@lostforever-those quest markers aren't over the npcs, they're the markers on the map. Quest markers are for showing what location to travel to, it's not an icon over the quest giver's head. The reason Skyrim does this is because you can have 60 or more quests going at the same time, if you try real hard. I still prefer the ability to turn them off, which Pete says you can do. It isn't built into the game though. That will be one of the first mods I bet. From reading between the lines, it sounds like many Oblivion mods will be very easy to convert to Skyrim. Time will tell.
Thanks for the link, some new "unmoderated" footage of Skyrim is appreciated.There is actually "quest markers" above NPCs heads in Skyrim. I saw it in an illegal video today (on gametrailers, they will probably disappear real soon, so go the crappy xbox player while you can).
@lostforever, I'll guess we'll just have to see. I haven't seen such markers in any of the footage released, but I never get to see the bootlegged stuff, because work blocks most video sites.
Agree with you re: the minimap, and I too have gotten over quest givers with overhead markers... the main thing that worries me about this game is the word 'Accessable' that is being tossed around with wild abandon in their developer walkthroughs/demos...I no longer care about yellow exclamation marks over quest givers. I guess I'm too used to it now. Just don't have a dotted line pointing me exactly where to go.
The minimap icons I can live with or without. What I want and they seem to have delivered is that you will see how your actions affected the world around you.
Piranha byte's solution was good, just give quest npc/vendors real names, and everyone else is a Citizen or Acolyte or some other less personal name.
Yeah, it's great on the clarity front but still don't like it.
But that's probably my Morrowind colored glasses speaking again.
In that game, even humanoid mobs had a full name (unlike Oblivion where they went back to being nameless Maraurders or nameless this or that faction + class). Smugglers or other mobs really felt like they belonged in the world and didn't feel as the nameless canon-fodder they are in Oblivion or most other RPG. In fact, they were cannon-fodder in Morrowind, but with them having unique names it didn't feel inevitable that you would be fighting them. Their gameplay role is "enemy" but their names gives them a feeling that they transcend their gameplay role and it gives them lore, the name suggests they had a life before being a criminal/enemy and it makes you think that if the NPC made different life choices he might have been a guard instead of a smuggler, with an NPC named "Necromancer" there's no context and no hint of what might have been for that character, it's just the one-dimensional 'enemy' role.
Yeah that was probably off-topic on the original subject but I still wanted to share it.