No, it actually cannot be fixed, the medium forbids it.

You just cannot fully, clearly describe a pathway, without any errors, pictures, or any kind of visual content, and hope everybody will fully understand it, it's impossible.

Morrowind did it pretty damn well. :mellow:

Not really, most were vague, most had tons of grammatical errors, and they even misprinted the right directions some time. At least the huge amount of non-marked quests in Skyrim were spell-checked first.

I'm having a blast right now tracking down the reason why a cursed, dead undead person I killed was condemned. Clues have led me so far to Windhelm, where I have searched the catacombs for evidence. So far, it's turned up nothing, but I did find the actual time and date of the Lord who banished the person on a plaque in Windhelm. My search is leading me up to Azura and beyond. The quest is devoid of quest markers and I've felt like Indiana Jones the whole time, scouring the world for clues. This has been far more epic than any quest in Morrowind so far.

The quest marker is completely optional anyway. If you don't want to use it, then don't.

And one of the problems with Morrowind, in my opinion, was that you didn't get the option of a quest marker. Sometimes it was cool since you had to go find things yourself, but when the directions were bad it was just a pain in the butt.

There's a trivial, lazy fix: "It's east of . Let me mark it on your map." There, minimal damage to immersion. Not the best solution, but at least it's something.

What baffles me is that SOME quest-givers do actually say "let me mark it on your map" - but why don't they all? Instead, we're left with "go retrieve my staff", "go pickup my sword", "go deliver these ingredients", and that's it - no information about where we're going, or who we're supposed to go see, etc.

IMMERSION, as in up to my neck in a vat of poop (bull).... I don't see your virtual person listening to spoken directions while the real you jots down notes on a bar hankie as immersive.....

I completely diagree.

I was doing a quest that I was told to clear out a cave. The dialogue went somethign liek this:

"Hey, bandits in a cave, kill, come back, reward."

*Quest Added: New Quest Marker*

It didn't even mention the name of the cave, or describe its general location. It's [censored], thsi is just another flaw and an example of how they are "watering down" this RPG.

Go east from the camp until you find a giant rock, then go south.

WHICH ROCK?


And really, most directions were "in this city" or "near this city".

I've literally put hundreds of hours into Morrowind in the last 9 years, and never had any problems. at all.

yeah and it turned into a very annoying experience when all you wanted to do was get to where the quest wanted you to go. I love that they finally added quest markers to the game makes it better when you want to figure out where you're going

You just ignored the majority of my point only to attend this insignificant thing... I said, the main concern was regarding quests with NPC interaction. What I said about real quests or not was not my main point... The point is that you can't do logged quests without quest markers. Most quest givers don't even TELL you the location, not even the ''journal'' entry, the only way to know is to press x so it is shown on your map.

And your wikipedia link can't be transposed to videogames... otherwise a lot of logged quests wouldn't even be quests...

morrowind was better in this respect IMO
no sense in arguing though it is what it is
and with the way games are designed these days I seriously doubt they'd ever change it back

Another quest has me searching for a rare herb in Skyrim for a mage who guards a mine. It is only rumored to exist, but it's up to me to figure out, study herbal books, and go searching for it. No markers at all.

Don't use it, and be doomed to wander around Skyrim for (not exaggerating) months at a time because no one tells you where the [censored] to go, or who to talk to?

Yes they can.

There lies your problem. Skyrim's quests are closer to reality than any other game so far. They don't always follow the traditional, "talk to npc, get journal update, and hunt it down" formula. Many of them are subtle, easy to miss, and amazing. They are real quests nonetheless.

I dont know how you guys would feels about this but a nice work around would be to include the option to disable markers and then have a dialogue option to request directions. now instead of having there NPC tell you where to go (cause the dialogue cost money) they could just hand you a note with directions to your destination. seems like a simple work around to give you the ability to play either way.

Honestly, all they have to do is include a "Directions" dialogue option and have the NPC say "Here, let me mark that on your map for you."

Boom. Done. I'm fine with that.

What I DON'T want is a marker leading me to the exact person I'm supposed to kill for a Brotherhood mission. Seriously? Make me search for them. Tell me they're in Dawnstar - don't lead me to their [censored] doorstep.

Another quest came from an assassin who attacked me. It was just like the first Tribunal quest in Morrowind. The Assassin had a note, signed with someone's name. Who is this person? Why are they trying to kill me? That's for me to research and figure out. The quest has begun.

This would be more than fine with me.

Hell, this can even be turned into a mod (but maybe not for the radiant quests).

Actually some of the older Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights titles would be the closest as you could actually craft your own adventures with the toolsets included with the full retail purchase...but that's besides the point. The point is, you feel "entitled" to something you didn't get.

Your choices now are whine on a forum and argue with a guy that is just bored and finding great enjoyment from your nonsensical stances, or just try and have fun. If you can't have fun, return the game and move on with life. Whining on this board serves no more point than those kids that sat in a circle getting pepper-sprayed. LOL btw, I think that's going to be a new phrase of mine..."It's like sitting in a circle getting pepper-sprayed."

Another quest required me to kill a man possessed by the evil in a tomb he was trying to study. His journal told of his great search for an artifact, but he could never find it. There was no quest marker or journal update on WHERE to find this artifact, but it was a real quest nonetheless.

Another quest I found was while walking along a road. A farmer and his wife told me that their house was destroyed by a dragon in a distant village. With no quest marker, or journal entry, I set out to discover the village location and provide help if I could.

Actually, just tonight, I was playing and this one questgiver told me to find a specific undiscovered ruin. The map wasn't updated either. I thought yay! I was very glad, because, of the top of my head I knew where this ruin was because I've explored Skyrim enough. I thought exploration was finally paying off. Guess my surprise, and disappointment, when I opened the map only to find a marker on the undiscovered ruin's location. Talk about hand-holding.

Oh well. You can turn questmarkers off in the .ini, so I ahve no problems with this feature at all anyway.

[censored] hell. You AGAIN ignored my point to talk about that little bit.

And then, you put words in my mouth. It's not about the "talk to npc, get journal update, and hunt it down" formula, it's about the definition of quests. Finding flawless gems for someone isn't a heroic deed or something that requires a lot from the hero. Did you even read your link? And your logless quests are those who fit the less within that definition too.

Plus, those logless quests are just exploration quests. Not quests with definite goals, which are the closest to the traditional quest definition. Finding a treasure that his on your map doesn't have a particular goal, besides you finding a treasure. It's not about helping someone with something, or doing a specific thing for you as the character, like trying to unite every artifact possible or learned what happened to the Falmer. Those are just curiosity adventures, the quests which are the farthest from the real definition. You want quests closer to reality? Just make your own quests. That doesn't mean everything you can do are quests.

And seriously, you must be [censored] if the directions were that hard to follow in Morrowind.

Good, I'm glad we now agree that they are quests. I am finally getting through to people.

Edit: They do have definite goals as well. Finding a simple treasure, helping someone out, or just doing it for the curiosity is STILL a quest.

The vibe I'm getting from you is, "I hate the hand-holding quests in Skyrim, but if they don't hold your hand, they aren't REAL quests". LOL