I'm all for them in MMO's, but never in a single player game.

No to all. Kills immersion.

It may be okay in some RPGs... TES is not one of them.

I'd rather not have them in the game - it's kind of immersion breaking when you immediately know which NPCs have quests to offer and which are dead weight. Kind of streamlines the town experience, not to mention reminds me of Warcraft.

What we could have is town bulletin boards, where guilds can put up notice of work opportunities, or people offering payment to the first person to accomplish a task for them. This would have the double advantage of not requiring voice acting, so it could be used in tandem with randomly generated quests ad infinitum.

This recent MMO-emulating trend has made me really nervous. Fable 3, Gothic 4: Arkania, have both introduced this kind of hand-holding and for me it has no place in single-player RPGs, and especially NOT TES.

I will seriously flip out if it is in the game, talk about an immersion-breaker.

No, no, and most emphatically, no.

The quest exclamation marks don't bother me too much in other games. But they have no business being in a TES game.

Edit: Not that there's any concern. They've already said the HUD interface will be pretty nonexistent. Adding quest indicators over peoples' heads after claiming that would be just plain stupid.

Good lord...I can't think of a faster way to make me not buy the game than to add even more hand-holding to the series. It's not enough that the magic compass points you everywhere you need to go without having to think for yourself? It's not enough that the magic compass tells you everytime you're near a point of interest long before you even get close to it? It's not enough that the incessant popups spell out everything you need to know or do like you're a moron with a 3rd grade reading level (no insult toward actual 3rd graders intended)?

Generally, not having the quest exclamations is a good thing, and having to talk to NPCs at random to get them is good, just so you don't feel like you're playing the system. But I think there should be *some* reward for talking to NPCs....

I'm a huge fan of Final Fantasy/Sakaguchi games (Lost Odyssey is one of the best RPGs ever IMO), but it can feel punishing to have to speak to 100 NPCs who each have but 1 sentence to say, in order to find 1 hidden quest. On the other hand, DA:Origins did a good job of making talking to people being a rewarding experience... you got history, lore, politics, news, and quests from NPCs, if you didn't get a quest you didn't feel cheated because you got a worthwhile conversation out of them. That said, you don't want every Imperial on the street to start warbling on for 10 mins. Fallout3 had a great balance, because I *wanted* to speak to NPCs, they had well written personalities. I'm sure Skyrim will be just as good.

So I can have these exclamation marks tell me who I need to talk to and who I don't.
I like talking to the NPC's, i don't want something to expedite the quest I just want a better quest.

I know some of Oblivions quests got tiresome, but instead of having a way to get through them faster, lets just have a better quest.
Those NPC's are important to my game, whether they are important to the game or not.

In some games I find them usefull but in a TES game they would just be annoying and unrealistic.

The exclamation mark is arguably a metaphor for someone grabbing your attention. Either by looking nervous/distressed or waving at you/shouting.
I don't see why those options couldn't be implemented. (Not for all quests though.) Like you had some people come looking for you in Oblivion, but expanded with people looking unhappy/crying, or -if you have built up your reputation or look like an adventurer- notice you and call you to come over.

I agree with what people are saying.
In some MMO's it works, but in a game as TES I want as little hand holding as possible.

They are appropriate in some RPGs that aren't as immersive and that have a more casual design like Fable and WoW. In TES, I want UI to only display the most necessary things only.

I would just talk to every NPC I find, eventually I'll get a quest.

No need for exclamation points.

I think the markers are only needed because a lot of games just have the quest people standing around random places and expect you to talk to everyone. Bethesda seems to prefer looking for more natural ways to introduce quests. Daggerfall let you ask anyone if they knew where there was work, or NPCs would send you letters. Oblivion and Morrowind had most of them connected to guilds, and some you'd get from listening to rumors. If they keep that up, they won't need any exclamations. If someone's got a job that needs doing, they probably shouldn't keep it to themselves and wait for an adventurer to approach them out of the blue.

Personally, I like them but I think there should be an option to turn them off.

EDIT: I did not read the first post but after I did I changed my vote. I do not like them and I do not want an exclamation point floating above NPC's. The compass we have in the game is more than enough and lots of people here do not even like that. :twirl:

When asked about huge flying question marks/exclamation points about quest-givers' heads my first reaction was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg2u_De8j5o&feature=related.

No, I like the exploration, I also think it's unlikely, because they are going hudless. why go hudless unless it's for immersion, as stated. kinda immersion breaking to have hovering question marks.

When I read the title, I immediatly thought about spider man 2 for the gamecube. I dont think that the elder scrolls should have quest exclamations, but there should be something to figure out if they need help or not, other than randomly talking to people and maybe finding a quest.

My very first RPG was the Daggerfall demo and then the full version of the game. At no point in time did I need exclamation points to tell me who I need to talk to. You don't have to be an RPG hardcoe player to find a person when given the name of the person and where to find the person. It's just like in real life, you don't need exclamation points over peoples head to find the person you need to talk to for something.

There doesn't need to be an option because it's so basic and so elementary that if you need the option than RPG's really aren't for you. It's those kinds of players, the ones who need that kind of help, that are detremental to RPG's and the reason why Oblivion was such the disaster that it was.


I'll leave it at that.

Exactly. I wouldn't mind if there was a option for exclamations for people who don't want that. Though that's basically what Oblivion had. :shrug:
Except I couldn't toggle that off :rolleyes:

THIS! and they're extremely annoying.