It's a little wider than just that, so suggest things as we go along.

Maps like http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/6812/208206-black_marsh_map_oblivion_large.jpg look good in the game, and they aren't terribly time consuming to put out. Considering that, I say they make a ton of the maps and integrate them into the game world.

I'd firstly suggest that you'd have to buy all the maps you were going to use, as well as the compass. They had a wet compass in Redguard, so we know they can be items. Next, you'd need to buy the map or get the guide to the town if you wanted anything zoomed in. Buildings wouldn't have mini-maps or anything, they weren't tourist friendly. For more detailed maps of places outside the city, you'd have to talk up scouts and local mapmakers to get a map of the smaller piece of terrain, and to put landmarks and locations on there. As always, you can either pay for information about the area, or you can work for it with exploration.

Using the maps this way, you can also use them to fast travel. The map interface should be in this http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/fcry2mapbig.jpg so you don't have to be in a menu to operate. The animation to bring those out looked alright too.

To fast travel with them, you'll need to be able to navagate the paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. The more you know, the better you'll be able to fast travel. The Outdoorsman skill will let you be better at dead reckoning and fast travel off the roads, while better Equestrianism skill will let you evade fast travel traps along the way.

When you get a quest from someone, they'll point to where it is on your most relevant map and you'll mark it. None of that quest marker business, so you can't mark people with it. Only locations.

As a standard, many maps need to be wrong, or just flat out lies. In this time, the boundaries are only somewhat agreed upon. Disputes over borders are still a common thing, and maps are one of the best ways to lay claim to something. Each noble would likely have his own type of map for his or her interests, and make their subjects see it their way. There shouldn't really be an official map of what is what in the world, and the overall map needs to look quite a bit like http://oblivion127.tripod.com/images/oblivion_map_low_res.jpg. It shows the major cities, a couple major roads, and the basic outlines of topography, but it's a pretty sparse map.

Then, maps by membership. Chances are that they aren't going to map every wayshrine of Arkay on a merchant's travel map, so you'd have to talk to the right people. Find someone in the town who worships Arkay, and don't forget that the society is henotheistic. Believing in Mara doesn't mean you give a crap about Kynareth. Getting maps as rewards again will be a great thing.

Lastly, you can sell locations to people. If you find an unmarked trade route, you can sell that info to some bandits. If you find out where the Baron's summer getaway house is, you can tell his enemies, or for a lesser price the Thieves guild. The guild might resell the info to the Baron's enemies, and clean house once they're through with the place. You guys might remember in Daggerfall being able to choose how you finish quests by taking evidence to someone related to the quest for a different outcome. There was a time Helseth was having you deliver a message for him, but you could take it to Barenziah for her approval and reward. You'll also remember revealing the mine to the elf in Vivic city in Morrowind, and that he gave you a daedric weapon for it. That's the kind of deals you should be able to work out. It's up to you to find and sell what they might be interested in.

Tell me what needs to be improved.

I like the idea of the far cry type map/compass. You'd need to pull it out to look. I didnt read the whole thing cause im goin to bed. Night~!

I think the biggest thing that detracted from truly exploring the world without worry about fast travel is the fact that so many quests required inter-town travel. You've just gone from Leyawiin to Bruma to Anvil in a single quest. Why would you ever want to walk the whole way? Yes, roleplaying can be fun. But stuff like this is just so tedious!

If there are more quests that take place within a single general area, I think people will want to play it this way more, and this idea will really shine. Getting a compass and map will be an exciting part of exploration rather than just being another stack atop the tedium.

Better quest design is a must. The situation you mentioned is one of those instances where fantasy overtakes reasonability. Chances are high that people don't travel much around the world, and most jobs couldn't cover much territory. Lack of travel is one of the things that makes maps much more important, and with crazy ass things in the world, they have good reason to fear the unknown.

Old inaccurate maps that do not include up-to-date fauna or routes. Things of these nature must really be sought after separate from a purchase or quest. There would be forgeries and inventions of similar nature. There may be a few that have partially been lost to time forever.


