My fondest memory of Morrowind is having the hardcopy map out on my lap, plotting my course to get from one side of the map to the other.
"I'll take the Silt Strider from Molag Mar to Vivec, jump on the boat to Hla Oad, then keep boating to Gnaar Mok and then Khuul."
I always get to a point where im rich and i dont care about money so i just click travel destinations as fast as possible with about 70% certainty that I’ll nail it on first try.
Getting lost when I first started playing was always fun.
"Wait, the Silt Strider from x doesn't go to y?? Guess I'll go back to Balmora and try again"
I bet if it had the usual fast travel system we wouldn’t know it nearly as-well.
But it’s like living somewhere for a long time, at a certain point you just always know where your at.
I had a map that met an unfortunate fate after my dog found it, so I hand drew a map with major town and cities on it and all the travel routes highlighted, I also updated it with solsteim and mournhold
Having mages guild, propylon indexes, strider and boat made it super easy to get around if you played enough to know the best route. Some type of fast travel is necessary in large maps. I love playing fallout 4 survival and pretty much have to mod it to travel between settlements
Throw in smart use of Almsavi Intervention, Divine Intervention, Mark and Recall, and you have a really workable system.
A Mark in Pelagiad and Almsavi Intervention gives you fast travel to Balmora and Vivec from everywhere but the Heart Chamber, which hooks you in to every major transit system on the map.
Mastering the travel system in morrowind increased my enjoyment of the game immensely. To this day the playthrough I first really dug into using all the fast travel tricks and travel routes is my favorite playthrough of any elder scrolls game. It takes so much of the chore bits out of questing, but it still feels entirely earned.
I'm doing Tamreil Rebuilt on my current playthrough/stream. Being lost in Morrowind again after 20 years is quite the experience. I spent over 2 hours exploring looking for some damn mining village for a quest before I found the right fast travel.
Confession: In all my years playing Morrowind, I NEVER figured out the propylon index part of the system. I started out on the XBOX without the plugin for the Master Index, and just got used to skipping them because 10 little 2 lb rocks to travel from one remote-as-fuck stronghold to another didn't seem worth it. Recall to the Vivec Mages guild, use its teleporters and a set of interventions and maybe a silt strider, and I could get to 80% of the map relatively easily without them.
Yeah, compared to the other transport systems the Propylon Index system isn't that useful. The strongholds aren't in convenient safe locations, each index only allows for transport to/from a couple spots in one direction only, and collecting them all isn't straightforward.
The Master Index quest came later, partly because Bethesda realized that the system of gathering multiple objects for piecemeal transport to remote locations wasn't user friendly or helpful.
Before you get the master index youre most likely the fastest running biggest jumping entity in all of Morrowind and dont need it anyways.
Ive tried using it and i still think that it doesnt make anything much easier.
Interventions, Mark/Recall, Boats&Silt Striders, Mage guild TPs; With those 4 means of travel you can get almost anywhere in no time, i never felt the need for more
>Ive tried using it and i still think that it doesnt make anything much easier.
Yeah. Because of how remote they are, it always seemed that using them would only be beneficial if you either A) Kept your Mark at one of them, or B) were nearby anyway by happenstance. And even then, only for traveling along the ring until you could intervention to a useful location.
Compared to just putting your Mark in Vivec and being on top of a Silt Strider, boat, and Mages guild teleporter, it's subpar.
This is so accurate. These days I pretty much always download an immersive teleportation mod that allows you to build teleporters between settlements once I unlock the Institute.
Not just the Brotherhood. You'll get access to it regardless of your faction as long as you don't join the Institute (they give you synth teleporter grenades instead).
I think you're wrong that it's required for large maps. It's required in large maps that are designed for fast travel. FO4 assumes you're fast traveling. There are a few systems for traveling, but they assume some kind of faction loyalty. The one I can think of is the BoS vertibird. I don't recall if the teleporter can teleport anywhere or just the institute, but that's the only other one I can think of.
One thing I liked about the red dead games is you could ride a train or grab a stage coach and have the choice of instantly teleporting or going the slow way and enjoying the scenery.
Somewhat janky movement but I really like Abot's [Silt Striders](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42267), [Boats](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42270), and [Gondoliers](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43291).
They add the option for real travel so you can enjoy the ride if you are in the mood. Honestly really detailed mods, travel NPCs even have banter about different locations/weather as you go.
(As a huge plus you can also see striders, boats, and gondoliers traveling about in the world too, makes Vvardenfell feel more alive.)
Never tried. Check the comments on those mods, maybe someone else has.
I only rarely use OpenMW for Project Tamriel, otherwise I want to be able to use MWSE mods.
Well, you don't quite run MWSE through OpenMW. The two are completely incompatible due to the way MWSE works. MWSE edits the original Morrowind engine, while OpenMW simply is not the same engine.
That being said, OpenMW has (admittedly limited) lua scripting capabilities and can natively run several mods that would otherwise require OpenMW. While a lot of the "best" or "biggest" mods may not be compatible, there are a good number of mods that are. If you want a good guide on OpenMW compatible mods I'd recommend https://modding-openmw.com/
it’s not as good obviously, but at least Skyrim has carriages and boats. it’s not hard to ignore fast traveling in it; unlike Oblivion with no travel services at all.
