This damned if you do damned if you dont.

If the OP gets his way the next game the complaint will be I refused a quest but now I want to do it WTF is it not in my journal.
Either way mods will fix it for you

You know you can just exit the conversation instead of replying...right?

Then you should love Skyrim, because none of your claims apply to it.

The game was not dumbed down for console users people. Get off your high horses. It was dumbed down for the "CASUAL" gamers. People who have played very few games or never gamed at all. That was the target demographic. COD players are included in this because a VERY large majority of them only play COD.

There are plenty of console gamer and COD gamers who play this game and are having the same issues with the games as the PC users.

I am a PC user and sometimes PC users assumptions are disgusting.

Unfortunately, that doesn't always work, as referenced in my example of talking to Brynjolf. To wit: even if you tab out immediately the quest is added, as it assumes you completed the conversation no matter when you exit. Granted some don't do that, but enough do that I consider it a problem even though I usually don't care if a quest gets added as a result of conversation or not.

I don't remember any quest in Morrowind, other than the main one, automatically showing up in my journal unless I did something I knew would complete an objective I already had.

The fact they were written in character makes it far more realistic, which is the point. And again, I don't remember any quests that started without my consent or knowledge.

Doesn't matter if you can remove them or not when you control whether they're added in the first place, you know.

The quests are optional. The objectives are optional. However, whether a quest is given to us or not is entirely out of our control. They're added, regardless of our input. How is that a good thing? Even if such a thing occurred in Morrowind and Oblivion, there's absolutely no excuse for continuing the trend.

Like I said before, I like doing quests when I want to do them. I had absolutely no problem with this in Morrowind, because there was usually an absurd amount of detail regarding the quests I was currently involved with. I could get a quest, wait a year, and still know exactly why I was doing it. Can you say the same for Skyrim? Because I certainly can't.

I am playing Skyrim. I want to be able to have control over what is added to my journal and what is not. It really isn't all that much. I'm not asking for gold here, just gameplay mechanics from a previous game that worked very, very, very well, yet were stripped for absolutely no reason other than to simplify the game so a 5-year-old could play it. Skyrim is supposed to be an RPG. You're supposed to be able to get into the world that Bethesda created through immersion. How can you do that when you talk to a quest giver and the only thing you're given is a magical marker on your compass and extremely vague, yet literal directions (Go kill x)? I don't care how you play your games, but stop acting as though action-adventure mechanics in an RPG is a good thing, or that missing RPG mechanics in an RPG is perfectly reasonable. It's [censored], plain and simple.

I agree with Greed.

In Morrowind, I had options most of the time. Sandbox options: kill, steal, sneak and kill. And dialog solutions: peaceful, betraying, intimidation, bloodshed etc. When I didn't have options that was because my enemies didn't give me one, rather than the game.

Skyrim's essential filled, scripted event driven linear quests violate even sandbox options.

The key point is, I almost never looked at the journal in Morrowind, only for names, places and directions. With this, even if the quest was linear, I did it in my own account.

That makes the whole difference in the world in an RPG. And it's the reason why I love Morrowind.

Saying no should obviously not give you anything in your journal.

I'm amazed that people are actually challenging this. If you decline a quest, then it should not appear in your quest log. Why do Bethesda nuthuggers not understand this?

I've not read the entire thread, so i don't know if this point has been brought up, but couldn't the automatic acceptance of quests result in unwanted and unnecessary scripted events? e.g. You decline a quest that asks you to kick some drunks out of an inn. It is automatically accepted. Then when you happen upon said inn whilst going about your daily business, the quest script kicks in and you find yourself forced into a confrontation that you didn't choose to take part in.

Great god, I'm seriously sick of this misinformation.

NO. YOU. DID. NOT HAD ANY MORE CHOICES.

You asked about a quest in Morrowind? A new entry appeared in your journal, the quest already begun.
You couldn't decline, you couldn't be peaceful, you couldn't say something witty.

And guess what, just because it's in the journal, YOU DON'T HAVE TO FINISH IT. Oh no, somebody asked me to do something I don't want to do, even though I'm not forced in ANY WAY, I must do it because the almighty journal and the arrow in the compass says so.
No, just no.

There are as many choices about quests in Skyrim as there were in Morrowind, if you need to kill somebody you had the choice how to do it. Peaceful solution was a rarity even in Morrowind, doesn't matter if you max out your disposition with said person, if he doesn't have the scripted sequence to do something else becaue of that, it doesn't mean [censored].
You couldn't make peace with the bandits in Morrowind, you can calm them, yes (JUST LIKE IN SKYRIM) but they just stop and talk about everyday rumors, not what you actually supposed to do or whatever.

Oh and if the "no" answer doesn't appear in Skyrim? Press TAB, walk away. EASY!

