56 replies to this topic

[Dark0ne]

This is the first weekly question! Yay! Since TESSource.net has not been officially released (you can see a preview at the domain, however) this "weekly" question will actually last two weeks from today, the 10th of January 2005.

Question

Gavin Carter recently announced in the Game Banshee interview that fast-travel will feature in Oblivion. Not fast travel as in Silt Striders, but actual simple fast-travel from any location. Quote:

Transportation around the world is another area people were very critical of in Morrowind. This time around we’ve taken a long look at how players get from one location to another, and gone to great lengths to implement improvements. We have reinstated a “fast-travel” system similar to what was featured in Daggerfall and Arena. Now, if you’ve visited a location, it will show up as an icon on your map. Simply click there and the game will take you there. When you arrive, time will have passed realistically, and NPCs will be where you would expect them to be based on their daily schedules. No more tedious hours of trekking back and forth across the entire world to locations you’ve been to before, unless you’re into that sort of thing (and it’s amazing how many players are). You still have the option to traverse the great wilderness of Cyrodiil on your own two feet should you choose. And as I said, with only a few exceptions, you can only fast travel to places that you have previously visited. Exploration is a huge part of the Elder Scrolls games, and players should rest assured that there will be plenty to keep you exploring for hundreds of hours in Oblivion.

In light of Morrowind's lack of a fast-travel system, what are you opinions regarding this issue? Good idea, bad idea? Will you use it? Should you use it?

[Dark0ne]

My feelings are mixed on this issue. For one, fast travel will save time and make things easier. I leave the capital to visit a remote destination a couple of miles away to get a note from Mr.X to bring back to Mr.Y and it could take me 30 minutes, 40 minutes to run there and back. Instead with Oblivions system I can run there, open up my map and essentially teleport back, meaning the quest will only take 15 - 20 minutes (as far as I understand it, anyway).

But one of the fun things about Morrowind was the fact you couldn't just teleport everywhere which meant you were in a sense forced to explore the terrain. I wouldn't always take the same route back and would normally find areas I hadn't since discovered, explored that area and so on. So a 30 minute quest became an hour quest because I was off having fun exploring new areas on the way back.

Unfortunately I haven't got a strong will and in my desire to become the head of the assassins guild as fast as possible I'll more than likely use the fast travel system just because it is there. Many have argued on the official forums to "not use it if you don't like it" ... I fear I won't have that sort of self control

[Theta Orionis]

I suppose it depends on what players want to get out of the game... if your objective is to finish the game as soon as possible then you'll probably welcome such a feature, if you tend to ignore the main storyline in favour of exploration you probably won't use it.

I liked the compromise of Morrowind - fast travel available to certain places only, with a lot of terrain to explore off the beaten track.

And I suspect that part of the criticism mentioned in the article was not the lack of a fast transportation system, but the fact that there were so many repetitive quests sending you from one side of the island to the other.... so I hope that implementation of a fast travel system in Oblivion isn't going to be an excuse for even more boring long-distance fetch-and-carry quests.

Another question is how the fast travel is going to be integrated into the narrative framework - in Morrowind silt striders, boats and guild transport made sense within the overall setting, whereas clicking on a map and being transported there would not have had the same connection with the gameworld...

I suppose we'll have to wait and see....

[Rune]

Well, I'm here.
(ghostrider, btw, glad my old account still worked)

Why do I think "instant fast travel" is a good idea? Well, Cyrodill is big. Bigger than Morrowind. Travelling in Morrowind was tedious (to me, and apparently lots of other people including the devs). Have you ever played Daggerfall or Arena? They included a fast travel option.

I suggest you read this: http://waiting4obliv...per_quotes.html

The devs state that you can ONLY fast travel to a place that you've already walked there yourself. Also, you cannot fast travel while inside or during combat. Furthermore, if you travel while poisoned or something you could die during the trip.

I suspect that it will be done by left clicking on the map and selecting "travel here" or something. If you don't want to do it, don't. Walk everywhere, crawl across the world on your knees if you want to. But please, don't ruin the experience for those of us who don't feel the need to travel across the world back and forth on foot all the time.

[Dark0ne]

The way I try and look at it is through Morrowind, since its the most recent example, and the only example to NOT feature a fast travel option.

Did I enjoy Morrowind? Yes. Would I have enjoyed Morrowind more if it had a fast-travel option? No. Simply put.

