I'll tell you why Skyrim is linear... because there are people like me who've never beaten a Bethesda game, there are people who end up getting burnt out before they even finish half of the content. When you create a game you want to have as many people as you can see as much of the content as you can provide. Skyrim was the first, and only Bethesda game I've ever beaten and it never felt like a chore and I appreciate that.

This.

Although I think it's not that much of a stretch to believe that someone who could give you directions to a place would also be able to mark it on your map.

As to the initial issue: the game is linear if you try to stick to a linear path. I've found tons of amazing content by venturing off the beaten path, even in areas I thought I'd explored thoroughly.

I think I see the OP's problem and I partially agree with it. Skyrim suffers from the Fallout 3/New Vegas syndrome of the beginning area always being the same, unlike Fallout 3 though Skyrim doesn't start truly in the middle of the map. In Oblivion you started in the middle of the map, that might be the problem that Skyrim lacks a central starting location. Thankfully with Skyrim, after the tutorial I can go whereever I want whether it's Riverwood or Riften.

He isn't complaining about the spell or compass in there. Read again.

Well, then, I don't know what it is that he's complaining about. I read it as a complaint that the game was dumbed down with "GPS markers" that even a simpleton could use to not get lost; thus translating into the game, I guess, being too linear ... {shrug}

Well, that too. But the thing is the game has these hand-holding mechanics for nothing. The game is not big enough to have fast travel. The caves are too linear to have clairvoyance. I like Fast Travel in Daggerfall. And clairvoyance is a very cool concept if a little OP. Therefore my complaint is not about fast travel or clairvoyance.

With clairvoyance, caves should get even more complex. With fast travel, the game should get even bigger.

(GPS markers should be optional completely. If only encyclopedic NPCs were still around. )

GPS markers are completely optional. As is the compass. As is the use of fast travel.

I don't use the spell, but I do not plan to turn of the compass HUD since I need the compass.
It would be good if I could turn of all those markers though!
Still, vrastek explained what my real complaints are.

Being able to beat a TES game is a actually the best sign of it being bad.

Map?
Oh, you mean the satellite we have together with our awesome GPS and radar?
OK, I admit; I am being a bit too cynical here.
But still, they do make a fantasy game look simply too high tech. >_>

I roam and roam and roam with no particular goal in sight, with only idea being to roam some more.
The thing is, linearity gets to shine when one enters the dungeon.
Just like I said, most of the dungeons are just one long swirly path which will surely take you to where you need to be.
There are some very minor detours here and there, but nothing special.

I play the game without compass. Maybe I use the word optional wrongly. I mean "have alternatives" by it. And since we have carriages now, I have no problem with fast travel as I said this in above post. I still find the feature unnecessary as the game is too small. I rather have a bigger world though.

That one quest when an NPC escorts you, now that was awesome because I didn't have to check the markers. But that is only one quest in hundreds.

I have no idea how you can play the game without markers. If the map had a search function, I would consider removing markers too.

PS. Even then the log only says "kill x" sometimes and you still have to check the markers to learn where. So a more detailed log + map search function would do it. (Daggerfall had a map search function.) You could put your personal notes in Morrowind too.

That is absurd.

Well, you could have a real RPG writing team like Obsidian (who made FO:NV), and get great stuff like that- or you can get Beth's radiation... er, radiant quest system. At the end of the day, there really is no substitute for imagination and good writing. You can't automate your questing system and expect it to be really interesting and varied, on any real level above plain randomness.

Yeah.....you misunderstood me. Nothing wrong with them wanting to attract a bigger audience to make money since they are in business to make money not to cater to my needs. I just wish the masses liked deeper rpgs......like morrowind.....but they don't.

Cause God forbid you should have to COMMIT to your character in a roleplaying game????

Agreed 100% with the OP on both points.

I hate the idea of a blank slate start so much. It just makes every character a generic avatar for the player that's really only unique in their visual appearance. And skill progression is so rushed and weighted on perks that characters go from generic blob to all-powerful in such a short space of time that they never really come across as uniquely defined with strengths and weaknesses. At least not to me.

