The one that really stuck in my craw recently was we "can't make RPGs like Morrowind anymore" because "nobody wants to wander around with so little direction" and

uh my guy, your audience just kinda sucks. Maybe you should take less budget and make smaller games for fewer peoples so you're allowed to say something with them again.

@glassbottommeg You know, I'd love for games to have less "follow this arrow there and if the arrow isn't enough check your map".

But that only really works if there's something to replace that?

Like Outcast had that absolutely gigantically cool feature where you could ask an NPC for directions, and if you were in the area they would literally point where you needed to go?

@bean you really don't have to replace it with anything. Morrowind literally gave "turn left at the shaggy dog" level directions.

People got lost. That was the point.

@glassbottommeg Descriptions also work, of course.

I'm coming to this having just played Horizon Zero Dawn, which... does not describe these things well.

Which is itself fine, it has those map markers. But if you tried playing that without you would get lost and just never find some of these quests.

Which is probably a bit much even for the Morrowind fans? So you'd design the game for it, and let people work a bit to find things, but not give them a place the size of London and tell them "eh it's somewhere in SoHo"