When you make a whole series of games than there are certain expectations in each game. For example, you can't have a TES game without mulitple races to Role Play. Remove that core part of the game and you are changing what the series is. Bethesda tried to remove beast races as playable in Morrowind. They changed their mind when they found out that the fans wanted beast races in the game. They learned from the critizism that they made a mistake.

Unfortunatly something changed between Morrowind and Oblivion. I have my thoughts on that but it would start another debate that I don't think we need here. In any case, things changed and we ended up with Oblivion. Alot of hard core TES fans were lost because of that. Some of those fans actually helped to make Morrowind as popular as it was. They had fan sites that were very popular. They were modders that created some very impressive mods for Morrowind. They were the kind of fans that any company would want to help promote their game.

My hope was that Bethesda would learn from that and keep to the core of the series, make an open world RPG that allows players to Role Play and make their character as they see fit. My hope is dissapating slowly but surely. The removal of spell making is a slap in the face. How can you honestly say that removing spelling making adds more choices to Role Playing? I don't think you can, and if you do there is no way to convince me.

Bethesda's approach to Role Playing was epic at one time and it was the best in the business. Now, it's becoming an average run of the mill RPG that doesn't stand out as unique. Graphics seem more imporant than the actual Role Playing. Simplied game play is more important than actually making the game a challenge. The gamers who don't even play RPG's are now the target audience, not actual RPG players who love the series and have played the series for the past 15-20 years.

I still have hope for Skyrim, but if they keep removing things that have been in the series from the beginning, like spell making, Skyrim will be as bland and as hollow as Oblivion.

Wow, make the poll any more biased and you may have won the Bethesda Award for "Most Biased Poll in the History of These Forums".

This is the best poll I've seen on these forums and I've been member for 6 years and lurked before that for at least 2 years .

It's obvious you've put a lot of effort and I enjoyed reading every option. Really good stuff. You've got talent.

Also, I agree with you and I started with Morrowind.

Maybe I'm just more laid-back these days and enjoy games for what they are, but everything I read about Skyrim sounds pretty damn good.