Do y'all remember that story in oblivion about those adventures. The one's that were getting killed by the fake vampire hunter in bruma. I think a quest like the one written in that story would be great.

Heck these questions are difficult. I never played vanilla Oblivion. A modded one had some pretty good side quests. Most of them are in vanilla version too, I think. But they are easier in vanilla..

As for fast travel and quest markers, if like in Oblivion, the quest designers "Suppose" that there is a "Fast Travel" system, and "Quest target marker" that "Everyone" has to use, because there is no "Alternative", then they do not feel that they have to give "Adequate" direction, and they do not feel that they have to think about the "Route" that the players have to find and use, so the end result would be that they "Suppose" that just "Marking" a point in the map and giving the quest target a "Target marker" does the job and skip "Giving the adequate directions by the quest giver", and "Supplying enough noticeable landmarks and direction helpers in the route".

Which results that you can not say that it is optional, just do not use it, because if not used, you have nothing to rely on.

So the better option is if they want to supply fast travel and GPS markers, they should suppose that some people might not want to use them and give adequate original directions and route finding helpers.

In Morrowind, I really loved to use my tracking skills, and look around to notice small things that would click a direction in my mind, so looking back at the quest notes to find a line that could help me with continuing , and in doing so, and without the teleportation mechanism supplied by Oblivion's fast travel, I would find a lot of small details and occasional surprises in the route that would not be found otherwise.

You have to walk a direction, + you have to look around keenly for signs, = you find a lot of new things in the way.


Optional area marker is not a bad thing, so they mark a general area/cell and say that in this place, but when you reach that place, you have to find the target yourself, for instance, if you are looking for a sword in a house, you should look where such an item might be, in display cases, or closed/locked chests, and so on.

Or if you are looking for a person in a town, you could ask people about him, and they might know him and tell you about his regular activities and where-abouts, and when you could be sure to find him and a specific time, and the like. Some might be able to point him out for you, if he was in sight.

Daggerfall style, "Go north west from here" should also return, or even something like this:




Should require some looking around, searching through book pages, asking NPCs around, sneaking past, outrunning, or avoiding powerful enemies, or coming back when you can finally beat them, looking up toward ceiling, or searching the ground, deciphering runes by the help of books, moving objects around to help you climb, or block enemy routes, or to put weight on trigger plates, and the like...


Yes, all the archetypes, (Fighter, Mage, and Rogue) should have equal opportunities to solve quests in their own distinct ways.


Yes, no pampering and hand holding.


And I with you.

I don't understand your poll options.

Can you elaborate a bit more?

Are you asking for every single minor quest in the game to be a difficult puzzle to solve?

I found in Oblivion there were some quests that were a lot more challenging than others, and I would hope that Skyrim has at least a few really difficult quests, but some good variety in the nature of the various quests, not all puzzle quests. Some should be more about difficult choices and characterization.

My all time favorite ES quest was actually Glarthir's "stakeout" quest. It was challenging in a different way for a character at 100% vampirism, because you have to stand outside on the street casting restore spells on yourself waiting for just the right moment when a particular NPC walks by. I was surprised that the level of characterization in the dialogue and the voice acting actually managed to infect me with a bit of his paranoia. I was convinced that one of those Surilie brothers was going to be up to something, and I actually watched the guy rake his g_ddamn field for 8 hours in-game.

It was not that difficult from a problem solving perspective, but it really drew me into the world and infected my thought process. Not something I've encountered in other RPGs so far.

Well everyone here has spoken to voice of my heart for games very well and more eloquently than I could have thought. I think all quest should be challenging to an appropriate degree for instance you can have

the occasional very easy quest that would be a simple as "A giant rat attacked me the other day, and ate my wife's necklace. It's the only thing I have left of her could you retrieve it please!" or "I lost my glasses" and there is nothing more too it than finding out where he lost them picking them up and returning them. This should be, IMO, 5% of total quest

then the easy quest that would be like stakeout, where you're supposed to watch the people everyday then find out there is nothing going on and could have simply met the paranoid woodelf and told them they're all after him and kill him anyway. Or just a quest where you have to run around talking to people with maybe a minor battle. that should be 5%

