Is it me only or the life in Cyrodiil seems much more dynamic than Skyrim.Yes i know Nords are in war time but it's kinda depressing.And their cities are so ugly and empty (with some exceptions).People also have jobs in Skyrim but they feel like they are putted there just like that.Ok to me Cyrodiil is much more realistic place to live!

I really don't see how. When looking purely at a realism point of view, then Skyrim has actual politics going on. Has a changing evolving way of life, has armies and manned forts while Cyrodiil at least in game had all empty forts. 9 different leaders of 9 different cities none of which seemed to care in the slightest for the chance to grab power of the death of the Emperor. Not one of them seemed to do anything but remain stagnant and sit around waiting for something to change around there....

As for the individuals, well yes Skyrim has some problems there but then again so did Oblivion.

I guess the counts in cyrodiil got used so much to the empire's stability that they couldn't think "out of the box" about their opportunities or about what would happen if the empire fails.


(sorry for trailing off topic)

By realistic do you mean "unrealistic, but pleasant"? How can you even question whether Skyrim is more realistic? Manned forts and mines, fisheries, jobs, actual politics and political conflict etc. are all realistic aspects which Oblivion lacked. The only reasoning you have given for your point is that Skyrim is more "depressing". What does that have to do with realism?

Skyrim is a billion times more realistic compared to Oblivion. Political struggles, a valid crisis, (as opposed to Oblivion, where the only bad thing that happened was Kvatch and the Temple District.) Mining, woodcutting, fisheries, etc etc.

I think with Skyrim, the atmosphere gets a bit more lonely at times. SUch as when you are wandering the tundra in a snowstorm, cant see anything anywhere. As well, there is a lot of Grey and White in the game which might degenerate from a sense of vibrancy. Oblivion had much more uplifting palette tones that made the game seem more vibrant, but it was built at a different time. I wouldnt condemn it for not putting more effort into the small stuff because it seems like Oblivion went to improve the much more big ideas, dungeon design, mob scaling and such and while it did not fully succeed, paved the way for Skyrim.

I wonder if, perhaps, "realism" has had its connotation blended so much with "good" that people just say "realism" whenever they really just mean they like something, and "unrealistic" whenever they don't like something.

Anyway, I find I like the wilderness more than the cities in Skyrim. In cities, I'm constantly reminded of the limitations of the game by the endlessly repeated one-liners by the same people as I walk past them. At least removing the individual lines ("You know what's wrong with Skyrim? Everyone's obsessed with saying the same thing over and over again!") would make them say 12 different generic things that all NPCs say.

In the wilderness, I did actually appreciate Oblivion's making the different regions actually feel different. The drier West Weald, the mangrove swamps along the border of Black Marsh, and frigid border with Skyrim plus the differences in flora in those regions (which was made important by the alchemy system, so that I had to go to the area around Kvatch for my flax seeds every time I wanted more mana potions, then swing by Leyawiin for some Bog Beacon Asco caps.

Now, however, with Skyrim, I'm somewhat disappointed that you have only two real climates - brown river valleys and snowy mountains. There are differences in the flora that you can harvest in different areas, but there isn't the same visual clue that the type of grass or wildlife is different. It's just that when I walk around Whiterun, I get plenty of tundra cotton and lavendar, but when I'm south of Windhelm, I get creep clusters and jazbay graqes.

On the positive side, there are now insects and fish to catch. The fact that luna moths come out only at certain times adds a little more excitement to the simple act of mucking around out in a field. Plus, I keep an eye out for ore veins, as well. All positive expansions on the game.

On the negative side of this, however, fish seem to just sit in rivers and completely ignore you as you snatch up all of them. I'd rather have a fishing minigame of some sort, or nets or something. Also, I miss having alchemical ingredients (or more useful functions from) hunting. They have all these rabbits and elk and wolves I love to sneak up on and hunt, but then, they only give me my 30th freakin' pelt I haven't really found a use for (can't even sell them for anything!) and I can't use their body parts for potions, and the meat and food system is fairly weak and pointless. The best foods are the ones that give you regen over long periods of time, but those are all vegetable soups, not the stuff you hunt for.

No.

Yes. For all the talk of "70 voice actors!", voices are repeated everywhere still. I've never really been one to complain about that, but some of Skyrim's voices are worse than Oblivion (hint to Farengar: "voice acting" is acting of the voice, not the act of voicing; and if I hear Arnie one more time...). Not only that, but it's now even harder to tell certain races apart (there's little visual difference between Nords and Imperials, and I swear I heard the same voice among some Nord and Imperial NPCs; sometimes the difference between Nords and Bretons aren't all that clear cut, either). Making sure there's no cross-pollination of voices between races, allowing the majority of non-hostile NPCs access to more of the generic lines that already exist, and allowing them to partake in Radiant Story quests that already exist, would have gone a long way for little effort.

I also don't really like what happened to the beast race voices. You go back to Redguard and Morrowind, and they sounded decidedly not human. Khajiit had cat-like inflections in their voice (purring, etc), and Argonians had "lizard"-like inflections (hissing, etc). Now, Argonian voices could easily be given to humans without sounding too out of place, and Khajiit just sound like humans with laryngitis that have some difficulty saying "I" or "me". That said, I don't really dislike the voices (very sad to not hear Jonathan Bryce doing any of them, but the new Argonian voice is pretty good and the new Khajiit voice is decent), I just wish they worked more on fitting them with their non-human nature.


I'm not sure I'd agree with that, though. The plains of Whiterun, the forests of Riften, the canyons and (exquisite) plateaus of The Reach, the swamps near Morthal/Solitude, the snow plains by Dawnstar, and the cliffs of Winterhold, are probably more distinct than Oblivion's regions (not that Oblivion's weren't, just saying).

The biggest problem I find is the weather system. Go up a snow-capped mountain and it's almost guaranteed to turn into a blizzard, which doesn't help in uniquely identifying them. Why aren't there naturally-occuring downpours or severe thunderstorms? Where's the light snow? Thundersnow? Light fog? Not sticking to the same limited weather patterns for similar areas would help in making them less generic.