I can see that. Maybe you can go and trun off all waypoints? Does that turn off quest waypoints too? Might help with your immersion, but since npcs dont really give directions to places and rely on the map so much it might make it really hard finding where youre supposed to go!!

Yeah it's pretty much impossible to find your way around without the markers.

An example related to this:
I met a Khajit at the Windhelm stables, he wanted me to retrieve some heirloom. Gave no directions whatsoever. The worst part here is that it wasn't even located in a dungeon close to Windhelm, it's pretty much impossible to just explore the land and come across it.

Sadly it's pretty much impossible to mod in more directions too. There are so many quests that would require extra directions and it'd feel out of place without voice acting.

^The source of the problem. Morrowind just wrote it. Beth would have t o wait until they nailed down all the final locations of everything and had it all in place before they could finish with thier voice actors. My guess is, most of the Voice stuff was done b4 the map was finalized. Thus making verbal directions impractical/impossible

Another big problem is the fact that quest dialogue options are really shallow.

When you're designing an RPG where a player listens to/reads dialogue, and then is expected to respond, you virtually never want to have a moment where the player has only one option to choose. There needs to be several options, each with a different response from the NPC, and each with at least slightly different endings to your conversation, with consequences, or repercussions. As is, I feel like I'm on a rail, listening to the NPC's dialogue, and then clicking the one, or maybe two options available to my character, which will result in the NPC continuing the conversation in the same, or similar way, with the same end result by the time our conversation is over. In Skyrim, your responses to NPC's often amount to clicking a 'Continue' button.

I'll give you an example, from the Dark Brotherhood quest line without giving any spoilers.

There is a part where you're sent on a quest to kill someone. At the end, you can decide not to kill that person. You corner them, and then that person talks to you, and if you choose you can just turn around and walk out the door, going back to your sanctuary. When you talk to the quest giver, they say 'Did you kill your target?' Your only response is '(Lie) Yes, I killed the target', to which the quest giver replies 'Excellent. Now on to more important matters'. What should've happened is this:

"Did you kill the target?

• (Lie) Yes, I killed the target. ((Which should lead to repercussions if the quest-giver finds out later (based on a random chance) that you lied))
  
• No, the target got away ((Which could lead to a reprimand, forfeiting your reward, a further side-quest to make amends for your failure.))
  
• No, I left him alive, because ____ ((Which could also lead to even greater reprimands, penalties, penitence side-quests, or even a new conflict, or a struggle as your 'treason' is thought of as an execution-worthy offense))

But of course, that didn't happen. That never happens, because like I said the dialogue is shallow, and so are the quests. Also, as is, you basically go back to your home base and lie about fulfilling an assassination mission, collecting your reward. If I can lie about this one, why can't I lie about all of the others, and just hope no one ever finds out? For an 'open world RPG to end all RPG's' Skyrim is quite linear. I think of it as an action-adventure hack-and-slash with the trappings of an RPG than a true RPG at this point.

To be honest, I think that Morrowind did a little bit better job on this - but even if it did not, it's still a 9 year old game. You'd think Bethesda could've done better by now. Keep in mind also that in Morrowind it was a relatively simple process to improve or add quests - all you had to do was type dialogue. Now you need voice actors, so if Bethesda doesn't do something right, it's harder and harder for us to fix it.

Somehow this never fully convinced me. Voice acting wouldn't limit your character from taking notes and perhaps writing down rough locations of a dungeon/item in a journal.

Besides, Bethesda seems to handle voice acting rather oddly. For instance they make different voice acteors all voice "Some may call it junk, but me, I call them treasures." rather than having a different line per actor, providing more variety.

Every time an npc gives you a quest but doesn't give any direction at all it's a jarring and irritating experience that really pulls me out of my fun. Every time it happens it feel like part of the conversation was just skipped and it really does hurt the experience. Even someone who always uses the quest markers should be feeling the effects because the dialog just doesn't make any sense without them.

I don't mind the caves and the like being shown on the compass or locations being marked on my map for quests, the first being convenient and fun while exploring and the second being logical. I don't want to go back to hunting for an hour to find the cave a quest mentions in Morrowind but I also don't want dialog cut just because quest markers exist.

Yes. As a video game, Bethesda has been successfully making the games prettier (to a degree that is debatable). As a role playing game, they have not even kept up with what we know is possible, let alone push the games into new territory.