then we come to normal quest this would be for instance. You met a thief on your way to bruma after he tries to rob you, you catch him and he begs for his life and offers to tell you where he's hidden his loot over the years. It's in an old hidden alyid ruin (of course assuming there is not yellow dots or a compass marker to direct you) he gives you directions to it, landmarks to know it by, you decide to spare his life after the information or kill him anyway. Then you search using all of your skills and knowledge of the area to find the land marks until eventually you come across the ruins. You find the entrance and descend down the darkened stairs you hear water dripping and see moss growing all across the walls. You get an eerie sense that the walls are alive somehow. Suddenly you stumble into a room and the doors close and lock behind you and you are come upon by hordes of undead nord warriors, you fight them with your might and magic until you alone are left standing. You look for a way to open the door ahead you notice there is a switch just out of reach so you use a grappling hook (levitate spell, or acrobatics) to climb your way up you pull the switch and the doors in front and behind are open. You consider what you have with you and the dangers ahead. You decide to press on the thief's had said his loot was in the third room down this path only two more rooms to go. The door ahead was a long and winding hallway. You hear sounds like the moss in the hall is following you, but you look and nothing seems abnormal. you find a fork in the road, this wasn't mentioned by the thief. You think to yourself, I knew I should have killed him. You stop and consider weather you should still press on, you choose to. you take the path to the left and enter a room nothing seems abnormal so you take a look around, find some barrels, some dead skeletons, what a relief, you decide to open to barrel and see if anything good is inside when thousands of tiny spiders jump out. you wipe them off you but them seem harmless enough. you turn around to leave when you are face to face with a giant spider with all it's eyes glaring straight at you. You engage in combat push your self to your limit you are barely able to hard the creature you look above and notice stalactites on the ceiling you dodge the spider coming after you take out your grappling hook and pull one of the stalactites onto the enemy piercing it through. It screams and tries to move stumbling then falls limp. You decide that this creature was probably guarding something valuable, you notice your left arm is broken and that you barely have enough good health to escape, but determined not to have come here for nothing you go through the door and find yourself in a room full of....

And that should be 50% of the quest

The other 40% should be 30% hard and 10% extreamly hard I won't go into the details I just don't have it in me to write another long story like that, I'm not a very good DM The only differences in though are the challenges to the mind deciphering runes like on the back of the GI difficult battles and so on and so forth. I hope this helps.

Yeah, the radar-homing-beacon-on-ass approach did make questing far too easy.

They could make the quests wider, but the thing that made them so easy in OB is Quest arrow and fast-travel

I respectfully disagree, there is a lot more too it than just finding your way around.

I'm not sure if I could agree with your.. er... respectful disagreement. In Morrowind quests were a two-part beast; finding the place you were supposed to be going, and then doing what you were supposed to do when you got there. In Oblivion, save for a few scant occasions, the act of exploration and travel is rendered totally moot. If the cavern / ruin / fort / whatever is on the other side of Cyrodil, you'd just fast travel over. If it was in the middle of the wilderness, you'd probably have found something relatively close anyway (and the quest would place the location on your map for you), so you'd just fast travel to it and walk in. That's cutting down 50% of the process really.

Instead of using the clues in the mission briefing, then actually investigating by interacting with NPCs closer to the source, you're just led straight to it. I think that's what bee meant. The Oblivion system is hand-holding. Some sort of compromise is required between the Morrowind and Oblivion systems really. I don't want one or the other (same with fast travel). A middle ground would probably work best.

You probably misunderstood me. I do agree that the compass's red arrow marking guiding (hand holding) you to your destination was absurd to a great degree, but there is a lot more to the quest being too easy than just that. That was the point I was making. Please read this thread you will probably like it. Some very good opinions in it.

It took me about a year to solve that damned "Breathe the waters of his grace, and the path shall be made clear."-quest in Morrowind. It was so awesome when I finally solved it and could fully join the temple and complete the rest of their real quests :celebration: I also liked that a lot of the time I really had to look for places and people for some time before I could find them. It made exploring so much more rewarding. I wouldn't mind Skyrim being harder than Oblivion in that way, au contraire.

The fact that games are less and less intellectually challenging (or basically challenging in any way) has nothing to do with the emergence of World of Warcraft. There's an evolution in that direction in all media which is just really apparent in video games. All developers are slowly moving away from challenging concepts to more pick-up-and-go/jump into the action concepts. Most people call it dumbing down, but I feel that term doesn't really do justice to what's going on. It's just a logical effect of appealing to a larger audience.

On one hand, I think it does add new excitement to The Elder Scrolls, because it gets more good action and makes things like combat more exciting. But in the same effort of appealing to a larger audience, the series is getting less intellectually interesting and challenging over time.

So personally I would love to see more in-depth quests and things that really challenge me aside from combat. But in terms of design decisions, I can't see them going in this direction. Commercially, their best bet is probably to aim for about the same level of Oblivion in terms of quest complexity, so that's what I'm expecting. And I'll certainly be fine with it, even though, ideally, I'd like to see a different direction.

And "Breathe the Waters of His Glory and the Way is Made Clear" took me some time, but I figured it out in the end. I remember trying to drown myself but resurfacing just before dying every time just to see if that did something. And one time I wasn't paying enough attention and poof, there I was! Yeah, I'd really like it if they bring similar quests back.

The one to find the map at the Dagon Shrine map? That's not hard at all. After you get all four books, you're led back to Tar-Meena, who says she'll study them. The next day, she gives you a hint, and recommends checking back tomorrow. The next day, she'll give you the answer. Though you can try to figure it out on your own, you don't have to.

