I didnt look at the map. Did you bother reading? I looked at a map that was in-game. A paper map inside the barracks, not UI map. I DID find the place on my own!


Im about to comment katixa now, gonna take some time so if I wont respond to your next comment fast I apoligize ahead.

My experience: Misc quests impossible to find = takes away a lot of possible fun. No thanks.

I try to play with quest markers disabled as much as I can, because I don't want to play this game following an arrow. Possibly my next replay, with a different char, once I explored the world, felt the thrill of all Skyrim, etc... but not for now.

The problem is that I find myself lost several times. And anyway trying to play with realism, like being without a map, etc... it's not even conquered, even if you manage to do so, because the game tells you place names as you discover them.

Some quest givers mention details (person name, places, directions, etc.) some others just mention a place, and if you don't open the map, you just have one option: wait until you discover the place (and you know because the game tells you). So, while I think it's nice to play without much guidance, also I find it a bit complex, maybe not necessary, to go around completely lost. For instance, I was told to kill a bandit leader in a place, but nobody gave me details about that place... just another arrow (disabled for me). And don't get me wrong, is not that I want to do quest after quest, I love adventuring... but sometimes I just want to progress a little in the game, and I find myself reading the journal, without markers, and wondering where is that place or NPC... because it doesn't even mention the city.

If the game included a feature like a library where I could read about places, or an ingame map for adventurers (not UI map, I mean.. a map inside the gameworld), or something like that, I would surely go for it, instead of my UI map, for quests that mentions a tower, cave, etc...even if not all of them are catalogued.

Not being the case, my only choice (if I want to see if the quest is near, or far, to choose if leave it for now or not) is to open the journal and show the marker of the quest on map, and see where is the place. Once I get an idea where it is, I disable the quest marker and try to travel on my own... so lets say I play as if it was the character's map. You also get notices about "Map updated", so you can take it in some way as if your character updated the map.

Anyway, I understand that they can't create spoken dialogues for everything, but a solution for creating quests with more depth, and at same time avoiding long dialogues, could be something like ending the dialogue with this: "here, let me explain a little further...". Followed with a "journal updated" note, and then in your journal you could read something like: "There seems to be a cave to the SW of Whiterun, where this guy lost his sword. He could see the city from the entrance, so must not be far away".

Or as it works now, if the game included a couple more details, it would be helpful... right now seems to be designed to just follow the arrow to doors and NPCs, so a 3 minute dialogue is reduces to an entry in the journal saying: "Kill X on Y tower", and unless you remember, or activate a marker, you have no idea if the place is near city X or city Y, so you can only wish to find that place and NPC sometime while playing.. or activate the marker to see where it was.

Another example for this "find-myself-lost" stuff is that I crossed a guard saying something about a bandit camp somewhere, and I just noted it down on my real-life notepad under the "to visit" category, but just as I was doing that, I noticed a "map updated" notification on the screen, and a new quest on "Miscellaneous" with something so brief as: "Go check [place]"... First I don't know why a quest is needed there. And second, if you play with no arrows or map... how are you supposed to reach that place?

Sorry for the long post specially because it derived to a little criticism/complain, but I hope it's at least a bit worth as a reply to what you was asking.

Anyway, I understand that they can't create spoken dialogues for everything, but a solution for creating quests with more depth, and at same time avoiding long dialogues, could be something like ending the dialogue with this: "here, let me explain a little further...". Followed with a "journal updated" note, and then in your journal you could read something like: "There seems to be a cave to the SW of Whiterun, where this guy lost his sword. He could see the city from the entrance, so must not be far away".

Wait, what? There's a map for every single location in the game?

Not sure if you are sarcastic or not.

I think it's more likely that he's not understanding that you're using the map on the castle table and not your ingame UI map. Actually, that's a rather good idea, I have no idea why I didn't consider it. I am sure it's a possible mod option in future, to disable your ingame map completely and just rely on looking at that map. It means returning to the castle (sorry can't think of it's name right now) to find the location of a new, er, location, but that's not outside the boundries of gameplay IMO.

Exactly. Why would it be outside gameworld boundries? Its an in-game map.

I will try to break down what you wrote,

First - I like you suggestions! on the library most of all and the "further information" from NPCs, I think it shouldn't be too hard to mod. I would addtho the journal thing into a book, an actual book in your inventory. Inside the book there will be notes "given" by NPCs (alittle MW like) but maybe thats what you meant?

* - you can find places, even if its only a bandit X in location Y kind of thing. You will not believe what you can colnclude only by location name. Yes tho, it does include alot of time and search for the location. But by taking clues (check my post right before yours, the post I sent to hircine) you can even find bandit X in location Y eventually without randomly bump into it.

IMO spoken dialogue is the biggest killer of all. At least the markers can be turned off etc, spoken dialogue is a finite resource, and cannot be procedurally generated like text dialogue can. I fear it's a one-way change, we'll never get back to text dialogue again, too many gamers would vomit.

I mean gameplay boundries, I don't think it's unreasonable to have a gameplay style where you only have the table-top maps to refer to. After all, as a player you probably already have a *real* map that came with the game.

In fact, higher difficulty modes should use this no HUD, and no UI map. Would soon separate the gamers from the players.

I was talking about a journal as it currently is designed, but just with some more details. I proposed the book idea some days ago on a similar topic, but in this case what I suggested was the possibility to acquire blank books that the player could carry and fill with notes, directions, names, or whatever... Just, a REAL journal. And now that I'm at it, it would be even cooler if you could buy "paper roll" to draw on them with pen and ink (own city maps, etc.).

also keeping in mind that nowadays people doesn't want to read long journals neither dialogues, but just run to a quest marker to get the XP, the whole idea doesn't makes sense either.

Not impossible at all. You still hear the sounds when your health is running low.

But the problem remains. Its no different than what I do - except that instead of a book in real life you have a book in-game. I imagine the "journey book" I have in real life is part of my character inventory. Its an extended gameplay that goes into reality - if you wish.

Or did you suggest that the dialouge (text) will appear automaticly in the journal as if the character written it him/herself?

1) Did you encounter any "Dead ends" where you simply could not go on without the quest-marker?

2) If so, what did you do to overcome this dead ends? Did you apply quest markers or did you found some other way to fix your problem?

Im playing 50 hours now into the game. For the first 20-30 hours I didn't even open the map. I navigated only by sun, stars and memory of the environment.