This so hard. Merely talking to a quest giver gave you the "Your journal has been updated" message, the quest was put into your journal, written IN CHARACTER, and you could not remove it from your journal no matter what you did.

So if you're going to complain about this in Skyrim, then please, go over to the Morrowind and Oblivion forums and make the same thread and complaint there too, please, because it's not new to this game.

While I love this game, I have to agree with the gist of your post.

Hopefully they'll give the option to opt out of quests in a future update.

Sigh. I was talking about two points there. You ignored one and called the other misinformation.

So, a bandit or evil character wouldn't give you a peaceful solution. Duh!

I can tell you many quests in Morrowind that I had to talk to a non-hostile NPC and that could lead to a peaceful solution or else. Many.
I can tell you many quests in Skyrim that all turned to bloodshed suddenly with a plot update and many that, I have to simply walk away in the end after doing much of the questline. It is not about what I do, I only walk to places and watch things triggered which I have to respond with killing or being in a position where i am expected to kill. Or it ends in an anti-climatic way because I don't advance the story in the right way writer's intended. I am either just very unlucky or Skyrim has problems in quest design. At least in Morrowind, it would tell you to "Kill X" from the start so you knew what you are up to. And it could surprise you with options. It is the other way around in Skyrim, once you are helping someone, next thing you know you have to kill them. If lucky, you can walk away. If really lucky, another option but don't expect much, it reads: "Quest failed: No quest reward for you!"

No misinformation here. Morrowind had options, not every single time off course but mostly. Questing in Morrowind was about solving problems. Recruiting, convincing, dealing with people in different ways which was up to you. You were the person who was updating the plot, it was your incentive. This is because Morrowind was raw where Skyrim is staged, so amazingly and throughly. So it updates the plot when you trigger things by walking around.

You walk around and BOOM: plot update -> "Kill X", yeah you can ignore it sometimes but immersion is already ruined...


But that wasn't my main point. My point was the quest and journal design in Morrowind put you one step ahead of the plot so that even if the quest was LINEAR(meaning NO CHOICES), you still have the ILLUSION of doing things on your own account.

Options + on your own account = AWESOME!
Linear + on your own account (illusion) = Meh but still immersive

Game updates plot + no options = Horrible
Game updates plot + options = Could've been good but immersion is ruined, also turn the page adventure feeling

Morrowind had directions and a journal too. But it was out of sight, it wasn't into your face. Things would get buried under pages. So it was easy to ignore those parts and become immersed. I am saying, I NEVER looked at the journal 90% of the time. When I looked, it was only for names of places and people or to remember a long lost quest. Most immersive gaming experience I know to this date. I did it all by myself, on my own account! I am still amazed by the innovation in Morrowind to this day.

If only you guys try to understand where I am coming from. Morrowind did this stuff right, maybe every other part of it was awful, perhaps all stories svcked but it did this stuff good, so good it is still ahead of its time, apparently.

If you don't click on the relevant keyword, nothing would happen in Morrowind. It is up-to-you. Even then, it would be something like "X in Y, told me there is Z in W, maybe I should check it out.", "X told me to kill Z, I will find him in W." Not intrusive.

You are thinking Oblivion with quest POP-UPS. Skyrim is better than that but loses in mission style logs. A literal "Kill/Join Z: Go W".

The best journal / quest list is the one you write yourself on paper.


Yeah, this. It's very cumbersome to use the quests list when it's full of quests your character is never going to do.

Aaannnnd in Skyrim you can Tab out of the conversation if you don't want to accept a quest and nothing will happen, and if you do get it, it's in your Questlog if you decide to do it, not intrusive.

So the problem again is... ???

You say it clutters a questlog? Well, Morrowind clutters a journal with useless quest information that I'm never going to do that I have to sort through to get to the quests I do want. So it's the same thing.

So again, if you're going to complain about one, then go to the Morrowind and Oblivion forums and make these same threads, because the same thing exists there.

I don't have to do anything in Morrowind. In Skyrim, you say "tab out". I am trying to immerse myself in the game, and you say "tab out". Also I am interested to what they will say so I can decide you know.


I say, in Morrowind, things like these will be lost under journal pages. Secondly, we trigger things ourselves so it is not a problem anyway. Thirdly, it works like wikipedia so you only click on the relevant keyword and journal sorts things for you. You only see what you want, you only add what you want.

I am not going to complain about Vista features now, I will complain about 7 so 8 can be fixed. And you should see the things they are bringing back from XP/98. (Microsoft's motto for bringing old features is "Respect Explorer’s heritage".)

This, I don't want to sacrifice a 2nd chance at the quest if I back out early, I think Skyrim does it right by putting it in the journal, it's not like I need to complete the quest. A huge overreaction by the crybabies who can't stand having their precious Overrated Immersion being broken because you can't get a simple line of text out of your journal.

