As long as it's just like Oblivion, I'm good! Let's be honest though, it looks like it's going to be better. They have listened to the criticism and have taken it on board for this one. They know the things we love about the ES games, and they must surely be implemented in Skyrim.
As long as I can wander the landscape in the middle of the night, with the soothing music playing and I can see them two moons/planets and the stars, then I can pretty much put up with anything else!!!!!!

I'm always surprised by how different the experience people have with certain games can be. I have played Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion...in all three I found the story telling poor and portions of gameplay (combat) largely boring. Of the recent games I've played the only ones with worse story telling than Oblivion were Mount&Blade (no story) and Mass Effect 2 (get teammate/upgrade teammate/repeat x8). Oblivion has very generic nobility and guild leaders that I couldn't remember the name oh just after replacing them. And combat is a repetitive click,click,click with little strategy than back up if they are causing the least big trouble.

That said, I've enjoyed all 3 games (Oblivion less, but I'm sure anyone reading this could guess that already). I buy and enjoy TES games b/c they give me a big world to play in. I gets different items, guilds, environments, etc... and I'm free to discover it as I please.

So, since I'm not a big fan of TES combat or story already, the bar is pretty low for Skyrim on that front. My deal breaker would be there:
1. Closing the world, so we have levels or significant portions of the map unaccessable to characters for whole portions of the game.
2. Removing the Construction Set (I can't imagine buying a TES game for a console...so many be decisions that you can never fix).


On the flip side, I'll add a "do this and I'll be a TES fan boy list":
1. Straight up rip off Mount and Blade: Warband. Take their combat and use it in TES. It is so much deeper and more fun. Even make it optional, where people can choose Oblivion style or M&B style, I've no doubt what 90% of players will choose. (this will easily make the biggest difference for me in TES as I'm generally a warrior and spend tons of time hacking away)
2. Get rid of the terrible level scaling. Give baddies in certain areas a min/max level and leave it at that. Starter areas/major travel areas enemies lvl. 1-12. Other areas might be 5-20 or 10-25. Even city guard should be capped, with a higher cap at the capitals but still below a late game player. Certain areas of obvious danger should have the enemies start at level 20, so a character going there gets smacked down if they don't level first. These would be areas that people say they don't go because it's to dangerous and people never return. Thus PC is warned. Also certain elite gear should be stored here, thus making it tempting to try going in a bit early, but rewarding the bold with elite items. Also road bandits should never have a set of gear over generic iron/steel, maybe better boots or a helmet but not a set.
3. Fix the AI. No omnicient guards, no bandits in rags threatening the leader of the fighters guild. No vendors knowing things are stolen without some reason to know (like it's their item or it's a unique item that vendor 'x' reported stolen). And numerous other quirks.
4. Make unique models for unique characters. If there is a arena champion that's held the title for 10 years, make his character model unique. Have him be taller, with bigger muscles, and more scars than any other human in the game. Have some mages look twisted by their craft, especially necromancers. Make some war veterans with severed hands, arms, or legs (use crutches or a wooden leg). TES characters as generally all so homogeneous it's boring.

I could name more, but if Oblivion were the starting point and these changes made, plus the graphical overhaul we've seen. I'll be a fan boy for them.

Who are we kidding. I think we all will buy or rent the game and playthrough once. So the real question for me is whether I replay the story and the replay value.

So I will not replay Skyrim if I feel that my in game decisions have no consequence on the final outcome of the main quest. I am not talking about being liked or disliked.

Hmm. Never played any of the M&B games. Mounted combat stirs no excitment in me, and "manage a kingdom/warband/mass combat" actively drives me away. :shrug:

Losing the Elder Scrolls feeling.In terms of atmosphere and general design,as well as variety on everything.
If rate of loss is the same as Morrowind to Oblivion,it'll surely shorten its life for me.How short,I can only say when I see the game.

But actually,I'm expecting this game to be better than Oblivion. (but not from Morrowind)

I don't think there's much they could do to make me not play it at all, I suppose if they made the world completely linear and removed the inventory system for some reason.

Bethesda has spent a long time on this game, I doubt they'll truly butcher anything. As a PC gamer I would like to be reassured they will deliver a PC-centric version when it comes to interface, settings, and controls. That's my only real concern.

Fallout 3 level gore (gore including dismemberment) (without an option to turn it off) would be a no buy scenario for me, at least until mods could disable it.

Forced parental guidence.

You can only play 1h. The game create an autosave and CTD. You'll have to wait 24h to continue.

Other than that... Nothing.

I'm getting Skyrim no matter what. At worst, it's as good as Oblivion. I can deal with that.

The combat system of M&B is awesome for M&B but you in a game where you will fight NPCs individually... it would be too easy to kill a single oponent. Maybe I am wrong but we'll be able to see this soon, when merp&blade is finally realeased (it's a mod that brings to Oblivion Mount and Blade's combat system).

Unless the disk explodes after buying it or every main character is a naked guy- I'm getting the game. And even then......... tempting
jk- seriously it would take a lot for me not to love a TES game

If it is like New Vegas. Where I don't know which quest is the main quest; Supporting NCR or getting the chip which seems to be a big deal.
Also, like New Vegas. if the damn game crashes or freezes up every fifteen minutes.

Bethesda makes it the most realistic looking game ever made, but throw out the rpg elements.

A lack of factions would be really annoying to me too. Level Scaling, Magnetism and this Radiant Story could also be huge problems in my opinion. And of course, if it's buggy and crashes often.

What would make me not want to play Skyrim? If it was developed by Bioware.

