Quote Originally Posted by Balmas View Post
So, I've been playing Skyrim a lot lately as I prepare for my Skyrim Let's Play. One of the mods I haven't been able to get working is Gopher's iHud, which hides the compass and other UI elements when you don't want them. As I've been playing, especially since I've been playing Morrowind alongside, I've noticed something.

Skyrim wants you to never stop exploring. You're able to run forever. At any point, you can spin around in a circle and see probably two or three map markers on your compass waiting to be explored. Since turning that compass on, I've been running from one map marker to the next, with the only limiting factor being how much loot I can haul back to base and how long I can go before my food/water/firewood supplies start running low. There's always something to find, genocide, and loot.

At the same time, it somehow feels... lesser, than the exploration in Morrowind. When I go exploring in Morrowind, it's something I choose to do. I pick a
direction and start walking. Each new thing I uncover is something that I found, something that I poked around to find. I didn't just follow a map marker on my compass to that location; it's my discovery. It's a much more personal exploration. Instead of being seeing a map marker and going "Oh, a dwemer ruin, ho hum," I'm scanning the horizon and saying "Holy hell, that's a dwemer tower, let's go!"

I dunno. Am I making any sense here? Part of it is probably the fact that this is my first time playing Morrowind and so everything is new, but even when I find new things in Skyrim, the sense of discovery is different.
You can set the HUD opacity to 0 in the display settings for Skyrim. Give yourself a more immersive experience.