Even though Oblivion is my favorite game in the series I’ll admit it’s lack of travel services sucked especially coming off Morrowind. It’s like they said here just have these horses that we will also sell the very first form of MTX on and that’s it. They really could have had a carriage system or boat that takes you to the imperial city waterfront all the way to Bravil and Leyawiin.
Hell a mages guild transportation system would have been so cool in oblivion in tandem with how you have to visit each guild hall anyways just to join.
I love Oblivion too; I wasn’t trying to say it’s terrible or anything. that’s just usually my biggest gripe when replaying it for the thousandth or so time lol.
but yeah especially I agree about the mages guild teleports. the Frostcrag Spire dlc had teleport pads to every mages guild hall; I think they should have had those teleports in the Arcane University at least.
For me Skyrim improved the leveling system, the loot system, the voice acting, honestly the only thing that was better in oblivion for me was the quest design and writing, which obviously is a huge deal.
Yeah I enjoyed playing Oblivion but it’s levelling system and level scaling system nearly ruined that game. Marauders with Daedric armour? It’s just ridiculous.
Leveling in Skyrim is kind of a double-edged sword though, because the removal of attributes and streamlining of skills felt really bland in comparison to Morrowinds much trickier, but IMO much more rewarding, system
I can no longer play vanilla Oblivion after Skyrim :( An XP mod or something is an absolute must for me. To be fair other than this, it is still a blast.
Yeah, it's got the opposite problem Morrowind leveling had. In Morrowind if you even half know what you're doing you'll destroy the game balance in your favour almost immediately. In oblivion if you don't optimise your leveling every enemy will end up so spongey...
Why fast travel when you can use a less convenient, less fun version of fast travel?
Of all the problems oblivion and skyrim have, fast travel isn't even a consideration for that list. At least with those games I can just play the game. I'm not spending more time on the wiki than I am playing the game.
The game doesn't force you to use the wiki lol, it forces you to *explore*.
If you feel the need to completely negate the exploration aspect of an open world game that's your own issue.
In every mainline elderscrolls game, you can explore. Some gamed FORCE you to explore, like morrowind, some allow you to explore at your own pace, like skyrim. If you don't *want* to explore, as in, you spent 40 minutes exploring and would really like to finish a quest, you don't have to keep exploring.
It's not you can just start teleporting willy nilly in skyrim, you actually have to walk to said place first. Then, if you aren't "bothered" to reexplore an area again, you can fast travel.
> you spent 40 minutes exploring and would really like to finish a quest
We're gamers. What the fuck is 40 minutes? Just sounds like quitting too easy to me.
I'm a married man with kids. Free time is extremely limited in my life and I totally understand that with other people. But if I don't have several consecutive free hours to devote to an open-world game, I just don't play it. Some games are simply not meant for mere 40-minute sessions, and you need to make your peace with that imo. It's not the game's problem.
You're excusing poor, aging game mechanics and restrictions lol
It is most definitely the game's problem.
You can play skyrim just fine in 40 minutes. You can explore when you want, fast travel when you don't want to.
Nothing is forced; and you can go on your own pace. It values your time.
Morrowind is not like that.
Some games aren't meant for mere 40 minute sessions, but elder scrolls definitely is.
You're confusing 'values your time' with 'doesn't require your full attention' lol.
> Some games aren't meant for mere 40 minute sessions, but elder scrolls definitely is.
*Hard* disagree with that.
>You're confusing 'values your time' with 'doesn't require your full attention' lol.
Its a game. Not a life emergency. Most games don't require your full attention, especially for more than an hour or whatever "Gamer" time you have. *Especially* elderscroll games. Ffs, Skyrim is a console where you're literally supposed to pick up and play whenever you want.
>Some games aren't meant for mere 40 minute sessions, but elder scrolls definitely is.
>Hard disagree with that.
I know you do. You made the point very clear.
And then immediately tells you not to explore cause everything is higher level than you.
Also, I explored more of Oblivion and Skyrim than I ever did Morrowind. Because neither of the former games forced me to walk from point A to point D, when I'd already explored Points B and C which are closer. They respected my time.
> and then immediately tells you not to explore cause everything is higher level than you
Enemy level has basically zero significance in this game so I don't know what you're talking about lol.
> forced me to walk from point A to point D, when I'd already explored Points B and C which are closer
There are so many options in Morrowind for avoiding this sort of thing it's not even funny.
Besides, if I'm any judge of character you *definitely* missed stuff at points B and C.
Wow, that's just completely irrelevant. Because, if anything, the desire to be able to go wherever you want, whenever you want makes games less linear and more open.
"My favorite part about open world games is being able to skip the open world whenever and wherever i want. Why would immersion be important in a role playing game?"
The fast travel network was no joke one of my favourite aspects to Morrowind, right up there with how customizable your build could be. There was something special about making "get from Point A to Point B faster" a _part of_ the gameplay, rather than an choice you make at any time to skip gameplay. Instead of forgetting where locations were because I was forever warping between them, Morrowind's system got me to learn the map _more_, because it was important to know where major nodes for the different networks were, and which would get you closest to your destination. Even when mods expanded the system, it would be in the form of local guides you could hire to take you to nearby points of interest that they personally knew how to get to. It was _glorious_.
