Please do not turn this into another Imperial vs Stormcloak thread, (I know it will happen to an extent anyway as I have put the dreaded words 'civil war' in the title, but try to keep your instincts under control). Anyways, the Questline is completely linear and repetitive the legion lazily and poorly implemented, there are no real signs of war in skyrim outside of the quests devoted the CW and becoming a high ranking officer in either faction has absolutely no significance, but above all, it is BORING AS HELL. There is so little imagination in this questline, go there and kill some soldiers then get a random, meaningless reward, go there and kill some soldiers and get another useless reward, so there and kill some more solders, rinse and repeat. The CW has been a point of contention since 11-11-11 and many players have very strong opinions. With such a strong and divisive topic, do you not think that it has been implemented incredibly poorly?

No I do not think it has been implemented incredibly poorly.

I think they made the implications of completing it too large for what they can actually do to implement it in future games, so it was not well done. Finishing the quest line for either side doesn't even make any meaningful impact on the game world, so I don't see why they didn't make the questline end a bit more enigmatically, in a stalemate or with the war finished but leaving Skyrim in the same state for either side.

The only thing I think was implemented well was the conversations with Hadvar and Ralof at the beginning of the game and Riverwood. Both of them offer logical, interesting views on the dragon stuff. After that I think it all just falls a part though. Great idea but implemented appalling badly, imo.

Edit: Actually, I'd say that another thing that was done well is all the conversations you can listen to surrounding the issue of the CW in game, like the NPCs at Dragonbridge for example. The CW questline in itself though, appalling poor.

Yes they were lazy in parts. The quests were pretty much the same thing on either side, nothing special to make it a unique path for picking your chosen side.

When I say that it is appalingly bad, I recognise that it would be too ambitious for Bethesda to do anything major, but there are little things,would be incredibly easy to implement that would make it, in my eyes infinitely better, for example, if you join the legion, after doing your 'clear out the fort' quest, instead of giving you a random bit of enchanted iron armor, why couldn't we have an imperial officer's sword, or legate's armor wouldn't that be so much more interesting than a bit of random armor. Also, just a bit of diologue change would add infinatly to the ambiance, I am an imperial legate and the imperial guards treat me no differant to a peasant, sometimes even being outright rude!

Damn those at the marketing department.

They spent time working on it and improving it and when they finally wanted to place it in the game. Todd Howard came to them and said ''Hey guys this questline is very big and would overtop our miserable MQ we made about dragons. REMOVE IT and make a small half-assed questline instead *TROLLFACE*.''

The lore and, as Eyari said, the conversations, are great. The questline itself is a bit underwhelming... But moreso, you need mods to actually get the feeling that a war is going on.

It's not a Civil war, it's a Civil disagreement.

No.

-More variation than take-another-fort-that-is-exactly-the-same-as-the-last would have been nice. Much can be said about this. Most notably, how much was scrapped.

-More named fellow soldiers to connect to would have been nice. Now, we only have Ulfric/Tullius, Galmar/Rikke and Ralof/Hadvar. We have the officers at the camp, but with a couple exceptions, they hardly have any dialogue, and they are little more than just another name in a uniform. A little more dialogue, a few more named soldiers at each camp, those named soldiers and the local officer/legate showing up when it's time to take a fort would have been nice.

-A better ending would have been very nice. Kingsmoot, where are you?!?

Honestly, if you are going to implement something THAT poorly, you might as well NOT include it.

OK, fair enough, they could only do so much, but how long would it have taken to implement removal of the essential tags on the camp commanders at the conclusion of the war?

Woot? It's nothing but a frakkin tribal war for power imo.

What's more, me is a shieldmaiden ha, and no handmaiden! However, it came to nothing,

'cause I've trashed the hatchet. And so they're waiting in vain till grass will grow on their

cheeks on the day the cows come home

11/11/11 had nothing to do with what happened to the civil war, the remains of the larger civil war questline that was originally part of the game show that Bethesda cut the majority of it LONG before they even got to voice acting.

The civil war was cut because it got so large, and starting interacting with so much stuff, it became a scripting nightmare, and was causing tons of problems with other quests, and questlines, because of how massive and all encompassing it had become.

The civil war was preventing people from playing the rest of the game, which you cannot have in a game like Skyrim.

Considering they scratched half the damned thing, yes, i think they got l-l-l-l-l-aaaaaaazy.

At this point, let's put this game along Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens Colonial Marines.

Its their job to script things, even if its difficult. The discs on PC 360 and PS3 can hold way more than was on it. So there was no excuse, except 11.11.11

Actually, there is abig difference, Duke Nukem was "finished" ages ago, but they said ti wasnt up to par with the current gen, so they kept pushing the release date further and further back. Now if Skyrim would have pushed the release date back even 6 months, a LOT of things could have been fleshed out.

It's the most uninspiring excuse for a civil war.

Questions a'hoy!

Why do we only report to Glamar/ Legate Rikke? instead of getting to know the other commanders and hearing how the CW has effected them, we get lumbered with one really plain character.

Why doesn't ulfric/ Tullius recognise we just 'wiped out a fort'? we just killed over 50 people, at least say well done.

Why are the rewards so absolutely pointless? an orcish sword of burning? unique items for a unique quest please.

Why can't we lose forts after we capture them? the enemy makes no effort to retake their forts.

Why are the quests all the same? capture an enemy held fort is all well and good, but it's not the only thing you'd need to do to win a war.

Why are the no sub quests? i joined the legion, Fighting stormcloaks isn't the only thing the legion would do in skyrim.

No ceremony at the end of the quest, why? we just liberated skyrim for god's sake.

Why does nobody realise the war has finished? this just plain annoys me, even after the war has finished people in skyrim still believe the war is going on. You can unlock your doors and windows now!

I only like the CW because you can join the Imperial legion.

There is no other option but I think the CW is pure bias.

I actually like the civil war, but like most quests in Skyrim, they could have used a lot more variety in them.

More importantly though, the Civil war is actually the crucial narrative of the game, more than the Dragons, which, aside from the beginning of the game, can be completely avoided, but you can't walk 20ft without being reminded of the civil war, no matter what you're doing. Plus, I thought they did a really nice job with making both factions agreeable, and disagreeable in the civil war. I usually swing Imperial, just because I'm a "Big Picture" kind of person, but the Stormcloaks are certainly justified in their hostility.