SOLUTION 1: Do as I do. Say "Yes, I'll fetch your sword" ... then never do it.
It remains in your stupid little quest menu, most likely as a Miscellaneous quest... and that isn't a big deal. Maybe once you've done the rest of the entire game, you might be bored enough to go do it.... OR you might just accidentally do it while pratting around in some barrow or other.... BUT in any case... They don't send follow-up messages hounding you to get on with whatever it was. All it remains is a silly little note in your quest-log. OH, and I've never, ever seen a blacksmith do this.... so.... tell me which blacksmith that is so I can avoid talking to them.
Only a big issue if they dumped some quest-essential burden in your inventory. THAT is a pain.

SOLUTION 2: Cancel out of the conversation. i.e. Press B if you're on the 360 ... otherwise, I dunno. Whatever.
I'm not a big fan of saying "No" when I know it leads to the stupids. The moment they start asking me to do something dumb, I just press B and get the hell out of there. I do the same with guards when they're trying to arrest me (i.e. I press B, kill them all, then go about my business... as unlike Oblivion where people wouldn't do business with me while I had a bounty... it doesn't matter much any more).

SOLUTION 3: Kill them.
If they're not marked as essential, killing them will usually cancel the quest. Removes it from your quest-queue. Very convenient.
Then there is only the matter of the guards to deal with... and since when is that an issue? Pay the fine if you want, but I just tend to get an ever-escalating bounty in all the areas, and view town guards as another sort of monster. At least it stops all the arrow-in-the-knee comments.

@SotiCoto, Yes those are all valid solutions. However, certain people like myself (I don't know, maybe i'm in the minority?) have too high of a level of OCD for any of those solutions to be an easy fix.

SOLUTION 1: Nearly impossible because every time you open up the quest window it's there. The MISC. quest group is there in plain sight and will always be in plain sight, unable to ignore it. I don't know how much you know about OCD but it's an uncontrollable psychological urge, for me to keep things organized and tidy. It's not just a simple little desire, it's a necessity.

SOLUTION 2: I have done this and sometimes it works. The reason I say only sometimes is because I often forget who that person was and engage them in conversation hours or days later to be tricked into obtaining the quest in my quest window again. Another thing that happens is after i'v already begun conversation with them my curiosity bugs the crap out of me about it because I always wonder what his or her deal is. I often remedy this by going through the whole conversation with that NPC, obtain the quest, then reload a saved game from before I met them. To have to constantly reload save games and make sure to save every five minutes just so you can do that doesn't seem right to me.

SOLUTION 3: This would work too, yes, except that I may want to do the quest at another time. This is why I mentioned "temporarily " being able to delete the quest from your quest log.

My whole reason for explaining this is because there seems to be many people out there like yourself who don't seem to understand why the many people i'v seen out there like myself can't just do one or any of those three solutions you listed and stop complaining. Hopefully my explanation will help others to understand. And just to be clear, obviously I still play Skyrim; This isn't a game breaking "problem" (for me at least), but a very nasty annoyance indeed.

We may not be forced into doing anything, but I really dislike that I get a number of quest items into my inventory that I can't get rid of unless I do a particular (and, sometimes, very long) quest.

A simple drag'n'drop interface would be appreciated.

Not to mention the quest items that remain in your inventory even after you have completed the related quest..... Or, quest 'items' stacking, UNTIL you get the quest, then they won't any more, and you can't drop them either.

There are also a good deal of people who needs help with exploring ruins and so on. I hate escorting people around so I always just quit the dialogue when they ask about it.
Twenty minutes later I finish the ruin, and when killing the "boss" the quest suddenly pops up telling me to help the NPC clear out the ruin. He/she then comes running through the whole ruin just to say thanks. It's stupid, I didn't want to help them.

One time the NPC wouldn't even leave me a alone so I ended up killing her off just to get rid of her constant blabbering. And don't you just hate it when they keep starting a conversation with you if you're anywear near them. You close the dialogue and then five seconds later it zooms in on them again, it drives me mad. I don't want to help you with your stupid dreams of exploring this or that ruin.

Amulets of Talos. [Censored] me. It would have required, what, five lines of code?
If player has not fulfilled quest, character must have one AoT on him at all times, so he can't sell the last AoT he owns.
If player has fulfilled quest, the normal rules for normal items apply.
Why, Bethesda, whyyy?

You can't be a pure warrior in this game and do the main quest. You HAVE to join the theves guld because you need to go past them to retrieve an old fart. Then you HAVE to join the College of Winterhold which is anti warrior. Warriors have ti bad in this game there is just no choice for them. You didn't have to join TG or MG in other games to complete the main quests it was purely optional

I'm obsessive-compulsive too. Apparently just about different things than you are though. Like the way my brain practically starts bleeding if I try wearing an incomplete armour / clothing set, and if I make an enchanted set they all have to have themed names and sit next to each other in the inventory, or I can't use them.


I know plenty... in a first-hand sort of sense.
My first port of call is "Ignore the Misc quests, for Misc means Trash Bin in Skyrim".
I don't like having incomplete quests either, but I'm TOTALLY able to ignore them if they're Misc.


Forget who it was? The game is mostly quite neatly arranged. The NPCs each have their fixed place, fixed movement schedule... very nice, orderly and predictable. That includes most quest-givers too.
Perhaps I should clarify that I've been through the game a few times now and done most of the quests with one character or other.... so I don't get any bouts of insatiable curiosity.