Many people whinged and moaned about not being able to find Ancestral Tomb X which was N, N, E, N, W, N from Location Y near Location Z, but to me that was part of the fun -- being able to explore Morrowind in all its glory. Why not make it easier for the lazy buggers and remove those sorts of quests and have fast-travel to these places? Simple...why don't we just have 1-hit kill swords?

There's a point where pleasing the masses starts to take its toll on the gameplay, and while I can see the benefits for both sides, I still fear its a step "back" in the wrong direction.

[Astarsis]

In my opinion, completly reinstalling fast travel as they are planing to do is a mistake.

One of the great strenghth of Morrowind was that you couldn't instantly get somewhere if you didn<t had the proper spells.

It's my belief that having horses, and possibly other travel systems make things already easier in Oblivion.

What would have been great would be to expand travel options
*fast travel (ships and other similar stuff) should be replaced with scripted travel so the travel can be done hand free, but you can still have surprises along the way
(and you can study or watch tv while half-looking at the animations on the Oblivion game screen)

*magical travel should be expanded
-town portals
-planar travel (oblivion is multiple planes right ?)
-home portal (with multiple locations depending on skill level)
(*home* depending on attunement of location... some sort of enchantment ritual)
-possibly a multi mark system (number of mark depend on level)
-some ways to generate interesting *teleport errors*
(chance of error much lower for home or town teleport)

-> that would take care of really fast travel for busy players

*magical travel can be suplemented with scrolls & magical items for warrior & thief styles of players, and fixed-portals similar to ultima moonstones could exist accross the land (but please don't hit the fps like mw propylon did, those where painfull to use even on a p4 2.6 mhz with geforce fx5600)

At least, the new fast travel only work for already visited locations, but it still take out realism from the game, while magical travel wouldnt

ended up that in daggerfall I never used divine intervention (useless) and only used mark recall to get out of dungeons that were too confusing (yet I loved thoses, I never got lost in MW except in the sewers... being lost is something that's missing from MW... everything is too small, even the towns)

I hope they will rethink fast travel, and hopefully have much larger towns.

I'm a bit worried about the current plans

Cheers !

Astarsis

[Rune]

Ok, Dark0ne, I see now where you're getting confused.

We're arguing two different things here. I'm in favor of the fast travel option in the way I see Bethesda doing it in what would seem the most reasonable sense: towns and those monsterous dungeons (a la Kogoruhn). Would they do a fast travel feature for Random Quest Tomb #4? Doubtful. Would this be really useful for travelling back and forth from towns and villages? Very.

Morrowind was a game that wasn't big enough for a fast travel feature to flow together well, but it was big enough that travelling to and from practically every village on foot was tedious and tiresome. It really starts getting to you once you've put in 30+ hours into the game.

And, for all we know, fast travel might only be an option to those who own steeds.

[Dark0ne]

Do we know how large the landmass of Cyrodiil will be? We know it should (obviously) be larger than Vvardenfell, but will it be? They've scaled the NPCs, so they're obviously going to have scaled the landscape as well, but to what ratio exactly?

If anyone knows an answer to that one please let me know and I'll update the unofficial FAQ accordingly.

As far as I interpret Gavin's quote, I see it that you can use fast-travel from anywhere, so long as you've been to the location you want to go to before. So I could find myself in a nasty situation sneaking through the middle of a nasty area with high-level creatures and just decide not to risk it and fast-travel back to a safe town. Where's the fun in that? There's more fun in the danger aspect of the game.

Sort of reminds me of EQ2 -- people complaining that when they die in the game they get "EXP Debt" which they have to make up before they can gain any more experience. But if there wasn't experience debt then you'd find level 5's running through the level 50 zone without a care for the 10 giants following them.

[Rune]

Do we know how large the landmass of Cyrodiil will be? We know it should (obviously) be larger than Vvardenfell, but will it be? They've scaled the NPCs, so they're obviously going to have scaled the landscape as well, but to what ratio exactly?

Oblivion's landmass is larger than Morrowind's, but you can fast travel around much easier. It still has Morrowind's feel of open exploration, but Arena's feel of ease of travel and, well, it's more fun.

http://elderscrolls...._rpgnextgen.htm

*points and laughs*

[Dark0ne]

If the developers told me I was going to have more fun I wouldn't take their word for it. Their fun may not be my fun, and vice versa.