Yes, that’s my thinking as well.
But the game has to be designed in a way that you really can play it without relying on some specific HUD element(s) at any given time. Ok, I have an example, it is about gameplay, but it is a very similar principle: In Dishonored as good designed as it is, you couldn’t play it completely without magical abilities.
hmm… okay I also like games w/o a marker.
But it does surely depend on how they would implement it. An option to remove the quest marker for example could be a good way imho.
Of course not, Dishonored was designed to be played with blink. You never had the ability to disable or turn off Blink, you’ve always had the spell, and so gameplay was designed in a way that you’ve had to make use of it.
Funny that you bring up Dishonored tho, as it allowed for massive UI costomization.
Make it optionial…
But you can’t say you agreed 100% with his video. He made such weak arguments on some points it’s laughable, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEI4yS7sFEw and part 2 if you want to see SorcererDave’s (Jingles) reply to this.
Quite frankly if you play Morrowind right now you will most likely just google where you should go instead of running around looking for the place for 2 days. So either optional markers or a VERY good in-game description is needed.
I don’t agree with needing to eat and sleep in games that aren’t about survival (such as zombie apocalypse) I think the character should be able to do those things, but not making them punitive. More for RP purposes and having positive or negative effects depending on what you eat or drink and/or how it’s cooked or poisoned 
I just saw SorcererDave’s video, and while it has given me pause and re-consideration of some of Samyoul Online’s points, I can respectfully disagree with some of his points. (I’ll post what I agree with too.)
First off, to address your second paragraph (and what I disagree with). I am playing Morrowind right now, and no, I don’t look up the location on Google. Why? Because my character can’t look up these things on a magical device, per say, so why should I?
And while we’re on this topic of the quest and journal system, I’ll point out what I don’t like in SorcererDave’s video on this.
In Dave’s words:
"…I agree that the current (Skyrim) journal and quest system is/are far from ideal. However what I will say is that the dreaded quest marker, sooner or later, was going to become a necessity.
Why? Well, have you even played Morrowind? For example… (a woman in Morrowind) gave you a quest to kill some mudcrabs out in the arse-end of nowhere. And gave you the worst possible directions to get there. The first time I did that quest I spent literally hours trying to follow her listed directions to no avail. Mainly because they were actually wrong and didn’t take in account whole parts of the landscape which could easily cause confusion.
In fact the easiest way to do this quest was to just head west out of town and blindly wander around for a while until you found what you were looking for. For every person who preferred the immersion in in-game direction instead of a quest marker, I point to this woman. An npc remembered by many …because she gave such horribly broken quest directions." (End Quote)
I think that the quest markers, at no point, are a necessity in a game as long as the quest and journal system, combined with signposts and npc’s to ask for directions, is functional. “Well sure, that’s demanding a lot of time and effort from the developers to make such a detailed system work, so why not use quest markers?” you might ask.
I’ll tell you why I think not, because it sure makes a lot more sense to get a detailed example about where you’re going than to have whose-he-what’s-he tell me “It’s over by the forest”, only have my character immediately know to follow the arrow around the forest, over the fallen logs, and look between the red and blue rocks in the middle of a stream. All because of the quest marker.
And I also think that SorcererDave’s pointing out of the one or more bad examples in a game of so many perfect, working ones as an example of how the quest and journal system doesn’t work, shouldn’t be used, and that the quest marker should is a little nit-picky. Just because there are instances in which the quest was designed poorly doesn’t mean that because of such a singular flawed example that the quest marker should become a necessity.
Another quote from SorcererDave on this topic of the quest and journal system:
“We look back at the frustration this kind of this causes as quaint and charming years later, but that kind of…nonsense has no place in a modern game. You must understand that this isn’t about some kind of pathetic appeal to casual gamers, it’s simply making the life of all players a bit easier. Sometimes immersion really does have to take a hit for the sake of gameplay.” (End Quote)
While I must say that gameplay is more important in immersion, in this case I feel the quest marker is a very poor example and takes away from gameplay. To quote myself:
Exploration is very important in RPG’s and the quest arrow is the bane of exploration IMO. “No you don’t need to go explore the rest of the dungeon, thereby missing out on some pretty cool sh*t, amazing visuals, and possible quests. Just follow me to the only reason why you entered this place and nothing else.” That’s what the quest marker is telling me.
And why in right mind would a developer want to have a player skip or avoid all the hard work he/she put into the rest of the level/area just to focus on getting that achievement or grabbing that one obscure ring you were sent for? If you did that then you would IMO fail to appreciate the hard work the developer and his/her team put into the rest of the game, because you’re concerned with checking off a list, not being immersed in a new, exciting world.
