Would you be okay without quest markers in Skyrim (Discussio

Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 11:09 am

Only if they're being used very sparingly, for special cases, and perfectly justified. And NOT in the compass, please.
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His Bella
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 6:29 pm

I feel like if they were optional, we wouldn't be able to find these area's without the marker. If you look at oblivion vs morrowind, in morrowind you were given cool instructions for finding places.... in obl you were given a map icon to go to and they told you nothing about where you were going.

I'd like them to tell you where to go, and make the icon optional so that people who just want to hack and slash can skip the dialogue and kill stuff guided by the arrow, while the other guys can read the lore/directions and listen and then go off searching.
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Sxc-Mary
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:24 pm

Quest markers should be as they are in Oblivion -- optional for the quest designer, not for the player.
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Carlos Vazquez
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:39 pm

I hate quest markers. I′ve often struggled with deciding if I like Morrowind or Oblivion more, and while both games have great points the forced quest marker just tips Oblivion under the scale when compared to Morrowind.

Why is it so important to me that I don′t just get the directions ? Sense of achievement. Besides the story behind each quest the reason we like questing is the sense of achievement. Really who didn′t think "hell yeah, I found the last herb, I can now move on!" during the first stages of the mages guild in Balmora after finding the last herb for Ajira. It wasn′t "hard" picking those flowers, but it gave you a sense of achievement by the end of it you wouldn′t have gotten if there had been multiple arrows pointing towards the herbs you needed.

Basically the act of searching for something is fun and finding it feels rewarding if you followed the instructions properly and worked hard to find it. Being forced to have a quest marker in Oblivion really removed all of that.

Older games shouldn′t be better than new games, Oblivion had every possibility of out performing Morrowind and with mods it does, and Skyrim has every possibility to out perform both Morrowind and Oblivion. But if I′m going to have to wait for someone (or learn) to make a mod removing quest arrows and other possible negative changes from former games to enjoy the game more than the former games in the series, then that is not a step forward for the TES series.
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Karen anwyn Green
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:36 pm

optional
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BRAD MONTGOMERY
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:59 pm

Morrowinds direction were not great, they were non-negotiable, so you had to rely on one interpretation, they were specific to a specific starting point, unlike daggerfall, which gave you directions relative to your position. The NPCs were unable to acknowledge that you even had a map, where they could make things more clear, if you found their instructions vague. You bring up age, because you want to ridicule me into not opposing your view, you insinuate that anyone which has a problem with the directions aren't mentally over the age of 9. You are not intelligent because you managed to complete a decent chunk without help, and people aren't stupid for having problems with the directions. First of is that Morrowinds directions when working, are as easy as [censored] grocery shopping, to be able to follow them means you do not have the mind of vegitable, It's a trivial task, and does not present a challenge to anyone whatsoever. When people still have problems with them it, because it's made "hard" through vagueness, missing road signs. The task is still simple, now it just takes forever because you have little to go with, it's basically fake challenge. Morrowind asks you to walk 10 feet, you accept, and he then chops off both of your legs, saying "Isn't this challenging!?? LOLOLOLOL U havin' fun!!?!?!?!"

When Morrowind directions are adequate, the task is so simple they might as well mark it on the map, and when they aren't adequate, it's either because the NPC assumes you know of a place, and you of course can't a ask him about it, because that would be the logical thing to do, or they describe something too vague, or stupid stuff like missing road signs.

It's not even how it's actually done in real life. In real life you have a map, with loads of information on it, and you have a compass, and then the job is to find out where you are, relative to everything else. As opposed to a [censored] non-descriptive overhead island picture, showing you absolutely nothing, except yourself, which is of course completely logical! Also lacking a compass, and then you just have to assume that up is actually north, how lucky we are that morrowinds "map" conveniently always turned the same way when you took it out, and then the job is to find everything but yourself!

No! I stand by my conviction, let's NOT, have morrowinds system again. For the love of [censored] everything. If anyone was really interested in this hiking thing, make it like daggerfall, or properly, like in real life!


I could not agree more, well said.

@Stormbird: You know if you had not implied that people who prefer voice acting over written text are more or less stupid, maybe the reaction would have been different and the discussion better.
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Horse gal smithe
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 3:13 pm

Without knowing the actual context, no I don't know how it would've said.


Isn't that the point?

You read it the way you think fits the scene, how you imagine the character and so on. And since it's all based on your imagination, on your "internal visualisation" of the text, it all fits perfectly together.

You can't have that with voice acting.
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Campbell
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 8:00 pm

as long as i get a gold trophy for completing the game without markers and a nice item reward at the end then ill be happy
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stacy hamilton
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 11:06 am

Isn't that the point?

