"Pressing down in the compass menu pulls the camera perspective backward to reveal a huge topographical map of Skyrim. Here players can zoom around to explore the mountain peaks, valley streams, and snowy tundras that populate the northern lands. Pulling the camera as far away as possible gives you a great respect for the size of the game world. From the map view players can manage quest icons, plan their travel route, or access fast travel."
I'm sure many of you already read this article but I didn't see a link to it in this thread so I figured I'd add it. I would like to be able to toggle quest map markers on or off in a map options menu. This way, if you want to explore and try to find quest locations yourself, you can but if you are getting frustrated and want some help getting to a certain quest location, you can just change the options to complete the quest and then turn it off again to go back to ambling through the countryside. This way everyone's happy. You can have this option on if you want...or off, it's up to you.
Aside from map markers for the actual quests, I think that places you discover or that NPCs have marked on your map should show up on the main map as you find them and then remain there permanently, as was done in previous TES games. Also, the map should be virtually empty at the start of the game and grow as you discover more places. In OB I'm not sure that I liked that towns I hadn't even visited yet were already on my map. I'd like to have the option to either explore the land to find a town or village OR purchase directions from a merchant to that town/village and then have it appear on my map. NPCs should offer to mark places on your map only if the location is still undiscovered, and you should have the option to decline the map marker so you can still try to find it on your own.
When you reach a town and are uncovering the specific buildings in that town on the map, I don't think you should be given detailed map labels of who owns NPC homes, or shops/guilds, etc. until you actually go and speak with someone in the place, introduce yourself and get their name. Then, the map label would be applied to the respective building on the map. In the case of shops, you should have to physically read the shop sign to get the map label. I also think it would be cool to be able to purchase a town map from a merchant and then after you read it, the town map disappears and gets incorporated into your main map, showing all homes, shops, guilds, temples, churches, etc. for that town along with labels, since a cartographer would have already visited the town and mapped out its layout.
It would be cool for the map zooming to work on levels, like all the way zoomed out shows all of Skyrim and surrounding area (which is already being done, I know) and then zooming in lets you zoom into map quadrants and further along you can zoom right into a town and see what parts of it you've discovered. Similar to OB except that instead of World Map and Local Map being on two pages, there is only one map.
In a nutshell, I'm just looking for more realism when it comes to exploring. This world should be completely unknown to me at the start.