Sorry for the snip, post was too long to quote.

Being a huge fan of the Witcher series, I see where you are coming from, and agree with just about all you said, and while Witcher II has its own issues, you are coming from a game that has a compelling story with real in-game consequences depending on your actions and choices, including completely different game play, places you can/can't go, who is friend who is foe etc. and these choices are irreversible...

The multimedia stuff... I don't know how much cinematic bits could enhance a game like Skyrim. In Witcher II, you get dramatic clips like the king's assassination which I think effectively depict the gravity of the moment... I don't know that there's such a pivotal moment in Skyrim, but I can see how they could have improved the dialog sequences.

I can see the repetitiveness of the game as well, as the quests you get are certainly repetitive, even among different factions, and while the locales don't have the same layout, they aren't that varied in content. I was very surprised that in Skyrim the Civil War quests And don't get me started on the City Thane thing...

As for the voice acting, yeah, I get tired of hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger guessing someone stole my sweet roll but I think it is more that the main NPCs in the game lack compelling personalities and dialog.

As for mods... well, I make my own I rarely download anything, but I can say the real enjoyment I get from TES games is the time I spend making my mods than playing the game. Unfortunately there isn't much open source support for Wicther when it comes to mods, as there's for TES games.

Oh, and no insane mode either

But all in all, 2 different games, in that in Witcher, you want to know what happens next, whereas Skyrim, or any other TES game, you don't have to follow the main quest at all if you don't want to, and basically play the game forever... and while being repetitive, well, Pac man and Tetris were repetitive, but highly entertaining.

http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/factsopinions/

Does it really blow your mind that people sincerely like Skyrim?

Just because you don't see why people can spend countless hour being immersed in the game, doesn't mean others see it the same way. You honestly just seem like someone who doesn't like the whole RPG genre in general.

I don't buy an Elder Scrolls game to play for a month before I try a new game out. I buy them to play for YEARS, as do many others.

I think in game cutscenes would have been great but I guess they had good reasons for not doing it.

They would have gotten [censored]loads of hate for adding cutscenes, It is known.
"It is known"
"It is known"

Not sure I can agree that WoW is low quality.

....regardless of what game you feel is better, you still got 70+ hrs out of skyrim. So your upset because its not the greatest game YOU have ever played? if you truly had a problem with it then you wouldve quit a long time ago. Sure it could be better, but dont act as if after 70hrs you feel cheated. Beth didnt force you to pull 2 fulltime work weeks out of their game. You did it for your own entertainment. There are so many other great games out there, yet you CHOSE not to play them while you grinded 70 hrs in skyrim?? doesnt make sense.

even six could become boring if you grinded for 70 hrs in 2 weeks. The problem is with you, not the game.

Absolutly I know, it flys in the face of what Beth do and what many of the fans expect. I'm quite open minded about it though.

Stop even considering comparing it to WoW in any way, aside from the fantasy like settings in both there is hardly anything that is similar.

Umm... role playing IS all in your head by definition. It requires imagination in order to place yourself in the role you are playing. That's what Beth does, plain and simple (i.e., allowing the players to use their imaginations).

The incentive for TES games (and Fallout, too, now) is to create and develop a character that you imagine.

Anyone who cannot or will not do that will be disappointed.

In a Japanese RPG (which came from Wizardry, by the way, so the "Japanese" caveat is rather inaccurate), you choose which game to play based on the character(s) in the game and who you want to play. It's the same idea except that you choose the game because of the characters offered rather than creating a character within the game. If a game doesn't have a character you want to play, you choose a different game.

Here's my own take on Witcher 2 since it keeps being mentioned here: I couldn't care less and will never play it because I checked it out and do not identify with the art, characters, story, etc. There is little point in playing (or experiencing, in general) any game or media that you do not enjoy. I'd give Witcher 2 a low score just for lack of appealing artistic aesthetics.

I would also auggest that you may want to refrain from overstatements of your experience. I go back to text adventure games on teletype terminals and have played both Western and imported Japanese RPGs since that time, but even I would never dream of claiming I have played every RPG ever made.

One of the main differences here is that I and many others are not playing for gold and uber items.

We allow a character type to interact with the world within the boundaries of the character's role.
After 74 hours, my Thief only joined the Thieves Guild and Bard College, and did some side stuff.
At level 28, that character is semi-retired now, so I just started a different character type.

