Go into the ini and change bShowCompass=1 to bShowCompass=0

No more compass!
Now I find myself actually looking at the map, learning the lay of the land, and learning whose house is whose. I had to find where gertrund was and I didn't even know she had her own house in the town.

With the quest marker on the compass, I just ran up to the marker and found her. But this is much more fun! Now I have to keep my eyes open.

(also, remember you can pull the local map up at any time on the map screen by pressing "L", which lets you see an up close view of your surroundings on the map)

I'm not sure if is in a better location or something but I have not found myself using it nearly as much as Oblivion. I really think I've only used it find far locations and in combination with the map.

You can also just remove quest markers, all of mine is gone though, I basically have an empty screen until I use stamina or lose health.

i wish you could remove nearby location markers. id like having the compass just so i can see what direction im facing

my compass is still on. It's at about 50% faded. To be honest, I barely even notice it's there. I only leave it on slightly because if I'm in combat, I need to know immediately where my character's health is at (playing dead is dead).

But the compass itself is useless to me, even though it's still on, and that's the way I like it.

This compass is much less game-breaking for me than Oblivion's giant Swiss wristwatch-looking thing. I used to put pieces of electrical tape on my Oblivion compasses, matter of fact.

Damn me being on 360

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1262717-anyone-else-play-with-compass-off/

And how would one do this?

And to think that many people complained about the compass location before the release.

Theres a compass? And here i was going by blind reckoning. As usual things like a compass and markers are very non-intrusive where i never notice them til its mentioned somewhere on the internet. Only reason i used the compass in FALLOUT 3 at times is to make sure i explored unknown territory due to being spun around in the opposite direction after combat.

its kind of right at the top of the screen

Thank you mistermagooey. And by the why i used to watch your cartoon all the time as a child

Playing the same way, and also loving it. I turned off the compass, quest markers and removed all my map markers at the start of the game, so I was basically playing with a blank map. I wanted to really feel like I was playing as a foreigner in Skyrim.

You can do it in one of the ini files.

Find bShowQuestMarkers=1 in Skyrimprefs.ini. Change the 1 to 0.

I did it. And it's amazing, but it really does make a difference. I love it! I have no HUD at all 90% of the time now. Nothing but pure, unobstructed Skyrim. This is really great. Thanks so much for the .ini tip.

I'm still using markers on the map. I may experiment with removing those also.

Is there a way to do this on consoles?

You can turn down the HUD opacity, but that would also remove your reticule and probably your health and stamina bars during fights, which to me would get really annoying.

Nope. You can remove map quest markers by deactivating them as active quests though