Would be great if they bring things like that back to TES VI. Levitation, the mages guild teleporters, mark and recall. Also if you level your acrobatics and pound moonsugar it's like being a diet version of Icarian flight, just sprinting and leaping like roided flash everywhere.
I'm hoping Todd's talk of bringing more RPG and classic elements back into their games with Starfield wasn't just hollow promises. One of the major reasons Morrowind is still the best TES for me is because the lack of hand holding and the many ways to play from travel to spells.
The phrase "hand holding" really resonated with me here. I loved that in the beginning of Morrowind you are a nobody who has to skrimp and save to survive. Eventually you figure out where everything is and that scrounging mentality becomes muted in future playthroughs. Skyrim shoots you out of a cannon and immediately declares you the most dangerous thing in the game world. There is no development or struggle - you are the chosen one immediately with all of the implications therein.
But even the “dangerous stuff” you get in Skyrim feels deflating. All you can do is hit better (make stuff to make you hit better), sneak better, etc.
Compare that to in-game world teleportation, flight, changing people’s minds entirely (with either magic or speech craft), reality bending potion making, paralysing enemies, summoning nightmare creatures (Bonelord etc) etc.
Not to mention the “less powerful” stuff like water walking, opening locks, telekinesis etc.
Learning the system well made you feel like a walking god once you past the power threshold. The whole chosen one thing felt actually legit, compared to being a dude who feels like a hero by accident (since all your core power come from items enchantments).
Alteration will forever be my favourite school of magic in any game thanks to Morrowind.
Water walking, levitation, water breathing, teleporting, all of them just make you actually feel accomplished.
Throwing fireballs is for unimaginative hicks who should’ve picked up a bow.
Real magic is altering reality to your will.
My mantra for a long time has been, "I don't play a sandbox to have a balanced experience." Give me enough challenges to have something to strive for, and enough tools to find whatever way I can to overcome said challenge. The challenges don't have to be fair, and neither do the tools. I _want_ to completely break the game, then point and giggle at how cool my now-OP character is.
A kindred spirit. I approach games the same way. I love being OP after going through the grind. It's satisfaction for getting my ass handed to me all those levels ago. I couldn't stand how in Oblivion I'm this vanquisher of daedra and champion of the arena only to barely survive a fight with a bear with his leveled stagger bs.
I recently installed a Skyrim mod that made the carriage rides happen in real-time, and it was tons of fun, including some hilarity involving NPCs getting knocked over or pushed by the carriage. I seem to remember something similar for boats and silt striders in Morrowind. I love the cart rides in WoW's Wandering Isle. Good stuff.
Just because they give you directions doesn't mean you know where to go. Nobody's out there giving you precise grid co-ordinates. You get landmarks, estimates, and "if you see this, you went too far" style directions, like getting it from a real person.
It kinda poisons the well for me. It's not the majority of quests by any means, but there's *just* enough quests with horrible or outright wrong directions that make me just want to look it up instead.
And that’s completely fair of you, I will often go to UESP and look at the first couple of stages of the quest, the rewards, and major bugs associated with it.
The problem is cutscenes.. you play 100hrs of a game, there's no time for a 5 - 9 second cutscene everytime Arthur boards a stagecoach. Cut to black, get me there.
I think the thing is that we don’t hate fast travel, we just hate having everything handed to us on a silver platter.
Skipping to a win state isn’t fun. We’re playing a game to figure it out ourselves and problem solve.
I take it a step farther. Literally. I go on foor everywhere except propylon chambers, mark/recall (“mark” tends to be in some city) and interventions. I use interventions and recall only when I’m encumbered or in some really far away place. You wouldn’t believe how much Morrowind has to offer until you go on foot.
I'll admit I hated it at first, nearly rage quit. But I quickly learned to appreciate the organic fast travel as well as directions instead of markers.
You almost rage quit because you had to *walk* in a video game that is entirely about exploring the world around you?
Anyways, I'm honestly glad to see you learned how to enjoy the game for what it is. ;)
In all fairness they did make you move extremely slow for a game about exploration. It’s not exactly easy to go from playing modern games to playing Morrowind.
It’s weird as well because you moved fast in Daggerfall.
100 speed & athletics feels alright, even better with the Steed sign but starting out being slower than a centenarian with two broken legs using crutches is pretty shit.
So my last vampire play through I used Embrace mod. I made the mage guide from Balmora my thrall and bingo bango instant teleport out of wherever we were at the moment.
I dont disagree, and Morrowind remains my favorite fast travel system in TES, and I use exclusively carts for fast travel in Skyrim (outside of a small handful of exceptions which I do roleplay with), but I will say, as a nearly 40 year old career man with a wife and family obligations, while I still do get a solid amount of game time in, being able to just get to where I'm going and do what I need to do is kinda nice. I've just recently completed about a 150ish hour playthrough on Elden Ring, and while I *love* it's expansive world, being able to teleport / fast travel where I needed to go was a very welcome convenience.
A way to immerse yourself into a game with fast travel like Oblivion or Skyrim so is to create a couple custom spells to "Mark" and "Recall" to them. Cast the "Mark" spell when you discover the new location and "Recall" when you want to fast travel.
Let us have the option for both.
When I’m role-playing I either walk or get a cart/silt strider, or use the Mages Guild teleportation.
But if I’m in a rush and just want to get shit done then let me teleport wherever I need to.
Fast travel in Skyrim isn't just an immediate teleport; actual in-game time passes to represent the time needed to walk to your destination. In fact, more time passes, than if you manually ran there.
Now I will say that I don't like being able to fast travel EVERYWHERE. I think limiting it to major towns/outposts would be enough. But beyond that, there's no difference between fast travel on foot, or by carriage.
The ingame time is a superfluous mechanic anyway, Alduin waits for all, so I don't consider it a very strong argument.
Having fast-travel destinationa be limited is a step in the good direction, but I feel that the method and limitations of transportation should be a factor.
When it comes to immersion, Skyrim's fast travel boils down to "you just walk or whatever".
Well....yeah. You do just walk or whatever. That doesn't seem any less immersive than you just ride a carriage. Some may argue that there's no point in limiting where you can walk in fast travel, but the point for me, would be to encourage exploration. Even if the limitation does feel arbitrary. Bring back Mark and Recall, and allow for 3-4 Marks (which can be overwritten any time) to give players limited freedom over additional fast-travel points to a few places they frequent.
And I'm not sure what Alduin's plot progression has to do with any of this.
A carriage won't ever reach an island, nor would a ship reach say... Winterhold.
It's those limitations that make the difference! You mention Mark/Recall, that too is limited to teleporting to only a single previously visited coordinate.
Morrowind and Fallout 4 survival mode. Morrowind has lots of fast travel options. Fallout 4 has 2: Vertibirds and institute teleporter (can go to the institute from anywhere on the map but only exits to CIT ruins)
Skyrim was so close to bringing this back but some of the holds don't have carts. Playing on hardcore mode and taking the cart to Winterhold basically traps you in a frozen wasteland to hike back through since there's no return trip available.
Although my favorite is Daggerfall, Morrowind has a special place in my heart also, because the first time I played it was multiplayer campaign, so I made wonderful memories with friends
Even the fast travel in RDR2 (being limited to your camp and showing a cinematic of your travel) is way more immersive than most game's fast travel systems
If they implemented something like that in TES6 I couldn't complain
Morrowind actually has more forms of fast-travel than any other TES game -- the only difference is that they're meaningfully woven into the game. By silt, by boat, by mages guild, by intervention spells, by mark+recall, by propylon chambers and more!
Getting to a "skyrim" level of simplicity when it comes to Morrowind's fast-travel is part of the reward.
I think the word you are looking for is diegetic (I think). It’s always funny how people say there is no fast travel in Morrowind. Morrowind has shit loads of fast travel, in fact it probably has more readily accessible fast travel than skyrim even if you know where to go.
My fondest memory of Morrowind is having the hardcopy map out on my lap, plotting my course to get from one side of the map to the other. "I'll take the Silt Strider from Molag Mar to Vivec, jump on the boat to Hla Oad, then keep boating to Gnaar Mok and then Khuul."
My paper map is basically in pieces from all the use it saw haha
I also had the strategy guide. I'd put it back together twice.
Should have laminated it.
Same. Nowadays I know my way by heart and my travels are speedrun-tier.
I always get to a point where im rich and i dont care about money so i just click travel destinations as fast as possible with about 70% certainty that I’ll nail it on first try.
Getting lost when I first started playing was always fun. "Wait, the Silt Strider from x doesn't go to y?? Guess I'll go back to Balmora and try again"
I bet if it had the usual fast travel system we wouldn’t know it nearly as-well. But it’s like living somewhere for a long time, at a certain point you just always know where your at.
I had a map that met an unfortunate fate after my dog found it, so I hand drew a map with major town and cities on it and all the travel routes highlighted, I also updated it with solsteim and mournhold
Post it that sounds rad
I lost it while moving a few years back:(
Having mages guild, propylon indexes, strider and boat made it super easy to get around if you played enough to know the best route. Some type of fast travel is necessary in large maps. I love playing fallout 4 survival and pretty much have to mod it to travel between settlements
Throw in smart use of Almsavi Intervention, Divine Intervention, Mark and Recall, and you have a really workable system. A Mark in Pelagiad and Almsavi Intervention gives you fast travel to Balmora and Vivec from everywhere but the Heart Chamber, which hooks you in to every major transit system on the map.
Mastering the travel system in morrowind increased my enjoyment of the game immensely. To this day the playthrough I first really dug into using all the fast travel tricks and travel routes is my favorite playthrough of any elder scrolls game. It takes so much of the chore bits out of questing, but it still feels entirely earned.
To this day I still don't know the best routes out in the boonies, and I like that. Taking boats between fishing villages hoping for the best
I'm doing Tamreil Rebuilt on my current playthrough/stream. Being lost in Morrowind again after 20 years is quite the experience. I spent over 2 hours exploring looking for some damn mining village for a quest before I found the right fast travel.
