———————————————
SPOILER INFO
Mild spoiler, disputably. This is a generic discussion of some means of moving around in Skyrim.
———————————————
Many improvements and perks in Skyrim are ridiculous. There is no real invisibility, only a watered-down version virtually useless for any practical purposes. There are perks to improve shop prices by laughable 5%. There are rings that, even more laughably, decrease the magicka cost of spells by 12%. The developers of the Skyrim game are not the only ones who are unbelievable pennypinchers – there are mods that make pathetically puny alterations to racial abilities and make it sound like it's something that actually matters.
Considering all that, what would you expect the game to offer in terms of moving around faster? When your level is high enough, you can choose a perk that increases your running speed by 10 percent? No, there is nothing like that. Fast movement is one thing the Skyrim game isn't stingy about. You can teleport from virtually everywhere to virtually anywhere with a couple of mouseclicks! It's called fast travel . Most incredibly, it's not even a master level spell for 200 points of magicka. It's something that everyone can do, even at level 1.
I know, in the strict sense of the word, it's not teleportation. Physically in the game, you are transported instantly, but in the imaginary reality you still walk, because the game time is moved forward while you fast-travel and that is reflected in your need for food, water and sleep (if you use a mod like iNeed ). However, fast travel is still a blatant cheat that enables you to avoid risks of getting lost, getting attacked and such. Apart from which, the passage of time is meaningless for the large majority of Skyrim players. Unless you are using certain realism mods, it doesn't matter if something takes 1 minute or 1 year game-time.
Fast travel reflects the mindset of an American tourist. He wants the romantics of dragons and swordfights, yet he can't be bothered to walk on his own two feet. What makes fast travel even more ludicrous is that there is a network of horse cart routes. You can travel from any hold capital to any hold capital by horse cart for almost free. Meaning, the fast travel users aren't just too lazy to walk from Markarth to Winterhold. They are too lazy to walk to the nearest hold capital!!
I'm speechless. I can't imagine what kind of a person would use fast travel. Even though the game allows it, it is a profoundly dishonest thing to do, comparable to killing your enemies with console commands instead of using your weapons.
Obviously, no one is obliged to use fast travel, but it just blows my mind that anyone could even come to the idea that such a superhuman ability as free instant teleportation ought to be a part of a game like Skyrim. Yet, one can see forum posts from people who apparently consider it normal to come from a dungeon quest, fast-travel to a city to sell stuff, then fast-travel to the next city because the merchants in the first city didn't have enough money, and so on. From some other forum posts, you can get the impression that some people consider it perfectly normal to live with a carryweight of 300 pounds. Apparently they store their stuff in chests in their playerhome, and then fast-travel back and forth across Skyrim when they need something from their storage. Well, that's precisely the kind of thing that is not supposed to be possible in a Skyrim-like world. Fast travel is the definition of immersion-breaking. After such earth-shattering nonsense as fast travel, it wouldn't surprise me to find a chest in some remote cave to contain an assault rifle or a cellphone.
Not only is fast travel a logical nonsense, it's also completely unnecessary. Skyrim wilderness is really cool, and traveling by foot enables you to find places and meet people. You will miss out so much when you play Skyrim as if it was X-COM. Me, I don't even want to ride a horse. And while we're at it, I don't travel by horse cart. I did it a few times, but then I quit because it felt like cheating. I mean, the fare is absurdly low. Nobody in his right mind would agree to transport a traveler from Riften to Solitud for 20 septims. The food the driver and the horse would have to eat during the journey would surely cost more than that, not to mention the risk of being robbed and things. And how come my followers can ride along with me for free? That's utter nonsense. (Actually, I think the authors of Skyrim created the line cart system merely as a rudimentary framework for the modders to develop properly. Which, unfortunately, no one seems to have done yet.)
The only sensible reason to travel by horse cart is when you gain a new level. Then you need to quickly find a trainer, because when you gain another level, you will lose 7 training points. However, there are mods that allow you to carry unused training points over to the next level. Thanks to that, I won't have to use the semi-cheat of horse cart travel ever again.
A medieval world like Skyrim is meant to be walked (or horse-ridden if you prefer). Those who use fast travel are not even wimps. They're babies.
[originally published 2016-11-13]
return to the table of contents
