Of course criticism should make sense. However, one problem we see with criticism is people with other opinions get in and argue how their point is all wrong, bashes them for it, and it just turns to flaming. Sure, some people have some bad ideas, some people have good ideas and some people think they are terrible. The criticism on other peoples ideas should be reasonable too. Otherwise we just breed flames and trolls. (Is it ironic that trolls take extra fire damage...)

Some people on these forums are pretty good about being respectful in the face of opposite opinions and blatently bad ideas. Most of us are not.

Criticism is good, and it should be used. If all we ever said was, "Gee, thats a great idea!" We'd be getting Oblivions level scaling X 20.

some is kinda good, some is just opinions and some is just stupid
I have seen people asking for stuff to be implemented into Skyrim saying that it wasn't in any ES game but it has been in Oblivion and some in Morrowind
stuff like fast traveling and QM are opinion based
the good ones are extravagant ideas, but probably wont be realized becuase of the ridiculousness of what it would take, like making your own weapons

We buy these games. With our money.
We have the to suggest, criticize, point out, and recommend.

like they will pay attention
and no they make a product and we buy it, we do not ask for should be in it, becuase then it would be a lot more expensive, they will do whatever they need to to sell the most, but it is not our game. However they do give PC users some tools to at least make it partially more our game

If you look at the Char's Pauldron on the Elderscroll's.com Wallpaper, it's on the opposite side to Char in the trailer.

Yes, but to survive as a company, they must profit. They must cater to us. They must make it our game. Therefore we don't tell them what to make, but our feedback enables them to improve.

no they must cater to the MAJORITY everyone on the forum is a minority, so they dont listen to us they listen to them, but there are some things that everyone can agree on, so not all our comments will fall on deaf ears

By "us" I mean the audience. Because we, and "them" are all in that category.
And just because we are a minority doesn't mean we should all just be happy.
Eventually they will realize that the proportion of good ideas vs bad ideas is greater than in the general population.

Needless to say, the word "superfluous" rings in my ears more often than it should...

They might pay attention if we all give them good reasons for disliking the things they do. Just complaining about things won't help. Figuring out why we don't like stuff and giving our own solutions is productive. If enough people agree with the issues and solutions to those issues, perhaps Bethesda would change something.

People complain about announced choices for the same reason question periods are held with electoral candidates: Because if you say nothing and expect change, you're an idiot.

Like many others, I dislike some of the changes I see, just as I disliked some of the changes I saw with Oblivion. Just as it is your right to voice your praise on certain elements, that same right extends to us to question, or even condemn certain changes. Bethesda is a great company, but they're just that - a company. Some of the changes are without a doubt in place to appease some people who found previous Elder Scroll's too complex, and thus attract more fans, just as many simplifications in Oblivion were done for the same reason. And, just with Oblivion, I cannot possibly imagine how less options, which ultimately devolves in to less complex gameplay, will be more enjoyable for any player.

You are right in saying senseless bickering and whining is useless, but on that same token, one could argue that a "I have faith in Bethesda" attitude accomplishes the same thing. Praise what you will, and allow others to question what they've heard.

All I ask is that you don't just question Bethesda's changes... Give good reasons as to why you're questioning those changes and then share what you'd consider to be a logical solution for fixing the issues. :shrug:

If you can back up your complaint with facts and/or provide a suggestion to a solution. The last one is a bit shaky because while I could probably discover a programming error for example, I wouldn't know how to fix it, as I am utterly failing at programming. I still need to make the error known though, in case someone who does know how to fix it notices.

So basically, constructive or at the veyr least not spitefull criticism is welcome, in fact I believe it should be mandatory. You can't get better at what you do without learning what you're doing wrong. If I do something badly, I want to hear about it so I can improve.

If all you're going to do is [censored] and moan about something without any solid arguments behind it or just to be an ass, just be quiet and do something more productive, like staring at a wall or watching paint dry.

