UESP Map : V

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:41 am

I've been looking at the UESP map. It's absolutely wonderful for actually finding your way around obstacles. Why couldn't Bethesda have done something useful like that instead of that cloud smeared mess that doesn't even clearly show the roads. Not that Skyrims roads aren't a mess in themselves. Routes between major cities seem to disappear into wilderness with no clear path.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 1:35 pm

The vanilla map is practically useless for navigation. At the very least it should show the main roads but no, clearly even that was too much to implement. Thank the divines there are mods.

The UESP map is indeed great.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:20 am

My hunch is that they felt a 3D map was needed because of the verticality of mountains. As far as the clouds go, I have no idea what they were thinking there.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:54 pm

I've never had a problem with the 3d in-game map, but I've always been in the minority on this subject. :hehe: I don't use it for navigation, I actually like feeling lost.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 4:47 pm

Map works fine for me.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 9:25 pm

When we were first told about the 3d topographical map.....it sounded great. We were told you could rotate it around and zoom in an out.

Talk about "being economical with the truth"

The zoom is minor and the rotation is less than 100 degrees.

The clouds hide what your looking for and only a few low res well known landmarks show up at all.

Utterly pointless.....its simply not "fit for purpose"

So why didn't someone get 'butt roasted' for such a lazy implementation....they should have been imo...

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 1:42 pm

Errrr follow the yellow brick road...and read the road signs... All the major cities have pointers at intersections, the only place the road really "fades away" is one of the road's in Falkreath Hold.

I don't use the map any more, I have the road's memorized.... 5 yr's of playing... even most of the small path's are like the road's home. Their are some lovely "on-line" maps and Mod's for map's...even some that are download-able or printable.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 12:14 pm

Now here's a dream. You pull out something that looks like a scroll in game. Activating it takes you to the UESP map site. When you close the site you are back in the game. Probably not possible but nice to think about.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:01 am

One of the worst things is not being able to directly travel to some locations. If you're in Markarth you can't go directly to Fort Dawnguard, it just won't let you scroll off so far.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 9:02 am

I don't either. It's amazing how much larger Skyrim feels to me when I'm not constantly looking at a scale model of the place. It also tends to feel - dare I use the word, Renee? - more immersive to me. I feel more connected to the landscape and to my character when I am not constantly exiting the game world to look at a map.

In fact, I became so fond of the idea that I've begun doing the same thing in Oblivion and Fallout 3. Nowadays I only use a map when 1) my character might plausibly be lost and 2) when my character might plausibly have a map in her possession. If either of those do not apply I do not use a map.

The only problem is that there are a few quests in all of Bethesda's post-Morrowind games - such as A New Order in Dawnguard (in which Gunmar might be in any one of fifteen random locations) - that require us to use a map, not for roleplaying reasons but because developers force us, the player, to use it.

» Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:47 pm

I like the look and feel of the old paper map in Oblivion because it felt like looking at an old time paper map from an adventure story, like the hand drawn fold out maps that were included in my Tolkein books when I was a kid. So I use Warburgs Paper Map in Skyrim. The vanilla Skyrim quite literally gives me a headache any time I try to look at it because it strains my eyes so much trying to decipher any detail out of it.