*The fighting mechanic*
You can choose not to. But i do feel a bit the same when i pop 10 potions during pause, and continue with full hp and sta. I chose to quickbind the potions so i can use them during combat without pausing. Pretty much fixes this issue.

*Production value.*
Wow did NOT have cinematics, expect for the panning camera at the start of each new character. They only recently implemented cinematics during quests as far as i know. I don't miss them at all in Skyrim, but they could have used it to put more emphasis on specific parts of the major quests.

*Graphics/Character Animations*
Compared to Oblivion, the animations are MUCH better, but still not really on par with most current games. Basically, it's the animator lacking skill or enough working space due to limited tech. DX11 does not have much influence on this.

*Interface*
Yeah, this is just...wrong. But i got completely used to it after a couple of hours. Only thing that annoys me is the selection of conversation options which sometimes goes bonkers. (Clicking "i want to trade some stuff with you...", but the system still selects the one previously highlighted.)

*Scaling*
I actually like both systems.

*Ability to Abuse Save without Repercussion*
Don't save as much. Again, it's up to you.

*Limited voice acting*
Now that's just unfair. They've used 70+ voice actors, and some of them are really good ones. I love it. The guards could've used a bit more variety, though.

*Inabillity to kill everyone*
Mods! Weeeeee!

*Crafting Limited*
The crafting in WoW was based on a half-year grind. Utterly tedious, and not enjoyable at all. I'm glad Skyrim simplified it within their design. If you want more hardcoe stuff, wait for mods.

*Broken Economy*
True. Lvl 53 here with 40k, and no way to spend it atm... Would've been nice if the shops could have level-limited armor/weapons with fixed prices, so you can work your way towards them. I always liked this in other RPG's.

*No classes*
The whole filosophy of the game is 'be whoever you want to be'. I don't like restarting the game so i can 'reroll a different class blahblah', if i want to fuzz around with magic, i can train it anytime, enchant some items which enhances magicka and regen, and start throwing fireballs. W00T!

Not being nitpicky here, just wanted to reply to each point you made. Some of them are valid, some of them a littlebit...less.

Pathetic mod. No better way to explain this

http://static.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/images/1601-3-1322681760.jpg

I've seen much better ones that don't butcher the lore, or the game itself.

Those who like dabbling and trying everything will find Skyrim perfect. Those who like delving into one aspect of the game "I'm a -thief-. I want to steal and live like a thief.", will find it shallow and unsatisfying.

I would agree if the story really was novel-like, if I really was a hero and if it was truely an epic experience story-wise.

Except that is not the case. Any epicness in skyrim comes from the graphics. The story itself is not.

- Why am I dragonborn? How did it happen? Is it just happenstance?
- 4 hours of main questing tops, the rest of the game being "kill this guy and/or pick that up for me".
- You have no impact on the world. Even after beating the bad guy and saving the world, im being asked if i'm the new guy bringing mead.
- Nothing outside the MQ has an impact on it. Oh, I helped the Stormcloaks and defeated the Empire? Great, the guards in cities changed costume, and thats the only difference from before.

Sorry, but this is not a multilayered novel. Its a very basic one with a barebone story that happens to have beautifull graphics.

I am in no way a hardcoe gamer. I work part time and go to college full time, so my gaming is actually very limited. Yet I still see those issues.

If you are going to argue on an open forum, you will have to understand that some of us DONT HAVE ACCESS TO MODS. When you bought the game for Xbox or PS3, you are stuck with what you have. Hence why, when the game is riddled with bugs and gameplay issues, a lot of us will ask bethesda to look into it BECAUSE WE CANT DO THAT OURSELVES.

Can we just stop for a moment and talk about how yelling "that's an opinion" is a non-argument?

I swear to god, everytime someone criticizes the game, the response is either "shutup, opinion" or "shutup, game is amazing" or "then stop playing."
If they're just opinions, then how come no one's ever countering these pieces of criticism? I'll tell you why: because they're good criticisms with a lot of truths within them.

Not asking people not to disagree with the criticism, but I am asking people to back up their support of the game and denounce criticisms when possible, instead of responding to "wtf the Legion and Stormcloaks play out exactly the same" with "just ur opinion."

Interesting that so many just argue with the playtime, as if it negates every flaw if you can just play 200+ hours in a game.
I liked Skyrim, in my eyes it's a very solid game and the world is beautiful and believable and one of the best I've ever seen in a video game and yes, you get really a lot content for your money.

