There has been some fairly intense discussion of this topic over and over since Fallout 3, and I decided to propose a solution that might help those who don’t like the quest pointers. You CAN do this on your own if you’re committed enough to RPing. I do it all the time and it really helps me feel like I’m actually in the world as my character. Basically, if NPC Questgiver says “Go get my sword”, you can simply look at your map, and see the general area the quest pointer is in. Make a mental note (or better yet, write it in your journal), “Hmmm, that’s a little SW of Whiterun, but before the crossroads of X & Y”. Take off on your merry way, and when you get somewhere near where you feel you need to be, simply start exploring until you find what you’re after. If you’re REALLY into RPing, you can keep a little spiral notebook at your desk or coffee table to make notes in just like you would do in real life. Or better yet, mark it on your own map or sketch yourself a map to use.

I look at it this way. What would be the most likely method this would take place in real life? If my neighbor gave me directions, they would say, “go down Main Street, take a left on 3^rd street and the place you are looking for is about a block or two down on the left. Look for the big green sign, you can’t miss it”! If they had no real clue how to tell me to get there, they would say something like “I think it’s somewhere near the Mall, but I’m not sure where”.

So, applying this to Skyrim, let’s assume we have 2 important items at our disposal, shall we?

• A folded up, or rolled up map in our pocket, backpack or wherever you want to stow it.
  
• Some form of paper or some type of journal and a writing utensil.

And yes, you HAVE to have a modicum of imagination here – remember we’re RPing after all. But in real life our NPC Questgiver would take our map, place an X in the general area we needed to go. We’d fold it back up, stick it in our pocket and head out on our journey. Most maps have roads on them (I use the Quality World Map with Roads mod) so it’s easy to determine the main route I would need to take to get to my destination area – just like it would in real life. But actually locating the quest target would require a little more work once you actually get there. If you get stuck, you could always turn the marker back on for a second, just to check where you were. Turn it back off and continue exploring until you find it.

There are a lot of work arounds you can do if people would simply CHOOSE to do them. Personally, I refuse to blame Bethesda for certain shortcomings when I have the ability to easily create my own experience within the game. Would it be better if Questgivers gave you specific directions? Maybe, but I actually think this way is much more “hardcoe” than that.

Try it, you just might like it!

I've been playing without markers for many weeks. I installed a mod to remove ALL markers, both from map and compass, so I don't know if I'm near a cave, or if the city is here or there. This also includes the "current position" marker. This way I have to constantly check my surroundings and my compass (N,S,E,W) to know where I am.

I have a big paper map on the wall, and I got 3 pieces of this gum that allows you to stick and un-stick it without damaging it. When I'm in a city I check quests to do (I enable the quest markers for this, and open my ingame map), then mark the paper-map, and disable the quests again.

I then adventure outside and have fun both finding the place on my own or either getting lost and never finding it at all. Same as you, I like to feel as if I'm inside the world.

I've never played with active quests, only to at first get the general direction of the quest like you said, and I never used the in game map at first, just the paper one. The only problem is the paper map isn't incredibly detailed and isn't all that useful as a proper map (and there seem to be several inconsistencies with the game world), but after a long time of just using that to get around I pretty much know Skyrim like the back of my hand now! Slightly lessens the fun of adventuring in the wilderness when you have a perfect map in your own head...

I think the Compass markers are the only real breaker. If someone knew where a location was that they were sending you, they could easily mark it on the map for you.
I can certainly read a map quite well myself, am I maybe giving others too much of a benefit of the doubt?

I like the Idea of having no position marker though, adds a little realism to it in finding your own position from landmarks.

You can actually take them off your compass by going to the Quest menu and unactivate the quest youre doing so it wont show its marker

I've disabled my compass completely. But now my problem is, the instructions given are sometimes so vague and the directions in my journal (when they exist) are so rudimentary that I find it is more aggravation thatn it is worth to disable map markers as well. So I find that a disabled compass along with a judicious use of map markers is about right for me.

Unless they give us a journal that is a journal, instead of this grocery list, I'm playing with markers.

Oh how I yearn for a true journal that allows me to disable them markers.

Go to your nearest discount store, buy a spiral notebook and a couple of pens for $2, and voila'- you have as detailed of a journal as you need. (It's just empty, so YOU have to write it yourself!)

Irrelevant. They took the time and effort to implement satisfactory journals in past installments of TES, they ought to have done so now. The ingame journal is a story element, right now it's a worthless to-do list: Kill X, grab Y, go to Z. Without an explanation, without directions (oh yeah, the marker will point you to the exact location like a GPS laser beam) and without anything that expands upon the story of the quest.

It's not up to us to write the story of the game. If I have to stop at every quest and think of how I'll create a story tied to it, I might just quit my job and become a writer. I might also just quit playing Skyrim then, since I won't be getting anywhere anytime soon.