I think it's unfair to say the people who have minor inconveniences with Skryim are not true fans. I think a lot of the true fans are the ones who want to compromise with Beth. All they are asking is for some minor things to be changed and balanced. That's all I'm asking. Skyrim's character customization is horrendous. It's the Dragon Age Origins of modern video game customization. Sure, yes it's realistic and that's great I do enjoy the new look. But why can't I change the wrinkles on the woman's head? Why can't I make the laugh lines disappear? Where is the age slider? Skyrim's customization should have been the Hybrid baby of Oblivion with age slider, hair length slider, color customization, but adding the presets of Fallout 3.

I'm so tired of being called a non fan, even though I have played since Daggerfall, because I'm disappointed in a few or so features.

It's insanely possible that these people remember the GOOD things about the game series, rather than the negative things that accompanied them.

When they play the newer games, they find some of the negative things taken out of their games, but also a lot of the good things. That's not nostalgia goggles, that's people seeing some change as productive and some change as counterproductive.

For example: I am immensely pleased that Bethesda has moved on from one animation fighting, but they also took out a bunch of other stuff that would have been really cool.

Morrowind fan here:

What are you talking about? I'll do some real Morrowind fan complaining for you.

How about half the spell effects being cut from the game and in their place they added a spell that points you towards quest objectives?
How about the removal of spellcrafting?
How about no Great House questlines and short questlines in general? Not sure if Great Houses are on Skyrim I don't know too much about that continents lore but I'm sure there would be equivalents if the other ones don't exist.
How about the removal of primary and secondary skills and stats and being able to give your character a class name? Now granted not everyone thinks that is bad but I like it. I think it adds depth. Obviously they should have changed the way leveling works though even if they kept that.
How about how they removed a lot of variety in enchanting and didn't make it better at all?
How about how there is far less cool and unique loot to find?
And on and on.

I don't care at all about bugs and stuff because this series has been buggy as crap since forever. Trust me there is plenty to complain about for those of us who enjoyed Morrowind even if some of us aren't organizing those complaints very well.

Being a fan means you can't make any criticisms about the game? Ok then.

HUh? OP makes zero sense, it is usually the long time fans who complain, new fans have no point of reference. Long time fans generally have higher standards and want the best for a series. Long time fans complain more with each iteration if they see a series having the same issues as previous ones, and Skyrim has the same flaws as other TES games. Under developed Melee combat, useless skills, linear quests, animation from 2003, terrible AI.........

Not to mention taking things out for no reason (Spell making, less spells and weapons).

If your new to the sreries you would not even know this. Get a clue before making stupid threads.

Yeah, I tend to see people forgetting some things from Morrowind.

No level scaling? Yeah, that's why I never saw Allits, Cliffracers, and Fire Atronachs until higher levels. That's why upon returning to the Dwarven ruins, hoping to be high level enough to beat up some spiders and spheres, only to find it suddenly full of steam centurions...
More quest variations. Sure, get item X, go to dungeon Y, kill person Z... Just like the random quests in Skyrim... except not random at all. Yes, there were a couple of more interesting quests, and guess what, Skyrim has them too.
More interesting places? HAHAHAHA. Yeah, that other dungeon was a different shade of brown.
Deeper characters? job, your trade, random town specific banter, encyclopedic knowledge of everything ever, even from an illiterate peasant. DEEP.

Skyrim and Morrowind is at the same level at most.

I remember when my mother used to beat me up and she said she did it because she loved me, because didn't want me to go astray.

Everything this person said about dialogue ^

Dont even need to add anything.



I agree on you about the spellcrafting and spell effects, but the great house equivalents would be the qeusts you do for the Holds. The Great Houses were basically small dutchies, such as the counties in Oblivion and the Holds in Skyrim. That all already exists.

I am kinda on the fence about primary/secondary skills and class name. Honestly, being a single player game, I dont need the game to define what I am playing. If I wanna be Jimmy the Barbarian, I am Jimmy the Barbarian, who gives what a UI menu says. Honestly, the skill system change in Skyrim is one of their best features. Its no more niching characters (except for perks) you play what you want, not what seven skills the game forces you to play. I dont miss this at all and I think that was a huge flaw from Oblivion and Morrowind.

Enchanting seems to have been more streamlined to make it less OP. Morrowind probably had the largest problem with making Godlike characters. I am surprised your using that as a gripe against Skyrim, that was a bigger issue in Morrowind.

I do agree on the loot, its sad to see a lot of the artifacts are gone, I guess expect to pay for DLC for them. However, if each DLC is an epic quest to get said artifacts, I will be a much happier person since many artifacts were trivialized through either stumbling upon them or simplistic quests.

This. Yet it's like people simply dismiss this issue because "Oh, it's Bethesda and we expect it to have outdated and buggy gameplay, so that makes it perfectly okay!".

Morrowind had level scaling, correct. But to a lesser extend, for instance if you looked in the right spots you could get some ebony/daedric at level 1. That being said I'm a fan of the balance of level scaling between MW and OB they seem to have found in Skyrim.
Quest variation hasn't really changed all that much in the TES series, in my opinion. In Morrowind you knew a lot more about the quests though.
More interesting places I can't really comment on. The entire Morrowind atmosphere was pretty uninteresting to me, I prefer the prancing unicornland of Oblivion. (Odd, I know.)
More character depth, well you just answered your own answer there buddy. No matter if the person is a peasant or some lowlife scum, it's nice to be able to know something about them.

Morrowind and Skyrim are at the same level, I agree.
But it's been almost 10 years, wouldn't you expect Skyrim to be a bit better? And wouldn't you expect Skyrim to not simply ignore some of the amazing features the previous TES games had?

I think most people do not mind the criticisms but when people take it to the extreme and say things are broken and its a horrible game, when clearly its not, tend to aggravate people who still find the game fun despite some flaws. Especially when they speak of "how they would fix it" which comes off worse than what we have currently.....WoW? Seriously?

HAHAHAHA - Morrowind is 9 years old.

9 years ago, I was spelling 'believe' as 'beleave' and thought that 6th grade math class was tough. Sorry, but if Bethesda can't do better than Morrowind now, in 2011, then don't know what else to say. Add to that, Morrowind benefits from a greater array of mods, which will be increasingly difficult for single or small groups of players to produce, given the increasingly complexity of the software, voice acting, etc.

Sounds like your only defense for Skyrim is 'Morrowind screwed up in similar places, so it's okay'.

Your character have a map.
Every quest giver or book you find have written maps in them, not graphical ones.
All it actually sais, is that your map is updated.

With the OBSCENE amount of dungeons and places in Skyrim, do you honestly think people would complete more then two % of all the quests unless there was help?
I highly doubt it.


They made the right decision with the compass and quest marks to ensure you have a paced game play.
You dont need to fast travel to get there you know.

I dont understand how people can complain about this feauture as there are hundreds and hundreds of quests out there.
The game would take if you wanted to finish around 30% of the quests available, roughly 2 years. It would take aroudn 5 years to complete it.

You guys are nuts. Come back to planet earth.
I undestand the argument if there was a few quests in total but thats not the fact.

No, the UI in Morrowind was perfect for the PC at that time (i.e., played on 640x480 resolution, or perhaps up to 800x600). If you played it like that, you didn't not have "small icons" or any level of tedium at all. It worked exactly like any other windows-based software, even utility programs or Windows Explorer. If you played it on later hardware at higher resolutions, of course you would have problems. Same thing with other games such as Deus Ex.

Is it rationale or reasonable to expect a game with such a complex environment that really has untold variables of which could not possible be tested in any practical amount of development time...to be bug free at launch?

Spare me the "glaring" omission post as it does not matter what it is, your always going to have that "glaring" omission when it comes to bugs.

Very well, this is How Morrowind went.

"Have you killed that person yet?"

-if you are lucky you actually get to answer otherwise he would just repeat the details of the quest.

>yes
>no

if you say yes-> "No you did not, come back when you did."/"Congratulations, here's your reward."
if you say no, even if you did complete it -> "Then come back when you did"

This is how Daggerfall went when you've returned without completing your quest.

"..." nothing happens.


And no, this has nothing to do with "8 years" or whatever, older games had deeper conversational trees before. My point is that TES was never known for their well written dialog trees, or deep choices in them.
There was a reason you could only mention titles and names, not pre-written sentences (except in a couple of cases)

Let me put this into a better light as a game developer in training. If any one of us directed Skyrim it would not be Skyrim. Its a significant thing to note as many people try to say "X" is wrong with the game and "Y" should have been done. How the hell do you know that? Are you absolutely sure? What if a lot of people like X but not Y?

Why not? Plenty of people did so in Morrowind.

No one says take out the map completely, we just don't necessarily want a big arrow saying 'HERE IT IS' to everything. Much better if you have to do a little thinking to get there.

I'm sure someone out there said 'Why would you put a puzzle in a dungeon like turning stone pillars with a snake, whale, and hawk on them to make the proper order of animals? If you had to that I highly doubt people would finish more than 2% of the dungeons with that puzzle'.



In any case, it's been almost 10 years and it's time for Bethesda to up the ante, don't you agree? Or are previous failings as good a reason as any for never improving what should be a big part of your game?