That is kinda what the quest log is for: Quests you might want to do later.
Isn't as nice as a quest journal like the previous games had... but it serves its purpose.


I don't think Skyrim was made with obsessive compulsives in mind.
I don't think most games are... besides Pokémon, obviously.
I'm just glad I'm not bugged by it the way you are.
I'm far more bothered about the lack of all the various things I loved in Morrowind.... including some I deemed essential....

There are a few quests which you should really be allowed to turn down and have removed from your journal.

Like I have one asking me to perform a HUMAN SACRIFICE. I said NO to the quest person, but the quest is still permanently active in my journal with no way to get rid of it. And it was started from a random encounter so is foisted upon you in the first place.

Read it again I said nothing about the users... only the platform.

Even the quest to get rid of it never completes. Ever.
At least it lets you get rid of the amulets from your inventory... but quests that CANNOT be completed nor removed... those bug me. Those bug me to hell and back.





Was it the cannibalism one, or one of the others?
That daedric artifact quest where you have to cannibalise the priest to get some ring and another potential meat-shield? ... Well, upon being told to eat the guy, my response was to butcher everyone in the room.
Mass slaughter I'm fine with... but I ain't eating anything that hasn't been cooked. Thankfully it registered the quest as failed and got rid of it.

A very basic element of quest design is to cover all the bases. You would think "pc picks up the quest item before being given quest by quest-giver" would be a major consideration in quest design. I'm surprised by how many Skyrim quests don't consider this. The quest coding is a bit sloppy really.

And some of those that do... well.... I have no desire to join the bard college. Well outside my sphere of interest, which means I am stuck with these instruments I picked up....

Let me kill the quest, remove the quest item flag from the item in question, and LET ME DUMP IT on some poor unsuspecting vendor. Let HIM do the damn quest.

OP if you don't want a quest in your log, I think that pressing (O on PS3 or B on XBox) will just kick you out of the dialogue. The equivalent PC key should work as well

Best solution imo: save frequently, and load if this happens and you don't want the quest.

Having lots of quests in your log isn't good, because you forget what they were about easily since there's basically no quest descriptions, thus forcing you to use those quest markers.

Oh, please. This is exactly the kind of ignorant, inflammatory statement that began the PC-console wars, and keeps them going.

The journal in Morrowind worked perfectly fine, and that was on the original Xbox. So no, it wasn't dumbed down for console use. It was dumbed down for dumb people because Bethesda makes more money off of them.

Basically. And this would be why you don't even have to WORK to get rich this time around. Seriously....every dungeon has gold, jewels, and potions in EVERY other chest. It's too easy to get rich in this game. Sure, Morrowind had some dungeons that were basically treasure chests ripe for the picking, but they were few and far between.

So you hack and slash and collect your uber leet loot$ so you can buy bigger weapons with which to hack and slash.

No, this isn't crying. This is making our frustration heard. If we don't make it known, there's a chance it might continue onto the next game. Don't assume that just because you have a bunch of cute little stars under your name that anyone who doesn't is a whiny brat. I've been here a long time too, and simply had to register again after the forums got hacked years ago.

Why would they make it so their RPG caters to people who play action-adventure games? Why would people who play action-adventure games want to play an RPG? Bethesda made the wrong choice, and they need to acknowledge that, either by telling us flat out that we do not matter as customers, and as long as they're making money, they'll continue to sell out, or by admitting to their mistakes and fixing them.

I bought Skyrim because it was marketed and labeled as an open-world RPG, so I shouldn't have to go out of my way to ensure I have the freedom I was promised simply because Bethesda wanted people who prefer a completely different genre can enjoy Skyrim more than me.

The biggest problem in my opinion is that quest descriptions are very vague. Only "Go to x and retrieve y". After hours of ignoring the quest, how am I supposed to remember what the quest was about?

That's just wrong ...


To your question: $. We can't begrudge them that motive.
To your statement: I kind of agree. Gaming marketing needs a serious rethink, especially as its average customer base grows older. Teenagers are usually willing to play anything, provided it's fun. advlts tend to have more niche tastes- or are at least more angered about being lied to. Gaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. A decade or two from now, they're going to have no one to blame but themselves when they start tanking.

You know I will ignore your comments and refrain from saying something strongly offensive, don't push your luck. Now as to the 1st part of your quote, this is truly not a big deal at all and it's crying over spilled milk. So what if it ends up in your quest journal, it's only going to remain there, it's not like your forced to do it and if you have a change in heart you can go talk to that person again. That would avoid the, "Well I tried talking to him but I backed out early and now he won't talk to me" option, some here would call that a choice, I would call it lost options. At least with Skyrim we can turn off quest markers, try telling that to Fallout 3, Oblivion or New Vegas which keeps the quest markers on if you accidently clicked them, it's a huge step in the right direction and so far it's working out great, although I do agree about the forced conversations especially Bryndlof. That should've been handled in a different manner by just having Bryndolf say the line but not force you into the conversation.

This thread has largely fallen into gratuitous e-p33n competition.
I lol'd.

We might wanna play the same game as each other, but we sure as brick don't get along, eh folks?

They made more than enough money with their previous games. They just want to make more, at whatever cost, which makes them no better than the companies that move factories to other countries. It's a different route, but the outcome is exactly the same, and we can easily be angry at them for that. Sellouts are sellouts.