Travel in Tamriel: Do you use the wagons and boatswains on new characters to open up zones ?

Recent · January 2021

I get a kick out of being independant especially on my new baby alts and I love the travel system in Tamriel ....but...I would love a sign post at the entrance of each city that shows what places the boats or wagons travel to.

I have recently learned that you can get to reapers march via the boatswain in Devons watch and you can also travel to the rift from devons watch, stonefalls.
Ive been playing eso for yrs now but i imagine many new players feel they need to ask for ports cos they cant easily navigate the travel system. With proper sign posts showing players where you can travel to from that city or village, it would make travel more comprehensive.

I love the travel,system and its sad that it doesnt get utilised as often as it could be.

Wolfpaw · January 2021

Nope, I use the travel option through guild roster. It's a load screen either way.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · January 2021

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Nope, I use the travel option through guild roster. It's a load screen either way.

Ha! Same. First thing I do on a new alt is start porting to every major city until I am about level 5 or 6. But hey, props to those that do it the old fashioned way.

Scottfree2 · January 2021

I always use the ships or wagons if the char im on hasnt been to the zone i want to travel to.

got no time for guilds, and dont care for the 'ask for a teleport in zone chat' option either.

its not like it takes more than a coupla mins to find a travel option or work out a route.

Jaraal · January 2021

I use the Beam Me Up addon. I can select from a list of zones that my guildies and friends are in, click the icon, and port to (and discover) the wayshrine closest to their location. Once there, I click a button that will unlock all the wayshrines in the current zone that a friend or guildie are near. Sometimes it will unlock all of them, other times, just a few.... depending on how many are in the zone. But you can keep going back and retrying whenever you like.

MasterSpatula · January 2021

Absofragginlutely. The story of each of my characters is more important than anything else, and I know how wayshrines are supposed to work.

RunForTheHills · January 2021

I have been trying to buy cheap houses in most zones, but usually I use the travel to guild player first. I am only in two guilds, so it is not always an option.

Sylvermynx · January 2021

If you open the city maps, you can mouse over the boat and wagon icons, and it will tell you where they go.

I have a bunch of houses by this time, though I do use the Star-Gazer Herald in Wayrest to get to Craglorn on lower level characters - and until I bought houses and picked up some of the apartments, I just used the bo'suns and wagons, yes. That was all long before I discovered Beam Me Up, which I don't really use on lowbies, anyway.

Beardimus · January 2021

Majority of players I know don't even know these exist
I've used first pass, but now port to guildies

BenevolentBowd · January 2021

This guide is a bit out of date but it helps navigate the base zones very easily.
http://benevolentbowd.ca/games/esotu/esotu-getting-around-without-wayshrines/

RedMuse · January 2021

Unless I'm in an extreme hurry or it would take several hours of gameplay to unlock a place *stares aggressively at Coldharbor* the yes, I do us boat and wagons the first time. Or walks/rides. Heck even after I unlock the wayshrines I sometimes do, just because.

Nestor · January 2021

When I am in RP Mode, I use the boats and carts, or the Overland Options.

Also, I think they activate one Wayshrine in each zone now, but it has been a while since I have had that new a character. In the past, they would open a wayshrine when the story sent you to the next zone.

SeaGtGruff · January 2021

I use boats and wagons to get to new places if a character hasn't been there yet.

If I'm not sure which cities have a boat or wagon that goes to a zone I don't have easy access to yet, I'll open the map to that zone, look for cities with a dock or wagon, and see where they go, which also tells me where they come from.

If there's no direct route from a zone the character already has access to, I travel to an intermediate zone as needed.

If you're in a guild and someone is online in the zone you want to travel to, then yes, you can travel to them. But sometimes there's no one available in that zone, so it's good to know how to get there on your own-- plus, it can be more fun.

UntilValhalla13 · January 2021

There's still probably a lot of people that don't realize the silt striders in Vvardenfell do a similar function. It's way easier than riding around that map for all of the wayshrines.

Sylvermynx · January 2021

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

There's still probably a lot of people that don't realize the silt striders in Vvardenfell do a similar function. It's way easier than riding around that map for all of the wayshrines.

Eh, I played TES III so of course I know they do that. But I don't want to miss the countryside - whichever character I'm playing harvests the entire time s/he's running the roads....

phairdon · January 2021

Yes. Also use housing.

katanagirl1 · January 2021

Yes, I use boats and wagons and just riding to get all my toons (regardless of alliance) to Riften to park there for crafting daily writs.

I have never asked for another player to taxi me anywhere. I can’t actually believe people ask for others to do that. Some players even ask for a taxi within the zone now!

Of all the areas to get to in the game, the Rift seems to be one of the hardest to reach because you can’t go through Stonefalls if you haven’t completed the zone quests there, you have to take at least one boat, might have been two, then ride down from Windhelm in Eastmarch.

EDIT: clarification

SeaGtGruff · January 2021

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

There's still probably a lot of people that don't realize the silt striders in Vvardenfell do a similar function. It's way easier than riding around that map for all of the wayshrines.

Ah, yes, the achievement for using the silt striders to travel from every possible location to every other possible location! Of course, once you've earned the achievement and discovered all of the Vvardenfell wayshrines there's not much reason to use the silt striders any more, but they're definitely helpful for getting around that first time.

colossalvoids · January 2021

If I recall correctly it's in default interface that you can mouse over the ships/wagons on a map to see where they heading, or just talk to the boat masters for that matter. I personally use them when there is a new chapter/dlc comes to prolong the story a bit as it's too short 100% of times.

barney2525 · January 2021

On my main account, over time, I have bought houses with in game gold so that I have one in the majority of zones. My new characters have a place to port to if they have never been in a particular zone and there is no already open wayshrine.

zaria · January 2021

The boats are very nice to get to places like the starting zones.

