[…] 3 uses a fast travel system that works similar to the one in Oblivion. As you explore the wasteland locations of interest are […]

I’m OK with public transport fast travel i.e. Morrowind but can’t stand the insta-travel in Oblivion and disabled it prettymuch straight away.

Personally I prefer to walk/run everywhere on foot. It feels much more immersive and I get a better feel for the world, getting sentimental about particular spots etc.

[quote comment=”11212″]@Square: I myself hates when a game forces a player to give up resources for something as simple as fast travel. Fast travel is needed so that a player won’t get bored, since running from A to B and back to A over and over again is rather tedious. Craving resources for avoiding this is not fun.[/quote]

Same here. I’m ok paying for fast travel in the in-game currency though, since it is usually easy to make. Morrowind had very reasonable prices for fast travel, and unless you were really, really broke (as in 0 gold in pockets) you could totally afford it.

Scarce items that get used up whenever you travel are sort of discouraging. But as @Square explained these stones don’t seem to be that scarce which is good. Still, paying for your fare is actually much better solution.

Interesting subject. I’ve often noticed it debated on forums but somehow I never faced the issue until Fallout 3.

Throughout my Morrowind career I never once questioned the use of silt striders. Half the time I was in the mood to explore and deal with any random challenge; the other half I simply couldn’t face the walk up to whichever isolated cave, paid my fare to the closest town and walked the rest of the distance.

With Fallout 3 I was determined to squeeze out every ounce of atmosphere. I felt the randon encounters with Raiders or Scorpions were significant. I didn’t want realism but did crave authenticity and a sense of accomplishment for my character (incidentally, this was also the first time I had chosen to play using a female avatar).

Thinking about it now I wonder if the level of immersion I felt was a contributing factor. I never really ‘lost myself’ within Morrowind. I loved the overcast, rainy days and the transition from night to dawn, but on the whole it looked and felt like a game world. I can’t say I every felt my avatar was a part of me. Fast travelling did not feel out of place.

F3 (on the 360) has raised my expectations to another level. The desolate post-nuclear landscape was something I could and wanted to believe in. I was inspired to put more thought into the creation of my avatar. I really connected with the game. Therefore the notion of clicking on the map and materialising at a given location became anathema to me. I haven’t done it once and anticipate it would feel like I was cheating both myself and my avatar.

@Square: I figured it was something like that :) But it is a principle and done well, I most likely just mention it, but not be to bothered about it.

But I just thought about a massive advantge that public travel systems has. Developers can restrict a players access to them if they need it. Let’s say the player has to retive the kings favorite ale from the bar in the next village. But they also want the player to defeat the evil guinea pig army that is on the path between the players location and the bar. So they neeed to disable fast travel. Doing this with an instant travel will piss the player of, since he has learned that you just can do that.
Public, on the other hand, has learned the player that fast travel is a part of the world. The execuse for why fast travel is prohibited could be that the man who owns the fast travel wagon is allergic to guinea pigs and now the player more readily accepts that he has to slaughter thoose little critters.

Public basicly allow them to give the player a better gaming experience.

[quote comment=”11212″]@Square: I myself hates when a game forces a player to give up resources for something as simple as fast travel. Fast travel is needed so that a player won’t get bored, since running from A to B and back to A over and over again is rather tedious. Craving resources for avoiding this is not fun.[/quote]

Ah, but it’s not difficult to gaining these resources. That’s the key.
Teleport stones can be purchased in a few locations (mainly by the sterwardess on a public transportation vehicle) for a small price, and gil (money) is obtained through killing monsters. Also, teleport stones are given to you for completing necessary quests simply by visitng your clan. Also, the cost for any method of transportation is so small it’s almost negligable. Your leftover change will help you get to your destination, which once you get there you’re going to be gaining more gil anyhow. Once you get far enough, your personal ship costs nothing and can be used instead of anything else. It’s not tedious or destructive to the gameplay at all.

@Square: I myself hates when a game forces a player to give up resources for something as simple as fast travel. Fast travel is needed so that a player won’t get bored, since running from A to B and back to A over and over again is rather tedious. Craving resources for avoiding this is not fun.

It’s not an MMO, but I think it fites well.

My favorite travel system has got to be FFXII.
Travel is mainly done on foot, but there are options for fast travel. (Possible spoilers?)
First, you get little guys in the starting city who you can approach and use to warp to different locations in that city.
Second, you have the option of taking instant public transportation for a small fee, which gives you the option of exploring the ship with the option to leave whenever you like, or skipping the ship and instantly arriving at your destination..
Third, you can use teleport stones at orange crystals to warp between all of the orange crystals, but you are limited by how many teleport stones you have.
Fourth, you have the choice to take a creature (Chocobo) and walk yourself (but much faster) for a small price. These are timed (with decent times) and have a limited number of sprints that allow you to zoom through even faster for short bursts.
Fifth, you eventually are able to take your own ship (technically) to nearly any location.
And lastly, you can simply walk everywhere.

The game offers many modes of travel, and it takes the use of all of them to get places. For many places, you can take one out of a few options, but other places make you take either one method or walking. It’s entirely up to the person to decide how he wants to get where he is going, which is great.

@Alphast: I was toying with the idea of adding it, but then I decided it was not really fast travel. It was regular in-game travel just with a use of speed boosting feature such as a mount. It would be roughly equivalent to me using Boots of Blinding Speed in Morrowind. So I didn’t include it.

Also, most games do include this mode of transportation in addition to fast travel. Oblivion has horses, WoW has various mount options, Freelancer has the afterburners and etc.

@Jakob: Good idea. In fact a simple overlay on top of the map that you could toggle on and off would be fine. There is actually not that many travel routes in Vanderfell – if you have the rough outline of trade routes you can easily plot your travel yourself. Someone actually made this map by hand, it it was perfectly readable. I posted it here a while ago.

I think FarCry 2 does a bit of both (besides making the map a real physical map you hold in your hand (both ingame and IRL)), as there is 5 bus stops, north east/west south east/west and center.
That way you have to decide if it’s easier to steal a car and drive to your destination or hop in the bus and steal a car there. (Is it stealing if you shoot the driver of a car and then enters it? The moment the owner is dead, the car doesn’t belong to someone, right?)
And you can have the map out as you’re driving to see which route you need to follow to get to your destination.
The bus transportation is free btw and instant.