How do I get the direction arrow to point to my desired destination. I just started the game (played Morrowind and Oblivion)and am in Riverwood. I am trying to find Sven. I checked "tell Sven" and unchecked everything else but the arrow is stiil directing me elsewhere.

if its a misc quest you have to check Miscellaneous and the misc quest you want.

Look for him.

As soon as you can, if you are able, turn off the compass.

I will look at the misc. thing again. ty Why do I want to turn off the compass?

You don't need to.

To Day-Man: why would I want to turn off the compass?

So you can have fun exploring the world instead of staring at your magic GPS quest objective locator the whole time. It really opens up the world around you. Since disabling the compass all together, I've never looked back.

Because it's more confusing than helping. You're looking for Sven, you know that he is somewhere in the village; simply go everywhere, talk to everyone, and you'll eventually find him.

That's actually cheap advice, and not entirely true.

NPC's can disappear randomly, get stuck, and vanish for a large variety of reasons.

Often times, vital NPC's can only be found/recovered using the command console when lost.

My advice is to not spend an unreasonable amount of time looking for an NPC who has a very basic A.I. path and function. Confirm their whereabouts in whatever way you see fit.

Playing without a compass may be fun for exploration, but when an NPC vanishes, I am not having "fun".

Yeah. If you want to really be an adventurer and make discoveries yourself then you should disable it. The magic GPS tourist guide compass ruins all the excitement by telling you everything including where enemies are.

When the game was released I first tried playing with the Compass, but it just made the game boring. I just followed arrows with zero brain use and didn't even have to spot enemies myself. I didn't like the game at all before i disabled the Compass.