Simply compare http://www.anjelsyndicate.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/morrowind-journal-1024x576.jpg with http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--F3F7pdKDn8/TwKSsHcl0rI/AAAAAAAABD8/y_FnmAyCIQw/s1600/Skyrim_journal.bmp.

They might just remove dialogues next time ("Buy a voice recorder, and invent the dialogues yourself!"). "You want more realism? Go outside!". There, I've given you something so you can ignore the rest of my post and display your 'hardcoe RP tryhard truegamer loyal customer' attitude properly.

Unfortunately, a lot of npc's only say "go get my x" and that's that. No place or any direction. You NEED your markers for those quests, sadly.

I always disable my markers, unless I want to know where a quest starts, or I'm creating an imaginary pathway of sidequests on my map to a certain goal. Everytime I've arrived at the quest location, I disable the respective quest marker again.

Well, I have to admit 'though, the markers have certain 'advantages'. I remember writing down notes on loose papers during Morrowind, and in the end, I was in the proud possession of so many papers I could bundle them into a good book easily. Not to mention the many times when npc's gave directions, and you ended up miles away from the real quest destination.

Never done that before might give it a try.

Thank you for the journal comparison Mahoney..Makes it painfully obvious indeed.
I really hope someone will mod those old journals in somehow, after that I would definetely play without quest markers as well.

That picture only validates my broader point that my suggested method works well. The journal only says “I found this” or “I talked to so and so” and “he told me to do something” etc. It’s NOT creating the story for you it is simply documenting what has already happened. I’m simply saying you have the means at your disposal to do so if you CHOOSE to do it.

Let’s look at the example of “Speak to Lod” in the Misc quests. Because I have this miraculous ability called “remembering” I know I already spoke to a guard who asked me if I had seen a dog out on the road and that Lod wanted one for a pet or whatever and I should go see him. The ONLY difference is that one is stored in my brain as a memory, and the other is written down in a journal that gets updated when something else happens. It’s simply a recap of what’s already happened – nothing more. I don’t necessarily need the written journal to know what is going on because I remember it when it happened. But to create your own journal on paper is actually MORE realistic because it’s in your own words, and you make notes that are meaningful to YOU. You’re NOT writing the story, you’re documenting what happened, just as you would in real life.

You either have the choice to complain about what wasn’t done the way you think it should have been done, or take responsibility for your own experience and actually RP the game. You decide.

Having no markers in Morrowind only worked because the game was designed to make it work. Oblivon and Skyrim have markers and are designed to have markers, so even if you remove them, you're only crippling your game and it makes it just about impossible to play it.

In Morrowind, when giving directions, they'd tell you something like "Follow the road out of town west until you get to the fork in the road, take the northern path until you see a rock formation, follow that due west until you get to the water line, there will be a camp along the beach" or something. In this, they don't even TELL you ANYTHING, just give you a marker where the next part of the quest is. So by removing that marker, you now have no idea where you need to go to progress the quest.

Balok is your avatar from star trek?

If its possible just to remove the current position arrow thing then marked on the map would be much better but you would have to keep all the other markers...

I’m wondering if you guys are actually reading my OP because I told you EXACTLY how to do it. So again, let’s say I’m in Solitude and get a quest to go to cave X and get their helmet. All you have to do is after the quest registers in your log and while you’re STILL in Solitude, pull up your map, make note of the general area the destination is in, and head that way. If the cave is down below Dragons Bridge, common sense tells you to head down the main road out of Solitude towards Dragon Bridge. After going through Dragons Bridge start exploring the area until you find it. I can’t see for the life of me what’s so hard about this? If you can’t remember the quest destination, take out your spiral notebook, make some notes and/or draw yourself a little hand drawn map if you need to. You do the same EXACT thing you said you did in MW.

Lol, yeah! That's Balok.

I've made myself quest markers out of thumb pins and clear tape. I use them on the Collector's map to help plot my course.

I find it's pretty engaging to play that way, too.

I play without compass, map quest markers nor floating quest markers.
I have found the Clairvoyance spell to be indispensable. It serves a similar function to a quest marker when needed, but isn't so immersion-breaking and has a cost (costs mana and breaks stealth).

That being said, the journal system is atrocious.
I apparently don't have the eidetic memory of Balok, so when my journal says "Return to Roggi," I have to admit that I can't remember who the eff Roggi is, or more importantly, where he is. All I know is I have his damn shield and want to quit hauling it around.
A simple addition of "Return to Roggi in Kynesgrove," doesn't seem like to much to ask.

Oh, and write it down myself? I do plenty of bookkeeping in real life and shouldn't be expected to do more for a bunch of Fed Ex quests.
I'll remember the things that are made memorable.