I was reading a topic http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1100217-morrowind-sure-is-good-at-making-us-feel-stupid/ about Morrowind having the old RPG feeling and the game requiring actual skill to play. I recommend you got read it, its a good conversation. Back on point though, In Morrowind, getting lost was going to happen. You had to listen to the instructions people gave you. When traveling you had to use your signs and re-read your journal. If you were me, I often used the paper map too. In Oblivion they introduced the compass. Now it has its benefits, don't get me wrong. However looking back on it, What ever quest you encounter in Oblivion you just followed your compass for the most part. In Morrowind you were prone to being lost. Matter of fact, I know I would get lost on a few quests and just get frustrated and head back to town for supplies or something. To me it definitely added to the game. Does anyone else feel this way?

So I want to know what people think of the compass. Should it be in the next game? I actually enjoyed getting lost and looking for things with actual hard instructions. And because of this, you would explore more of caves and places. With the compass you just found what you needed and got out. Now its not to say you couldn't still explore. I did. Bit just overall it lacked the RPG feeling. In life you don't get a magical compass that tells you where to go. If your dad sent you to the store and you didn't know where, he gave you instructions. Just my outlook.

And lastly I was disappointed in the paper map for Oblivion. Did anyone actually enjoy the Morrowind one? Did you guys use it? How about the Oblivion one? Did you use that one?

~Regards, Wolf-Lord


Edit: Huge edit guys, although I refer to the compass a lot in that paragraph. I am mainly referring to the pesky quest markers. I don't mind the compass but the quest markers were the key feature of the compass.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Well as for me I liked the compass, because I hate getting lost. If they tweeked it a lil' in TES V I'd be happy. Like get rid of the whole marker thing.

Keep the compass and get rid of the quest markers on the compass. Or just get rid of quest markers all together. I did enjoy the difficulty of finding things in Morrowind on occasion, but it did get very frustrating at times. Though I would definitely prefer it to Oblivion's hand holding system where there's always an arrow pointing in the right direction no matter where you are.

How about maybe, and compass just to the general area? I mean I know a lot of times I spent so much time just trying to find some cave entrance that I stumbled upon so much other fun things. But If you have a marker to the cave it self you pretty much found what you need. Unless its like a Puzzle box or Eidons Ward. lol

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Well if you have the PC version of oblivion you can remove the compass by using mods.

Well, it's been said before, but you were forced to follow that stupid arrow because the extent of the directions given in Oblivion were, "go to blah blah blah."

I guess the completely random generated stuff made it hard to describe landmarks and write actual directions.

It would be nice if the NPCs actually gave directions so you can turn the arrow off. This was a problem in Fallout 3, also.

One of my favorite things about any RPG is all the stuff I stumble across the first time I'm finding my way through this unfamiliar world. The arrow showing me exactly where to go, plus the fact that after that khajit bandit outside Chorrol, they gave up on adding unique things to stumble across, just tree, rock, log , bear, repeat, plus the fact that the environment looked like Maryland, really made any "stumbling across a new, unfamiliar world" wonder absent in Oblivion, for me.

There was still a strong atmosphere, but I never felt overwhelmed by my surroundings like in Morrowind.

Anything that resembles oblivion I do not want, everything that's like Morrowind and previous games, I want.

I tend to agree with more Morrowind less oblivion, However I wouldn't have this constricted of a view. I enjoy all of Oblivions new combat systems and much more. But back on topic, the problem with mods is there are two kind of mods. creative ones, and ones that solve problems or fix annoying things. A mod that removes the compass is the latter. And even if you remove it, the NPC's don't give decent instructions. And as Hamsmagoo said, nothing was super exciting in Oblivion. I think that was another flaw. Morrowind was so...out of this world. oblivion seemed to be focused on a real world environment. I don't mind some reality. For example, Solsthiem was amazing, I loved the winter wasteland, and the wolves. However they added spriggans and other fantasy things. Getting lost is part of a RPG, and among getting lost so is finding new amazing things and places.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

Excuse me while I find all the Daggerfall elitists who constantly bashed Morrowind and didn't believe it was anything like Daggerfall.

Daggerfall-go to this exact place that you can instantly fast-travel to and find this in that place

Morrowind-go to that one cave somewhere south of here and find this.

The difference-As long as one has mark and recall, getting lost anywhere in Daggerfall isn't a problem, nor is there anything interesting to find in Daggerfall when getting lost, and Daggerfall had a compass, like Oblivion, which Morrowind lacked. In many ways, Oblivion is more like Daggerfall than Morrowind is.

Arena-pure hack and slash dungeon-crawler

The difference-nothing like Morrowind; Oblivion is far more of an RPG

Of course, people saying "nothing like Oblivion" isn't a shocking surprise, but pretending Arena and Daggerfall were anything more like Morrowind than Oblivion is ridiculous. They both had a compass and much simpler directions than Morrowind.

