I'm writing this just in case anyone wants an opinion on the game, or wants to know what to expect. I'd love to get involved in some discussion as well, and I have a few questions of my own to ask.

According to Steam I've played 9 hours of Skyrim so far. I was - and still am - a huge fan of Morrowind, and I spent many an hour on Oblivion too, so I've been looking forward to this game for a long time. I spent a bit of time tinkering with the settings but now that it's running smoothly I have to say I'm thoroughly enjoying it! I know a somepeople are complaining about this and that, as is inevitable, but so far I've found very little to complain about.

It seems to me that they've taken the best aspects of both Morrowind and Oblivion, taken ideas from some of the best mods that were made for those games, and rolled it all into one. I don't know if Bethesda actually look at user-made mods for their games, but, whether intentional or not, they seem to be including many popular mods from them, such as:

- Graphic Herbalism / Harvest Flora (Oblivion was halfway there with a "Herbalism for Purists" kind of system)
- Complete Morrowind / Morrowind Crafting
- Children of Morrowind
- At Home Alchemy (no more carrying around a pestle and mortar)
- Animated Morrowind (although I guess Oblivion had some NPC behaviour as well, as do most games these days)
- Windows Glow

Some things I really like:

- Skills are actually skills! It feels like each skill has been really well thought out so that you can really invest in it and get something out of it. In Morrowind and Oblivion, some skills felt a bit useless, as if they were just thrown in because it made sense for them to be there. Enchant in particular I feel has been massively improved in Skyrim. I also really like the new systems of Alchemy, Lockpicking and Smithing.

- Character customisation. By this I mean both the initial character design process (simpler than Oblivion but still plenty of options, and of course the faces all look a lot more realistic!), and the ongoing process of actually building your character and choosing a path. Levelling up is nice and simple - choose whether to increase Health, Magicka or Stamina (they finally realised that "Fatigue" doesn't make a whole lot of sense), and choose a skill perk (these are great! It can be really hard to make a decision as they all seem worthwhile - see above point). But you can also make decisions throughout the game that will determine your character's strengths, such as choosing a particular bonus at the "Guardian Stones", and of course changing your equipment. This means you don't have to choose and stick to a set class, but you can be flexible and go down a different path at any time, which I really like.

- The combat system. It feels so much more involved, and requires a lot more skill than it has in past games. Even the casting feels much more "real", as you have to actively hold down the mouse button; it's not just a quick press-and-forget like in past games. Also, the slow-motion finishing moves are AWESOME!

- I like being able to add my own markers to the map, toggle which quests I want to pursue (rather than just one "Active Quest" as in Oblivion), and add my own weapons and spells to a list of favourites; it feels more like I'm very much in control.

- The menu and loading screens; simple, but nice to look at.

- MORROWIND MUSIC!

- Lots more that I don't have time to list now!

Some things I think could be improved:

- I only have a few problems with this game so far. Firstly, I wish there was an easier and quicker way to switch between weapons / spells. Being able to add them to a list of favourites is good, but even using the quick menu ("Q"), it still takes me a while to switch things around; maybe because I'm just not used to it. Ideally I'd like to be able to set a few quick-keys.

- I'd like to be able to read what people are saying instead of having to listen to everything. A bit more text in the journal would be nice, too; all you get is a brief description of the quest and short objective descriptions, like "Talk to this person", "Find this item"; it forces you to rely on quest markers sometimes, because you forget where you're supposed to be going for a quest and there's no other way of knowing. I don't mind quest markers, but sometimes they do make things a bit too easy and I don't really feel like I'm engaging with the quest, I'm just following a marker.

- I'm sure I don't need to mention that the interface has a few bugs.

- It's quite easy to accidentally sell something you didn't want to sell, as there's no confirmation screen.

- I also had a weird problem earlier where I couldn't get anyone to follow me (I have no idea if this has resolved itself or not). I noticed it when I talked to Lydia in Dragonreach and asked her to follow me - she said I already had someone with me, which I didn't. I thought maybe Sven from Riverwood was causing the problem as he had followed me previously, so I talked to him, but he, too, said I had someone already following me.