As many have already said, I'll undoubtedly buy the game sooner or later, no matter what. It's about guaranteed though that I will not buy it on release, or even shortly thereafter. I have no interest in paying full price to be a beta-tester. When they put out the patches that they always have to put out to fix the things that they always leave in, then I might think about buying it. Even with that, I'd prefer to wait until they put out something like the GOTY edition, so that I don't have to buy separate DLC.

Beyond that, there are a few things that would probably make me shut it off in disgust and not play it again:

A journal like the Oblivion one, that tells me what I've decided I think I should do next. If the game needs to tell me what to do next, it's poorly designed. If it's well-designed, I should be able to figure out what to do next without having my "journal" tell me.

An over-reliance on the magic GPS. I should be able to ask around and find out where to find a place or an NPC I'm looking for - that whole process of talking and reading and figuring stuff out and finding stuff is central to an RPG. If all I'm going to be able to do is follow the magic map marker, then there's no point in even playing an RPG.

A lack of consequences to decisions. If I can join any faction with any character and it has no effect on anything else, then, again, there's no point in playing. Decisions must have consequences.

Dull, linear weapons and armor. I'm sick of every type of armor and weapon being X amount heavier than the last one, doing Y amount more damage and having Z amount more durability. I want to see something more like Morrowind, where there were trade-offs for things - this one does high damage and is really light, but it's also really fragile, while this one doesn't do as much damage and weighs more, but it's more durable and enchants better, and so on.

Stupid level scaling. I don't have any particular issue with level scaling in general - a bit of it makes sense. But bandits in glass armor is just flat out stupid. And on a similar note - bandits and monsters hanging around on roads. The whole concept of a road is that it's a regularly traveled and patrolled thing, designed specifically to provide the easiest possible path between one place and another. It's frighteningly stupid to have all the monsters and bandits and such hanging out along the road, apparently entirely ignored by the soldiers patrolling it, and have the surrounding wilderness virtually empty.

More tedious mythical and non-mythical Earth creatures. I'm not sure how Beth missed this, but Nirn isn't Earth, so there's no reason why it should be covered in minotaurs and trolls, much less rats, wolves and bears. It's an alien planet - let's have some alien life. If the devs are too short on imagination to come up with anything better than the same old rehashed fantasy creatures we've been seeing since the dawn of time mixed in with stuff anyone can go see at their local zoo, then they need to be replaced with somebody who does have that much imagination.

Sadly, I expect that's not all, though it's all I can think of right off. It's entirely possible - arguably even likely - that Beth will come up with some teeth-gnashingly stupid thing that I haven't even considered as a possibility.

A Dragon Age II clone. :shakehead:

There is no such thing as a deal breaker. Even if all the previews were bad, I'd still need to see it myself. This deal is soooooo closed! Just give me the details about the collectors' already! :celebration:

i'll tell you one thing that will push the limits of my patience - if spells are no easier to get hold of in skyrim than they are in oblivion.
hanging around waiting for Ita Re-ANUS to come off her two hour freakin lunch break is not my idea of fun.

I do find some of these comments funny.
No spears= no buy. Jesus, how much do you like spears??? You some kind of Lusty Argonian Made Recreationist?? Or even better no vampires or wearwolves. Sorry this isn't Twilight: Skyrim Edition. (Disclaimer, both of these things would be AWSOME beyond words but still, bit weird getting so freaked out about it...)

Another thing is people worrying about the engine. Well I don't find that funny actualy, I understand it 100%, oblivions engine was powerful but so... stupid. But consider this- Gamebryro was a rebuffed version of Morrowind's engine (netimmerse I think), and just look at the difference there! Rebuffing the same engine will mean they keep their experience and loose some technical flaws. Win all round.

I agree 100% with people worring about dumbing down though. They say no spellmaking to "keep the magic". They dumb things down to make it approachable... Gah. Such a two edged sword. Never got into morrowind because of the terrible combat... but always wished oblivion had the depth of morrowind. It's surely possible to have combat that isn't a pair of guys taking it in turns to tap eachother with pointy sticks and STILL have beautifully balanced and unique armours, a multitude of weapons, complete freedom, and the entire world improving around the player. ( I know fallout style leveling is included and all... I just wish it wasn't. Whats wrong with having some areas too powerful for beginners, instead of having every area you visit leveled to your ability? it's more realistic and gives a sense of acheivement.)

Deal breaker? No. But there is room for disappointment, that's for sure. When a game aims high, there are risks involved, after Oblivion we should know. I became rather sceptical when I hear the words "radiant", "magnetism", "tailored", "leveled", "smart", "auto" and such. I'll live and see, but I can't see any objective reason why I wouldn't buy the game.

Not want to play?

A non-epic storyline, involving Sean Bean
A lack of levitation
Ugly characters
Removal of multiple armor pieces
Uncostumizable (lul) magic system

Also, I'd really hate if Skyrim were just to puke a bunch of cool stuff out, then have it over in like 20 hours...
That seems to be the trend with games these days. I want to be able to sit in my room for 3999 years playing it.

But really, that's just stuff that would make me not want to PLAY it. I'm still going to buy it, no matter what.

Dude, Steam is the best direct download company in the world. There owned by Value, the most fan friendly company in the world. And there can't be anything easier then making a Steam account. You simple go to steampowered.com, download it, press create new account and fill out the forms. If a game is made to connect to steam it will activate itself.

Probably, though that's about the same as saying that something's the best pet rental company in the world. It's a service in which I'm not even the tiniest bit interested.