I think the skyrim map is a case of trying way to hard. They tried to make something great and awe inspiring and in the process removed the point of having a map. The only use for it anymore is fast travel and placing markers. They just tried to hard that's all.

Thanks, but, yeah, I knew how the markers worked. Trouble is, visiting any area that does NOT have location leaves the map looking the same as it did before. There's no way to tell if you traveled through some land and found nothing or if you haven't been through there yet.

The Two Worlds maps work great for exploring open worlds. I wish Bethesda had chosen something like that over this Googly Tamriel nonsense.

Yes. Skyrim's map is almost worthless.

The 3D map has helped me navigate immensely. Much more than a flat, Oblivion style map would in this environment.

I think ALL of these things work better than they did in previous installments.

Disagree with these. The UI in particular. The Skyrim UI might be one of my favorite UI's in any game. To me, it's not only aesthetically pleasing, but I think it's incredibly user friendly and easy to use as well.



Yes and no. Oblivion has more effects, but I think that's the only thing better.



Yes and no. I think the overall questlines are better in Oblivion, but I think on a quest by quest basis, the individual quests are better in Skyrim.



On the whole, I might agree with you here. I've only played one faction in Skyrim (College of Winterhold), and individually, I enjoyed the quests in Skyrim much more than Oblivion. But Oblivion had a deeper Mage's Guild questline that was much more involved, so when judging the entire questline, I give it to Oblivion.






These I agree with.



I don't know if I agree with this. I think I may like the Oblivion main quest better. At least in terms of story. But they are close.



Yes, agreed. Oblivion didn't have much in the way of political conflict. I think Skyrim's political backdrop trumps even Morrowind's.



I don't know if I really have a preference here.



There's really not much I prefer from Oblivion over Skyrim. Probably the only thing I can think of is some missing spell effects that Oblivion has that Skyrim doesn't, and the overall storyline of Oblivion I think might be slightly better than Skyrim, but not significantly so.

And that's not a demonisation of Oblivion. I absolutely love Oblivion.

Also - I'm not picking. I just felt like responding to those points, not necessarily to get on you about your opinions, but rather just to state mine.

I like skyrims map more.

Oblivion's in-game paper-like map was far better. That thing they call a map in Skyrim won't even display roads, Hold borders, names of lakes, rivers and mountains, which makes it serve not much of a purpose other than as a fast-travel menu. Every time I look at the in-game map I feel like my character is popping out his iPad to check the GPS satellite feed.

The map, though, is tied to that really terrible and badly functioning menu system. As a whole the menu system is flawed to its bones, utterly breaks the fantasy/viking/medieval atmosphere, and it's the only part of the game I'm really disappointed in.

I hated the 2D map.

I took one look at it and said "What the hell is this?" Not even any color, no depth.

The only problem I have with Skyrim's map is that you can't turn all the way around, so it's hard to look at some places. It should have bin built like Google Earth.

I find Skyrim's "map" utterly useless as a map. A map should be useful in planning a route to your destination, which isn't very easy when most of the roads aren't marked. I guess there are no Nord cartographers with IQs over 50.

skyrims map is best to me

The only thing I find good with Skyrim's 3-D map was that it looks pretty other then that I don't like it. I would rather they return to the 2-D map instead.

so your telling me that everyone who comments saying "there arent roads" wants them to plan routes to a marked destination? LOL im pretty sure with an open world to explore and plenty to gain by not fast traveling that having no roads on a map is the least of your worries.

plus if you cant chart a course based on visual ques itself within the game world than the map, then im not sure about your IQ aswell

I thought I would hate the 3D map, but after wandering the terrain, I am glad I have it. It would be very hard to tell what elevation places are at otherwise.

I too like Oblivion's whole UI better than Skyrims. And I'm a console user.

No roads = why even call it a map? Maps serve one function: navigation. Roads are a key function, as they are essential landmarks for a traveler to use to find his way around. Without them, you are missing a critical portion of your map: known navigation routes. That makes it a lot harder to plan your travel routes, as it can get very hard to tell at times where the roads go from Skyrim's in-game map.

There's also no names for landmarks outside of the map markers (lakes, rivers, mountains, etc.), no Hold borders... its basically just a Google Earth knock-off. A novelty feature at best. The only reason the map was designed this way was so Bethesda could show off their upgraded (I refuse to call it new) engine, they've more or less told us this since E3.

Novelty at best, pointless gimmick at worst. Either way, I don't think it will be repeated. Bethesda has received enough tearing-up about the UI already.

And yes, I prefer Oblivion's 2D map. It makes sense in setting and is much more informative. I often find myself referring to my paper map for Skyrim because so much more useful info is there that got omitted from the in-game map in favor of trying to be flashy. Polish is nice, but when you sacrifice quality for it, you need to rethink your priorities.

They probably tried to make the map too fancy by showing the clouds, weather, fog, etc.

At the very least, they should make the roads visible.

Skyrims map is GPS less road overlay, what I find remarkable is in the holds you can find detailed maps(detailed for the NPCs that is), with roads, but Dovahkiin gets stuck with a vague map, I realize this was to balance exploring, but they should have dynamically created connected roads as you found locations, as an example, you travel from Whiterun to Morthal, once you find Morthal a trace is drawn showing the best path between Whiterun and Morthal.

But if comes to a choice between Skyrims map in it's current form and a 2D map, I'd prefer the latter.

Has anyone ever I don't looked at a map on Mapquest or Google or just a regular old car map?

They are usually flat. They aren't 3D maps, because it's easier to mark down rivers and roads and create a legend with the little figures on the map. We as humans have been using flat maps for ages now. I don't see the whole new age in video games to make useless 3D maps.

I'd love to have a 2D map in Skyrim instead of the 3D map. I guess it's our dragon soul looking down at Skyrim in this new map..

Gee, you're such a nice person.

They probably made the map this way because of all the mountains... But the result is pretty fail. I'd love a simple 2d map with roads on it.

Oh yes.

The new map is pretty, that's about it. Even when zoomed in, it's not very helpful and can even get somewhat disorienting. No real details are visible anyways, so what was the point of it to begin with? For difficult terrain, it doesn't show where I can actually go and where not, so I have to do the trial&error or use the clairvoyance spell. The setting of waypoints is terrible. (And why can't I put waypoints on the "close area 2d maps"?)

Oblivions map svcked. You can't zoom out at all and the scrolling is much to slow. However I would prefer for Skyrim to have a hand held paper map that you carry around in your inventory. (Kind of like when you used a treasure map on Red Dead Redemption. You see John pull the map from his pocket and unfold it.)