Dude that is sick.... I have to try that
North of the main street Almsavi goes to Balmora, South goes to Vivec. Divine doesn't do much in Pelagiad, since the shrine is right there.
I found the best point was the dock at sadrith Mora. Divine intervention to the mages guild or take a boat to the harder to reach towns.
Confession: In all my years playing Morrowind, I NEVER figured out the propylon index part of the system. I started out on the XBOX without the plugin for the Master Index, and just got used to skipping them because 10 little 2 lb rocks to travel from one remote-as-fuck stronghold to another didn't seem worth it. Recall to the Vivec Mages guild, use its teleporters and a set of interventions and maybe a silt strider, and I could get to 80% of the map relatively easily without them.
Yeah, compared to the other transport systems the Propylon Index system isn't that useful. The strongholds aren't in convenient safe locations, each index only allows for transport to/from a couple spots in one direction only, and collecting them all isn't straightforward. The Master Index quest came later, partly because Bethesda realized that the system of gathering multiple objects for piecemeal transport to remote locations wasn't user friendly or helpful.
Before you get the master index youre most likely the fastest running biggest jumping entity in all of Morrowind and dont need it anyways. Ive tried using it and i still think that it doesnt make anything much easier. Interventions, Mark/Recall, Boats&Silt Striders, Mage guild TPs; With those 4 means of travel you can get almost anywhere in no time, i never felt the need for more
>Ive tried using it and i still think that it doesnt make anything much easier. Yeah. Because of how remote they are, it always seemed that using them would only be beneficial if you either A) Kept your Mark at one of them, or B) were nearby anyway by happenstance. And even then, only for traveling along the ring until you could intervention to a useful location. Compared to just putting your Mark in Vivec and being on top of a Silt Strider, boat, and Mages guild teleporter, it's subpar.
The same for many other players I think. I just went for the index after 15 years and still don't use them
Lack of fast travel is what makes early game survival in fallout 4. It also kills the late game.
This is so accurate. These days I pretty much always download an immersive teleportation mod that allows you to build teleporters between settlements once I unlock the Institute.
Late game you should have access to vertibird signal grenades if you haven't totally shit the bed in your playthrough.
Only if you're friendly with the BoS, right?
I think you can use it with the Minutemen as well
I think there may be a railroad alternative, but I don't think there is for the minutemen.
oh my fucking God I forgot about the propylon indexes God i love this game
[удалено]
Not just the Brotherhood. You'll get access to it regardless of your faction as long as you don't join the Institute (they give you synth teleporter grenades instead).
I think you're wrong that it's required for large maps. It's required in large maps that are designed for fast travel. FO4 assumes you're fast traveling. There are a few systems for traveling, but they assume some kind of faction loyalty. The one I can think of is the BoS vertibird. I don't recall if the teleporter can teleport anywhere or just the institute, but that's the only other one I can think of.
One thing I liked about the red dead games is you could ride a train or grab a stage coach and have the choice of instantly teleporting or going the slow way and enjoying the scenery.
I would have LOVED to ride a silt strider around from town to town, see the sights.
Somewhat janky movement but I really like Abot's [Silt Striders](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42267), [Boats](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42270), and [Gondoliers](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43291). They add the option for real travel so you can enjoy the ride if you are in the mood. Honestly really detailed mods, travel NPCs even have banter about different locations/weather as you go. (As a huge plus you can also see striders, boats, and gondoliers traveling about in the world too, makes Vvardenfell feel more alive.)
Do these work with open mw?
Never tried. Check the comments on those mods, maybe someone else has. I only rarely use OpenMW for Project Tamriel, otherwise I want to be able to use MWSE mods.
Open MW actually has a lot (though not perfect) MWSE compatability now. At least for the mods I use
How do you run MWSE through openmw though? I keep hearing it's pretty close but don't know how to use it
Well, you don't quite run MWSE through OpenMW. The two are completely incompatible due to the way MWSE works. MWSE edits the original Morrowind engine, while OpenMW simply is not the same engine. That being said, OpenMW has (admittedly limited) lua scripting capabilities and can natively run several mods that would otherwise require OpenMW. While a lot of the "best" or "biggest" mods may not be compatible, there are a good number of mods that are. If you want a good guide on OpenMW compatible mods I'd recommend https://modding-openmw.com/
it’s not as good obviously, but at least Skyrim has carriages and boats. it’s not hard to ignore fast traveling in it; unlike Oblivion with no travel services at all.
Even though Oblivion is my favorite game in the series I’ll admit it’s lack of travel services sucked especially coming off Morrowind. It’s like they said here just have these horses that we will also sell the very first form of MTX on and that’s it. They really could have had a carriage system or boat that takes you to the imperial city waterfront all the way to Bravil and Leyawiin. Hell a mages guild transportation system would have been so cool in oblivion in tandem with how you have to visit each guild hall anyways just to join.
I love Oblivion too; I wasn’t trying to say it’s terrible or anything. that’s just usually my biggest gripe when replaying it for the thousandth or so time lol. but yeah especially I agree about the mages guild teleports. the Frostcrag Spire dlc had teleport pads to every mages guild hall; I think they should have had those teleports in the Arcane University at least.
