In Defense of Quest Markers....

[Venom Candle]

Now, a lot of people in the TES forums look down on quest markers present in Oblivion and Skyrim, complaining that it dumbs down the exploration experience and reduces quests to a simplistic point A to point B game. And this, is true to an extent.

However, after playing several mods that deliberately eschew quest markers, I can say I have developed an appreciation for them.

Here's the thing: Having no quest markers worked for Morrowind because the majority of objectives for Morrowind's quests were extremely simple, and NPC's always had a wall of text that was recorded in your journal to point you in the right direction, or otherwise give you a very clear verbal cue as to what you need to do next. The simple quests and clear directions by NPC's left no room for confusion, so quest markers would have been redundant.

However, people seem to miss this detail when they design their elaborate quest/dungeon mod and decide, "Eh, screw quest markers. People can figure it out for themselves." While giving very little to no indication as to where the player should go or what they should do at points where they could get stumped, or any kind of cue to guide the player and reassure them that they're on the right path.

For me, the frustration that results from lack of clear direction during a mod outweighs my enjoyment of the mod itself. Because I begin to wonder if there's something I'm missing that should have been obvious, or if the mod is broken or the modder had an oversight, or if this segment of the mod was designed to be a brain twister.

Not proud of it, but I've gotten to the point where I lose patience and have gotten quick to open console my way past the problem. Because I really don't have the time and mental health to run around the room with my inner monologue

So, my point here is that quest markers are crucial for games like Skyrim and Oblivion, to communicate to the player when no one or nothing else will.

If a mod developer knows how to guide the player manually through NPC and environment cues, excellent! Otherwise, the safest thing to do is to just employ quest markers.

There doesn't even need to be quest markers at every single stage, and the quest markers can be applied in intelligent ways that only fulfill the purpose of guiding the player in the right direction instead of revealing the entire objective.

[Sotherin]

Quest markers to a location make sense. Who or whatever gave you the quest in the first place will often know the location.
A quest marker directing me to look under a bed for the childs journal is annoying.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Sotherin:

Quest markers to a location make sense. Who or whatever gave you the quest in the first place will often know the location.
A quest marker directing me to look under a bed for the childs journal is annoying.

Well yes.... but it depends on how well it's all set up, if there are clues, decent clues (not necessarily obvious ones nut you can use them to deduce stuff) then that degree of direction isn't needed..... but this is Bethesda, who give you "It's on a farm near Windhelm" (not an actual clue btw) and expect you to know it's in a dressing table in an outbuilding (again not actual situation just the sort of crap they expect to to get from an amazingly vague clue).

[SpeedFreak1972]

Or Use the best of both worlds and use a mod that let's you hide the hud (iHud)

[Alex]

Oh, yes, the Morrowind quest descriptions. Good old times, indeed.
- Take the third turn east at the second guar from the right.
- Or, simply: "go there, don't know where, and bring me that, don't know what".

Anyway, quest markers, at least from the developer's perspective, serve 3 important purposes:
1. Appeal to kiddie gamers with the reading comprehension of a goblin
2. Appeal to casual gamers with the attention span of a bandit (with an arrow sticking out)
3. Appeal to adult gamers, who are often forced to take gaming breaks as long as Serana's sleep, and simply forget what's what and who's who.

Of course, such issues might be solved by adding a custom journal, with better quest design, and the ability to ask NPCs for directions (like in Daggerfall). However:
- A custom journal, or just a better UI in general, all that was sacrificed to the lowest common denominator, the consoles
- Better quest design? Haha.
- NPCs having more interaction options? Not on my watch. There are mudcrabs which must be discussed first. Or mostly because that would require more voiceovers, and gods forbid there are unvoiced lines.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Alex:

Oh, yes, the Morrowind quest descriptions. Good old times, indeed.
- Take the third turn east at the second guar from the right.
- Or, simply: "go there, don't know where, and bring me that, don't know what".

That's the stuff I'm talking about, can't use it, don't need it.

[Alex]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

That's the stuff I'm talking about, can't use it, don't need it.

You just need to play it more. I can still remember all the locations of my homeland.

Outlander n'wah.

[Hypertext Eye]

I feel quest markers are only a problem if a game trains you to follow them and not care about the journal, and then at some point doesn't give you one and expects you to read the quest journal. Also when a quest has alternative means of completion but you'd never know about them because, again, the game trained you to not look at the journal.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Alex:

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

That's the stuff I'm talking about, can't use it, don't need it.

You just need to play it more. I can still remember all the locations of my homeland.

Outlander n'wah.

I do remember most of the stuff in the game, I'm just saying Bethesda is bad at doing clues you can actually use.... actually they are terrible at it....

[Perplex]

I can not stand Morrowind. If i want to read a book i will go get a book, i will not load up a "game" just to have it make me read 90% of the time i am "playing" it.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Perplex:

I can not stand Morrowind. If i want to read a book i will go get a book, i will not load up a "game" just to have it make me read 90% of the time i am "playing" it.

reading isn't that bad, eventually you learn how to skim past the minor trivia and pick up on the serious bits.

[Alex]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

I do remember most of the stuff in the game, I'm just saying Bethesda is bad at doing clues you can actually use.... actually they are terrible at it....

Bethesda was always bad at quest design. Still Is. Most probably, will be. But at least in Morrowind, the worldbuilding was great, so the stupid descriptions were tolerable.

Afterwards, they simply said, "screw it", and made quest markers for just about everything.

[Madao]

quest markers make sense, if they're the only way to find your objective.

Quest text in skyrim isn't descriptive enough to find your objective most of the time, so you NEED the markers.

They weren't necessary in Morrowind because you had a wall of text of the npc telling you most relevant information and you had to figure the rest out.

Obviously with most people's reading comprehension and attention span approaching that of a goldfish, Morrowind's quest objective design doesn't work anymore.

[worm_master]

I want to "play" the game, not spend 1h or more running around, trying to figure out where I gotta go, an i happen to be of a age, from gaming in the early 90's.