Maybe. Could also be a reference to the location markers that are on the world map in OB. Or your own "pins" that you can mark on the map.

That sounds like how Morrowind worked, with the added bonus of a red triangle. When you had a quest to do, occasionally you could learn the location and it would place a location box on your map. There was just no arrow pointing you towards it, so you had to keep checking your map to make sure you were still heading the right way. Morrowind with a red triangle would make me happy in this particular case.

To alleviate the annoyance of having to actively search for every location though, you could simply make more questgivers give you the location themselves. When you have a job to do in real life that involves travel, the person who sent you on said job usually tells you how to get there.

The one thing people tend to forget is that in Morrowind people/quest givers were always static and never moved. So when you were done a task and needed to return to the quest giver they were always in the same spot that they gave the quest from. Or if you were sent to talk to a person, that person was always in the spot that you were told they were in. With the introduction of Radiant AI this is no longer the case. Now a person could be anywhere, at the pub, at their home, or just wandering around town. So without the quest markers it would be tough to find people. I have been replaying oblivion (and morrowind) and when I needed to find someone that wasnt part of a quest it can be really difficult. I do agree that the markers set to accomplish the task were overly hand holding but the markers used to find people/quest givers was needed. Maybe they can just have a people marker, or quest giver marker, or make quest givers schedules limited once a guest is given.

Also i remember back in the day playing daggerfall, I couldn't find Prince Lotan and just free roamed for about a year till I stumbled across him, he was a kid sitting on the floor of the castle. Of course that was before there were walkthroughs available on the net, but a quest marker would have saved me alot of wasted time.

Or at least make them slightly inaccurate. Maybe a few degrees off. I mean the quest giver can't possible know the exact location.

Yep, Im Going to play with No Hud i'd say it will look great :tes:

I love oblivion,but i hated the green and red triangles telling me where to go,right down to the nearest blade of grass. I would rather get directions from NPC's and do the rest myself. If i get lost or frustrated,so be it,it's way more rewarding when you find somewhere yourself,without a big magic finger saying "go here,then here"....ermmm....Ok!
I believe we can now plot our own roots on the map in skyrim,which indicates to me that we may go back to the morrowind way,where NPC's ( depending how much they liked you ) told you the general direction or area to go in. It's more immersive,it's more rewarding,and it helps your brain to think once in a while . It also encourages more exploration,and can lead to other things. Overall in my opinion,it's a far better way of doing things. :thumbsup:

I read that there will be an option to turn the compass on or off which is a crucial move by Bethesda to make sure everyone is happy with it. I personally didn't mind them at first, but they did make the game more repetitive.

Source?

Can you provide your source for this information?

To OP: Good topic. MW was great with directions. Pull up the map and one could see what direction one was facing (no need for a compass). OB not so good , but as other have stated one could select a quest other than the one being done and the quest markers ignored. Let us hope Skyrim is more elegant as it appears to be and that Bethesda continues to listen to their players and learn from their past games! :tes:

I wouldn't mind a normal N-S-E-W compass that we could follow. Morrowind's directions of go north of Seyda Neen or whatever is what I liked but you'd have to continually open the map to see if you were still facing the right direction, especially after a battle. Oblivion went overboard and made it to where you just had to run straight to an arrow.

I simple compass that shows direction along with morrowind's direction system would be best.

Yeah, there'll always have to be a "compass", so that you can tell that you're facing North. But that's not map markers & quest markers - that's just a compass.

Why not take away the map then? And the entire menu system. After all, viewing a menu is cheating....right?

The bottom line, this needs to be an option, and not something that is completely taken out.

Besides, fast traveling has been confirmed already. How is a way point any more cheating than asking an NPC where to go, then pulling up your menu and traveling there or the closest location to it. The waypoint is not cheap, or cheating. It fixes a majorly annoying aspect in which I have to pull up my map every 5 seconds to make sure Im headed the right direction.

And for the record, the HUD is optional. It has not been removed, thankfully, and I will certainly utilize it. The real babies can whine about immersion killers, but at the end of the day this is a video game so I was never immersed in the first place. I have a thread about great ideas for immersion that would make this game horrible. Would it be immersive? Of course. Would it be the most annoying game you ever played? Most defenitely.

So like I said, make it an option. There are some people who like to wonder around aimlessly not knowing where to go, and there are others that like to get straight to the point when it comes to quest completion. And its fairly obvious that TES team is catering to both.

Yes options are good,no problem with that,as long as it is an option. Did you play morrowind?

I sure did. Im not one of those MW was god and OB was devil people though. I loved both games, and thought that OB improved upon MW greatly. That said, Im not worried about Skryim. I just love TES. Both were amazing parts of my gaming life that I will never forget.

I agree , about loving oblivion the same as morrowind. Each has good and bad/not so good points,and i'm all for options too. In oblivion as regards markers and fast travel,we didn't have much choice or options.
I still believe morrowinds ( No markers ) and NPC's directions was the best way,there is no harm in having to think a little when finding something. In fact,the way it was done in morrowind allowed you to get distracted along the way,adding to your adventures of your character. I always mention fast travel with markers ,because some things go hand-in-hand with both. Lovers of the morrowind travel system,did not have any other choices in oblivion,other than walk,or click a button. The option has to be for both,otherwise,it ain't an option. I'm just not a fan of markers,unless i place them myself,from rough directions from NPC's.