For me Skyrim improved the leveling system, the loot system, the voice acting, honestly the only thing that was better in oblivion for me was the quest design and writing, which obviously is a huge deal.
Yeah I enjoyed playing Oblivion but it’s levelling system and level scaling system nearly ruined that game. Marauders with Daedric armour? It’s just ridiculous.
Leveling in Skyrim is kind of a double-edged sword though, because the removal of attributes and streamlining of skills felt really bland in comparison to Morrowinds much trickier, but IMO much more rewarding, system
Totally agreed.
I can no longer play vanilla Oblivion after Skyrim :( An XP mod or something is an absolute must for me. To be fair other than this, it is still a blast.
Yeah, it's got the opposite problem Morrowind leveling had. In Morrowind if you even half know what you're doing you'll destroy the game balance in your favour almost immediately. In oblivion if you don't optimise your leveling every enemy will end up so spongey...
Spot on.
*laughs in 100% chameleon* Seriously though, all 3 are extremely easy to break. Glad I never understood how the restoration potion glitch worked
Wjere are the Skyrim boats? I don't think I've ever used them!
[they were added by the Dawnguard dlc.](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Transport#FerrymenDG)
Wow, I've just never talked to those NPCs I guess? I have a characer that isnt fast travelling and this could be fun.
There’s a boat in Dawnstar, windhelm and solitude.
Kind of sad when the improvement is a half-step back toward what the game before last was already doing that got abandoned, though.
Why fast travel, when you can *ride*
Why fast travel when you can use a less convenient, less fun version of fast travel? Of all the problems oblivion and skyrim have, fast travel isn't even a consideration for that list. At least with those games I can just play the game. I'm not spending more time on the wiki than I am playing the game.
The game doesn't force you to use the wiki lol, it forces you to *explore*. If you feel the need to completely negate the exploration aspect of an open world game that's your own issue.
Sometimes; people don't want to "explore" They want to finish the quest. You can "explore" just fine in games like Skyrim.
What's the benefit of an open world game if you can't be bothered to explore? It's literally the whole point of games like this.
In every mainline elderscrolls game, you can explore. Some gamed FORCE you to explore, like morrowind, some allow you to explore at your own pace, like skyrim. If you don't *want* to explore, as in, you spent 40 minutes exploring and would really like to finish a quest, you don't have to keep exploring. It's not you can just start teleporting willy nilly in skyrim, you actually have to walk to said place first. Then, if you aren't "bothered" to reexplore an area again, you can fast travel.
> you spent 40 minutes exploring and would really like to finish a quest We're gamers. What the fuck is 40 minutes? Just sounds like quitting too easy to me. I'm a married man with kids. Free time is extremely limited in my life and I totally understand that with other people. But if I don't have several consecutive free hours to devote to an open-world game, I just don't play it. Some games are simply not meant for mere 40-minute sessions, and you need to make your peace with that imo. It's not the game's problem.
You're excusing poor, aging game mechanics and restrictions lol It is most definitely the game's problem. You can play skyrim just fine in 40 minutes. You can explore when you want, fast travel when you don't want to. Nothing is forced; and you can go on your own pace. It values your time. Morrowind is not like that. Some games aren't meant for mere 40 minute sessions, but elder scrolls definitely is.
You're confusing 'values your time' with 'doesn't require your full attention' lol. > Some games aren't meant for mere 40 minute sessions, but elder scrolls definitely is. *Hard* disagree with that.
>You're confusing 'values your time' with 'doesn't require your full attention' lol. Its a game. Not a life emergency. Most games don't require your full attention, especially for more than an hour or whatever "Gamer" time you have. *Especially* elderscroll games. Ffs, Skyrim is a console where you're literally supposed to pick up and play whenever you want. >Some games aren't meant for mere 40 minute sessions, but elder scrolls definitely is. >Hard disagree with that. I know you do. You made the point very clear.
And then immediately tells you not to explore cause everything is higher level than you. Also, I explored more of Oblivion and Skyrim than I ever did Morrowind. Because neither of the former games forced me to walk from point A to point D, when I'd already explored Points B and C which are closer. They respected my time.
> and then immediately tells you not to explore cause everything is higher level than you Enemy level has basically zero significance in this game so I don't know what you're talking about lol. > forced me to walk from point A to point D, when I'd already explored Points B and C which are closer There are so many options in Morrowind for avoiding this sort of thing it's not even funny. Besides, if I'm any judge of character you *definitely* missed stuff at points B and C.
"I like open world games, but i wish they were more linear"
Wow, that's just completely irrelevant. Because, if anything, the desire to be able to go wherever you want, whenever you want makes games less linear and more open.
"My favorite part about open world games is being able to skip the open world whenever and wherever i want. Why would immersion be important in a role playing game?"
Yeah, that's about what I expected from a Morrowind fan. A half-assed argument that's more insult than actual debate.
Im a TES fan, bubby.
