So I have noticed there are a lot of hardcoe morrowind fans on here that arent so happy with skyrim.
Dont worry I myself am one of those people, but i still love skyrim for what it is, and i have actually found a hidden beauty beneath it that can be released very easily. Read below and i will go into detail of what i am talking about.

Ok so im about 280 hours in on 5 characters simultaneously and i can safely say skyrim is a truly epic game with a lot of attention paid to small details.
Now personally I still think Morrowind is the greatest game ever created, so i definitally have some biased opinions there. But over these last 280 hours of skyrim (not to mention the 1000+ on oblivion beforehand), ive come to realize some of the things that truly made morrowind so great (besides the more factions/skills/spells etc.) but ill get into that in a second.

Now What im ultimately suggesting is a few minor tweaks(modded in of course) that can make skyrim feel much bigger then it actually is, give you a lot more world immersion and in the end - play more like morrowind.
I personally havent modded any elder scrolls game, ive never had the time to sit down and actually learn. But i am pretty sure that all of these tweaks can be realitively easy to mod.

Anyway, here are the tweaks.

-Compass/Place Markers: Ok so one thing that made morrowind feel soo much bigger then oblivion(and skyrim) wasnt just the draw distance, but was also the fact that morrowind didnt have the compass that showed you all the places on it within a half mile radius.
My problem with this is i know where every single dungeon is now, and those dungeons that are hidden behind a rocky outcropping half a mile up the mountain arent so hidden anymore because i look up and KNOW theres a cave or a ruin or a house behind that rocky outcropping. I liked how in morrowind ive played the game 50 times over, and the 51st time i find a dungeon in a spot that ive passed a ton of times but never saw it, i actually feel a sense of accomplishment finding this new hidden dungeon.

What im suggesting here is simply give us an option to turn off the nearby place of interest markers on the compass (just like how they already have an option to turn off quest markers from showing up over doors and stuff.) This first tweak will make skyrim feel so much more vast and mysterious, seeing as alot of dungeons arent anywhere near paths and theres lots of hidden caves and such, but they appear on the compass, so they really arent hidden at all.


-Quest Indicator/Directions: Now another favourite aspect of morrowind was the directions that you had to read, and follow to find your destination. This not only put in a huge sense of immersion, but also made you the player come to get the lay of the land and know the place a lot better.

In morrowind when you had a quest to goto a dungeon, sometimes the directions would be a bit vague, making you have to think for yourself. Instead of just getting a quest marker pointing to the destination, the person would tell you " From X city take the road going north east. When the road branches, follow the road going south until you hit the mountains. From here, head north keeping the mountain range to your right, you will eventually see Y dungeon door facing to the west. "
After following directions like these, then getting lost and running into some badass ruin with a badass quest, and 4 hours later showing up at the destination you feel like you've just been through hell, but you feel accomplished, like your character is a hardened adventurer who just spent 6 ingame days in 3 dungeons and now has a legendary mace.

I know the only option i have is to not activate any quests, then im at a loss and have no idea where to go, this is definitally no good.

Now my solution to this is to create a bunch of in game notes that have directions on them written for every single dungeon in the game. This is the most time consuming tweak i think it will take to do, but i think it is entirely possible and not actually that bad.

So essentially what will happen is when someone gives you a radiant story quest, or even a scripted quest you will get your usual quest updates and quest markers, so if you so choose you can just follow your quest marker to the dungeon and so on yadda yadda. But Also you will get the note with the detailed directions to the dungeon, so if you want you can choose not to use the quest markers, and can still find your way to the dungeon. This is a solution that requires no voice acting or anything, something that can be relatively easy to pull off.
Now i know if you get a quest from a different person to a place youve already got directions to, you will get another set of directions worded exactly the same, but whatever its still not as bad and as generic as the "letter from a friend".

-Alternate Fast Travel: Now another thing about morrowind that made it feel so big was the fact that you couldnt fast travel everywhere, you had to take silt striders and boats, and even those were only in select towns. Ultimately that poor hick farming town out in the doonies actually felt like it was out in the doonies when there was no fast travel to it and you had to walk there. Also another good thing was the divine intervention spellls, they helped you out in a jam.

Now in this department bethesda does not bad seeing as they added in the carriages in the 5 main towns that you can take to the 9 holds(which is absolutely great i love it). All im suggesting is a couple more of them (like literally 3 or 4 more would be perfect) throughout the world in some of the harder to reach spots but with settlements that have lots of trade so it feels right. Also a spell of divine intervention and some scrolls to go with it would be nice too, they would teleport you to the nearest divine church. Then i can fully enjoy the game without even touching the fast travel and make that world feel so much bigger, and the more casual gamer can fast travel wherever the hell they want.

Master Difficulty: And last but not least, Put the difficulty on master. The game becomes very hard but also VERY fun and make you feel like you've accomplished something with every battle. playing the game on master will give it that last little substance that made morrowind so good, the difficulty. Morrowind was a very hard game (if you did it legitly) and you felt good everytime you accomplished something.

