People always say how great Skyrim is but I never really saw that. Instead I could see bunch of things that in my opinion make Skyrim one of the worst games I've played (fo3 still takes the cake) but while I don't think highly of skyrim it doesn't mean I can't find positive things.

My top 10 list of great things about skyrim:

1. Overall exploration aspect. In skyrim you can just pick a random direction and go do adventure stuff and no other game really achieves that.

2. Alchemy mechanics. I've always liked alchemy and I think it really mixes well with the whole exploration aspect. Much better than it was in oblivion.

As you can see my list is a bit short so maybe if you people post your lists I can make mine longer.

EDIT:

you can just pick 10 great things. No need to be the 10 best ones.

1-10: Its a game I enjoy playing. Because, reasons.

1. Dragons
2. Open-world
3. Character Customization
4. Large environment
5. Lots of dungeons
6. Plenty of quest options
7. Plenty of role-playing options
8. Were-Wolves
9. Vampires
10. Hunting

1. Great stuff.

2. Great people.

3. Great places.

Ah, only up to three.

1. How do dragons make the game better? Most dragon encounters and can solved by hiding behind a tree, shoot an arrow, rince and repeat. Most people even think dragons are annoying because they can kill npc and generally pestering.

3. What do you mean by this? Do mean you can create basic assasin/warrior/mage (+hybrids) archeotypes which pretty basic or do you mean there is variety within each skill via skill tree mechanics (which is not really true).

4. Which is better red or blue?

5.see above^^

6. What do you mean by this? Do you mean you have lots you fed ex quests or each quest have many ways is which they can solved?

8&9 To me both of these just hinder your character because being is were form you are generally weaker and various vampire power are fairly useless (only usefull really seems to be night vision).

I totally agree with you

you asked

way to piss on somebodys parade

You asked for peoples personal top 10. Why are you bashing on their list? Not to mention you are looking at it from purly a meta-gaming standpoint.

1. Possibilities for free roleplay.

2. Large detailed gameworld with deep and well written lore.

3. Intensivity of exploration.

4. Dragons.

5. Enjoyable combat system. (Includes both melee and archery as well as the mounted combat.)

6. Modding possibilities.

7. Wildlife - deers, foxes, rabbits, wolves, bears, sabrecats, skeevers, birds, ants, hawks, fishes, bees, bugs, butterflies, mammoths (and giants), bristlebacks, goats and horkers.

8. Political situations in the game.

9. Perk system.

10. No HUD.

1. Dragons add... i don't know something special to the game

3. As in I can make an ugly character, I can be a cat person, ect.

4&5. Blue

6. As in there are lots of quest varieties (DB, TG, Companions, College of Winterhold, Main quest)

8&9. As in they give you more options to play as (see: http://theskyrimblog.ning.com/group/character-building?xg_source=activity)

#1 Open World

#2 Extensive Pack for gear

#3 Smithing

#4 Enchanting

#5 Fluid and more realistic combat including archery

#6 Killcams, beheading special perk moves etc

#7 Perk trees for character customization

#8 Engaging characters and dialogue: Paarthy, Balgruuf, OhDahViing and DurNehViir as examples

#9 Awesome Dungeons: Forelhost, Labyrinthian, Lost knife Cave, Pinewatch

#10 House building and ownership

Both of these are excellent lists and I agree with them.

I agree with the OP to a point. I am fond of saying "Skyrim, the greatest game that ever svcked."

For me though it's just the sloppy, sloppy, sloppy tech work they did here coupled with an obvious lack of REAL writing talent as far as dialouge and questlines go. I mean some of the glitches, bugs, and just the way things are poorly implemented and questlines poorly writtin are at times enough to make me want to punch a hole through a piece of drywall...

However, I can give them "half a pass" on that becasue of how huge, ambitious, and stuffed full of content the game is.

1.) Open sandbox fantasy world with dragons, vampires, assassins, necromancer covens, etc...

2.) Tons, and tons of things to do. If you say it's all boring and dumbed down, well...thats a hill I won't die on. I enjoy most of it and find it fun, but I see peoples' point on this. They just don't make RPG's like they used to (unfortunatley), so go play "real" RPG's like Baulder's Gate, Planescape Torment, Arcanum, FO 1-2 etc... if you must. I know I still do sometimes.

