Just my observations.

no its more than that...

its a:

1- GPS with satellite up link that can track anyone and anything in the game world
2- A motion detector like in Aliens, it can track all moving targets around you (I have no idea wtf is detect life for anyways)
3- it floats in the sky to block your view

I hope to GOD we can turn it off

^ 2) I'm pretty sure that was Fallout only.

what the [censored] is wrong people! how in gods name can you know what the hell your supposed to do without that compass, lets say its magic! as you may have seen in the demo, theres a spell that shows the way, enchant that to a compass and there you go

Agreed. People seems to disregard that in Morrowind we have a lot of oversimple explanations like "The cave to the west of Balmora" (Which Cave for god's sake?) and that in Oblivion even trough we get less directions (Like West or North) we always got the name of the Cave (Sometimes even the name of the nearest city)
So, a combination of both is the most satisfactory solution we can get.

Rather, an obvious overgeneralization.
?People? is no pronoun for one individual...

Well I like the compass, and the fast travel, but thats besides the point...
I say its your internal compass

I really like the way you had to pull out the map and compass in Far Cry 2 but the fact that the map had you on it and the compass was a GPS with a smaller picture of the map on it pissed me off! I would like a game were you needed navagational skills to get around (not that hard you sickly potatos!) [<-sarcasum]

As for me, I intend to explore the world before I get any quests, so then all the places will already be marked on my map, so directions will become a moot point, and if I want to fast travel back to them I can. That is what I did in Oblivion, now yes it would have been nice if the map had marked the wayshrines too, but anyway.

I know right! I wish my GPS just pointed me straight towards where I need to go. Who cares if I go through 70 houses, a couple of lakes, and a skyscraqer on the way, its so much easier to follow!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I finished MW fine with out it I hate it give me a small compass that just points N S W E and I'm fine

clairvoyance or should I say NOOBvoyance will be more than enough to guide TEH NAABERS to their next destination , I just hope to God we get some Basic directions so that I can turn it off, like its north of here, and that will be more than enough for me.

Jeez.

First off, calm down.

Second, it's quite easy to know what you are supposed to do if you just listen to what quest givers say. They will tell you the name of the dungeon or whatever you need to go to, and then you can usually ask around for directions to it.

There's some confusion. When I said people, I meant multiple individuals. When I saw this post:


I said the same person. As in, one person would have a double standard. When I said people, I meant multiple persons with a double standard. I know what people means, maybe you don't understand context.

I'd use the sun and moon muhahaahaha :hubbahubba:

dont ask what you can do with your compass....ask what your compass can do for you!

Yeah! And you don't have to buy the menus, either! Or your HP gauge! Or your MP gauge!



....what's that? They're gameplay/UI functions that don't actually exist, in-game, for your character? Ooooooh, right. :whistling:

I would be more than happy with an option to disable the quest marker on the compass but not on the actual map. Forcing me to look at the map back and forth to know where to go.

If they also remove the marker on the map, then we are pretty much screwed if they give us bad directions like they did on Oblivion ("Go to the haynote cave" "where is that?" "LOL, just go there" *5 hours later* "lol why you mad? don't you know where that cave is?")

If only other problems were as easily corrected as this.
Step 1:
Make NPCs directions self-sufficient.

Step 2:
Make the entire compass toggable.

Voilá.

Step 3:
Make the random quests (Radiant Story) work without marks

Step 4: Pay the voicers for all that extra-work (Not that it's all that expansive)

I would love a magic compass. Let's me know about anything of interest nearby, let's me know where I need to go, etc. Anyone who doesn't want a magic compass must want to punish themselves *sincerity*

Bump. Key thread.

Somewhere between Morrowind and Oblivion would be cool. Like, say you know, clear cut directions to your next objective from quest givers, which could make the option of turning it off very viable.

All they have to do is add the dialogue to the quests which makes it plausible to figure it out without it, that's ALL THEY HAVE TO DO. Should not be too hard, Bethesda, especially with a nice team of writers.

You realize the game is coming out in about 2 1/2 months, and a chunk of that time will be printing, packaging, and shipping the game discs for release. So if its not in already, ALL THEY HAVE TO DO is rewrite every single quest in the game, pay the voice actors to rerecord lines for them all, lip synch all of the character models to those lines, implement those added directions to the game journal, etc etc...in 2 months time at the max.....right....Shouldn't be too hard. <_<

They have tweaked how the compass works from ob to fo3 to fonv and im sure they tweaked it some more for skyrim. So we dont actualy know how it works this time until we play the game.

Yes YOU remember whwre you have been.

Yes at some point as you get near something you know what it is..

Yes if someonme gives detailed directions you will know what it is and where.

BUT not if they dont.

How is this for a compass: Overlay minimap where you can set its size. The size, when extremely small, pretty much only shows the direction arrow, making practically no room for magic POI indicators unless you stand pretty much on top of one. I want to know my directions, but nothing else, and I prefer a normal map indication rather than the tape indication. Quest markers for quests you want to have shown, for those wanting that, is based on colored dots along the edge and is removed when they get close enough to be inside the map.

Then again, this stuff is already made, so why are we bothering?

I wasn't talking about right now I'm just trying to cram the simple fact in their heads in case they haven't gotten it yet.

I think the compass should have a toggle ON / OFF switch. Example: Pressing the L3 would allow a very rudimentary icon that would only give us N S E W, with no extra markers added to it besides ones set yourself. It was weird knowing exactly where characters were when on assassination missions, knowing their exact position as the moved around in a house or in a dungeon. Because of this you can ignore a lot of your surroundings and find yourself focusing on the arrow to get to your destination.

Also, I felt fast traveling was something like cheating in Oblivion. I enjoyed the walk between areas, seeing the wildlife or bashing a few thieves and retrieving their stolen goods to barter off to a dirty Inn merchant further down the road for a place to sleep & food. With the ability to skip all of that, it really makes the game shorter than it should be.I know you can say to just not use it, but its so tempting when you're after a killer item or engrossed in the story. You miss out on the experience you could have had traveling between point A & B, and taking in the area yourself. Without the markers it would take some thinking and field exploration to find the place you are looking for, and I feel that's the best kind of satisfaction when you finally do. If they do have a form of fast travel, I would hope they'd take Red Dead Redemption's idea of keeping the character in the world (third person or first) as they travel with the ability to exit at any time along the ride. Doing this allows the player to really let the world sink into their mind, and if they happen to see something of interest along the way, they can choose to investigate, or ignore it.