Is playing through Oblivion without fast travel fun as well as challenging?

[theultimateend]

I want to play through TES IV one last time before Skyrim and I've never done it without fast travel (despite the recommendation several times) does it take away from the games overall merit?

With the right texture pack it is gorgeous.

I remember walking into a flower patch of all different colors and stopping to make a wallpaper out of it.

A wonderful experience, that game is far more alive than folks give it credit. I think fast travel left people seeing the same things so they felt the whole place was mundane.

Edit: Wish I still had that picture, it was really nice.

 

[Naeo]

It's only really worth playing through without fast travel if:
1. You're actually role-playing a character.
2. You have a mod installed that adds other methods of transportation (carriages, teleports, etc), a la Morrowind.
3. You have a mod that adds more things to see along the main roads/genera wilderness.

Obviously the last two only apply to PC. Fast travel is unfortunate in a lot of ways, but chief among them is that there is no alternative built in to the game.

 

[Gralian]

It really depends. If you're following a quest chain and want to work through it specifically, then it's certainly not fun with all the downtime of going to each destination followed by marching about the town trying to find the right NPC to speak to.

However, if you're just milling about with various quests that you're only 'sort of' doing as and when they crop up as you head on your merry way, travelling the old fashioned way is fun by way of you exploring the world as you trudge about and discover the world for yourself, occasionally bumping into quest related stuff. I have had a far greater sense of wonder by finding such gems as hidden ruins containing an artefact, or my favourite - finding a dead troll under a bridge along with bottles of wine and a badly written suicide note - than simply getting through the quests, though there were some exceptional ones, such as the creative thieves guild missions or the "retrieve special items for the Countess" missions.

It also largely depends on whether you've explored the regions before. Everyone has done that walk from the sewers to the abbey for example so people get pretty tired of doing it the tenth time. In this regard fast travel is pretty much a necessity since you know exactly what's coming up, the type of enemies you'll encounter and which caves you'll discover. But for the first time you make that journey you won't want to use the fast travel feature because you'll be too absorbed in discovering the world around you. It's just that discovery is a finite resource in terms of enjoyment.

Fast travel is unfortunate in a lot of ways, but chief among them is that there is no alternative built in to the game.

The striders are the reason i didn't mind the lack of a fast travel feature. They were a form of fast travel, except they were also a part of the world's lore and they actually made sense for what they were there for. It neither felt cheap like fast travel nor made the running about too tedious as you could always just take a strider to each of the major cities. I'd like to see more forms of transport like this that make you do the legwork but also provide a way for you to get around the major hubs and city centres so as not to make it too frustrating.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I tried it for a bit and it's kind of nice just taking in the scenery (and leveling athletics quite a bit faster) but it just takes so long to get things done. It's nice once you've completed everything to just roam around.

 

[Silva]

It tends to be too slow without fast travel. There is a lot of wilderness in Oblivion that's just without action or opportunity. The only time I go without fast travel is if I'm just generally exploring and going from one "unknown" compass marker to the next in search of treasure and adventure.

Travelling across Cyrodiil just to get from one town to the next will get very dull indeed. I know this especially since I didn't know there was a fast travel option until a little way into the main quest. Once I had that understanding, the only thing about the game that really sucked on the PS3 version was the load times, alongside the freezing glitches of course. (And the Vampire Cure quest glitch - my God, that made my mood sour.)

It's only really worth playing through without fast travel if:
1. You're actually role-playing a character.
2. You have a mod installed that adds other methods of transportation (carriages, teleports, etc), a la Morrowind.
3. You have a mod that adds more things to see along the main roads/genera wilderness.

Obviously the last two only apply to PC. Fast travel is unfortunate in a lot of ways, but chief among them is that there is no alternative built in to the game.

Good post! This is exactly what I was going to say, almost.

 

[Levethian]

I tried it for about 30 hours of gameplay, and found it really quite immersive.

Stuffed with all the best mods, of course. I wouldn't try it with vanilla.

 

[Rawne1980]

You can get mods that add NPC's travelling between towns and extra farming villages/inns dotted around.

I'd also say to get a mod for a different mount, some mods even have flying mounts I kid you not.

But I wouldn't advise it without mods it can get really tedious and some quests have a lot of travelling involved.

 

[TK421]

I wouldn't say it is any more fun. It just takes a lot longer.
On a side note, I absolutely love the fast travel system in Oblivion. I can get from place to place immediately if I want to, which is really nice when you want to actually accomplish something, but don't have three hours to burn.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

In my first run through Oblivion, I didn't use it. In my 20-something run, I still don't use it. But I don't have the time to play it for more then an hour or 2, so I mainly go in with a goal in mind (get to Bravil and complete quest A, or Make my way to Anvil to start next quest, or do a random dungeon crawl etc.)

I should add that I have modded my Oblivion up to fuck though, FCOM mod makes the wilds of Tamriel a lot more entertaining (and hard). If I was to play vanilla oblivion from scratch again, I would probably use fast travel.

I wouldn't say it is any more fun. It just takes a lot longer.
On a side note, I absolutely love the fast travel system in Oblivion. I can get from place to place immediately if I want to, which is really nice when you want to actually accomplish something, but don't have three hours to burn.

Actually, I lied. I do use it from time to time... but for this reason only. If a quest took me too long to get to a certain point (like I died and had to go back a bit) I might fast travel to make up lost time... cause I hate retracing steps I just took.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

It's boring and I mean that in every sense of the word. Think of it as a loading bar with a minigame in there to kill time whilst the actual game loads.

 

[DementedSheep]

No not really, It's just boring and makes everything take longer. Maybe if you heavily mod oblivion to make the wildness more interesting or if you find a mod that adds a travel system it would be better. If there were caravans between towns or something like that (Ie Morrowind) I would probably not use the teleport but as it is the game is tedious without it. Going along the same trail from one city to another multiple times is just boring.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Dear god why would you do that
I've found myself looking for the quick travel function in many games which doesn't have one.