. It was also very cool and immersive and shit.

The Stilt Riders in Morrowind were a nice idea too and definitely better than teleporting everywhere like in Oblivion although it was basically the same.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Fast travel is an important mechanic of the game.
Sure Oblivion's main thing is that you can walk around exploring the huge world,but after you have walked around everywhere and you have found let's say 180 dungeons out of the 200 the game has,you don't want to spend all the time you would need if there wasn't a fast travel option,especially if you have something like 40 quests waiting to be completed and you have to travel all around the world.

Sometimes you are just immersed by the story of a quest and you want to advance it,and having to spend 30 minutes real life time just to get your character from one side of the world to the other would be interest-breaking for someone,especially if you consider that Tamriel is full of castles and caves and random stuff waiting to distract you from your quest.