You read it the way you think fits the scene, how you imagine the character and so on. And since it's all based on your imagination, on your "internal visualisation" of the text, it all fits perfectly together.

You can't have that with voice acting.

And that way I totally misinterpreted the message.

He said it was done in a sad tone, said to the ambulance themselves. I interpreted it as a musing of madman in an Elysium.

And again, that only goes if you think that what you imagine is always better. It's not.


We derailed this thing for way too long... just don't say that voice acting ruined the direction giving.... just, no...
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Dean Brown
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 10:53 am

I think the best way to do this without wasting voice acting is simply to have NPCs mark a point on your map for you to got to but not give a marker on the compass. Any extraneus details can be written in oyur journal, assumed to be "stuff they said while they were marking it on your map" or just leave it totally unexplained, wouldn't bother me.
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Laura Ellaby
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:45 pm

And that way I totally misinterpreted the message.


No, you didn't. Your interpretation is as good and proper as anyone else's. Not even the author has the right to correct you. This is how written works function, and always did.

We derailed this thing for way too long... just don't say that voice acting ruined the direction giving.... just, no...


Not so much "ruined" as "made harder than it needs to be". I remember when we implemented a simple "Ask an NPC how to get to some place" system in a MUD once: The NPC would check if he knew where the place was, if he knew where he was at the moment, and if both were true calculated the "shortest" (dangerous paths had a significantly longer "virtual" length than their true length) path to there and tell it to the player. The end result were texts like "Walk north from here until you come to the second-next road crossing, there turn left into the Amber Road. Follow this road, cross the Ithilian Bridge, until you come to the Hanged Man Inn. The next crossing behind the inn, turn right. Walk straight ahead, the castle is on the right side not far from the inn."

That was in 1996.
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Bethany Short
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:46 pm

I can follow directions and signs and have beaten morrowind. It would be easy for me to play the game with none so long as it had in depth directions like morrowind.
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Janine Rose
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 11:20 am

Not so much "ruined" as "made harder than it needs to be". I remember when we implemented a simple "Ask an NPC how to get to some place" system in a MUD once: The NPC would check if he knew where the place was, if he knew where he was at the moment, and if both were true calculated the "shortest" (dangerous paths had a significantly longer "virtual" length than their true length) path to there and tell it to the player. The end result were texts like "Walk north from here until you come to the second-next road crossing, there turn left into the Amber Road. Follow this road, cross the Ithilian Bridge, until you come to the Hanged Man Inn. The next crossing behind the inn, turn right. Walk straight ahead, the castle is on the right side not far from the inn."

That was in 1996.

That has nothing to do with voice acting, but with how MUDs work.

There are at most 12 ways to enter and exit an area in a MUD, and everything is set to grids, so it's easier to make a program that can tell you where do you need to go. Doing a system like this would be just as impossible in Morrowind.
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Joanne
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:51 pm

That has nothing to do with voice acting, but with how MUDs work.

There are at most 12 ways to enter and exit an area in a MUD, and everything is set to grids, so it's easier to make a program that can tell you where do you need to go. Doing a system like this would be just as impossible in Morrowind.


First, you know the wrong MUDs. You can have an unlimited amount of exits for any room in those I worked in.

Second, the system didn't have anything to do with the rooms. It didn't even care about dimensions. It worked by using a shortest-path algorithm on a group of hierarchically stacked, directed graphs of "landmarks" (crossings, bridges, other points of interests), which were augumenting the room structure, but weren't bound by it. It would work equally well in Morrowind as it did back then in the MUD.
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Crystal Clear
 
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Post » Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:22 am

I could not agree more, well said.

@Stormbird: You know if you had not implied that people who prefer voice acting over written text are more or less stupid, maybe the reaction would have been different and the discussion better.


I do, I was a complete idiot. I could have implied that and the reaction would have been the same, but I latched into that like a terrier and pretty much solely destroyed the debate. It wasn't my intention, but when it comes to arguments, I'm a completely idiotic, intelligently deficit person

EDIT: So I guess I owe an apology to the forum. I'm sorry for being condescending and difficult when expressing my opinion guys, my failure to be accepting and understanding of other's arguments and for the way in which I derailed this topic so badly. I took my end of the argument, took it to an extreme level, bordering on, as someone has said, that of an asylum patient or which ever fanatic you'd like to pick.

On topic: I would like to have the choice to disable quest markers. I would like to be able to play the game without needing to refer to a game mechanic (quest marker and journal, as far as I'm concerned dialog, be it spoken or written, isn't included in my definition. This could be wrong) or walkthrough.


No, you didn't. Your interpretation is as good and proper as anyone else's. Not even the author has the right to correct you. This is how written works function, and always did.

That's true. I was SO out of line. Sorry (again) for being such an inconsiderate, degenerate jerk.
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sas
 
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