The quest compass appears to be gone : V - Skyrim

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:58 am

Am I the only one that thinks that no HUD doesn′t mean No quest markers?

You can simply open the map and see them, if they are in...

Only having them on the map would still be 10 times better than having them on-screen all the time so people follow them like trained monkeys.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:04 am

on one hand you say that morrowind quest finding is hard because of inadequate directions and inability to for other npcs to communicate and then you say its not challenging to follow directions. which one is it? morrowind directions were plenty good enough for most gamers.

just because some people cant follow very simple, easy to follow directions doesnt mean that the everyone else who could figure them out has to suffer for it by being coddled with quest arrows. seriously, anyone that had problems following most of the morrowind quests shouldnt even be given a drivers license.

as for the interwebz looking, i will take the very rare occasions where i might have to alt-tab out and do a search on something that is stumping me versus the constant "LOOK HERE, HERE IT IS, OVER HERE......HEY DIDNT YOU SEE MY BIG GREEN POINTY THING....ITS RIGHT OVER HERE." you get with quest markers.

im encourage by some of the previous posts. its nice to see that bethesda is listening to its fans and NOT designing the game around inept gamers.

Morrowind's directions were never "hard to follow" or anything like that. There was no intellectual challenge to reading them and knowing roughly where you had to go. The thing is that sometimes the directions were unspecific, really only telling you that the location you needed to get to is around about this largish bit of West Gash, or whatever. Sometimes the directions were even misleading (saying east, when south would have been better, for instance).

Now, some people found this frustrating, because they were going where they were told, but they weren't being rewarded with any quest action. You might have been happy to search around a bit more, and you might have been happy to rationalise the bad directions as immersive or whatever. That's fine. But it's just false to claim that the people who were frustrated by this are stupid.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:39 pm

Morrowind's directions were never "hard to follow" or anything like that. There was no intellectual challenge to reading them and knowing roughly where you had to go. The thing is that sometimes the directions were unspecific, really only telling you that the location you needed to get to is around about this largish bit of West Gash, or whatever. Sometimes the directions were even misleading (saying east, when south would have been better, for instance).

Now, some people found this frustrating, because they were going where they were told, but they weren't being rewarded with any quest action. You might have been happy to search around a bit more, and you might have been happy to rationalise the bad directions as immersive or whatever. That's fine. But it's just false to claim that the people who were frustrated by this are stupid.

either they cant understand them or they are to impatient to do a little searching. perhaps it is the latter. when the topic of fast travel comes up, people have posted that its annoying to have to run to silt strider or a boat or guild teleport. really? that extra minute or two is that challenging. even WoW players have to walk long distances and WoW is one of the most "mainstream" of the MMOs out there, or so ive been told by people who left WoW for games like fallen earth. if they cant be bothered to put some effort into the game and they must absolutely get to their quest goal in less than a minute then i suggest the movetoqt console command which i will confess to having used myself from time to time. *cough* getting into arcane university quests *cough*

as for the bad directions........no im actually not happy about that and the directions should be correct. im assuming your talking about that one quest where they literally tell you to go the opposite way.....i just assumed that was a bug in the game. i dont know if it got fixed in later patches since once you do the quest the first time you never forget it. that quest i ended up finishing later on while on the way to another quest when i was just exploring around. that was annoying but thankfully the only time in morrowind that occurred.

from what other people are posting it sounds like the quest givers are very specific and will take you to the road in some cases. i just hope that they dont constantly repeat the directions the entire time im following them to the road like they are talking to some five year old.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:10 am

If random encounters are in(I think they are) and the directions bring you to a trigger point on the journey it could actually add to gameplay.If not I would hope you could add a marker on the main map that shows up on your compass.That way it would be off by default and the person would have to choose to use it.

I look at the two sides of it this way.There are probably fans of advlt movies featuring little people who are realllly in to it.If they are very active on a advlt movie forum the studio is not likely to come to the conclusion that they should fire all the hot 20 yr old starlets and scout the lollypop guild for new talent.Catering to a niche group with very particular tastes is not a sound business plan.If you do not believe me ask Interplay how it worked out for them.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:26 am

im confused now......i just read the italian coverage thread and according to that the compass appears with a v marker on it when you get a quest and when you in combat. but then the other post said that npcs will give you detailed instructions and even walk you to the road..........which is it. or is the compass toggleable. if it isnt everytime i get into a fight im going to see that god awful quest arrow again. :banghead:

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 5:18 am

im confused now......i just read the italian coverage thread and according to that the compass appears with a v marker on it when you get a quest and when you in combat. but then the other post said that npcs will give you detailed instructions and even walk you to the road..........which is it. or is the compass toggleable. if it isnt everytime i get into a fight im going to see that god awful quest arrow again. :banghead:

If they do both then it's a YAY in my book. I would have no issue with Oblivion's quest markers if they were optional, if you could turn them off or mod them out and still know where to go and how to get there from in-game directions or NPCs showing you. The problem in Oblivion is that if you turn off quest markers you get no direction at all, NPCs just say "he stole my book go get it back" and they never say where "he" lives, hangs out, works, whatever. You get no direction at all. If they said "he stole my book, he hangs out in Talos Plaza but he lives in the Garden District" then I could turn off quest markers and have something to go on.

As it is in Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas I have the markers turned off on the compass, but left on the map. That way I at least don't feel like I am following them constantly.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:14 am

Turns out the Quest Compass is always at the top of your screen, and your health and other stats appear during a fight, and only disappear again after you've, say, had full health for a specific amount of time.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx

Not sure what GI was on about when talking about no HUD, maybe it really was just disabled for their playthrough. Oh well. :shrug:

Oh and I know others here already mentioned that your stats appear during a fight, but none of you guys ever gave me a source to back up those claims. If you know me you know I need a source for things like this, but I'm sorry I couldn't have believed you guys earlier.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 6:16 am

I sure someone will have a blast walking around in circles for hours on end.

No they won t, because they won t be able to open the shortbuss door by themselves.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 12:36 pm

If they do both then it's a YAY in my book. I would have no issue with Oblivion's quest markers if they were optional,

Same here, i really hope bethesda is able to complay with the word: "OPTIONAL".

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:51 am

It doesn't matter to me, I'll play with it or without it but I'm glad it's there. Also the info about the hud is sweet. :celebration: :celebration:

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:45 am

Interesting...

I predict there will be one of two complaints against the latter in the future: those arguing against the NPCS' unkillable status if they're made essential...and those complaining about the sheer number of annoying babysitting missions if they're not.

I think you messed something in your argument, Both side are complaining about the same thing from opposite sides.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:47 am

Turns out the Quest Compass is always at the top of your screen

IIRC, he just said "compass". He didn't say anything about quest markers or the like. A compass on its own isn't a big problem. It's just when it always has that dumb pointer telling you where you need to go. I could actually see them leaving the quest markers out of the on-screen compass, as it could become confusing when you have nearly impassable mountains in between you and the objective (unlike Oblivion, where you could almost always go in a straight line to reach it).

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:00 pm

IIRC, he just said "compass". He didn't say anything about quest markers or the like. A compass on its own isn't a big problem. It's just when it always has that dumb pointer telling you where you need to go. I could actually see them leaving the quest markers out of the on-screen compass, as it could become confusing when you have nearly impassable mountains in between you and the objective (unlike Oblivion, where you could almost always go in a straight line to reach it).

True. I guess we'll only know for sure once we see gameplay footage, a screenshot with the compass and a marker in it, or if Todd confirms or denies there being markers in it. :shrug: