That response seems to be something I see a lot through the reviews and posts I've read, regardless of what aspect of the game they are talking about. Looks great, but not very useful...

Well, it pretty much sums up my sentiments about it xD

I'm hoping very much we get a Mod Configuration Menu-style mod for Skyrim; since you can turn fast travel on and off through a console command, tying it to a menu option tickbox would be trivial once clever chappies like Darn actually figure out the horrifying mess of Flash and ActionScript that Beth have used for Skyrim's UI this time round.

You can actually get a 2D view of the map in-game, at least on PC. If you right-click on the map, you can manipulate the view to get a top-down view, and you can see the roads better.
The darned clouds, OTOH, those have to go.

Unfortunately, I personally found the map looks kind of ugly without the clouds.

Add to Skyrim.ini in the section called [MapMenu] (you may need to add this section):

sMapCloudNIF=0

Besides the multitude of problems with it, I can still appreciate the overall slickness of Bethesda's interface. However, there's a certain nostalgic adventurer feeling about a good old 2D map for navigation. I suppose that's why there's a "real" map with the game... but it's far more useful to have such a 2D map in-game instead of trying to spread out a physical map somewhere around me while playing. I'd like to work with map markers on a "normal" 2D in-game map.

I simply want a 2d map. This whole 3d map is very pretty and all, but it's kinda an immersion killer.

I agree with preferring a 2d map. I think the physical map they gave us is gorgeous (would make a great decoration in my room if I could frame it... hmmm) - would love to see it ingame as the official map.

Up.

I can't find skyrim.ini in the files. All I have is skyrim_prefs.ini and skyrim_default.ini. What do I do?

Skyrim.ini should be in your My Documents/My Games/Skyrim folder. skyrim_default.ini should be in your Steam/steamapps/common/skyrim folder. Not sure why you wouldn't have one o.o

I'd love a more legitimate "map" like the physical map they included with the game. It would help immersion a lot for some people too (most importantly, me. >.>)

I'm working on an accurate functional topographic map right now. I'm pretty much done with what I can do without the Creation Kit.
Once finished it should look like http://www.americansouthwest.net/topo-maps/flattop-mountain-andrews-glacier.jpg.
I also want to do a more "authentic" old-looking map, but that isn't a priority now. I already have all the vector information, so it shouldn't be too much work anyway.

I still need to export the local map with the creation kit to see where I have to place vegetation and things like buildings, rivers and paths on the map. I also hope to find a list of all places with coordinates to extract the information and create an index of places and their grid position.
Contour lines still need a little bit of cleaning and I need to label everything. That part will be tedious work.
It's supposed to be static and be used without quest markers, POI, indicating your own position, etc, just like you would in real life, but for people that don't want that, I'm sure there will be ways to modify this.
Oh and here's a http://i.imgur.com/T8rpJ.png
It still looks quite bland, but once all the buildings and labels are shown, Forests are green, tundra/shrubbery is brownish and steep mountain peaks are shaded black, it should look a little more interesting.

Searching for Map at nexus got me these....

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=272

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=145

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=253

Thanks for the info! I'd personally still want quest markers and all that, and I like the "old" style maps, but at the moment, I'm willing to jump at anything that has clearly defined roads, lol.

I've seen all of those, but none of them really address what I want in a map. I'll add them to the first post, though.

Your new map looks excellent! It's a much more usable map than the 3D one that we were given. (The area around the Throat of the World looks so much better!)
The side roads and paths that you added are just what I was looking for. Thanks!

Have you considered adding the tributary streams as thin blue lines? (and the additional bridges over them that the roads take?)

And how is the map drawing coming along?

would also love to see a "real" 2d paper map ingame! there is already a texture replacer for these ingame maps, could even be a scan of the pre-order paper map: http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=120. I don't know how to implement this in the map interface (maybe replace the cloud.nif with this one and somehow get rid of this blurry LOD stuff) but would be awesome if someone is able to realize it!

I'll definitely be watching this thread, as this is one of my biggest complaints about the map. It's a MAP! I'd like to know a route to take.. not fast travel or just know a general direction. Sure... small hidden non-man made paths are fine left off and being mysterious.. but the general roads that already have sign posts would be a great addition. I also would love to see custom editable markers. Also a marker for position of pets would be a nice toggle too.

Bringing this thread back up to the light...

Is anyone currently working on a 2D paper map replacer for the game? Or something like Paperclip's http://i.imgur.com/T8rpJ.png?

I think we could really use one.

I second the idea of a 2D-map.

Bump cuz I'd like to see this made too.