The quests are better, or at the very least the same, has they ever have been.

Has anyone played TES before?

As for quest markers, I like them because they're OPTIONAL. Some people got [censored] to do and I used to see just as many complaints in the Morrowind forum because they DIDN'T have something like that. Then SOME people complained that they were there... so they made them optional, but people STILL have to whine. It's not the game it's a personality trait. HATERS GONNA HATE.

Anyway, it's not all that unrealistic. You're character would have a map, and I'm sure they would get some details about where they're going and what they're looking for before they set out.

The only thing I wIsh is that you had more info your journal if you don't want to use them.

Care to explain to us all how those are "optional" when we are giving not even a scrap of alternative information to work with?

The guilds quests are really short, and after you did em, you don't get any respect from the others, you have no benefits (free teaching f.e. would be nice) if you're the archmage of thieves guild master...
and the main quest is ultra short. It's about 10 quests where you actually have to do something (the other ones are report/locate xy).

HAVE YOU?

They are not optional. You have to use them just to complete the quests because you get horrible directions and your journal does not update with pertinent information. Nor even useful information.

It is completely unrealistic. How is it in any way possible to know exactly where a stranger will be out in the wild at any given time when they are moving? How do you know where in a town an individual would be when they also are moving about. How do you know where an item in an obscure dungeon is when all they tell you is that all they know is that it is in the dungeon? The quest journal and markers are pathetic. They should be OPTIONAL but they are NOT in Skyrim.

Bland and unrewarding, the MQ and Civil War being particularly so considering they should be the crux of the game.

Daedric quests are pretty good, guild quests are too few, Civil War quests are too few, short and boring, sidequests vary from good to not so, Main Quest does it job, better than Oblivon's.

Hopefully DLCs include a bit better quest writing.

What I don't like about the quests are the very few outcomes and choices. Todd said there'd be branches and stuff in the side-quests and perhaps factions, but they are an exception. Dialogue only offers one alternative more than 75% of the time - what's the point? :/

That is made possible with the revolutionary imperial tracking technology! Each citizen of the empire has a tracking chip under his skin and the informations are regularly tracked and updated by the IGTS (Imperial GPS Tracking Satelite) which than sends those information to the DGNU (Dovahkiin GPS Navigation Unit).

Edit: Maybe we get a DLC in which the player visits the TSS (Tamriel Space Station). From there we might even be able to see the IGTS!

I enjoyed the quests to be honest. There were some quests I had issues with in the thieves guild and dark brotherhood that did not seem as creative as Oblivion, but others I found very enjoyable. The biggest issue I have with quests in the game is that the quest-lines of everything are way too short. It seems like Bethesda wanted to add a bunch of different sects into the game and reduced the length of the quest lines because of it or maybe the radiant quests of these guilds and such were meant to fill in the space, but the radiant quests were just too shallow to really fill that space.

The "guild" quests are really disappointing IMO.

They welcome you with open arms no matter your skillset, and then in a few short days you are leading the whole shindig.

Other random quests seem to be very well done though. I liked just running into people and having some sort of issue to resolve.

I've only done the Thieves Guild plot (but not the special jobs to be guildmaster yet) so far so I will restrict my comments to that.

I thought overall it was a good story, with good rewards. I didn't find it short, because I don't start a questline then concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else and I don't use fast travel, so I'll complete whatever objective is in my journal when I am next in the area, as well as doing other things around that area. I think that's the way it's supposed to be experienced rather than "be given objective A, fast travel to town where A lives, speak to A/rob A/clear out dungeon A, fast travel back to questgiver for objective B, rinse and repeat".

I would have liked more of it to absolutely rely on stealth and thieving skills, rather than being dungeon clearing - the Goldenglow Estate quest was superb and I found it very challenging at a low level, managed to get through it without killing any of the guards and it was a real sense of achievement. The other quests though could be taken almost any way you like, and sneak/thieving skills were not really a prerequisite for getting through the questline.

I am currently working on the random quests to improve the guild and am starting to tire of them, I would have liked a bit more variety and diversity in the items to be stolen (I can't remember how many ornate drinking horns I have stolen but surely there can't be one left in the entire province by now!)

I don't object to random quest targets per se, but it could have been done better - rather than having a "sweep job" or a "fishing job" which are all essentially the same, have jobs where you have to get a particular item such as a special weapon from a particular person - sometimes they carry it on their person, at night it might be in a locked chest next to their bed, or they might leave it with a smith to have it repaired - this would require you to follow them around, learn their schedule, overhear conversations, and come up with a plan for stealing the item which would vary dependent upon your best skills - one thief might be able to pickpocket it from them, another might break into their house and crack a tough lock, another might be able to persuade the smith that they were picking it up to return it to the owner or threaten them into handing it over.

Outside of the Thieves Guild, I like the bounties and "find a place of power" and "retrieve a book" type quests that the radiant system provides - I wouldn't want an entire game to be based solely on that system, but they give me plenty of useful things to do in different parts of the map and often have me exploring new places, they make for good filler material and give my dungeon diving a purpose beyond just going in a dungeon to see what's in there.

There's a little bit more to it than that. It involves tree stumps, Arrile's tradehouse and money