What I regret is the lack of something like this option for straight and narrow 'good' characters.

Me: "Dragons are bad for business"
Brynjolf: "Not as bad as a missed opportunity"
Me: ".. or a busted nose. Now tell me what I want to know, or am I going to have to Beat it out of you?"
:Brawl:
Brynjolf: "Fine, fine, he's in the sewers, you creep. But you'll pay for this! You're a dead (Man/Woman/Elf/Cat/Lizard)!

(Quest Gained - Take out the Trash)
1. Talk to Mjoll
2. (If you haven't already) Retrieve Mjoll's sword from a Dwemer Ruin
3. Obtain solid evidence implicating Maven Black-Briar's connections to the Thieves' Guild
4. Present the evidence to the Jarl
5. Join the raid on the ratway or assist in apprehending Maven at her Villa

6a. Incapacitate or Kill Brynjolf and Mercer
6b. Gain access to the Villa and Incapacitate or Kill Maven

7. Wrap things up + Quest rewards and consequences. If you incapacitate Maven or choose to raid the ratway rather than grabbing Maven, this will trigger Assasains. If you are in the Brotherhood, these Assasains will be from the Morag Tong. Rewards are greater if you Incapacitate rather than kill, though. You can get access to a freelance fence no matter what you do.

Delayed Quest: "Finish what you started" - Whoever you didn't go after has holed up somewhere, and the Jarl has requested that you go after them and finish them off.

If this is true, then how can you avoid getting the "Forsworn Conspiracy" quest from starting? Even if you exit out of dialogue with the guy, he still hand you a note... regardless if you tab out of the conversation or not.

This is a poor decision on Bethesda's part. If I wanted to do a particular quest, I'd look for it or hear a rumor about it. In the next installment of the ES series, please put the spoons away. Thanks!

Don't feel too bad...I did join the Bards, completed those quests and yet I still have a lute and a flute I can't get rid of!

I recently went through to do all those random quests. Most end up leading to more. The list never seems to get clean. I did become Thane of like 3 more cities though. More houses, some with enchanting and alchemy shops!

As far as I can remember, they didn't have that in Oblivion. There was a mod which implemented that, however. A simply awesome mod I must add.

Eh, I see the museum and college thingy as normal publicity. They don't have tv in The Elder Scrolls, only newspapers and couriers, so some extra mouth-to-mouth publicity shouldn't be a waste to those public services. There's logic to the way you receive those "quests". If you're not interested, ignore them. Although, some device to erase or at least set apart quests you're not interested in from your "journal" would be very helpful. Also, a categorization per region would be very helpful, because I always have to reactivate the map marker to know where it took place again (I click off the map marker for all the quests, I like to SEARCH for a solution, not mindlessly run to wherever the marker is guiding me to like I'm a little kid who can't do jack [censored].) Oh well, a real journal would be much better anyway, I don't even know anymore why I had to go to a certain person based on the information in the quest "description" *coughcoughcanyouevencallitthat?coughcough*. Could be some quest I declined in the first place because it didn't suit my character. And looking it up on internet is NOT doable.

Although, I've got to admit, yesterday some executioner walked up to me and asked me to track down an escaped prisoner, but when I said "nay, take up your own responsibilities and solve your mess by yourself", it WASN'T added to my quest log. I felt like I reached Valhalla.

Yes, it's really weird. I also expected, after one of my first quests in Riverwood with the love triangle where you can lie in favor of the other person to your choosing, that you at least could tip the guy to be more careful. The Thalmor are the frigging big enemy, and it's not like you can choose to join their side anywhere yet, so why even add this quest? It just makes no sense. Unless you're playing a sick paranoid racist (or just generally humanoid-hating) bastard.

But it's frustrating enough to get yet ANOTHER useless quest description added to your already jumbled list of quests, half of which you don't even know anymore what they're about.
As greed said:

I think that has partially to do with the fact the game takes place in Skyrim, a cold and hard place to live in, and its brawl and alcohol-loving inhabitants. In such harsh lands, you can't really decide to be a pacifist, it'd be a real challenge. Besides, you being the dragonborn, the main story revolves mostly about kill kill kill, while in Morrowind you actually had to unify factions and go about it in a very diplomatic way. So it's possible Bethesda did it on purpose, in order to make you actually feel like you're in the Skyrim from the lore.

Oh, he handed it to you? I though he pickpocketed it into your pocket or something, since I was like a mile away from him when he suddenly started talking to me amidst a crowd of people. I wasn't even able to discern who exactly was talking to me at first.

Handed it, reverse pickpocketed it, smashed it in your face, used the Star Trek beam, put it in your sweet roll, stuffed it up your backside and kicked you... no matter how it happens, it ends up in your inventory.

As Kuni said in UHF... "Supplies"!

How about vendors that aren't vendors UNTIL you accept their quest?