Now if you made these few tweaks to the game, you can play skyrim almost exactly like morrowind, and i can guarentee all hardcoe morrowind fans who havent been enjoying skyrim as much as you should be can actually see the beauty, attention to detail and work they have actually put into the game. Believe me, i am a hardcoe morrowind fan, and at first i thought skyrim was so much more shallower then morrowind, but these minor tweaks can change the game experience entirely.

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And one last thing i wanted to add as sort of an extra. One tweak, but this is a more dramatic tweak that i see more as a "that would be cool if someone did" thing and not actually one of the main things i am suggesting.(a wishlist thing if you will)
Anyway, that tweak would be: The removal of the lockpicking skill tree (well not complete removal, i would have the MAIN couple useful perks implemented into sneak and pickpocket) and replace that skill with Athletics/Acrobatics(jumping higher, running faster with armor, swimming) skill and make a skill tree with that and a few perks that give you like a duck/dodge and maybe some sidesteps/rolls. This is more a wish, if someone could actually do it that would be sweet but its more like a dream.

Anyway thats it, post your thoughts and opinions.

Sorry i dont like those people who bump threads, but this one got shot to the 3rd page in a matter of 5 minutes due to overload.
anyway, no one has any thoughts on this?

Too lazy to respond in kind to what you put up but I would love there to be an alternative to the quest markers that is viable. Also alternate fast travel would be nice. Dwemer transportation rings or something like how you could be teleported in Morrowind between the Mage guilds and Mournhold. Carriage system. Some boats for the north and water ways.

You're forgiven for bumping... This time. Next time you get an arrow in the knee.

Honestly I agree with you. But I sometimes miss the days when to play a game you needed a map (a physical map), a notepad, maybe a few stacks of paper, etc... to keep track of things. I used to have a 2 inch binder FULL of stuff related to Ultima 7: The Black Gate and almost all of it was generated by me personally. Although I also learned to read the runic script they used in the game fluently (roughly similar to elder futhark). Yeah, I'm a nerd. Deal with it.

I know that is beyond what most people want to do for a game so having the options is fine. Like I do actually enjoy having a map in game though I prefer a relatively blank map that I can put my own markers on so the game doesn't just automate it. It just really svcks that those of us who actually dislike these "niceties that simply game play and remove frustration" or "make things more user friendly" have no choice but to accept them most of the time. That "Hey there's a cave over there!" is the best example. You really can't ignore that because it's in your face, especially if you want to use the compass (which is another thing I do like. At least the "you are going north" part of it).

The quest markers thing has unfortunately lead to a lack of directions and useful journal notes. I still remember old games where all you knew was "follow the river north of town and turn north-east at the pile of rocks" and then getting horribly lost and eaten by a dragon you didn't know was there or stumbling on some secret stash (or both, them dragons are very protective of their stashes...). All it would take is to bring back useful journal entries/quest notes and directions when you receive the quest and then have the option to turn off quest markers permanently (as is if you have no active quests and get a new one if auto-activates the next quest you get). I'm on the fence about the places automatically showing up on the map. I mean it does make sense for an NPC to say "Go here *point on the map*"

Fast Travel is already optional so I'm good with that, and master difficulty could use some tweaking but again it's optional so good.

I agree on the removal of 'place' location on the compass, there are times in my travels when I come across a cave entrance(actually the exit) not marked on the compass and I think ?? this isn't on the map and go in super excited only to find a dead end but more often with a big chest of loot.

Removal and added quest directions would be nice, a lot of times its just droning to your destination by quest marker rather than looking for land marks or hidden roads, the only thing that stops me from zoning out is the occasional RAWR(dragon) or those pesky howling wolves... why the F they howl for no reason!? just like the dogs barking...

Fast travel via carriages is awesome! I just wish they had an option to actually ride the carriage instead of fast travel, you know? I can imagine riding the carriage toward solitude and running into that bandit block and having to defend yourself and your cabby driver from harm!

Yeah i definitally loved games that actually made you have to keep track of [censored] and write stuff down. The sierra heros quests (quest for glory) games and Police quest and liesure suit larry were always good for that. Also i really loved Ultima 4 Quest for the avatar, that game ive played for the last 15 years and still havent beat the freakin thing.




Yeah i was really hoping they had the actual carriage ride, perhaps with the option to hit a button and skip the ride if you dont want to wait. Would definitally add to the immersion i think.

People said the same thing about the silt striders and boats in Morrowind, and then someone made a mod for it so u actually COULD do that so cross ur fingers!

and it would be nice to see carriages / envoys actually travelling on the roads in skyrim. most of the time, skyrim feels like a very lonely and barren place, and the snowy landscape reinforces that.

to OP i agree with most of the points. these issues have been raised in other threads as well. the game has so much potential but currently feels like the game came with gameshark codes preinstalled lol