Man, that place is cool.

When I got the Skyrim, I had high hopes and slightly above average expectations. My expectations were met but my hopes were not.
I have only done the mages questline plus the thieves questline and then enough side quests to get to level 40 on one char. So far it has all been pretty bland as far as story goes. I have just been biding my time, waiting for the construction set to come out.

But then I stumbled across Markarth. I finally got a little bit of that blind f4nboyish glee that half of the people on this forum have. The town itself was creative and interesting. The quests actually had a compelling backstory. The nearby dig site was phenomenal. I can't be positive but I would say that whoever did that dig site must have made it maze-like just to try to circumvent the in game compass which unfortunately is necessary for over 80% of the quests. It would have been nice if the quest journal gave enough text to navigate without the compass, but sadly it does not. But this one zone, the dig site treated it perfectly! There were so many twisty-turny passages that the compass was completely useless. Perfect!

In fact, the Markarth quests and the level design of the adjoined dig-site and the level design of Markarth itself were so far beyond the quality of all the other quests that I have encountered so far that I am convinced that the same person did all three. If so then give that guy a promotion. Put him in charge of the preplanning for TES VI. Moonbeams shine out of his eyes and angels sing when he opens his mouth.

Also, let me know what other quests he did?

Markarth is one of the better-crafted cities. I'd put Riften and the whole of the Rift in this category, too.

That guy/girl/team should definitely all get promotions.

I loved the Markarth quests. Nothing beats satisfaction than having to kill 2 Dwarven wheelbots with just a pickaxe and jail clothing.
:sunglasses:

Markarth probably is the best looking city next to Riften, Markarth has some great water features

weird but I briefly thought this would be something Duke Nukem would do...

I liked Markarth & The Reach too.

I heart the Forsworn. My next playthrough, I'm playing a Breton male and RPing him as a Reachman. I would seriously love to see a DLC surrounding the whole Reach business. And maybe an option to have... less intense negotiations with the Forsworn after certain quests. I regret killing them so much.

I tend to agree on all counts minus the major bugs that plague the city springing from the Foreswarn quest line, and the ridiculous ending to Namira's quest where you either eat a cleric or kill half of the city, including a vendor and a dog owner.

I haven't done that much there, making the post about Namira above spoilerish...but it is a really well done city and all. I wouldn't want to live there, though.

Ha!

I was just telling my man that the only part of Skyrim I really fell in love with was Markarth =] Love the quests and the city.

Turn the compass off in the prefs file. It actually makes dungeon crawling more realistic because you can't see the red dots indicating where enemies are. Makes you have to work by the sound they make. I love the Markarth jail stuff, fun times even though if you've ever played the first Chronicles of Riddike game, it's not nearly as long of a jail term lol.

If you do that, a lot of quests just don't give enough landmarks to know where you should begin. They never say "to get to xyz fort, you go up the road from this town and take the second fork in the road to the right at the big rock." or anything like that.
Or does the 3d map still show the markers for you even though the hud compass does not?
That would work.

Even without map or hud compass markers it would still be doable with the clairvoyance spell.

I might try that.

The markers still show up on the map. The only thing it eliminates is the hud compass.

Definitely agree with everyone who said Markarth is the coolest city.

It's the most visually interesting to me, and also its quests, while also being well-written and well-thought-out and satisfying, also have a tangible effect on the city itself and the people who live there.

My character is now the proud owner of Vlindrel Hall and is loving living there. I especially love the look of the city at night. The waterfalls lit up with firelight is just so cool.

Agree 100%.

All the other cities and quests are sub-par at best compared to Markarth and its quests.

The Reach is my favorite hold of Skyrim, no doubt.

The Forsworn are also a nice departure from all this boring viking-esque crap.

I had a look around and couldn't find many quests there apart from killing giant spider and a couple of others. I went into cidhna mine and there was no quest opportunities? Where are you getting these quests?

hmm... I couldn't find a setting in the SkyrimPrefs file to turn off the compass.
Is it the one in c:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim\Skyrim\SkyrimPrefs?
I tried setting bShowFloatingQuestMarkers and bShowQuestMarkers both to 0 but the markers still show up in game.
I don't know if i did something wrong but that didn't work.
I also was unable to find an in game setting to turn off quest markers, only found one to turn off floating markers.

Markath give me the creeps. I try the avoid the whole town with all my characters.

easily the most beautiful city IMO. I love the water and the fact that it goes up into a mountain, not sprawling outward.

You should get the Forsworn quest on your first visit to Markarth, when that man tries to kill the Imperial women in the market place. A guy named Eltrys will give you a note after the event, saying that you dropped it. It reads "Meet me at the Talos shrine." The quest goes from there.

Did you witness a murder when you showed up?
talk to all the citizens about that and check the books tab or your inventory for notes.
You have to do some detective work on your own before the fun quests begin.
Also, where you killed the spider, stay there and clear out those huge ruins where the spider is.

Also, ask the jarls aids for quests, there are a couple of daedric quest in the town, there is a quest that starts when you find a journal after you kill the spider, visit the hall of the dead, ask people.

My Docunents>My Games>Skyrimprefs

under Interface

bShowCompass=0