I feel like the reason you disliked morrowind is the exact reason i liked it....i loved that it didnt tell you where to go and crap like that....dont want my hand to be held the entire way and be pushed in a certain direction

Edit: Now I can understand being anol about your character and having to restart becasue you made a mistake (his nose wasnt the way you wanted it. etc.), but Ive always gone into TES games with an idea of the builds I was going to make. Even Arena, but only becasue I was an RPG vet when it came out and pretty much knew how it would work. then again, Arena was more linear than Dagger.

I would spend entire class periods in school developing my next Morrowind character: their historical background, their class build, even what factions they'd join and possibly betray later on. Maybe it's just left over from the tendency of older RPGs to have you prepare in advance and then drop you in the middle of a dungeon forced to rely on what you have, but this has always been my approach to playing Elder Scrolls games. If I make a character that just seems half-baked or has no sense of direction with what they're doing, chances are I'll delete them. I even deleted an Imperial fighter character once, because they were too well-rounded and I didn't like being able to persuade, kill, and lockpick my way through the quests so easily.

I personally like to have as little overlap in factions and playstyles as possible between my characters.

Are you sure you played Oblivion or Morrowind, because there it worked the exact same way! You could only raised the skill you actually used! You only picked which skills will add to your overall level, and a small bonus on the beginning.

If you really want classes so bad, play D&D.

I like to think. I like to powerlevel my character. I like to spend those boring hours in math class counting how many skill increases I'll need in each skill of my class to make the best character. Half of the fun in any roleplaying game wether it be DnD, TES, or another comparable game is planning your character out. I don't want someone telling me what I can and can't do, I don't want the game to be streamlined for seven year olds. Now I'm not trying to say that if you don't put hours into character planning then your are a nubzor, I'm just saying that I love the fact that you can in TES.

@blackrave and why do we have to stick to old rpg mechanics and not reinvent the wheel?

I do have my idealized version of the game. What i think is that the less number to decide how the player plays the better. most things should be player skills driven and a few things that just cant be player skill driven should be skill or roll.

I have hated, and still hate this hand holding that is creeping into the later games especially role playing games.

Most of the times, the games are rates as "Mature", because of excessive violence and also mature themes, but on the other hand, the players are treated as kids, who need to be helped all along with the chores that a game might require.

It just does not add up, in my book. Please threat the players of the games rated as mature, as mature beings. Please.

When I am confronted with a problem, or a challenge, and I need to use all my wits about, in order to win the challenge, the more I'm challenged, the more I feel satisfied when finally conquer the situation.

Just let me feel that I have done something myself, and not followed the simple rules, hints, signs and markers around, all the way.

Especially, in role playing games, one of the prime essences of the game is that you start small, weak and undeveloped, and you develop your character to become bigger, more powerful.

So How do we get the feeling that we are becoming bigger and more powerful?

In an open world game, the best method is by providing us challenges of different scale, so at any state of development that our character stands, some of the challenges would seem to be approachable, and could be tackled with, to provide experience for both the player and his game character.

But some challenges should seem impossible at the beginning, but as we gradually develop our characters, those challenges should seem to be more and more approachable, so that at some point, we say to ourselves, what the heck, let's try to see if I can enter that fortress and take the prize and exit, without getting stuck in the middle, or whether I can open that lock, or whether I can convince the people of the clan to join my cause, and so on...

This is what we need to feel that our characters are developing and the satisfaction that we would feel after beating those long term challenges, are unbelievable. Believe me.

OK, here was my two cent, and my feeling about the hand holding that is wide spread in the current games with conflicting ideals, that seem intended to provide violence and mature themes for a bunch of kids.

2 the term random is just as bad when you talk about video games because there is no random in informatics.

and it doesnt confuse ANYONE

Todd says people had to restart their characters, why?

and why do we have to stick to old rpg mechanics and not reinvent the wheel?

And for that matter, who was doing this? I've yet to hear thousands of complaints (or even a dozen) in the time I've been here. (Which is a lot longer than my join date suggests.)

The same people saying that spell making was too spredsheety and that we didnt need attributes...Nobody, except for Todd.

Probably the media. I swear, they put these games out in front of the same asshats who just play Halo and CoD all the time and expect them to be able to understand the game? TES isn't made for these people, it's okay if it's too "spreadsheety" for them.

Yeah, I loved that Morrow didnt hold your hand. although if everyone in Morrow had schedules and moved around like in OB, I could see some serious frustration there.

This goes into the "every game isn't for everyone" stance though. Demographics are not bad things. Some games are just not for some people. We shouldn't dumb down/simplify/streamline our experience for them. No matter how profitable it is. Is it good business? Maybe. Is it good for the fans? No.

I persoanlly dont like shooters all that much anymore. Should all shooters become RPGs, just for me? No.

Probably the media. I swear, they put these games out in front of the same asshats who just play Halo and CoD all the time and expect them to be able to understand the game? TES isn't made for these people, it's okay if it's too "spreadsheety" for them.

I think this is a serious issue for TES, and its why I accept I am no longer their target audience.
Sure some people who like shooters like RPG's. I love Halo, and Halo 1 ties as my favorite game with Morrowind. But certianly not everyone is suited for RPG's.
Bethesda wants the mass market to play their game, for financial purposes. So the end result is simplifying it. RPG's are a dying genre.

Honestly I think thats why we now have dragons. Because the mass market, that is interested in fantasy games, says, "I can kill dragons, sweet!"

But of course we need to draw the line on complexity somewhere. Is Fable too simple (yes), is Dwarf Fortress too complicated (really depends on the person, although it has other issues)?

Simpliflying is not dumbing down. Has anybody heard of Occam's Razor? And cumbersome is not the same as complex. Complex doesnt mean "theres a lot of stuff in it". Dumb kids who think they are hardcoe...

This is the reason Todd gave for why Class was removed from the character builds (19:15 of the Skyrim interview):

"People would play and the general pattern would be, they played for like three hours and then, ‘oh, I picked the wrong skills, I’m going to start over.' "

Since too many players cannot accept the consequences of their Class choice . . . Class was cut.

To me, this is simplification. You no longer have to give any thought to your character build . . . just play the game . . . thinking is no longer required.

The problem is that some of us REALLY liked this part . . . some of us like to put a LOT of thought into our characters.

Well here's one of the more obvious examples:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Skills
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Skills
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Skills