- Finally, there was just one little thing I didn't quite understand, so I was hoping someone could explain it to me: I gave a man a coin and a message came up that said "The Gift of Charity added". I looked this up and discovered that this is a temporary ability that you get from giving money to a beggar, but it didn't appear in my list of active effects so at the time I was really confused by what on earth "The Gift of Charity" was, and I still don't understand how exactly I'm supposed to know?

Mods?

I did a fair bit of modding for Morrowind but not so much for Oblivion, so although I'm looking forward to trying out Skyrim's Creation Kit, I think it'll take me a while to get used to it. I think I need to really know the game well before I can start modding, though; at the moment it's still very new to me, and I wouldn't really know where to start.

What are your thoughts on modding for Skyrim? Will it be complicated? Flexible? Can you think of any good ideas? Personally I'm struggling to think of anything that I actually want to change that I could do with a mod.

Anyway, enough rambling for now. I'd love to hear your thoughts

Danjb

Ok, this got snowed under INSTANTLY. I'm off now anyway but I wanted to give this thread one last chance before I go, so that I can read the replies when I get back

Oh alright, just one more time

EDIT: Seems this has been moved to a dead forum... ah well...

Hi, Danjb. No, we're not completely dead here. Some of us are still alive.

I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that some skills in Morrowind felt useless. To be honest, I never understood why Bethesda had separate Short Sword and Long Sword skills. I always felt that a person who had learned to swing one would be perfectly able to swing the other. And, to some extent, I felt the same about Axes. If I've become masterful with a sword, it seems to me that some of that skill should transfer over when I pick up an Axe.

I too like lock picking in Skyrim. I'm not sure why but I feel much more involved and interested, more than in either Morrowind or Oblivion. I'm actually picking locks in Skyrim because I enjoy it. It's turning what I thought was a warrior character into a thief almost against my will, lol. The downside, I suppose, is that it is not a genuine roleplaying character-skill-based activity but the upside, as far as I'm concerned, is that its fun.

Another thing I have been doing a lot more of is talking to NPCs. My very first disappointment in Morrowind (I can still remember it) was when I realized that practically everybody in Seyda Neen said the same things over and over. I didn't feel very compelled to talk to NPCs in Morrowind after that. Oblivion felt the same to me. The main difference to me was that it was now voice acted. But in Skyrim I feel as though all the NPCs are individually crafted, that each one may have a unique story to tell. And that has really made me want to go around and, for the first time in an Elder Scrolls game, talk to every NPC in town. I'm really, really liking what Bethesda did with NPCs in this game.

This brings me to another point. I'm getting that old Morrowind feeling of a hand-crafted world again in this game. I feel they are paying attention when they put this game together. In Oblivion I constantly felt that Bethesda just weren't paying attention to what they were doing when they made the game. I am feeling that NPCs or creatures actually live in the dungeons that I have visited so far. I have the feeling wherever I go that someone has thought about this, that it wasn't just thrown together quickly.

I have always disliked classes in RPGs and have used mods to get rid of as much of them as I could in the past. So I'm thrilled that Bethesda has gotten rid of classes in this game at last. If I have a criticism about Skyrim's character creation it is that all characters start the game as blank slates, as though they'd been born as an advlt riding a cart. They possess no skills from their past lives. This is a step backwards, in my opinion. Part of creating a character in a traditional RPG involves creating who they were before the story started. I believe this adds a bit of depth to the character and I mourn its loss in Skyrim. On the other hand, once the game gets going I can't say I think about it either, so it's certainly not a game-breaking omission for me.

I don't feel the dislike for the PC interface that so many feel. But I'm not thrilled with the plain white font they've chosen. To me it looks modern and far too bland. And I'm not sure I like finishers. I play in 3rd person and it's disorienting when the game yanks my camera angle and distance away from me. Some of the finishers are so close up I can't make out what's going on. The action is actually happening off screen, in a few cases.

But those are my only two quibbles so far. I'm enjoying Skyrim very much.