Definitely keep the compass, take the quest markers out, and make it so you can set your own waypoints on the map, that you then can see on the compass.

I'd like a mix of Daggerfall and Morrowind directions, Morrowind had some descriptive, but often vague directions. Daggerfall had precise and short directions.

I'm a bit baffled by "morrowind", "rpg" and "requiring skill to play" to be in the same sentence, and then that somehow correlates to an old RPG feel. Getting lost might be a lot, but I'm pretty sure it's not an rpg feeling, I think that's a sandbox feeling. I don't think it required that much skill though, I just think it required much effort, much unneeded effort, it was hard for the wrong reasons. It was like someone telling you to dig a 1x1x1 meter hole, sure that can be done, not much skill involved...then he gives you a spoon...still not a lot of skill involved, but it sure is gonna take some time.

Anyways, Morrowind dearly needed Daggerfalls system to be there as well, would have made a lot of things less frustrating then they should be.

I'm hoping for TES:V to have descriptive directions, but also the option for direct in-a-straight-line directions, as well as for people to mark it on the map when on gets closer to it.

I like the idea of a compass, but not how Oblivion implemented it. Basically, having a small on-screen compass showing you the four cardinal directions when your character has means to learn where they are (like, being outside) is fine. A compass inside a house or dungeon is already "WTF?"-worthy. A compass showing you stuff your character can't even see yet along with moving quest NPCs and lazy writing where you can't simply ask anyone for directions instead is just aggravating.

I was annoyed by the quest markers, even though I ended up using them. I found it ridiculous and stupid that my compass could magically point me to the exact location of some long lost treasure. I think it's fine if the markers point to to the general location, like a ruin, wherein said treasure is located. But the questmarkers should not point to the exact point.
The worst part was that you had to use them, otherwise you would never find that you were looking for. You were never given enough information to find it on your own.

Me: Oh no I've lost my car keys!
Me: Oh look! My magic compass tells me my keys are in my pants!
Me: Thank you, magic compass! How could I survive without you?

I remember the Draconian Madstone quest, that one was fun to solve without the compass (actually put a big piece of tape on my monitor, to hide the compass)

I get Bethesda's point about the compass being able to take you right to the fun. But isn't that like saying: "we know that part of our game is really boring, so here's a way to skip the boring parts"
If dungeons and ruins are so boring that you have to be handguided through them, then why not make the dungeon more fun to explore on your own? And it's not because they can't pull this off, they've done it in their previous games.

Like Morrowind.

I must admit, all the text directions in Morrowind drove me crazy. I would really have liked to place a big phat marker on my map to guide me a bit (ie. Balmora is here)
But still within the realm of realism. Anyone could place a mark on my map, but giving me a magic compass is just a bit too much.
Still, I had a great time with Morrowind, I geeked out. I used my papermap to find my locations, I made notebooks with alchemical recipes. Morrowind was good, it was a portal to another world where I was the hero, scouting the land for treasure. It's was ME who was doing the scouting, not my compass.

This is a very important design decision , they just can't add the option to remove fast travel when a trip takes 1 real day's time.

I don't see this happening.

Oh, I'm guessing there's gonna be tons of arguing here.

This is exactly what I say. Everyone against the compass markers will simply say "don't use it" as if that's a viable argument. If I didn't use the quest markers, do you have any idea how stupidly hard the game would be? Especially with NPC's running around all over the place. Don't get me wrong, AI routines can still be used, but as long as they spend a considerable amount of time in one place. I mean, if you spent all day doing the kind of things they did back in the day (intense manual labour, blacksmithing, etc) you wouldn't want to waste energy walking around for no reason. You'd want to go straight home. I'd like to see the quest markers to be gone completely, and NPC's to move around less. Three possible places for them to be. Work, home, and inns. Whenever someone points you to someone, they'll tell you of the three places they could be. Perhaps more, but on the most part, it should stick to that. And they'd spend roughly 1/3 of thier time in each.

The actual compass of Oblivion didn't bother me, but I'd far prefer Morrowind's method. I mean, if Daggerfall can give an option between two, why can't these modern games give me a choice?

Do you like the compass in Oblivion?

No.

How do you feel about the quest markers?