3.) I find the world simply gorgeous, even on my 360 with mid range pop-up textures and frozen waterfalls. Not only that, but just the way they planned and laid out the landscape is imo very, very well done. I would have prefered a little more open wilderness between towns but I understand they had to be limited with this. If they had half as much talent for writing quest lines, deep interesting dialouge, and squashing bugs as they do for world building, Skyrim could have taken over Baulder's Gate as my #1 RPG of all time.

4.) Fun and satisfying combat. Could it be better? Of course, much better; but I find it fun. There are some balance issues with people being able to make "super weapons" and destruction magic not scaling very well into high levels and at higher difficulty settings (this one is a real bummer for me), but over all I have alot of fun with it for what it is.

If I had my way the combat of every RPG would be tactical and turn based like the new X-Com, or "Temple of Elemental Evil" (a greatly underapreciated game as far as the depth of combat goes, imo.)

But I am a 34 year old dork from the old school that remembers when RPG's were more of a niche product for other dorks from the old school like me. Now it's all about increasing accesability to vastly increase the amount of $$$ you can generate. Even though that makes me cry a little inside, I understand that $ talks and you know what walks.

So thats 4... O well, 5-10 would be fluff anyways.

If I had only asked from purely from a metagaming point of view I would limit the amount people could list. I'm a pretty bashy person but I also like to know why people like the things they like. If a person can make a good point why something is good then I can too add it to my list.

To me dungeon were pretty much linear and boring. They would almost always force you to a direct conflict with enemies and the loot you get in the end is propably bad.

There are only few(/only) exception(s) eg Dead Oar Grotto where you have multible paths and ways to take out your opponents.

10 things I like about Skyrim.

* Dungeons. The most well-crafted, interesting, detailed, story-driven dungeons in the series.

* Art design. There are no more spectacular sights in any Elder Scrolls game than the city of Solitude or the College of Winterhold as seen from a distance. The aurora borealis at night. The wisps of distant clouds wreathing through mountaintops. The panoramic view of Skyrim and Red Mountain to the east from the Throat of the World. Dragons, easily the most amazing creature design and animation Bethesda has ever produced.

* Crafting. I adore being able to improve gear. For me it beats merely maintaining gear, as in past games, which felt to me like tedious "busywork." Also, the fact that crafting happened in-game, activated by the character, not in a menu activated by the player.

* Quests. I liked Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild (as illogical as it was), and College of Winterhold quest lines better than Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild and Mages Guild. For the most part I thought the stories told were more interesting, the NPCs more engaging and memorable.

* Dialogue. I liked Skyrim's location-and NPC-specific dialogue better than Oblivion's generic, one-size-fits-all dialogue. For all its faults, repetitive dialogue between a specific husband and wife about a specific shop or field felt more immersive to me than the repetitive dialogue about mudcrabs and syndicates of wizards, spoken by bandits in caves and aristocrats in Talos Plaza alike (often by the same voice actor).

* Perks. I love being able to choose perks for my characters. They tend to make each of my characters feel more different as they gain more levels. Which is the opposite of my experience in Morrowind and Oblivion, where my characters tended to feel more alike as they gained more levels.

* Followers. Playing Morrowind and Oblivion often felt lonely to me. Followers help alleviate the loneliness of traveling through the wilderness. And, while I'm at it, marriage. It wasn't much but it was more than past games offered.

* Transportation. Carriage and boat travel (in addition to map-based fast travel) was a wonderful addition to Skyrim.

* Kill Cams. I love them. To me they make combat feel more epic.

* The landscape of Skyrim itself. As much as I liked Vvardenfell and Cyrodiil, I like Skyrim even more. There is no more breathtakingly beautiful region in any Elder Scrolls game than The Rift, in my opinion. I love the variety of climates, from the iceberg clotted Sea of Ghosts to the hot springs in Eastmarch to the woods around Falkreath to the mountainous canyons and rivers of The Reach.