What I can understand and in some points agree with is this,
In Dave’s words:
"He (Samyoul) argues that Morrowind sported extensive, enthralling…dialogue, and that there was a definite point in engaging conversation with random townsfolk, to learn what insight you could from there characters. I don’t see how you could be more wrong.
He’s right in that Morrowind’s dialogue was extensive, very extensive in fact. There were dozens of topics available for discussion which is in truth, is something of a contrast to Skyrim and even Oblivion (I’ll say). It will probably come as no surprise to you however when I say I disagree this is because of causal gaming, or even that this is necessarily a bad thing in the first place.
Morrowind had a lot of npcs, all of which to could talk to and ask them about pretty much whichever subject took your fancy. “Great!”, one might say. “That’s so much better than Skyrim’s npcs!” But take a closer look, almost every npc in Morrowind gives you the same answer to every question. Exactly the same. Copy-pasted, in fact.
Regardless of who it is, where they are, with a few exceptions they’ll tell you the same thing about almost any given subject, word for word. This is horribly immersion-breaking. Especially for someone going into Morrowind after playing the newer titles." (End Quote)
I can agree that the copy-paste dialogue in Morrowind can get tedious and seems lazy. Not to mention that IRL different people would have different opinions about the same place, so copying and pasting just tells me that one doesn’t care, he/she just wants the quota on available dialogue options met. So I think that if a game were to have multiple options, they should be diverse enough to make sense.
But Skyrim is worse IMO with the dialogue than Morowind, because where in Morrowind I could gain knowledge about the people, places and other facts, in Skyrim I can maybe ask three things and they’re all stuff like “Where’s the inn?” What’s your job?" and other generic topics that would only satisfy players who are in it to solve quests, get the gold, and nothing more. As I’ve said before, achievement hunters. (Not that I’m accusing you of being one, but this is what the game feels like it was made for with dialogue options like that.)
The last thing I’ll say, is that while Samyoul’s video certainly had a TES focus, it felt like it could be used when discussing any RPG game, where as Dave’s video seemed solely directed at Morrowind. And yes, it should be optional.
I haven’t seen part two, so I’ll respond to that in time.
(EDIT: touched up grammar and spelling as I saw them.)
I have to say I mostly agree with you. When I go into a dungeon and am looking for example the “Necronomicon” I walk through the doors after defeating the dungeon’s guardians there is an altar at the center of the room and seated upon that altar is…NOTHING! Ok…so where is this book should a quest marker lead you to it perhaps that marker would point to the altar without it though you might actually search the room and find a skeleton next to the doorway which you entered holding it in its arms. The last person who tried to steal the book. So you may not think too carefully and pick up the book thus closing you into the tomb like the poor soul that once stood where you stand now. Now you must, like the poor chap, try to claw your way out of this tomb. There could be a cute little butterfree guiding your way (aka quest marker) or you can cleverly find your own way out.
What does all this mean?
Answer> When you solve a quest; riddle; problem yourself it is greatly rewarding. People do not critically think these days and so they aim for the easy path instinctively.
Think of it as if you exercise for 5 minutes and you become tired so you stop when you could have pushed yourself to keep going for an hour the 5 minutes is the quest marker and the hour is without one. So now some of you say “So I wasted 55 minutes?” No, like with exercise you will have become stronger for doing so able to more easily solve problems and assess situations. This is fun; engaging; and betters you as an individual.
If you wonder why developers dumb down it’s the same problem as obesity. It’s a problem which will cause itself to grow more and more unless people take the difficult actions that will break the cycle and improve your life.
You might be reading a little too deep in this with the obesity-thing, but yeah, solving a puzzle because you were clever enough, not because the game told you how to, is very rewarding.
The analogy is like this when you’re obese your body tells you to eat more and to exercise less. The more you do this the more it demands it until your body ceases to function. It’s an ongoing battle that anyone who suffers from obesity (like I used to) is very familiar with. The only way to beat it is mind over body. Today I got the 5 minute to an hour example because that’s literally what I just did. after 5 minutes I wanted to stop my body ached, but I pushed on for another 55 minutes and am stronger for it. To make that time extra beneficial I watched educational episodes of a netflix series called “Extreme Bodies”. As you can image this can easily relate with the strength of the mind. Something recently discovered is the science of Neuroplasticity. Where your brain can grow and become better and more efficient with proper training happening on a biological level and like a muscle without training becomes weaker following down the most used paths.
I remember that quest, and yes, it did take me a while to find the farm where the woman was. It wasn’t that hard however, the instructions were correct, but if I recall correctly there was a forking path that you could miss. In fact, I’m fairly confident that if I fired up Morrowind now, I could navigate my way to the farm without any problems. I bet Dave could too. On the flip side though, fire up Skyrim, turn off the compass and try to find any quest location that you’ve been to before. I’d have trouble, especially with some of the more tucked away locations. I remember trying to find the Hlaalu farm without it marked on my map and not having the slightest idea where it was - not even what area of the map I should be looking in, even though I’d been there before on a different playthrough.