And ability to turn off locations of interest appearing on the compas (Deadric shrines, ruins, dungeons, etc.) since it's compass, not a GPS.
Wow, Tamriel has pretty advanced technology for a fantasy world.
It has Voyager in the orbit that will teleport you anywhere you want and it has it's own GPS system.
It's amazing how people complain about throwing stars not fitting Skyrim (while they actually do and please don't make me explain myself) and teleportation and GPS do.
:spotted owl:

Wait. Wait. A quest marker is horribly unrealistic cheating... in a world, where immortal god-like beings can literally go out for a stroll on a world floating in a magical void.


WHAT?!

I mean, I can understand wanting an option to turn off the way-point marker... but come on, it's clearly a magic compass. I mean, a wizard literally did it. Boom! Way-points make sense in context. Wow, that was hard. No technology required. No satellites, no GPS, just MAGIC, you know, in a world full of it.

I do like the idea of having to find someone who can mark the way-point/point you in the right direction, which a few quests in Oblivion had. But in a large, expansive, free-roaming world, people need things like maps, compasses, way-points, and/or mini-maps or else they'll get hopelessly lost. I mean, I sort of liked the way Morrowind did it, when it was done well, but the fact is sometimes you were given absolutely horrible directions. And getting lost and having to check your pause-screen every 30 seconds is not something I find fun. Realistic? Sure it is. But it's not something I want in my interactive entertainment. Most people do not find bad directions and getting lost to be fun or enjoyable experiences.

I'm sorry but I honestly do not understand the desire some people seem to need to be constantly eating, drinking, and checking their map/journal as they levitate over mountaintops on a hunt for dragons.

I'd just briefly like to point out something regarding your thinking...
The reason that something like bat-[censored]-crazy Time Gods is fine, while magic quest compass via is questionable is the following.


The information we have regarding these well-fleshed-out-aspects of TES are diverse, convoluted, and outright weird. In other words they are interesting and intellectually entertaining.

Whereas this...

... is just boring. It lacks the creativity, the unique spark, the intellectual entertainment that the former had. "A Wizard did it" is the absolute worst way to explain or contrive something, ever.

personally i wold like them to make it so that i have to talk the waypoint out of the npcs but instead of an exact location give me a large circle and some wear inside of that is the correct location npcs give you directions to the exact location so for people like me who cant remember directions will least you know that you are looking in the right location

and as for how the oblivion compass could be explained that the quest giver marks on your map the cave x on your map and your caricter looks at the map and knows that he is in skingrad so cave x is 1km north north east so he knows whear it is and it dose make sents but i think that my way point idea works better with this explanation anyway because cave x may be 1km north north eaqst but i still ma have misjudged the distance or moved slightly to the left or right so so have x i some wear inside of this area

Apologies, I though it was obvious that was making a simplistic example of how logical reasoning would extrapolate that a way-point could easily function in a magical world. I did not, in fact, mean that 'a wizard did it' would be the full explanation. But mystical technology does exist- we have the Orrery and pretty much everything the Dwemer did was a mix of magics and mechanics. There is precedence, and no reason why they wouldn't develop utility devices like a magical GPS-ish compass or, you know, Mage's Guild Teleporters or Self-Lighting Torches. (Hint: those latter two exist.)

In a magical world the 'technological' advancement is more likely to be based on magic rather than, say, circuitry.


This is a good idea. I like the idea of having to learn the location from NPCs, at least for quests where it wouldn't make a lot of sense for the quest-giver to know the location. Also having a small area marked, rather than an exact location, would be a good compromise. (In other words, the NPC would mark the 'area' on your map, and your compass could guide you to that area.) Also you could have an option to activate the compass way-point in your quest journal, sort of like how you could choose your active quest from your current list of quests in Oblivion.

i wish games made maps and compass more tactile. i think it would suit tes to have items,

I think for the more casual gamers this is a necessity, for if you're not looking for immersion or want to pay a tun of attention, you're screwed. It also sometimes got tedious in Morrowind when you go to sleep, start playing the next day, and have no idea where to go, and the NPC won't remind you!

So, because of this, I would like to be able to toggle it on and off. I know people have been requesting a lot of togglers for Skyrim, and some of them, lets admit, are just stupid. However this seems very realistic and quite a small tool to help both immersion and casual players. Thoughts?

There is difference between fantasy and silliness.


Erm, sorry, but this is not Harry Potter, THIS... IS... TES!!!
Seriously though, magic is not answer for everything.
It's totally uncreative and boring, not to mention stupid.


I actually never got lost in Morrowind, at least nothing big that would make me pull my hair out and went QQ.
Maps and compasses are good stuff for finding your way, but GPS''magical'' compass is something that svcks big time.


Tell that to Tolkien.

Long story short for me:
Make a toggle option.
If I get lost (serious lost) I can turn it on. Otherwise I want the easy mode off.

This is pretty much all that has to be said. That's what I did in Oblivion, that's what I'll do in Skyrim. If people want fast travel and a marker that tells them where to go that's fine. It is, after all, a SINGLE player game.... how can you cheat in a single player game? The only person you cheat is yourself.


Anyways, I prefer not to fast travel or use the map markers unless maybe it's a busier day and I don't have a ton of spare time for TES. (Blasphemy, I know)