Best idea ever. You can also invent the quests yourself, just pick up random items at random locations and drop them in other random locations. No need for the game to provide all that unnecessary detail when you can do it all by yourself.

I'm one of those people that activates every quest I get if I want to do it so my map has markers all over.I just roam around and hit every marker.By the time I get to some of the items my journal says return to so and so and I can't remember who they are or where they are.Even just a city name would help.As far as notes you should see my desk.I have notes all over the place.I don't want to have to write down details on over 100 quests.There has to be a better way.

Oh, sorry, the game cannot be completely deep unless EVERY LITTLE DETAIL is written in the journal not just what you are supposed to do.

Why? BECAUSE DEEP AND COMPLEXITY!!!!


no, sorry, the journal already writes down what you are supposed to do and there's even a small description of what happened before, in case you forgot.

It doesn't have to be necessarily every little detail you know, but at least more than it is know. And most if not all posters agreed that it will be optional so no reason for you to be butthurt about it.

It's not about being optional, but being unnecessary.

Yeah. Unnecessary detail.

You seem to insist on being silly, so like the other poster I will just have to believe that to you quests, dialogue or even npcs are unneccesary. Just imagine really hard they are all there and you will play the game of your life!

Is it necessary to have more than one race to play? Is it necessary to allow thief type characters as playable? Is it necessary that they have joinable factions? Is it even necessary to have a main quest?

I will never understand some people's opposition to something that would be entirely optional, yet greatly increase the enjoyment for a group of players.

*sigh*

So, let me ask, what kind of important detail are there that are voiced, but never actually written down in the journal?

What can this possibly add ANYTHING?

How is this an issue just for one part of the audience? What the [censored] does "dumbing down", "streamlining" have to do with this?


WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP GOING ON ABOUT THESE IDIOTIC "DURR THE GAME IS UNNECESSARY TOO" ARGUMENTS?

What isn't written down is a recap of the dialogue, the place and such. Morrowind did this and it was great, although finding quests and the like when you forgot their name was a hell. If we keep the current shopping list for quick reference but with an option to fetch more details for a particular quest we will have the best of both games imo.

"Speak to Lod"

It's a real quest log, I didn't make it up myself.

Now don't speak to Lod, go do something else for a while and ask yourself who the heck Lod is and why you should talk to him.

Only for non-misc quests, and even then it's a poor shadow of what was in Oblivion. Oblivion had unique entries for quest stages, while Skyrim has the same basic message, but with slight modifications (and no way to go back and see what previous messages were). Compare a main quest in http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Alduin%27s_Wall#Quest_Stages, compared to a side quest in http://uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Whom_Gods_Annoy#Journal_Entries. (spoiler warning, obviously)

Because someone named Bukee started using it as an argument against something that would have little effect on him yet greatly increase the enjoyment for a group of players. You'll still be able to play follow the arrow, while we could have enough information to actually know what the hell we're doing and be able to complete quests with the compass of omniscience neutered.

Always fun to see Bethesda's #1 apologist and nuthugger put in his place.

As has been stated previously, we're really not asking for much with regards to a few directions in the quest log descriptions. You'd have to be a fool not to include such information. Is there actually a quest log entry in Skyrim that includes directions, so that even if you removed the hand holding elements like compass and minor locations appearing on your map, you would still be able to do the quest?

It's actually interesting that I learned a lot of English by playing Morrowind. 4 year ago I moved from Portugal to Ireland and never had problems adapting. Thank you Bethesda! And bring back the good ol' journal!

I think the big question in these kinds of threads is how much the criticised aspects, if changed according to the criticism, would affect the gameplay of those who feel the need to defend the game from the criticism.

I'm not against putting something like this into it, but I sure as hell wouldn't notice the difference.

Want to know who Lod is? Read the description text above.


And this has nothing to do with "directions" or whatnot, if the NPC haven't said anything about it, why would you think the journal will magically show you the way?

That is why more extensive dialogue/text has to be added to the quests in order to make this system work. More information and flavour is only good in my opinion.

Did you actually manage to make sense of that?

If you're not against it or do not care, why would you care if other people care? I mean, if this was about an aspect that would interfere with your experience, I would understand your position as a soundhorn agains the criticism and change. And perhaps there would a real discussion about it instead this sort of bickering (which, admittedly, is still fun at times).

I don't know who Lod is and I do not care.

That's why the journal is there, or would be. To represent the notes the character makes. And if the NPC doesn't give any directions, there shouldn't be any.

Sadly won't happen. I like reading about the quests and what I have to do next. With that being said, I like quest markers, just not the marker pointing exactly where to go. Like if I'm in a dungeon I wanna look around for it, not be shown right where it is.

The problem is people make a huge fuzz about how this is a big issue and how this is unacceptable, when this would barely change anything.

... like nearly all "valid problems" posted here on the forums...


And honestly, I'm just pissed about these "herp derp, the game is streamlined it's made for kids, true grown up fans MUST hate it" comments because they're just horribly ignorant.

I am weighing in on this topic in case the developers of my beloved TES are taking notes.

I started with Daggerfall in which I had to buy a notebook and write each and every quest down, who I needed to return to, etc. I still have that book from the late 90s.

I was SO grateful for Oblivion so that it kept track for me and reminded me what a quest was about, who wanted what, and where to go when I finished. I felt it emersed me more into the story lines.

Skyrim does indeed feel like a checklist of quests I can't remember where they came from. I have gotten quests while talking with another character and another walks by and says something that I didn't hear which adds a quest to my checklist that I know absolutely nothing about. So yes, I've become dependant upon the Prima guide, which is well done except for the typos. But that does take me out of the immersion that I play TES for.

As for the quest pointers, THANK YOU. Those who played Daggerfall will understand why that was a godsend. I never finished Daggerfall and that's one of the reasons why. I simply couldn't find who/what I was supposed to find, see, kill, save. So the pointers at least give me a fighting chance.

Not all of us live and breathe games.We have lives.We can't play 24/7 so a little help with the basics of a quest would be greatly appreciated.

Wait, people posting in a sensible way, suggesting making these changes merely optional and generally just wanting a bit more information on the randomly popping up quests is considered making a huge fuzz these days? Hardly anyone was screaming "Dur Beth only streamlines their games these days, damn CoD kids ruining everything!!!11!" , you however seemingly don't understand the very concepts of complaining and streamlining. Beth taking out information/directions for quest and adding a quest marker and a shopping list to replace them is "streamlining" the game, or at least it is in my opinion.
If you were to pull your head out of your backside for once you'd see that it is perfectly fine and understandable that people would like to look back on the quests they did or picked up at a later date, and look at how it went or what they were doing it all for in the first place.