1. I can create my own character, with looks, personality and backstory that I choose.

2. I can go anywhere I want and do stuff in any order I want, and don't do it if I don't want to. (though sometimes it takes a bit of manipulating.)

3. The game looks very good and can be made to look even better.

4. TES lore.

5. The little details in the world that tell a story, such as finding a skeleton with a book, a Talos shrine with dead people etc.

6. The creation kit, mods and console commands. Allow for even more freedom.

7. Very funny glitches.

8. Crafting, marriage, children, hunting, flower-picking etc... the option to do "normal" things beside adventuring.

9. Many memorable NPCs.

10. Followers.

It was hard to make a list of only 10.

There's a lot to love about Skyrim.

1.the mods

2.open world

3.characters

4.graphics

5.dragons

6.Dragonborn expansion

7.combat

8.the quests

9.th lore

10.Rping what you want

I have to say, I know it's not a feature of skyrim directly, but the canvas Bethesda created for modders was an excellent place for creative folks to make a deep deep rich world.

What's better than a multi-million dollar developer? A million modders with a passion for their creations.

Well, it has a mostly nicely designed large open world, and despite initial problems mods for everything and then some. And... hmm... Well, there's some unintended comedy in characters and questlines, though nothing as funny as Fallout 3's "[Intelligence]So i just repeat what you just said?" dialogue options

I love many things about skyrim, but number 5 is what makes the game, for me. It's the attention to detail, and the fact they took the time to fill the world with interesting anecdotes about some random treasure hunter who bit off more than he could chew, or a hunter tracking some sabre cats, or a thalmor soldier seeking approval from his superiors-trying to uncover and eradicate a secret Talos shrine and its following

These are three that come to mind, but there are COUNTLESS little stories that give life to the game

1. Well designed races.

2. Improved melee and archery combat

3. The design of Dwemer ruins

Can't really think of anymore and the points other people gave are the reasons why I think Skyrim is worse than the previous games.

Okay I don't have any of the DLC's so my tops are strictly vanilla xbox picks.

1) Alchemy. Love the exploration of it. I like how it requires a table and you can't haul alchemy equipment all over. It means you have to plan ahead.

2) Cooking. I was SO excited for that. I wish it was expanded upon to include camp gear, etc but I do love the concept and have fun with it.

3) World areas. I think those were very well done. I love the difference of "feel" I get from wandering The Rift to wandering The Reach.

4) Character creation. Um I'm not sure how to explain this one. I like the fact that I can tell the differences between the races. I like that elves look like elves (or Bethesda's vision of them). For some reason though, they always look either mad or worried. It's probably my lack of talent with character sliders!

5) Combat moves. The graphics and cams for these are pretty nifty.

6) Archery. To me there's a huge improvement in this area and the slo-mo shots are awesome!

7) Dwemer ruins. I love these and they often inspire my imagination as to what it looked like when inhabited by them.

8) Ice Caves. For me, I go into one of these and they take my breath away.

9) Night Sky. Absolutely stunning.

10) Crafting. Although I haven't spent much time in this area of the game, I enjoy it when I do and I think it's a great addition.

Plenty that it does wrong, but more that it does right

1. The ability to level up abilities as you use them. Makes a lot of sense

2. First person perspective. There really are far too few FPSRPG's, which is a shame. (see also VTM Bloodlines)

3. The little things. There are a lot of incidental clutter items and NPCs that do nothing, but they flesh out the world

4. Stealth. For an RPG the stealth mechanic is pretty well implented

5. Radiant Quests. The ability to randomly generate quests, harks back to Daggerfall, and is a good way to offer ongoing gameplay.

6. The Perk System. It wasnt perfect, but it meant that unlike Oblivion you couldnt be the best at everything

7. Well implemented open world. The size, the scope, the looks, the detail.

8. Larger enemies. Again the dragons weren't perfect, but it was nice to face some larger enemies.

9. Quest quantity. Due to the sheer number of the quests you can pick and choose. In most RPGs you feel that you have to take every quest. Not in Skyrim

10. Moddability. I can think of few games that allow the community such good access to Modding tools for the game. Its a great asset.