Need to be cut.

We made this UI for Morrowind. I am planning to turn the star into a compass. What do you think about its intrusiveness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG0OkQIw1Oc

In daggerfall, you have a screen where you plan your fast travel. I can see that in Morrowind too. But Morrowind is really not that big, you don't even need to walk to Seyda Neen from Balmora. They are just 5 minutes apart. They just need 6 or more travel options in next game.

On compass, it would have been nice to get it as an item. It is needed.

Quest markers. Intrusive stuff must go. I don't want to be hand held. If an NPC can show it on my map, a roughly accurate marker would work. I don't think you can get that from every NPC. You can go to a tavern, find a scout and ask him about directions, she/he can show it but not as accurate as quest giver.

If it is possible I will add a quest marker to the star. It will show the way to a self mark. But it won't update unless you open the map again, a normalized bearing. :chaos:

I liked the compass in oblivion, and did find the quest markers useful for some quests. I think that it should be up to the player though, you should be able to purchase 2 kinds of compasses a normal one and a magic one. The magic compass would have the benefit of a quest marker. And if you really wanted to challenge yourself could sell your compass and use the sun and stars as your guide.

Just out of curiosity how many did Morrowind have? And I don't like the idea of the compass being an item. I enjoy it being on the screen. You could lose your bearings so easy. That map not being on the screen is understandable seeing as how its a map, and you'll have to look at it frequently to get your bearings. However the lack of a compass would just get you lost and aggravated. Imagine after every battle you would have to open your menu and get your bearings?

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Edit: As for the NPCs. It would just add to it. If they have something to do then let them do it. In real life If I need to know where my sister is and say her phone is dead. I call around. Is she at work. Is she at school. Is she at here or there. I ask around. Its the same concept except instead of calling you go. So and so should be at his house or the tavern, well you run there and they aren't there so you check the house. Well maybe they went out to pray. You'd have to ask his wife and she tells you he'll be back soon. Problem solved. Now its that versus "magical all knowing compass."

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Characters could give a rough description of the area in the world that your ment to go to

Can we talk about the idiotic journal updates instead? The ones that assumed I was a hyperactive, easily distracted, poo-flinging monkey that could't focus for more than 10 minutes and had a memory of half that?

I like compasses, but I didn't like OB's compass - it was too big and too intrusive.

The quest markers need to go away. I shouldn't automatically have some sort of super homing beacon in my head such that I instantly know where to go.

I played a game, Daemonica, and it had an interesting implementation of a quest marker like thing. It wasn't really a quest marker - you can click on your in-game map and make a marker. When you go back to the game, you'll get something like Bioshock's dynamic quest-arrow-pointer-thing that will help you orient yourself to go to the location you marked on your map. But, you had to have been to the place before you can mark it.

I think that could be helpful, especially since it is a bit easy to lose your way until you familiarize yourself with the terrain in the game.

As for some means to help players find their quest destinations - just have the NPCs give more specific directions via their dialog! Include landmarks in the landscape that NPCs can use to describe to you how to get where you need to go (like in TESIII when trying to find the Cavern of the Incarnates).

It didn't just take us to the fun - it shot us right past it at the speed of sound.


But let's not forget the main reason bethesda implemented the compass and quest markers: The Dwemer Puzzle Box. Half the members that joined in 2003-2005 owe their membership to that stupid cube.

Haha this one got me stuck in that place for hours, I think I rage quitted out of Morrowind around 4 times. :banghead:

Keep the compass and lose the markers. Build the game from the ground up to work like that. I,ve never even played Morrowind (don't kill me) and i hate the quest markers and unlimited instant fast travel.

For me, the quest markers and lack of followable directions were the worst part of the game. Though, I admit, I did get frustrated at getting lost in Morrowind, it just made victory all the sweeter. I remember I got lost in the mountains west of Suran for a long, long time once. I wandered around, frustrated, and kept getting attacked by ogrims and kagouti. When I finally worked my way out of it, and got back to Balmora, with the triumphant theme song blaring, it just felt so epic, despite my being frustrated for the past few hours. This is the feeling I want from TES V.
The journey should be just as fun and more interesting than the destination.
And I'm aware that many people are dead-set against this, but if TES V had a good hunger/thirst/sleepyness/general realism aspects, it would multiply the feeling of the epic journey. Probably just me though, I'm in love with realism aspects.