Recent · January 2021

Sylvermynx wrote: »

If you open the city maps, you can mouse over the boat and wagon icons, and it will tell you where they go.

I have a bunch of houses by this time, though I do use the Star-Gazer Herald in Wayrest to get to Craglorn on lower level characters - and until I bought houses and picked up some of the apartments, I just used the bo'suns and wagons, yes. That was all long before I discovered Beam Me Up, which I don't really use on lowbies, anyway.

Oh thank you for that info i had no idea about the map icons showing you were the boats and wagons go...that is awesome 😊

Lysette · January 2021

I tend to let my characters explore a region starting from a house I'm owning there - I have none in Craglorn and Coldharbour, so I have to use friend/guild-mate travel to get there. But otherwise, I explore regions mainly on foot - the benefit of that is, that I very rarely have to look at the map - I have done it often enough to just know my way around those regions.

MaleAmazon · January 2021

Depends on what I want to do.

If I want to RP I like to go by quest / boat.

If it is a new alt or something, I guild roster teleport to Reapers March and park my behind by the traders and Semiral first chance I get for pure QoL purposes.

Lysette · January 2021

MaleAmazon wrote: »

Depends on what I want to do.

If I want to RP I like to go by quest / boat.

If it is a new alt or something, I guild roster teleport to Reapers March and park my behind by the traders and Semiral first chance I get for pure QoL purposes.

In the end you will have to walk or ride around anyway, to unlock way shrines - so why not do it all in one go at start - Grahtwood, Greenshade, Malabal Tor, Reaper's March - and pick up all the known sky shards on the way.

MaleAmazon · January 2021

In the end you will have to walk or ride around anyway, to unlock way shrines - so why not do it all in one go at start - Grahtwood, Greenshade, Malabal Tor, Reaper's March - and pick up all the known sky shards on the way.

What I like to do on an alt is just speedrun the MQ (takes like a day and I am alttabbed during the Prophet´s incessant yabbering), then solo vacuum the zones for the public dungeons (1 shard and 1 skillpoint for each). After that, I usually have enough points to kinda play what I want. Picking up all shards is so slow before maneuver and some daily pony upgrades...

I used to vacuum the shards as well while doing Psijic , but after I deleted my characters and started over, I cant be bothered to do all the fetch questing right now. I´ll just get it when I need to.

TBH I hate it that you can jump all over the place. I mean, it needs to be that way, but I dont really like the design.

The best time I ever had in TES was in Morrowind before I realised you could use divine intervention / ALMSIVI intervention scrolls. Having limited and realistic fast travel made journeys feel...

Like journeys.

wheresbes · January 2021

I agree with the OP, a sign would be nice, also because to reach certain destinations can be quite obscure even through dialogue (eg Betnikh).

Of course one can teleport through guild rooster, but if a new player hasn't joined a guild yet or for RP purposes, clearer directions on transportation would be great.

I also would like carriages to actually be touring carriages (that will never happen, I know) like in that Skyrim mod: it gave you motion sickness and killed all the wildlife in the path, but was such a realistic way to traverse the map!

Lysette · January 2021

MaleAmazon wrote: »

In the end you will have to walk or ride around anyway, to unlock way shrines - so why not do it all in one go at start - Grahtwood, Greenshade, Malabal Tor, Reaper's March - and pick up all the known sky shards on the way.

What I like to do on an alt is just speedrun the MQ (takes like a day and I am alttabbed during the Prophet´s incessant yabbering), then solo vacuum the zones for the public dungeons (1 shard and 1 skillpoint for each). After that, I usually have enough points to kinda play what I want. Picking up all shards is so slow before maneuver and some daily pony upgrades...

I used to vacuum the shards as well while doing Psijic , but after I deleted my characters and started over, I cant be bothered to do all the fetch questing right now. I´ll just get it when I need to.

TBH I hate it that you can jump all over the place. I mean, it needs to be that way, but I dont really like the design.

The best time I ever had in TES was in Morrowind before I realised you could use divine intervention / ALMSIVI intervention scrolls. Having limited and realistic fast travel made journeys feel...

Like journeys.

Yeah, Oblivion had a similar mechanism - mark and recall spells. I found out In TES:Oblivion, that fast travel takes away all the fun of owning a horse and riding around or just running at extreme speeds (thx to magic, enchantments and potions) and levelling up athletics at the same time. In TES:Morrowind I remember to have used levitation enchantments on rings combined with a mega jump - which launched me high up into the air and then I changed rings to levitate before crashing into the ground and convert it into a proper landing

bmnoble · January 2021

On my first character I did, after that once I joined a few guilds and got access to a lot of people I could travel to, to unlock wayshrines, I only very rarely used the boats, wagons and gates between zones when playing on alts.

SammyKhajit · January 2021

This one likes to use the silt strider system in Vardenfell. Would love to have an actual view of the silt striders in motion as well.

Ryath_Waylander · January 2021

It used to be a chore to get around before I joined a guild. I didn't know any better than advancing through the quests or hoofing it to get around. Once I joined a guild, I travelled to player mostly. Only on my last few alts I've started using boats and caravans and discovered, for the first time how useful the network is. I don't know if it's just because I recently started travelling that way but I've only just noticed alliance flags by some ports/caravans. I don't remember them being there.