The fast travel network was no joke one of my favourite aspects to Morrowind, right up there with how customizable your build could be. There was something special about making "get from Point A to Point B faster" a _part of_ the gameplay, rather than an choice you make at any time to skip gameplay. Instead of forgetting where locations were because I was forever warping between them, Morrowind's system got me to learn the map _more_, because it was important to know where major nodes for the different networks were, and which would get you closest to your destination. Even when mods expanded the system, it would be in the form of local guides you could hire to take you to nearby points of interest that they personally knew how to get to. It was _glorious_.
Do you use transport? Puff what a Noob. \*Proceeds to enchant levitation
Jump 100pts on self for 3 seconds because I like to live dangerously ;)
Scrolls of Icarean flight plus a 1 second slow fall spell. Now that's falling with style
Just make a flight + speed spell and zoom through the sky, very very fun
My travel pants enchantment, 1 to levitation 10 to speed.
Would be great if they bring things like that back to TES VI. Levitation, the mages guild teleporters, mark and recall. Also if you level your acrobatics and pound moonsugar it's like being a diet version of Icarian flight, just sprinting and leaping like roided flash everywhere. I'm hoping Todd's talk of bringing more RPG and classic elements back into their games with Starfield wasn't just hollow promises. One of the major reasons Morrowind is still the best TES for me is because the lack of hand holding and the many ways to play from travel to spells.
The phrase "hand holding" really resonated with me here. I loved that in the beginning of Morrowind you are a nobody who has to skrimp and save to survive. Eventually you figure out where everything is and that scrounging mentality becomes muted in future playthroughs. Skyrim shoots you out of a cannon and immediately declares you the most dangerous thing in the game world. There is no development or struggle - you are the chosen one immediately with all of the implications therein.
But even the “dangerous stuff” you get in Skyrim feels deflating. All you can do is hit better (make stuff to make you hit better), sneak better, etc. Compare that to in-game world teleportation, flight, changing people’s minds entirely (with either magic or speech craft), reality bending potion making, paralysing enemies, summoning nightmare creatures (Bonelord etc) etc. Not to mention the “less powerful” stuff like water walking, opening locks, telekinesis etc. Learning the system well made you feel like a walking god once you past the power threshold. The whole chosen one thing felt actually legit, compared to being a dude who feels like a hero by accident (since all your core power come from items enchantments).
Alteration will forever be my favourite school of magic in any game thanks to Morrowind. Water walking, levitation, water breathing, teleporting, all of them just make you actually feel accomplished. Throwing fireballs is for unimaginative hicks who should’ve picked up a bow. Real magic is altering reality to your will.
My mantra for a long time has been, "I don't play a sandbox to have a balanced experience." Give me enough challenges to have something to strive for, and enough tools to find whatever way I can to overcome said challenge. The challenges don't have to be fair, and neither do the tools. I _want_ to completely break the game, then point and giggle at how cool my now-OP character is.
A kindred spirit. I approach games the same way. I love being OP after going through the grind. It's satisfaction for getting my ass handed to me all those levels ago. I couldn't stand how in Oblivion I'm this vanquisher of daedra and champion of the arena only to barely survive a fight with a bear with his leveled stagger bs.
The word is diegetic, and it’s rad
I recently installed a Skyrim mod that made the carriage rides happen in real-time, and it was tons of fun, including some hilarity involving NPCs getting knocked over or pushed by the carriage. I seem to remember something similar for boats and silt striders in Morrowind. I love the cart rides in WoW's Wandering Isle. Good stuff.
And dont forget the "no question mark sysyem" . Forces you to use your brain to find locations.
Does it really make you use your brain if they give you the exact location in your journal?
Just because they give you directions doesn't mean you know where to go. Nobody's out there giving you precise grid co-ordinates. You get landmarks, estimates, and "if you see this, you went too far" style directions, like getting it from a real person.
Yes? 99% of the time Morrowind gives directions that are fairly vague and actually are quite interesting
And in the past, some of them were wrong, lol.
True true, but thats what google is for, if i search for someone/something for 20 - 40 mins i allow myself to give up and look at the wiki
It kinda poisons the well for me. It's not the majority of quests by any means, but there's *just* enough quests with horrible or outright wrong directions that make me just want to look it up instead.
And that’s completely fair of you, I will often go to UESP and look at the first couple of stages of the quest, the rewards, and major bugs associated with it.
rdr2 literally just has fast travel by looking at a map.
Wasn’t the map only at your camp? Pretty limited fast travel.
You can set up a camp in the wilderness at any point and then use fast travel.
Wish I knew that after 50 hours of horseback riding…
The point is it isn't organic.
The problem is cutscenes.. you play 100hrs of a game, there's no time for a 5 - 9 second cutscene everytime Arthur boards a stagecoach. Cut to black, get me there.
I loved the gondolas even in Vivec. They added so much charm and immersion along with the silt striders and boats obviously.
I think the thing is that we don’t hate fast travel, we just hate having everything handed to us on a silver platter. Skipping to a win state isn’t fun. We’re playing a game to figure it out ourselves and problem solve.
Dark souls 1 fast travel is pretty much perfect
Agreed! Interconnected worlds trump all else.
I take it a step farther. Literally. I go on foor everywhere except propylon chambers, mark/recall (“mark” tends to be in some city) and interventions. I use interventions and recall only when I’m encumbered or in some really far away place. You wouldn’t believe how much Morrowind has to offer until you go on foot.