My vote-I don't really care, but I did indeed use the compass and map markers, and I guess I like them, then.

If the lack of getting lost and finding new stuff along the way decides whether a game is an RPG or not, then Morrowind is the only Elder Scrolls that is an RPG with Oblivion being in second place.

Fallout 3 fixed a lot of Oblivions mistakes. If they make it more like Morrowind, but add some of the better things they added in Oblivion but fixed in Fallout 3, I'd be very happy. I'd be happier with a game just like Morrowind but lets be honest, that's very unlikely to happen.

Oh I used them, they made things easier. But honestly I wish I hadn't sometimes. But if I got lost, just looked at it. In Morrowind you couldn't just look at it. You just dealt with it.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

I don't mind the compass as much as I mind the quest markers. Quest markers kind of insult me. It's almost like a "Hey, you're too stupid to find this by yourself, let me show you exactly where to go."

Ah well, Oblivion and FO3 are still great games, nonetheless.

Another huge thing that got me. Was in your journal, you could just hit "A" (Xbox User) on the quest and it automatically put a arrow on your map, and even if you hadn't found it yet, it was like "HERE HERE IM OVER HERE! COME THIS WAY!"

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

The markers are good for NPCs, as they are a pain to find otherwise. Static landmarks just need better descriptions in the quest, maybe with optional markers. The compass itself is just a directional tool, and I see no problem with keeping it. I also liked the ability to place your own marker, and that should definitely be kept (even Arena had it, after all).

I remember while they were developing Oblivion the devs were commenting on how easy it is to get hopelessly lost in the woods that they needed the pointer. Really?

Why not just a compass without the arrow. If you're always going north, you're bound to hit something. And hand-placed landmarks that can be described are essential.

I think a huge problem is technology. No one is going to take a game with year-old graphics seriously anymore because of how quickly graphics are improving these days. There is no time to sit and tweak the hell out of a game after the bulk is complete. It's rush, rush, rush to the shelves. Games feel so commercially produced, now.

Is it easy enough for the average American to reach the end in a week so he'll be interested in a sequel before getting bored and moving onto a new game? yup.

Is there any content in there we could potentially get sued over? nope.

Then get it on the shelves! Don't worry about making it fun or anything.

The NPCs don't need markers either, though. I mean, they could have so you ask John Doe about Betty White and he'll tell you that she usually likes to eat lunch at Dirty dike's Crab House, etc. I do agree with the rest of your post, though.

0 joinable factions

guns

reverting to a basic experience points system

only a fraction of the amount of Oblivion's quests

lack of lore/0 readable books

2 different clothing/armor slots

Fixed Oblivion's mistakes? :huh:


Fallout 3 is great, but if any of those are true for TES V, the forums will be in anarchy from protesting.

Actually, thats an error on my part. Ill go fix it in the beginning. I don't mind the compass. Its the pesky quest markers and how the compass is completely incorporated around them. In Morrowind if your arrow in the Mini Map was north then that was North. It was actually slightly easier. And I liked the mini map better then the compass and markers.

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

I don't know. Morrowind's minimap annoys me quite a bit.

I said "a lot of" Oblivion's mistakes, not all of them. Though props for pointing out even more mistakes I hadn't remembered, Seti.

Really? Please explain. I loved the mini map. The arrow showed where you were and which direction you were facing. It showed any "entrance" as a little yellow box. If you had any detect spells they showed up on it. I loved it. What didn't you like about it?

~Regards, Wolf-Lord

It really did.

Books don't fit Fallout's universe. You want lore, read the computers all over the place. There's tons of interesting stuff.

The armor and skills were just because it's Fallout, so don't be worried by that.

However, HUGE improvement on the environment. A maze of mountains in places, lots of unique things to stumble across. The placement of the animals and raiders made more sense.

Huge improvement on the quests, too. There's no contest, there. Oblivion was pretty much one linear questline with no choices, five times in a row. Regressing back to the days of Diablo 2, which at least had a unique environment and a combat system worthy of the lack of openness.

Of course, now this is turning into an OB vs. FO3, I'll stop.

I liked the compass in Oblivion at times, but they really need to implement an off switch to it. I want to be able to turn it off sometimes.

I just don't care for minimaps in general. I feel that they break immersion and take up too much of the screen. I'd prefer a compass without any markers other than N,S,E,W. Though not the size of Oblivion's compass, that was also annoyingly huge. The size of Fallout 3's compass would be perfect, IMO - that is, if it only showed N,S,E,W.

What if the map was in done in a similar way as Far Cry 2 where your character is physically holding a map?