I'm not a fan of puzzles but having variety in the quests is ideal. Instead of walking into a cave, killing a few bandits and taking the mcguffin back to the village it would be great to suddenly fall through the floor into an underwater lake. Doing a fetch quest and halfway through it turns out the item you're holding is illegal and the guards have been alerted. Do an escort quest and they turn into a werewolf half way through.

Just keep it interesting.

I agree with the in bold text.

I like how this is a "Morrowind is better than Oblivion and Oblivion is dumbed down." thread in disguise even though Oblivion was more complicated and just removed tedious things.

Arrows on a compass like in Oblivion make a quest too easy. I prefer quests more like in Morrowind. Give me a general idea about the quest and maybe some way to find a hint if I'm too stupid to figure it out. Also, I'd like for there to be multiple ways to solve at least some of the quests. Surprises are cool, too. I've been playing Nehrim and in several of the quests I've done so far I've encountered unexpected things that changed the way the quests went. I really enjoyed that.

I think Morrowind was from an era in game design that no longer exists. Back in 2002 graphics, sound, and computer technology was not even close to what it is today and game development suffers because of this. Why? Because the developer invests more development time into graphics, sound(mostly voice acting), and special effects, then they do in actual game play. In fact they simplify game play because of technology, telling themselves that they have done the right thing because it works better for everyone, less questions asked, etc.

When Morrowind was made they had to invest more time into Lore, history, gameplay, puzzles, and all of the things we think make a great game. Mostly what changed it was when they decided to voice everything. By deciding to do that they really limit their options as to how a story can play out, so much so that they have to make all key NPC's in a questline unable to be killed, more then anything else voicing everything changed how a TES game was developed, I strongly believe that.

So unless they add a lot to their voice acting budget I don't see a lot of differences coming in Skyrim in terms of deep quests set in a rich enviroment like Morrowind was, their focus is not on those aspects anymore, I hope I am wrong but I won't hold my breath....

I have to disagree with one of you points, and that's that "voice acting" is what has made devs dumb down games, relying more on the novelty than the complexity. Now lots of games have relied on things like graphics and voice acting, but I'm certain bethesda is not like that, they have hardcoe gamers in their studio and a dedicated, they truly want to make the best games and now more than ever they have had funds, time, and new technologies on their side. Voice acting is almost essential in new games these days for a variety of reasons. I hope this might ease your worry.

I dont see how voice acting is essential at all except to sell the game to lazy kids.
I always thought voice acting broke the immersion in several ways. Not the least important of wich is that you have less dialogue in a voice acted game. And secondly, for the same reason a book is better than the film. With reading, you invent your own voice, a ageless wizard will sound like one, and will always emphasis the right words, use the right inflection, in your mind when youre reading.
With voice acting that just doesnt work, youre dependant on other peoples view.

I know Bethesda doesnt think like me, but I think they should focus more on selling the game to hardcoe RPG fans than pander to the 'nextgen' kids who cant read, cant do puzzles, need a quest marker, and actually think graphics are the most important thing of a game, rather than the icing on a cake.
There are 13 a dozen games for people like that. Id really like it if at least one game developer made games for real RPG players.

First off please don't attack the "Lazy kids" straw man. I love to read, I mean books of course not just the forums, I remember many games that I loved without any voice acting at all. Such as the dragon quest series, aside from the wii one hated it. Many PS1 games I liked, suikoden 3 I loved. Many games rich in story and suikoden 3 rich in strategy and story. The Elder Scrolls series however. You are the character (In my own view) you don't have a controller in your hand. When you speak to someone in RL you don't invent their voice in your head, their voice is their own, the same in TES. One of the reasons I said it is essential is, yes most people want it (not just kids), some because they don't like to read, but many because they enjoy hearing a character's voice. If you play D&D it's the same you don't make up the characters in the story's voice, you act them the players and the DM. This is how I see it.

I like your point about pen n paper D&D's, thats very true.
I didnt mean to attack the lazy kids, you know, sometimes I just get a little despaired that there seems to be so much aimed at the same group, while other groups of players are seemingly ignored.
People like me have money too, lol, and we've been gaming for a long time.
Sometimes I get a bit frustrated that there are very few games aimed at people like me, who choose depth over glitter, and who would prefer to get stuck somewhere rather than being guided through what to do all the time.

I feel your pain, and totally agree. I am really hoping that skyrim will be different and bring back the soul of gaming.

I completely agree. As a console gamer I'm generally put in a bad demographic, but I love all those head twisters. I get bored very easily by games like Call of Duty and Halo (while I do fond them fun in short bursts). It's the games that use my brain that keep me engaged for those six hour gaming sessions. I'm hoping Skyrim will lose the hand holding and go back to directions, maps, and general use of the brain, rather than giving everything on a silver platter.

If they just got rid of the quest marker, or just used it for times when we were given explicit directions to a cave entrance or town house and not to find the ancient treasure hidden for a millenia, then I would consider that a vast improvement, I mean half the time of playing Morrowind was figuring out were the hell I had to go (which I loved).