Your opinion on "fast travelling" in open-world RPGs
- Thread starter LookingGlass
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I understand why people don't like it, and I half agree with them.
But that stance is utterly overwhelmed by the sheer practicality of a fast-travel system.
At the end of the day, fuck your open world. I have stuff to do and more engaging games to play. I don't really want to spend twenty minutes watching a guy on a screen trudge through a copy-pasted landscape.
But that stance is utterly overwhelmed by the sheer practicality of a fast-travel system.
At the end of the day, fuck your open world. I have stuff to do and more engaging games to play. I don't really want to spend twenty minutes watching a guy on a screen trudge through a copy-pasted landscape.
Depends on the environment. InFAMOUS 2's New Marais is dense, complex, and small. You travel by jumping from one roof to another or using grindwires and lightning tether. There's always new system generated content (kidnapping, bombs, mimes) to deal with on the way.
Fallout 3's is sprawling and comparatively empty. You walk, and walk, and walk. The only "new content" with each transit is random encounters with mole rats.
One game needs fast travel; the other doesn't. The designers got it right.
Fallout 3's is sprawling and comparatively empty. You walk, and walk, and walk. The only "new content" with each transit is random encounters with mole rats.
One game needs fast travel; the other doesn't. The designers got it right.
No, sometimes I don't have the time to walk. Sometimes I just want to do the quests because taking twenty minutes time to wander through areas I've already wandered through just isn't very fun.
I like fast travel, it works. You don't have to use it (and I normally don't) but if you're short on time, bored of walking or just the type who wants to do each quest rather than immerse into the game then it's there for you. If they force you to do it then it sucks. Having the option isn't the same.
I like fast travel, it works. You don't have to use it (and I normally don't) but if you're short on time, bored of walking or just the type who wants to do each quest rather than immerse into the game then it's there for you. If they force you to do it then it sucks. Having the option isn't the same.
If you think Fallout 3 would be a better game if it excluded the fast travel system, you're simply wrong. Not in that, "it's your opinion I disagree with", type of deal. Nope. You're just wrong. And I'm pretty sure you've been pointed out as to why that is - nobody's forcing you to use it. And if you think "you might", that's your own fucking problem, definitely has nothing to do with the game.
I could kinda forgive open-world games that have vehicles for the lack of a fast-travel system. Games where you walk? No. Never. Walking isn't fun. You might enjoy it for the thirty minutes you spend pretending to be Bear Grylls, but then you'll probably get tired of the same random encounters and holding down "w". Hell, you might use them toothpicks to keep it pressed.
Fast travel abolishes filler, makes experiences condensed, rich and not shit. Some people don't like aimlessly wandering around empty, copypasted worlds. I'm glad that developers are catching up to that fact.
I could kinda forgive open-world games that have vehicles for the lack of a fast-travel system. Games where you walk? No. Never. Walking isn't fun. You might enjoy it for the thirty minutes you spend pretending to be Bear Grylls, but then you'll probably get tired of the same random encounters and holding down "w". Hell, you might use them toothpicks to keep it pressed.
Fast travel abolishes filler, makes experiences condensed, rich and not shit. Some people don't like aimlessly wandering around empty, copypasted worlds. I'm glad that developers are catching up to that fact.
Partly your fault? Partly?
How about completely. If you think fast travel breaks your immersion of a game, don't use it. That's like saying we shouldn't have the temptation of a "casual" setting on a game because that would make it too easy. There is nothing, nothing, forcing you to use fast travel. In a game like Fallout, fast travel is essential for people like me. I don't just play a great sandbox game like Fallout 3 for twenty hours. I spend days in there. I want to be able to fast travel and avoid the parts of the game I don't like. I want to skip the metro tunnels on my third playthrough. I don't want to have to trudge back and forth to Rivet City every time I want to sell my stuff.
As a matter of fact, better Fast Travel would have done wonders in a game like Fallout NV. If they had included more Fast Travel points into the Strip, it would have been far less immersion breaking than the 3-6 load screens I had to endure depending on where in the Strip I wanted to go.
Don't get me wrong, I like to do some wandering in the wastes. But when I am done spending an hour exploring every nook and cranny in section A6 of the grid, I just might want to fast travel back to my home to drop off my loot. I'm pretty good with pretending like it took all night to get there. I don't need the extra fifteen minutes of walking time.
