Wow, I haven't played or seen Fable 3 but that sounds bad.

I liked how Oblivion did it. I like how Morrowind did it better. Basically, I want the map markers that Oblivion had but either A. Have an option to toggle it on or off, or B. Have it only in specific situations. If I'm sent to a cave to find someone's lost friend, I shouldn't have a map marker telling me exactly where this person is because I shouldn't know, but if I'm given a quest to go talk to someone in a town, then I'm fine with having a map marker on that person, especially since people have varying schedules and I don't want to have to search the entire town tracking this person down.

I understand and appreciate the map markers of Oblivion. I got really frustrated with Morrowind numerous times because I'd get lost for half an hour or more due to awful directions given by the NPCs, but I don't want the map marker FORCED on me like it was in Oblivion. I'd typically get a quest that has no active map marker and set it to active in certain situations.

After reading some of the replies here a quest from Oblivion popped back into my mind, it was during my characters induction quest into the thieves guild. I remember listening to my recruiter like a child all watery eyed with anticipation on Christmas eve, it was the quest where you were entrusted with stealing a personal item from some poor individual who must have crossed swords with the wrong folk. It ticked all the right boxes for an awesome quest, those being to break into the imperial city, finding one house among many, picking the locked door and searching its entire contents for one particular item without waking its inhabitants ALL against the clock in order to obtain the item prior to your fellow colleagues. Only to find the quest actually involved following a green indicator that lead me directly to the chaps house, told me which floor of the house the item it was on, and then it was kind enough to proclaim which draw it was in. The only thing it left out was what he likes to eat for breakfast and which colour of the rainbow he prefers.

It was like waking up on Christmas morning, rushing down the stairs only to find a bag of coal awaiting you and a note from santa informing you to behave better this year, it left me with numerous question marks floating above my head along with a sour face.

While I am inclined to prefer Morrowinds approach to finding specific locations and quest objectives, I do believe that both systems have merit. I particularly like the idea of a map marker to a static location, this technique would require the player to actually read or listen to the journal/NPC and would require some human ingenuity to get the job done.

Depends how it is done. Mindless wondering around doesn't add any more depth than following the golden trail of bread crumbs. One just takes longer than the other.

If we are talking about an example where the quest giver tells you "Go north west young man" and you are in the south east corner of the map and that is all the direction available through in game clues, no thanks, I'll take the quest markers.

If people can actually give you directions and you can investigate and ask around, buy maps, read books about an area, follow clues, etc. to find what you are looking for I'd be all for it.

I've never really seen that approach done to my satisfaction though. Probably because it would take a ton of time and effort to create all the text, dialogue and voice overs to do it. While I'm not crazy about easy to follow quest markers, it is leaps and bounds ahead of wondering around aimlessly for hours tying to find a needle in the middle of Skyrim.

He has expressed regret about not meeting all of the promises he's made in the past. He's also expressed less pride than he deserves to express about some of his older games as well. I'm not a huge fan of him and I haven't played most of his games but it's become something of a meme to bash him and that kind of sad, in my opinion. I suppose that gets in the way of the caricature people like to portray him as though.

I'd like to earn map/compass markers. Like, instead of magically knowing where something is, you have to do a little detective work.

For example, someone might tell you about a treasure in a nearby Dwemer ruin. From there, you're shown either a couple of possible ruins on your map, or are given a vague idea of where to look, in the form of a large-ish coloured circle on the map- it could be anywhere in that circle.

And once you find the right ruin, it could keep narrowing down each time you find a clue, until you know exactly which chest to open, or at least which room to enter.

I found Oblivions system far worse than Fable 2&3 system. But from some of the minor comments it seem we may be getting actual directions in Skyrim, or at least much less hand holding with the quest markers.