There should be pirates.

Like the idea. Would make the game more immersive. I would like to add one thing. A magic map, expensive and only available through a quest of some sort at higher levels (25+ or so). And only one of the following layouts for it:

- This map would have all locations and teleportation tied to it.
- This map only has local area view and no world view.
- This map functions like OB's does now.

I don't fast travel at all but quests that require me to travel from town to town aren't a problem. They just give me a reason to travel in the first place, which is good!

The problem comes with the mentality that you have to push a quest to completion as soon as you get it. If a quest wants me to go to Cheydinhal, then I'll continue the quest when I get there naturally. And once I'm there, there's plenty of reason to hang around.. dungeons nearby, etc.

I like these ideas. It always felt a little cheap when an NPC perfectly marked a spot on your map. This would add fun to exploration.

It pays off. by walking everywhere my athletics goes up, with my higher athletics skill i am able to get to where i need a lot faster.

Once again, you're trying to make things far more complicated than any game needs to be. I want a game, not a realistic navigation simulator, a game needs to be fun, and reading a realistic map is NOT fun, it's a necessity in real life because that's how maps work in real life, but needing to periodically visit the bathroom is necessary in real life as well, however, it's not something I enjoy, and it's not something I want to see in a video game, the same goes for any attempt to pull off a realistic map. A video game map SHOULD clearly show you every piece of information you need to know to navigate the world, it can LOOK authentic, but I don't want it to be any more realistic than that. Anything more is simply annoying and not at all entertaining, and anything that is not entertaining is a terrible idea in video games and should never be done.

Simply put, if I want to use a realistic map to find my way around, I'll go for a hike outside.



No it would not add fun to exploration, it would add completely unnecessary frustration that would end up making me hate the game and everyone who ever had anything to do with making it what it is, the I'd break the disc in half just so I never have to play it.

Okay, I wouldn't go QUITE that far, I'd actually just stop playing and put the disc on a shelf where I never have to touch it again.

I didn't think quest markers had that many fans left. Hmm.

At least I still swear to quest markers. They literally make my life easier. I like a good, authentic feeling, but if it's too realistic, then I'll just say no.

I'd agree with "buy the stuff if you want to know" part, makes exploring and info-looking worth it. But if I have to ponder and do lots of research to find out about a place in a video game, I'd rather go and shoot people in Counter Strike

That's probably the reason why OB had quest markers. I can imagine there were a lot of complaints about getting around in MW. And please... don't flame me for saying this. I know there are people around who swear MW was the best game ever, but because of the tedious looking for places and persons it has sat on my shelf for a couple of years now. Quest markers are essential, at least as long as i can not ask the guards or someone else about the probable whereabouts of someone. With that i mean in what chamber (s)he is in, or a reply like: at the winefields working. It's still a game.

If its not fun for a game to have this mechanic, then why did Farcry 2 have this mechanic?

Why did some people find it fun?

Why do some posters (such as Shades and myself) find it fun?

It isn't just one sided, and claiming "its not fun" doesn't really get either side of the debate anywhere.

I enjoy realism in my games. You do not. That's all fine and dandy, but outright denying that something can't be implemented really brings us to an impasse, doesn't it?

That's easy enough. In Daggerfall you could ask anyone where anything was. They weren't guaranteed to know, but most could point you in the right direction of where to find the answer. Sometimes the quest would tell you to find the person at their home, but you'd find them at work instead. Or a bar. Bring back the ability to ask npcs where stuff is, and we're covered.

But aside from the fact that the minimap was an in-game object viewed in realtime, FarCry wasn't that different (no Fast Travel, of course, and that crap got very old very fast). They still basically used a quest marker system (you can see that in effect if you take the arms dealer missions, since the marker moves around the map with the convoy).

Don't get me wrong, I like the FC2 map system, along with the way items were visibly grabbed and so on.

the problem with the quest marker and pre-marked icons was that you really couldn't do the quest without it. the quests rarely gave you directions, and without a marker telling you where to go it was nearly impossible to find anything. as long as proper directions are given, we won't need a marker. the only exception are NPCs: their schedules make finding them without a marker a huge pain in the butt.

getting maps is interesting. getting maps that are ridiculously wrong would get tedious and upsetting real quick. i don't see any fun in being given bad or wrong directions.

