Hello guys (and some girls), I was hooked the first time I played Morrowind back in the days on a friend's pc. I played Morrowind alot, even nowadays I play a little. I liked Oblivion, and really enjoyed it after a few big mods, mostly OOO and COBL. I tried to avoid as much information as possible when I saw the new Skyrim forums eleven months ago. I know a few things, like the removal of attributes, the dragons, the takeout of classes, the "dumbed-down" skills (oh noes, we lost mysticism but not the spells itself!) etc.
What I'm asking you is this: Do you think it's worth it, in your opinion? And please, don't spoil too much for me, I've tried to ignore most of the information after the release. I spoiled Oblivion by reading through the MQ and the other guild questlines.
I also have a few questions for you, the reader:

• Is exploring worth it again? In Morrowind, rare armor and ancient artifacts where hidden in the lairs of critters, guarded by (sometimes) fearsome monsters. In Oblivion, everything was leveled, so it was pointless looking further than one dungeon except for quests, loot and experience in certain skills.
  
• Do the weapons feel different? In Morrowind and Oblivion, I couldn't tell the difference between a longsword and mace except for another damage stat, reach and speed.
  
• Is the perk system covering the removal of some skills? Do they feel really balanced, or are some of them fun? Can you really specialize in a certain role, or do you end up as jack of all trades again?
  
• Did they do a better job at voice acting in Skyrim than in Oblivion? IE: Do the random NPCs actually have a personality this time? Some had a personality in both Morrowind and Oblivion, but Morrowind was easily fixable because of the non-spoken dialogue with LGNPC project.
  
• What's the deal with the removal of custom spells? Yes, you could abuse it, but it was also a tool for making fun spells like Damage Speed 10pts for 10 seconds on target. Also, what spell effects are removed?

Thanks for the help.

Yes.

1. Exploration is fun once you turn the compass / markers off. The gameworld is a lot more hand-crafted and varied than Oblivion. Unfortunately though, level-scaling is still present which kind've puts me off venturing into lots of dungeons outside of quests. I know that if I come across a master locked chest, it's just going to contain what Bethesda feel is appropriate for my level.

2. They do to me, yes.

3. No. The whole levelling system is very lacking in my opinion.

4. It's a lot better than in Oblivion, but still not great.

5. Haven't tried magic yet, so I can't comment on this.


Overall though, yes, the game is most definitely worth it despite it's flaws.

If i could go back in time id keep the hype i had, saved 65 bucks, and waited a few months until the creation kit came out before i bought the game. but im a tight wod, if you like blowing money on stuff go ahead but i can find better games to invest 60 bucks in.

and yes i love skyrim. just not the stupid things bethesda has put in the game, thus why i want mods asap.

• Is exploring worth it again? In Morrowind, rare armor and ancient artifacts where hidden in the lairs of critters, guarded by (sometimes) fearsome monsters. In Oblivion, everything was leveled, so it was pointless looking further than one dungeon except for quests, loot and experience in certain skills.
  Yes.
  
  
• Do the weapons feel different? In Morrowind and Oblivion, I couldn't tell the difference between a longsword and mace except for another damage stat, reach and speed.
  I think so.
  
  
• Is the perk system covering the removal of some skills? Do they feel really balanced, or are some of them fun? Can you really specialize in a certain role, or do you end up as jack of all trades again?
  Yup.
  
  
• Did they do a better job at voice acting in Skyrim than in Oblivion? IE: Do the random NPCs actually have a personality this time? Some had a personality in both Morrowind and Oblivion, but Morrowind was easily fixable because of the non-spoken dialogue with LGNPC project.
  The voice acting is pretty good, 70+ actors did a nice job.
  
  
• What's the deal with the removal of custom spells? Yes, you could abuse it, but it was also a tool for making fun spells like Damage Speed 10pts for 10 seconds on target. Also, what spell effects are removed?
  Beter ask some mages, I haven't gone that path yet

Edit: Some people dwell too much on Morrowind and Oblivion (game mechanics), so expect some negative replies.

1. Exploring is fun but there is leveling, to an extent. I don't know about the loot but from what I played, most is probably leveled too.

2. Kinda. It's a subjective question so it's going to have a subjective answer. They feel different to me specially because of the different killing animations. I don't know about you though.

3. You can specialize, that's how I prefer to play, but it's also done in a way to allow you to do a little bit of everything. It's not too balanced, many people have a problem with the lack of power of a mage, specially later in the game.

4. I found that the content and performance of the dialogues have improved greatly over Oblivion.

5. The removal of the custom spells was a big let down for me. The system is more static and less "magical", in my opinion. Dual casting is a good idea though and the visual effects are usually pretty good. I found that playing a pure mage was the least fun for me, magic is still really fun for hybrid characters though.

Overall, for me, it was totally worth it. It's been a while since I felt the money spent on a game was money well spent. It's one of the best games I've ever played.

There is a lot to see in Skyrim, there are plenty of caves, dungeons, barrows, and dwarven ruins to go searching in, and some will have special items in them. Plus the addition of collecting Dragon Shouts gives you a bit more of an incentive to go looking in dungeons and exploring the world to collect Dragon Souls.



By and far yes. Swords are faster than axes and maces are slower than axes and swords and it really shows. Two handed weapons are much slower now too and can certainly pack a punch when you perk into them.



For the most part yes. Some of them can be exploited to the extreme making you a godly character rather quickly. You usually have to specialize with one role and then pick up a minimal secondary later on. You only have 80 perk points to spend out of a possible 250 something perks.



Voice acting is okay, but it should not be the thing that makes or breaks the game for you.



Not sure about the custom spells. I know spells like unlock are out, but I don't know the comprehensive list.

