I agree.

Same thing happens to me almost every night. I only get about 3-4 hours to play after work every day and the same thing happens to me. I go to a town for a specific reason and then get side tracked and forget about the reason I came to that town in the first place.

These things will usually end up eating my play time and it could be 3 real life days before I actually get around to doing what I went there for.

Freakin awesome!

I agree completely.

But also I believe this kind of game kind of incite this 'Korean' way of thinking. For example, I just get to Whiterun at lvl 5 and try to find a few better items at the merchant. Then I realize that instead of looking for random stuff, I can simply grind my smithing and enchating skills, craft items way better than what I expect to find in the stores, and on top of that also make a profit by selling the stuff I crafted to grind my levels. I mean, the game has a system so easy to exploit that the player almost feel like a fool by not doing it. The player has to choose deliberately to not use some game features just to improve the fun, and this is bad.

In my case, I decided to not use any crafting skill on my characters anymore, and the game is way more fun this way. I suggest everyone to try it. However, I know I'm imposing myself some rules and restrictions that the game itself should have imposed. And IMO, as I said before, this is bad.

I am not Korean, but really, what's up with knocking on the Koreans? I've seen power-leveling thinking in all kinds of gamers.

That said, I agree completely with the OP. I've never understood the "help me make the best build" posts. My character is not a build, she's well, a character living in this amazing world.

I have to chip in as another voice to say that rushing through an Elder Scrolls game's main story kind of misses the point. I bought the game on pre-order, pre-loaded it as soon as I could, took two days of vacation (Fri and Mon) to have time to play the game. I haven't yet gone to the Thalmor Embassy, so I haven't even, I don't think, gotten very far in the main story yet.

Partly that's because I played without doing much active levelling until I reached quests which I couldn't complete without getting a few more levels. Then I decided to spend some time doing side quests, miscellaneous quests, gather dragon words, join the Storm Cloaks, spend time hunting and working on smithing by making leather armor items. I decided to stop focusing on magic for awhile and go around exploring caves, mines, the land, and focus mainly on one-handed weapons and light armor to get some proficiency with those.

I enjoy the game a lot more as a chance to explore a huge world, see the cities, interact with the many characters and their quests. I'll get back to the main story, probably somewhat soon, but I too find the game is a lot more fun if you only worry about levels when you need to because you're just not powerful enough to do what you need to.

I agree whole heartedly.

My main playthrough is an RP as a Nord Paladin who was kicked from the order in digrace and sent to execution "Steep penalties for falling for and running away with a Jarls wife in Skyrim these days". Gideon still follows the basic tenants of the Paladin code though. So for example he is honor bound to help or assit any citizen in need regardless if it takes him form his main path.

I believe I have completed a mere 3 quests in the main story line so far and I am 52 hours in and level 30. It has been nothing but enjoyment and because I have a guiding set of rp behaviors I have to folllow it has led me to many adventures and curiosities I would have other wised missed if i had been goal oriented rather then character driven.

Most amazing game I have ever played even with bugs and all. Tell me what other game reacts to your character if you walk around town without 'proper' clothing on? What other game can you get arrested in for a petty crime you did more than 24 hours ago? What other game has you hearing and seeing dragons far off burning up an entire town giving you the option to help or to pass on by?

Butterfly's. Those pretty little things that are so frustrating to catch.....there isn't a butterfly in skyrim that is safe from me

I really enjoy the elimination of the "class" aspect. Leveling is not a concern any longer - you will level naturally based on your play style, this isn't just hype, it's how the game works. I REALLY don't understand people who complain about leveling in Skyrim, maybe they didn't play Oblivion? I've seen plenty of cases in that game, where a player picked the wrong "class" skills and ended up being still at level 2 - ten hours into the game! pff! It's not really possible for this to happen in Skyrim as long as you're not sitting and staring at a wall the whole time.

It's a familiar story...

I remember back to F3 and people were rushing through the game one week, claiming total victory and singing their own praises, then coming back on the forums a week or two later posting "Where do I find..." and "How do I..." threads, and looking like numpties on some of the more detailed discussions.

Skyrim has some very good sub-plots...particularly around the politics of the world. You miss most of these if you charge through the game or are focussed too much on advancing your character rather than enjoying your character.

Yeah, I noticed.
I encountered some guy that asked me to give a letter to a girl, and right after having done that I asked him to follow me to the death and he said "lead on".
That's some pretty incredible writing and deep character here

(yeah I'm half-joking here, there is much better characters out there, but this one was really egregious and left me somehow agape and to be honest, it's far to be the only example of extremely superficial characters)

I like to play with the flow of the game and I really like it. The game never tells me what to do and just gives me fun quests and stuff.
I stopped using fast travel since today and I see a lot more than that I normally would. Seeing a village after hours walking through a dangoures world is one of the most statisfying things ever.

Nice one man. You gotta love internet sarcasm. :rofl:

This!! :read:
This game is not about clicking off points, completing every quest with one character, nor having pwnr armour than your friends. It's about experiences.

I'm enjoying it, glitches and all. Patches are forthcoming so... patience, grasshopper. But this much content in one game is rather astonishing. Those who know me understand I'm no tookus-smoocher nor worshipper at the altar of Todd. I've always called it like I see it and have posted a number of bugs that need fixing - on the proper boards.

1. Don't gimp your character by spamming exp in Smithing/Alchemy, for example. Put the perk points in the skills you actually use. And stop thinking of Levels as they were in MW or OB. Instead, think of them as perk points. If you have 65 Smithing to get coolz gear, don't be surprised when you get owned by some Bandits. 22 One-Handed just won't swing it, toots.
2. Wander and get lost. Minimize your hud's opacity.
3. Become a citizen rather than an all-conquering visitor. Favors go a long way and, I've found, the game actually is keeping track of what you've done and where you've been.
4. Walk. Place a marker on the other side of the province and head off to find it.
5. And, as the OP noted, don't grind away at beating a game. Become a part of it.

Fixes are needed. True. And they are coming. But that's to be expected with so many variables in one game. I've owned games that were less involving than some of Skyrim's quests! Some of these quests could very well have been stand-alone games of their own. Time will tell as it hasn't even been two weeks.

For those that don't remember through the haze of nostalgia, Save Early/Save Often was a long-held mantra for MW. So until the patches are released and we see how things progress, perhaps we should take our own advice.
Just one person's opinion.

I'm doing my best to not level. It's pretty hard, actually. I don't fast travel (only rarely), I do all sorts of side quests, I learn alchemy on my own (not looking up anything), talk to everyone, collect books, etc. 31 hours on the character and level 17.