Using Maps to Quest

I grew up playing video games and I never realized how important maps were until I didn't have one. I recall playing World of Warcraft in high school where there were areas on the map where monsters were that could kill you easily (if you were a low level) and there were areas on the map where you needed to go for quests. Thankfully, on WoW the maps were detailed and would show you where you would need to go for each quest. However, it was important that you knew which route or pathway to take because you might walk through a dangerous area and die. I didn't appreciate maps until I played Assasin's Creed 3. Although I beat the game in a few days, it wasn't until I was about 90% completed with the story line that I understood how to parry attacks and most importantly use my map. Because I was unaware how to open my map, I wasted a lot of my time running / horseback riding around trying to find the main road or a means of quickly transporting from one place to another. Although I've always enjoyed playing Assasin's Creed, however, playing that campaign with no map and therefore no knowledge of location of what town I was in made the game extremely frustrating and I was happy that I finished it so I didn't have to play it for a longer period of time.