IMO SorcererDave misses the point here. I believe he equates good gameplay with time to kill. Thus decreasing time to kill = better gameplay, similar to what FPS genre has been doing for the past decade or so - (Don’t get me started on Bioshock v System Shock! )
It works for online pvp games the likes of Call of Duty, but is a terrible thing for RPGs.
Ultimately, it’s not immersion vs gameplay as Dave suggests, it’s exploration vs ttk. One of if not the greatest strength of the RPG genre has always been exploration. Cutting that out for the sake of gameplay? That is the gameplay.
I guess if you had to sum up my argument, it’s that quest markers make for quicker but shallower gameplay. In fact, if I had to define ‘dumbing down’, it would be factors that make for a shallower game.
Giving the option to customize your UI is a compromise of sorts. Though I think there can be a better way to incorporate the no compass versus I need to know where I have to go without having to resort to opening the option menu. It don’t see any reason they cant experiment with different features and see which one the community likes best, as they are not held to traditional rules that a publisher would restrict them to. I suggest the following ideas that hopefully we can build upon and maybe try something completely new and add an entirely new game mechanic.
Have a fading quest marker - In this scenario you get the icon/heading on your compass HUD where you need to go, and as you get closer to the destination the marker fades away. This way you know you’re in the general vicinity of the quest but you actually have to look for it.
Have NPC’s or a companion character that guides you - Perhaps a dog that you follow or a NPC that takes you to the town and points or gestures in the general direction of where to find the quest you are after. For example, an NPC hireling comes with you to a village and says, “Bilbo is in the Piss Pot INN at the far end of the town near the docks.”
Have the Marker appear only when you look at your map - In this case, only when you look at your map the icon appears on your compass and when you put your Map away it fades away. I figure this would be mundane enough that people wouldn’t be checking their map every 3 seconds and instead try to find the quests on their own, but it could present a problem if people rely on it too much.
Of the three I have mentioned here I think the first one is the most feasible. Only because it gives you the general direction at first and then you can take any route to get there, but once you’re there, you actually have to search for your quest objective.
Tldr, nah just kidding. Great comment mate:)
What about this, make quest markers optional (as probably everyone agrees on), and make quest npc’s be able to mark locations on your map to specific locations. The biggest reason why I personally Google stuff up while playing Morrowind is that I use the blinding boots and spell resist spells to travel fast only to look behind me and see 12 cliffracers ganging up on me from behind. So I rather skip that, haha. I hate those damn things… But it’s probably safe to assume that they won’t be in KC: D 
Also while I’m chatting, does anyone know how the compass will work? Will we magically see locations on there or is it just a normal compass pointing N,W,E,S? God I hope so…
Haha I knew someone was going to post this
I agree completely with Meevar. This system will address most situations were it would be frustrating to not have a magic arrow or map to find the quest location and at the same time not making it obvious and too easy for the hardcore community. Hope Warhorse listens to this idea.
This actually is a good idea, I agree as well. Though the optimal thing to me would be getting a marker on your map (where you can’t see a player marker), and get some proper directions.
So guys…you want an arrow to point to a “landmark”
" Landmark: an object or feature of a landscape or town that is easily seen and recognized from a distance, esp. one that enables someone to establish their location."
The point of landmarks is to help you find your way to places and they’re supposed to be places easy to notice. So why would you need a magical arrow to direct you to a place that should be easy to notice?
Your character has probably noticed the landmarks before, having lived nearby for his entire life, so it makes sense that he would know the way to said landmarks even when they aren’t in sight.
That’s why the arrow should point you to large or obvious features of the locality, but not to smaller ones that the character and quest giver would not both be very familiar with.
His knowledge could be something written in a journal.
If anything I would go for something different than a magic arrow guiding the way perhaps using an “ability” called recall when recalling information landmarks would be highlighted when in line of sight.
However once again landmarks should be pretty noticeable so even if you as the player don’t know what it is originally you will learn to spot your own landmarks as well as landmarks commonly used in the world.
I don’t think it is reasonable to think that the blacksmith’s son would keep a journal describing all of the landmarks he knows about, because it would be a complete waste of his time to make it.
The highlighting landmarks idea isn’t terrible, but I don’t know that it would be any more intuitive or immersive than an arrow. It kind of hinges on the idea that you check your quest log for clues about the landmarks on the way from A to B, when really, that’s not how navigating a familiar environment works at all.