1.Is exploring worth it again? In Morrowind, rare armor and ancient artifacts where hidden in the lairs of critters, guarded by (sometimes) fearsome monsters. In Oblivion, everything was leveled, so it was pointless looking further than one dungeon except for quests, loot and experience in certain skills.
Yeah, some people even disable map and compass for a better experience. Loot is still leveled, although there are tons of cool things to find. Dungeons are overall rather unique. There are repeated rooms, but I'd say I have yet to encounter a single dungeon that was a clone of another in my 110 hours. Some dungeons are beyond unique, they're simply incredible, though these are often exceptions.

2.Do the weapons feel different? In Morrowind and Oblivion, I couldn't tell the difference between a longsword and mace except for another damage stat, reach and speed.
Not really as far as I can tell. It's just slight changes in damage, reach, and speed again. I can tell that a greatsword, say, is much faster than a warhammer though. It's not unnoticeable, but it's not blatantly obvious either.

3.Is the perk system covering the removal of some skills? Do they feel really balanced, or are some of them fun? Can you really specialize in a certain role, or do you end up as jack of all trades again?
I think so, overall. Some can be abused in conjunction with others at the moment (mostly crafting skills) to ruin the game, but that can easily be avoided by conscious decision not to combine them. All perks overall, (except lockpicking? I don't know) seem fun and useful. I've got a warrior type at 36, an Assassin at 37, and a mage at 21 on master difficulty. I've experienced most of the perks and they seem well designed.

4.Did they do a better job at voice acting in Skyrim than in Oblivion? IE: Do the random NPCs actually have a personality this time? Some had a personality in both Morrowind and Oblivion, but Morrowind was easily fixable because of the non-spoken dialogue with LGNPC project.
Yes. Of course, some voice acting is obviously copy/pasted for some NPCs, and some nNPCs share voices. However, the 70+ voice actors used in this game performed excellently. Compared to Oblivion, you've got a massive boost in unique personality and sound for individual NPCs due to the voice acting.

5.What's the deal with the removal of custom spells? Yes, you could abuse it, but it was also a tool for making fun spells like Damage Speed 10pts for 10 seconds on target. Also, what spell effects are removed?
I'm not sure what to think of this. I liked spellmaking, but I understand the need/desire to remove it. The ability to cast two spells simultaneously adds some much needed versatility on the fly. However, at end game, some schools of magic suffer from a lack of scaling and become nearly useless at higher difficulties, destruction being the prime example. There's a decent variety of spell effects, but as my mage is only level 21 at the moment, I have yet to encounter enough spells to judge which are missing from previous installments.

Yes. Buy it. You won't be sorry unless you are playing on a console and even then you might still like it.

Exploration is worth it.

The weapons... honestly it doesn't feel massively different from Oblivion. You're pretty much just swinging stuff about in front of your face, although there is more feedback. The exception is the bows, they are great in Skyrim.

Perks system for magic could be improved to give more damage to destruction spells.

Voice acting is much better. They used more actors too but I still hear the same voices in a lot of places. There are also a lot of inconsistencies with accents. The Jarl of Whiterun has some sort of European accent but his kids are American, and some of the guards sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I'm missing the custom spells, and some more of the fun/useful ones like lock spells.

This. You really have to judge Skyrim on it's own merits and not get caught in the "OMG Oblivion did it this way!" swing of things. I played Oblivion like it was my job and Skyrim is qute different but good in new ways that Oblivion didn't have. I love both games a LOT. I know they are set in the same universe but they are fairly different games.

Yes, it's definitely worth the money.

The only real problem in Skyrim are the glitches and crashes and hopefully they will be removed when they get around to releasing a patch that works (some people have patched their game on PC and it killed the game totally).

Bethesda is known for releasing buggy titles but they do get around to fixing them. I got Oblivion late so I didn't see the bugs in that so much. In Skyrim I have had at least one lockup per session... and often many more.

The game is awesome but I think I should have waited like the other guy suggested. I'm taking a break because I nearly killed my joypad when the game crashed for the sixth time this morning. I wanged the pad so hard it bounced off a chair and vanished into the hallway where it took me a while to find. At that point I realised it was a case of wait for the fix or end up smashing my joypad to bits.

Well... I play on Xbox and it's by far the best game I have played in a LONG, LONG time, so you can get that PC elitism out of here.

The game is worth it. But, from your post it sounds like you have very high standards for the 5 things you asked about.

If you want the best experience on those points all combined into 1 game, Skyrim is not that game.

Someday someone will make a game with loot as good as Diablo 2, amazing exploration, balanced and complex skills, BG2 Ascension level difficulty and powergaming potential, and Mass Effect level story/character and voice acting. But that game isn't here yet.

Yes. Skyrim is worth getting. I love to explore and the graphics in this game are amazing.

Did you even read the last part of what I said? If you like it then that's great

Every new Elder Scrolls game is actually a new game, I figured that part out. You cant just say this is Oblivion 2.0 (even if some people think it was going to be like that).



Well, Bethesda is indeed known for releasing buggy games. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout NV (they just published it, but still...) and now Skyrim. I can deal with bugs. If you have installed FCOM wrong for once, or even a heavily modded unstable game, you know what crashes and glitches are. It was even nearing a critical point that every loading screen was a 80% risk of crashing. I know, I'm noob at installing mods :cryvaultboy:



Maybe I gave the impression I had too high demands for Skyrim. I didn't rise my expectations too high, like most did for Oblivion (and maybe for Skyrim, but I've seen way more sceptism this time around) and got disappointed.

Thanks for the help, wil ask Skyrim for my birthday for sure. Two days left. :celebration: (money saving ftw :thumbsup: )