Logical is the main choice. Saying we want Spears, Crossbows, no Fast Travel makes no sense at all.

Complaining is the basic human reaction to dissapointment. Some people are dissapointed by lack of things like crossbows, spears, TES III fast travel, etc.

Sure, spears are awesome, but I don't think it's such a big deal. Then again, I never really used them in TES III anyway.

The reason for that is that the forum doesn't have a parsing system for screening threads (not posts!) that are too similar. So every day a guy makes the same thread (named something else) that another guy made the day before. And generally, the reason so many people are complaining about something is that it's broken in some way and needs to be addressed. Not that it always can, but we should be able to talk about it, or complain if that's our nature.

The fact is that not every wish we have CAN be addressed within a 5-year timeline and a certain budget. If they wanted to throw 1 BILLION dollars into a videogame, then heck, every feature ever thought of could go in there, but then that company would go bankrupt because once everything is in a game, there won't be any reason for anybody to ever buy another one. Maybe it would last 10-15 years. That's not very smart to not include a little 'planned obselence" to render yourself unnecessary. That's why Microsvck never fully repairs all of their problems without putting in some new ones to fix the next go around. If Windows was 100% stable, they could never upgrade in 3 years later at the cost of billions of our dollars.

Don't look at the complaining. Look at sales. Money speaks. Bethesda sold so many copies of TES-4 because Morrowind was so awesome we expected Oblivion to be even better. But in many ways it wasn't, leading to disappointnment. But now they're trying to fix what went wrong with TES-4, so now we're looking at Skyrim with a mixture of hope and distrust ... because Bethesda bruised their own image with TES-4, but not a whole lot, just a little bit. Mostly, the game was pretty advanced and awesome, and it probably took 1-2 years before the illusion was broken, allowing us to begin to even see the flaws. For most of us, a few years lived like that is more than worth the small flaws we are all complaining about now. In short:

A few years of a grand illusion is much better than a lifetime of bland reality.

1 or 2 years ? it took me and most older TES fan one or 2 weeks...
And the self mutilation was compensated by the fact so many new users jumped in, not used to such kind of game and became incinditional fanbois. On the bright side they brought cash.
I still see some Oblivions failures in skyrim, glaring ones that really didn t need to be there, but i also see something old coming back to TES. The epicness, Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind had a truly sense of epicness that totally lacked in Oblivion, and in SKYRIM it is obvious they totally are trying to bring that back, probably that and the alien feeling that was so easy to taste in the series. Oblivion in this department was the general bland cookie cutter medieval fantasy RPG settings, Had they not violated lore Oblivion would have that too.
Lore is the BAckbone of TES, there s so much weirds elements so much contradictions that if the basic it followed they will never run off of material.
No need to launch petty novels bringing copy paste dragonlance flying castle [censored] smashing into the ground because they are tired to hear they long standing fan how much Oblivion svcked compared to Morrowind.

This. Down to a T

I think Bethesda probably appreciate constructive criticism from us. For instance, there was WW3 concerning Oblivion's levelling system, and now they're sorting it out for Skyrim. If nothing had been said, we'd probably have to put up with that awful system in Skyrim too.

I think our rule on criticism offers the best advice for what is best:

I hope Bethesda only reads a small amount of these threads. Most are just full of people arguing about trivial matters not even related to Skyrim, and there is very little constructive discussion that would ever help them make a better game.

They aren't simplyfying it for consoles, they're complicating it for PC.

That's basically what I'm trying to say. Criticism is great, but not if you're just doing it for the sake of complaining.

If you just say something is bad without offering an idea on how it could be better... what are you accomplishing? Venting your anger? Ok, but that's not helping anyone but you.

That is an awful idea. That's like saying "no flinching until I actually punch you". There's no point voicing your concerns on a finished product. I support the exact opposite of this statement: Voice you concerns BEFORE the game is finished. Once it's out, svck it up, it's not going to change. Enjoy it for what it is.