How about completely. If you think fast travel breaks your immersion of a game, don't use it. That's like saying we shouldn't have the temptation of a "casual" setting on a game because that would make it too easy. There is nothing, nothing, forcing you to use fast travel. In a game like Fallout, fast travel is essential for people like me. I don't just play a great sandbox game like Fallout 3 for twenty hours. I spend days in there. I want to be able to fast travel and avoid the parts of the game I don't like. I want to skip the metro tunnels on my third playthrough. I don't want to have to trudge back and forth to Rivet City every time I want to sell my stuff.
As a matter of fact, better Fast Travel would have done wonders in a game like Fallout NV. If they had included more Fast Travel points into the Strip, it would have been far less immersion breaking than the 3-6 load screens I had to endure depending on where in the Strip I wanted to go.
Don't get me wrong, I like to do some wandering in the wastes. But when I am done spending an hour exploring every nook and cranny in section A6 of the grid, I just might want to fast travel back to my home to drop off my loot. I'm pretty good with pretending like it took all night to get there. I don't need the extra fifteen minutes of walking time.
I generally don't use it unless it involves a quest going back and forth between two locations I have already travelled between before. I find it more enjoyable to ride around on a horse or use city travel, but If i'm getting annoyed by seeing the same landscape over and over, i'll skip it out.
People have time, spending an hour on travelling is not entertaining for many.LookingGlass said:
Also you have the option to not take fast travel.
I used fast travel loads but you still have to find the locations first, this made me find loads of locations.
I thought Morrowind's was my favourite, yes it is there. There are silt striders that take you to adjacent cities, boats which take you to towns with ports, mages who teleport you to another guild (often the cheapest). Then spells of divine and almsivi's intervention that take you to the nearest temple or shrine depending on your religious (or geographical) needs. Mark and recall you allow you to return to that one spot you'd just found but needed to go back home to dump loot or buy more potions.
If none of that worked there was still levitate, walk on water, icarian flight spells (with slow fall of course) and boots of blinding speed.
It requires you to be a little savvy but give far more immersion, my perfect version would be it with perhaps a home portal spell like Diablo.
If none of that worked there was still levitate, walk on water, icarian flight spells (with slow fall of course) and boots of blinding speed.
It requires you to be a little savvy but give far more immersion, my perfect version would be it with perhaps a home portal spell like Diablo.
Yeah, the fun of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for me is in the travelling, immersing myself in the atmosphere, thinking at any moment a bloodsucker could jump out of the shadows at me. Fast-travelling would defeat the whole point of the game for me.
But if it fits the game, then as long as the fast-travelling is implemented in a way that maintains immersion (i.e. it's not a "magic" warp point, but rather a mass transit system where you can buy a ticket to ride somewhere) then it's not a problem.
But if it fits the game, then as long as the fast-travelling is implemented in a way that maintains immersion (i.e. it's not a "magic" warp point, but rather a mass transit system where you can buy a ticket to ride somewhere) then it's not a problem.
oooh, I have been waiting for a thread like this!
I think fast travel is a bad design choice for epic RPGs. Fast travel discourages exploration and discovery, which are basically the backbone of modern western RPGs. Morrowind had a perfect design for this. Fast travel was restricted to certain major cities, and only then with a small fee and certain caveats. The fast travel was not just an instant warp feature, but rather an actual service within the game world that helped flesh out the mythos and provided atmosphere while also giving players a convenient option. The beauty of it was that it gave you access to a certain proximity and not an extremely exact coordinate on the map.
Compare this to New Vegas and Oblivion, where instant travel anywhere was possible with no in-game explanation. Sorry, but I don't buy that. It robs immersion from the player and also discourages some of the very things that make RPGs so appealing.
People may complain that a lack of fast travel makes a game tedious, but I think if you actually feel that way, it isn't because of a lack of fast travel but as a result of poor game design. I think oblivion and new vegas necessitated fast travel because of their overabundance of back-and-forth fetch quests and backtracking. I think if a game is developed correctly, a player can be guided through the game world without fast travel, minus the excessive backtracking.
I think fast travel is a bad design choice for epic RPGs. Fast travel discourages exploration and discovery, which are basically the backbone of modern western RPGs. Morrowind had a perfect design for this. Fast travel was restricted to certain major cities, and only then with a small fee and certain caveats. The fast travel was not just an instant warp feature, but rather an actual service within the game world that helped flesh out the mythos and provided atmosphere while also giving players a convenient option. The beauty of it was that it gave you access to a certain proximity and not an extremely exact coordinate on the map.