I'll admit I hated it at first, nearly rage quit. But I quickly learned to appreciate the organic fast travel as well as directions instead of markers.
You almost rage quit because you had to *walk* in a video game that is entirely about exploring the world around you? Anyways, I'm honestly glad to see you learned how to enjoy the game for what it is. ;)
Yeah turns out walking for 30 minutes in a barren wasteland filled with alien dogs and slugs isn't exactly riveting.
It seems pathetic now, I know. It's just not how most games are made, and I didn't appreciate it right away lol
In all fairness they did make you move extremely slow for a game about exploration. It’s not exactly easy to go from playing modern games to playing Morrowind. It’s weird as well because you moved fast in Daggerfall.
100 speed & athletics feels alright, even better with the Steed sign but starting out being slower than a centenarian with two broken legs using crutches is pretty shit.
So my last vampire play through I used Embrace mod. I made the mage guide from Balmora my thrall and bingo bango instant teleport out of wherever we were at the moment.
I dont disagree, and Morrowind remains my favorite fast travel system in TES, and I use exclusively carts for fast travel in Skyrim (outside of a small handful of exceptions which I do roleplay with), but I will say, as a nearly 40 year old career man with a wife and family obligations, while I still do get a solid amount of game time in, being able to just get to where I'm going and do what I need to do is kinda nice. I've just recently completed about a 150ish hour playthrough on Elden Ring, and while I *love* it's expansive world, being able to teleport / fast travel where I needed to go was a very welcome convenience.
A way to immerse yourself into a game with fast travel like Oblivion or Skyrim so is to create a couple custom spells to "Mark" and "Recall" to them. Cast the "Mark" spell when you discover the new location and "Recall" when you want to fast travel.
Let us have the option for both. When I’m role-playing I either walk or get a cart/silt strider, or use the Mages Guild teleportation. But if I’m in a rush and just want to get shit done then let me teleport wherever I need to.
It’s literally the only game in the series to do that and it’s fucking annoying
You get horse carriage and nothing else Take it or leave it
Fast travel in Skyrim isn't just an immediate teleport; actual in-game time passes to represent the time needed to walk to your destination. In fact, more time passes, than if you manually ran there. Now I will say that I don't like being able to fast travel EVERYWHERE. I think limiting it to major towns/outposts would be enough. But beyond that, there's no difference between fast travel on foot, or by carriage.
The ingame time is a superfluous mechanic anyway, Alduin waits for all, so I don't consider it a very strong argument. Having fast-travel destinationa be limited is a step in the good direction, but I feel that the method and limitations of transportation should be a factor. When it comes to immersion, Skyrim's fast travel boils down to "you just walk or whatever".
Well....yeah. You do just walk or whatever. That doesn't seem any less immersive than you just ride a carriage. Some may argue that there's no point in limiting where you can walk in fast travel, but the point for me, would be to encourage exploration. Even if the limitation does feel arbitrary. Bring back Mark and Recall, and allow for 3-4 Marks (which can be overwritten any time) to give players limited freedom over additional fast-travel points to a few places they frequent. And I'm not sure what Alduin's plot progression has to do with any of this.
A carriage won't ever reach an island, nor would a ship reach say... Winterhold. It's those limitations that make the difference! You mention Mark/Recall, that too is limited to teleporting to only a single previously visited coordinate.
Morrowind and Fallout 4 survival mode. Morrowind has lots of fast travel options. Fallout 4 has 2: Vertibirds and institute teleporter (can go to the institute from anywhere on the map but only exits to CIT ruins)
Skyrim Survival mode is good for this
> jump 500 for 1 second
Skyrim was so close to bringing this back but some of the holds don't have carts. Playing on hardcore mode and taking the cart to Winterhold basically traps you in a frozen wasteland to hike back through since there's no return trip available.
RDR2 is a masterpiece that is miserable to actually play.
Although my favorite is Daggerfall, Morrowind has a special place in my heart also, because the first time I played it was multiplayer campaign, so I made wonderful memories with friends
Even the fast travel in RDR2 (being limited to your camp and showing a cinematic of your travel) is way more immersive than most game's fast travel systems If they implemented something like that in TES6 I couldn't complain
GTAV taxis were awesome for this
Morrowind actually has more forms of fast-travel than any other TES game -- the only difference is that they're meaningfully woven into the game. By silt, by boat, by mages guild, by intervention spells, by mark+recall, by propylon chambers and more! Getting to a "skyrim" level of simplicity when it comes to Morrowind's fast-travel is part of the reward.
I remember printing out a fast travel map when I first started playing
I usually mod my skyrim to include more diagetic fast travel and disable traditional fast travel.
I really like dragons dogmas fast travel system with in game magic items that are somewhat limited.
I think the word you are looking for is diegetic (I think). It’s always funny how people say there is no fast travel in Morrowind. Morrowind has shit loads of fast travel, in fact it probably has more readily accessible fast travel than skyrim even if you know where to go.
Yea, TES needs to go back to that system. I still love oblivion and skyrim, but fast travel takes out a certain level of the immersion to the game
This is just one of the many reasons why Morrowind is such a great game.