And the compass is fine, though it's too intrusive. I do like the idea of finding/buying different compasses, but I hate the idea of opening my inventory so often. Maybe if it was shown on your HUD.

I do like the idea of having a personal marker. I've always actually wanted more then one. If it was me in the game, and I had a map I would mark places a lot. Maybe a little box to describe what they are. Although I'm great with memory having more then one might make it easy to get lost.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

I stop counting around after 360ish quests. Some might be repeat but its around there.


I was able to find that box in my first try, though I got an ugly lesson about overcumbered involving a heck load of iron armors.

Keep everything, add more options to remove what individual players don't like. If someone doesn't want quest markers showing where to go then they should be able to turn that off. If they don't want the compass to show them where nearby points of interest are then that should also be turned off. As for the compass itself, sure being able to remove it if you didn't want it would be nice but I don't think that one in particular is a big deal.

More choices is good, there's no reason to try to get Bethesda to flat out remove these things other than some urge to dictate how other people play the game.

Fixed.

If quest markers are togglableable, the alternative will be slack. Try playing Oblivion without the compass, rubbish instructions, hidden characters, and many, many other annoying aspects are what you'll find. The few things we couldn't find easily in Morrowind (only the dwemer puzzle box, I believe), where oversights, that are easily fixed. Bethesda now have more experience, and realise thier past mistakes.

Oh, and I often hear about Caius Cosades.

"Old Caius rents a little bed-and-basket just up the hill on the north edge of town. Go out the front door -- NOT the upper door to the terrace -- then right up the stairs, then left at the top of the stairs and down to the end of the street."

Perfect instructions, directly from the mouth of Bacola. This is actually more than nesseccary. "Outside and up the stairs" would have suited me easily. I found Caius straight away with those instructions. Morrowind always gave great instructions, and it's one of many reasons to bring back text dialogue. (but that's another argument)

What I suggest is creating the game without the markers as most of us apparently want it, and then release a free dlc that adds the markers for those who are too lazy. I see no downside.

The compass spoilers and quest markers annoyed me so much I don't think I'd be able to play Oblivion without a mod to remove them.

What the hell is the point of exploring when you have GLOWING BEACONS telling you everywhere you should go?

As for the paper map.. I remember when I bought Morrowind, it was right before I had to leave on a week-long trip. I didn't get to play Morrowind at all, just read the booklet and look at the paper map.. and I gotta say, roaming my eyes over that map was almost as sweet as playing the game. It was just beautiful. Oblivion's was disappointingly bland, *although*, I can respect the decision to leave minor roads and locations for the player to find instead of drawing them on the map.. or I *would* be able to respect it if they didn't put the SPOILER BEACONS IN INSTEAD

In that case, wouldn't they then realize that having NPCs give poor directions and making players use the compass to find quest locations is a bad idea and, in turn, improve the directions given by NPCs?

Guys you actually need the quest marker because say you needed to see someone in the imperial city,he could move between districts and buildings so imagine checking all of the imperial city to find one guy.

Actually, I think make the markers toggle, however you still need great instructions like Morrowind. If they try to give us half ass instructions with the option to play with no markers then thats bad. They need to design the game around the idea of playing with instruction and if you really want the markers you can turn them on. Otherwise the game will be lost.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Sure I can imagine it.

"Say, did you see Renee Geonette somewhere?"

- "She has a house in the Temple district, I think. Why don't you check there?"

- "I think I saw her going to the Arboretum ..."

- "She was mentioning visiting that famous painter in Anvil, whatshername, Bonet or so. I guess you're out of luck."

Yep. Sounds perfectly fine.

Ugh, those were particularly annoying. Whereas the entries in Morrowind were written as though the character was really filling out a book every night before bed and tossing thoughts around in their head, the ones in Oblivion essentially made my character the in-game embodiment of a walkthrough. I was basically telling myself what to do, which is particularly awkward when the player is supposed to embody their own representation of the character in the world.

"I found a key. Perhaps I should go back to the locked door and see if it will open it." --Oblivion Journal in a Nutshell