Compare this to New Vegas and Oblivion, where instant travel anywhere was possible with no in-game explanation. Sorry, but I don't buy that. It robs immersion from the player and also discourages some of the very things that make RPGs so appealing.
People may complain that a lack of fast travel makes a game tedious, but I think if you actually feel that way, it isn't because of a lack of fast travel but as a result of poor game design. I think oblivion and new vegas necessitated fast travel because of their overabundance of back-and-forth fetch quests and backtracking. I think if a game is developed correctly, a player can be guided through the game world without fast travel, minus the excessive backtracking.
Pretty much what I was gonna say.LawlessSquirrel said:
I've noticed with most RPG games though, that they make all these quests where you need to go back and forth over very long distances and this is why most people will want teleporting (and so do I). They either have to get rid of those kind of quests completely or make it an interesting challenge a long the way for the RPG to work without a fast traveling system. Unfortunately, this probably does require a lot more effort.
Wasn't a fan of fast travel in Oblivion. I'm aware that if you don't like it you don't have to use it but they don't put in an alternative method of transport and hiking your carcass all the way from one edge of the map to the other gets tedious. I don't think it would have been hard for them to add a cart which would go from each town with the option to stop at inns along the way; something similar to the system in Morrowind or WoW.
I think Gothic 3 (I don't remember much of Gothic 2 and I've not played the original) got it half right. The people from each town wanted you to do stuff for them locally so you didn't have to run back and forth across the massive worldmap doing tasks for them.
I think Gothic 3 (I don't remember much of Gothic 2 and I've not played the original) got it half right. The people from each town wanted you to do stuff for them locally so you didn't have to run back and forth across the massive worldmap doing tasks for them.
I personally have always felt that Runescape did fast travelling the best. Once you have a proper character, you can fast travel pretty much anywhere you like... But you need to use a variety of methods, sometimes linking several methods together. From regular magic (and two other spell books that offered different teleports) to enchanted items or jewelery, to canoes, hot-air balloons, fairy rings, gnome gliders... the list was endless and had to be unlocked in many different ways depending on the area.
You still have a massive world, still have fast travel, but every method is different depending on what makes sense for that area. Immersion + fast travel = victory (plus a smug feeling when you find a slightly faster way of getting to an out of the way area).
You still have a massive world, still have fast travel, but every method is different depending on what makes sense for that area. Immersion + fast travel = victory (plus a smug feeling when you find a slightly faster way of getting to an out of the way area).
maybe unlock fast travel once a certain amount of miles have been covered by the player, therefore the player has most likely searched as much as they're going to and is now just working through missions.
i personally didnt use fast travel on fall out until i completed most the games and had a few main quests left
i personally didnt use fast travel on fall out until i completed most the games and had a few main quests left
First, you don't HAVE to use this function. I never do on fallout New Vegas. I prefer to walk everywhere (excluding missions where it's just going back and forth large distances.)
Second, you have to discover the place first, am I right? So Yeah, the fast travel may take stuff away from the experience, but with the first point in mind, you have to actually explore to discover the fast travel point anyway, so you are always going to see a lot of the world by this means anyway.
Third, Fast travel is useful for the less hardcore player that wan't action instead of trudging through a wasteland for hours. I know I did when I got oblivion. I wasn't even aware that fast travel existed, and was over the moon when I realized it did. Because I found myself getting really, really bored. Thus, I didn't really want to play anymore- The fast travel saved me of that, it meant I could zip from action scene to action scene if I wanted, and explore if I wanted.
Second, you have to discover the place first, am I right? So Yeah, the fast travel may take stuff away from the experience, but with the first point in mind, you have to actually explore to discover the fast travel point anyway, so you are always going to see a lot of the world by this means anyway.
Third, Fast travel is useful for the less hardcore player that wan't action instead of trudging through a wasteland for hours. I know I did when I got oblivion. I wasn't even aware that fast travel existed, and was over the moon when I realized it did. Because I found myself getting really, really bored. Thus, I didn't really want to play anymore- The fast travel saved me of that, it meant I could zip from action scene to action scene if I wanted, and explore if I wanted.
I think fast travel is fantastic. My favourite models, though, are the Ocarina of Time and Fallout 3 models. You have to have been there before and there are bonuses if you choose to walk. With the growing 'need' for larger worlds, thus with much more empty space, either fast travel or a fast way of getting around are necessary to maintain interest, and a Flash-like horse would ruin the mood.
Oh, and making time pass isn't necessarily too bad either.
Oh, and making time pass isn't necessarily too bad either.
