I can make things a bit more on rails, but the NPC emotions, NPC activities, and such are almost finished being setup (in their early states) and I am hopeful that will make up for the lack of quest markers. The next version I release will have a lot more non-routine NPCs as well more world appropriate minigames. (NPCs will die if you don't provide food resources)
Though this is still an early alpha for my first game, so please keep that in mind.