But as much as I love Bethesda's games I can understand the OP as well and I can't deny that the game has unfortunately flaws, one of them, that the game becomes very repetitive after a while and once you have good armour and weapons, completed most interesting quests there isn't much purpose to run in the next dozens of dungeons.
Same with Money, as is almost completely redundant. At least at the beginning for your first house or if you like achievements there was a goal to collect some.
But with 140.000 Gold in my bags and a completely decorated house in Riften, a nice Nightingale Armour and good daggers, there wasn't much reason to even loot enemies any more. Just kill everyone in the dungeon and move forward :shrug:

Besides that, it's certainly nice for a company to have a own style, how they design their game, but that doesn't mean, that improvement other developers made wouldn't improve a game like Skyrim as well. For example good written characters, especially for your companions or romance option. Would it have made the game worse, if you could talk to Lydia to get to know her better? Some interesting dialogues, little about her background or anything like that? I like this in the Bioware games. Sure I didn't mind in Morrowind, but it's not 2002 and Obsidian showed with New Vegas that good written companions can fit in a open world game like Fallout/Elder Scrolls.

Or how about choices? It's great in RPGs if you have choices how your character decides in different situations. Not Bethesda's style? Maybe, but one of the main side quests, the civil war is purely about making a choice which side to support, with both sides neither really good nor bad. This was one of the best side quests in the game. But beside that, if you replay the game a second time 99% will be pretty much the same as the first time. Nothing to do different, just the freedom of choice if you kill with a sword or this time with magic etc.

Although WoW is not the best game to compare Skyrim with, I would agree, that a crafting system like in WoW wouldn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it could even be very nice, to go out adventuring, gather some iron, craft your first iron armour, adventure further and level up and gather more materials to make even better armour. Like a profession that accompanies with you through the whole game. Instead of lulz iron dagger spam -> dragon armour.

I don't agree with everything from the OP. I like the no classes idea of the Elder Scrolls games and I really don't mind if I can't kill everyone.
But Voice acting was pretty mediocre. 70 voice actors, but it sounds like most of the NPCs are voiced by the same ~10 actors, the 60 additional voices maybe for some minor roles you probably won't even see.

What I find pretty curious is how some argue, that 70 hours aren't enough to judge the game.
I really wonder what you can see with 200 hours you couldn't probably have seen in the first 70 hours. I played the game for 100+ hours, but even 70 should be enough to finish the main story, at least 2 of the guild questlines, most of the daedra quests and a handful of side quests. What's there more to see? The rest of the guild quests maybe, some more side quests, dozens of additional dungeons. But would it be that much different from the first 70 hours?

For me, it's still a good game. Wouldn't have played it for 100+ hours if it weren't. But it could have been so much better and often I had the impression the developer aimed to much about quantity and dropped quality. Not my GotY.

Id love you to explain more what you mean, because I seem to not get it...

Roleplaying is in your head... so if my toon is beating a poor granma, I have to imagine he is not, is that what you are sayin? Are you saying that while I am getting this innocent man arrested just so I can go on with my main quest, I should be closing my eyes and pretending I just saved him?

Because, while your comment looks great out of context, that is what it means in Skyrim.

I, for one, think this is a terrible game for roleplaying. I cant answer to people the way I'd want my character to, I can't choose to solve a problem/quest the way my character would, I can't choose to interact with the world my character would. How, then, am I to "imagine" my character?

What's even sadder is that 99% of the DIALOG is the same, too. They didn't even bother with different lines of dialog for the quests that are the same. The whole sidequest just feels copy-pasted...

Good thing you weren't playing RPGs back in the pen and paper days. You would have probably offed yourself from frustration.

Leave Witcher 2 out of this, THAT was a awful game

He is not saying he is not able to use his imagination to create a character, he is saying the game does not allow him to translate his imagination into his gameplay.

Exemple:

This is one exemple that represent what most the game seems to be: The game has already decided for me how my character reacts and what he will answer.

You're right, I forgot this one. That's pretty much a standard in most RPGs, that your character can behave differently in dialogues :/
But without choices it gives each character you play pretty much the same personality.
Same with Stonedsoul's example.

Lack of dialog and quest branching is rising to my number one issue with the game. Not every quest in the game needs choice, but some--any action that defines a character--do. If they really want to show what Radiant Story can do, this would be the best possible use for it.

Quests that involve morality, character building, or class type need two or more branches. And at least some of these quests should have an effect on the outside world. Otherwise, the role-playing aspect of the game is severely diminished.