Add to that that the scripted beginning which railroads you into the questlines, and the complete lack of meaningful choices and consequences, and It leaves me with very little incentive to re-experience the game with multiple characters. At least not until a lot of mods are available.

Don't mean to be the devil's advocate, but Daggerfall addressed these issues to a point. One had the option of meeting the first agent for the main storyline or not after Privateer's hold. If you ignored the letters she sent, the game world was yours to start your own new story with the character in any region/province you wished (Using the fleshed out Character Creation System). The funny part is if you ignored her after 6weeks you could not ( to my memory ) ever start or finish the mainquest.

Not meaning to make a Skyrim vs. Anything subject, but the direction Beth is going is one of increased streamlining for the sake of broader appeal. Most players (console) probably will not play skyrim more than once anyway.

...unlike Morrowind where you went from a unique concept with strengths and weaknesses, to generic all powerful, superfast, spellmastering, swordmaster within the first 10-15 hours and spent the rest of the game pwning everything

All games in the TES-series end up with overpowered characters, and it wasn't a very long or difficult process before either, if you didn't intentionally avoid the possibilities given within the game mechanics to keep your character development slow and focused in only one direction (which you can arguably do in Skyrim as well by not chosing perks...).

It's the most linear in the series unfortunately.

As if this is a new direction...here's a newsflash: Daggerfall was designed to appeal to a broader fps-action consumer base and with every installation since, TES has tried to incorporate current trends in the broader game-market. The sad news for all those who believe that they are part of an exclusive, purist, avant-garde, sub-culture in rpg-gaming because they like Daggerfall or Morrowind is that...you are not...you are the 'dumbed-down-casual-gamers' that fell for their broader market strategy back then...

You couldn't be more wrong. Daggerfall was NOT designed to appeal to a "broader fps action" market. Give me a break.

Compare Daggerfall to Planescape...which one comes off as more of a fps-game?? Which one do you think old-school roleplaying gamers complained about and tried to trivialize as 'dumbed down' back then??

There's nothing "dumbed down" about Daggerfall.

Well, that's a matter of experience...to people who played strategy rpg-games, Daggerfall comes off as simple and immature.

Progression was a lot slower in previous games (unless you used stupid grinding techniques like jumping on the spot repeatedly). You didn't have sudden leaps in ability like damage multiplier perks (even Bethesda themselves have admitted that one of their goals with perks has been to speed up the levelling process). Here's how I see it:

Previous games:

Unique character >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> gradual progression >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all-powerful character who can become good at pretty much everything after hundreds of hours.

Skyrim:

Generic character >>> sudden leaps in ability >>> all-powerful character who can become good at a wide enough variety of things within 60-70 hours to make them seem just as generic as all-powerful characters in previous games.

Perks are largely to blame for this. Not only do they speed up progression; they also completely fail in making a character unique. Perks only work well in an RPG if they're very limited, and truly are perks with unique effects. For the most part, Bethesda has done neither. Instead, they've used them to try and wrap normal skill progression in neat little packages.

Daggerfall was very much a niche game. If you're somehow implying that being in first-person POV and having real-time action somehow equates to an attempt at dumbing down the genre, you're very misinformed. First-person RPGs have been around pretty much since the genre started... and RPGs with real-time action have been around since the mid-late 80s.

The fact of the matter is, Daggerfall was clearly aimed at RPG fans. Skyrim is aimed at everyone with a games console or gaming PC.

Aside from the PS3, anyway... they wanted to make a good sandbox action game for practically everyone, they could have at least gotten the technical aspect right...

I agree with what you're saying.

.....You do realise Daggerfall was out years before Planescape, right? (also, see my comments above about first-person in RPGs)

They're completely different styles of RPGs (both great in their own way), but if you're going to get into a silly argument over which one is truer to the old-school style of RPGs, then Daggerfall wins hands down.