(April 29, 2014 at 5:48 am)ManMachine Wrote: One thing I did notice is that when playing Morrowind I didn't notice the travel half as much as I did in Oblivion and Skyrim, where I got the feeling I was off to some far-flung corner of the world for no reason other than to provide an opportunity to marvel at the wonder that is Bethesda's digital world.
In Morrowind the journey always seemed necessary, the plot behind the story and how it was aligned to the various factions in the game had a certain authenticity. [...]
That's one factor I neglected to mention. In both Oblivion and Skyrim, once you had visited a map location, you can fast travel to it instantly. In Morrowind, fast travel was limited to certain fixed routes serviced by Silt Striders, ships, and the Mage's Guild. Beyond that - you had to find your own way on foot, the way was not always apparent, and some quests involved a significant amount of travel and searching. We didn't need any stinking map pointers.
That is, in my mind, not a defect. It left me to consider the ways in which I might provide for my own rapid transportation - and to that end, recalling the Scrolls of Icarian Flight found near Seyda Neen early in the game, I resolved to find a solution. In the end, a solution was found in Alchemy - it was possible - by taking advantage of some abusable game mechanics as I mentioned in an earlier post - to create Jump potions that would allow one to, well, jump nearly any horizontal distance. I can recall my first glimpse of the Ghostgate as I was *sailing over it* while jumping over a substantial portion of the island. So much more fun than flying, really.
It was even possible to land without being killed. Most of the time.
Sadly, abusing that particular game mechanic (stacking Fortify Intelligence potions to make super-potions) tended to break the game in other less fun ways, but I digress.