Have you ever tried to navigate by sight and memory, though? It can be annoying for the first few minutes because you're so used to zooming around everywhere, but it's *so* nice. Oblivion's distant land graphics really make visual navigation a treat. The spire is actually an essential resource I use to figure out where I am, since with the compass I can determine at least where I am radially from the Imperial City.

How can clicking on little icons on a brown map be more fun than navigating a rich and beautiful world? Don't dis on visual nav until you've really tried it.

He's not talking about Fast Travel, he's talking about the Quest Markers. I think the problem that he pointed was not the navigating aspect, but the "clue" aspect. Without a precise direction about where we're supposed to go, finding things can be really annoying. Some people might be able to memorize the clues given, but for others who are not patient enough to wonder if that rock is truly the rock mentioned by that barkeep, a quest marker is much better

Not that getting bad maps should happen often, but think of the reasons why npc's would give you bad maps. Say one was selling you a map of a location where a sacred weapon of something or other was hidden, but he was too chicken to go in and get it. You go there, and it's just a mausoleum with a mummy inside. Then the game doesn't give you any hints, but you can go back to beat the crap out of the guy and find that he has a stack of these fake maps. You can take all his money, just the money you paid him, you can kill him or just knock him around, haul him before a judge if you're feeling generous.

There was actually a temple quest kind of like that in Daggerfall. You went to perform an exorcism of a daedra out of a little girl with an expensive holy relic, but the people you were helping were lying to you, and they just stole the relic. You had to hunt them down through the city by hitting up your contacts about who might buy it.

The journal serves that purpose just fine. I had no trouble doing the quest from Bruma where I was supposed to find several landmarks, even without using the map or quest beacons or anything. My journal updated whenever I found a new landmark so I knew I was on the right track.

I think this is a fair advantage to the player since he can't do something like bring back a sketch of what he saw to verify that the rock is shaped correctly

Finding Pale Pass is easy because the landmarks are so obvious, I mean, just a few steps to the west and there that statue is. Heck, I even found the cave before I found the statue

But, say, you're supposed to find Lost Boy Cavern all by yourself, only given clues like "go north from here, go west from this river blah blah blah". That is challenging, but after a few take on the same thing for some other locations, it could be very tedious

Not any more difficult than Morrowind, and you can try to pay a scout to show you a landmark.

Morrowind got really tedious because some of the directions are wrong, and you can't go back to try to clarify certain directions or get feedback like you could in real life.

I think your original idea of them supplying small maps (WITHOUT a marker for your position) is best, when the nature of the quest calls for it anyway ("have you seen my dog?? I think he went around the corner and got lost. Here's a map of all nearby landmarks..")

as a quest? yea, its cool. i would argue thats more a writing issue than a game mechanic, though. on most maps, however, things like villages or cities should be up-to-date, as having everything be off-kilter gets real annoying real quick. maybe a basic map with everything really important (like the ones in the PGE, but slightly more detailed), plus regional maps with villages and other smaller features, plus maps of special areas (dungeons, etc.). Really though, i would prefer to combine this with MW's map system somehow, perhaps displaying one map that is genearted by your travels (either uncovered like in MW or labled with locations like in OB) and having the option of switching to more detailed regional maps which come with labels and stuff. using oblivion as an example, its good that the cities are drawn exactly, since a city is not likely to get lost. icons like "mouth of the panther" should not be marked for you by the NPC because its bloody obvious to anyone with a basic comprehension of english and the ability to read a name on a map.

i remember many quests in LotRO caused me endless frustration specifically due to directions. in some quests, "east" was really closer to north by northeast than it was to direct right, for example, and it caused me a whole lot of frustration.

totally off topic, but my copy of the Dagerfall Chronicles arived today, and as i was flipping through it i was thinking of you >.>