You've never met him in game? Be ready for a nerdgasm every time you approach him and he will wait wherever you tell him to for all eternity

Will you fight the Grey Prince fairly or will you make him all depressed about life to kill him without contest?

ha it's funny you say that as 1 of my biggest gripes with MW was the crap combat system, I'm not a fan of the outdated diceroll hit or miss style especially when people speak about the luck system being severely flawed. This was 1 of the reasons I couldn't get into the game at all but the bigger reason was that I tried to play it on console which is complete garbage. I thought of going back with mods but it's now in the area between outdated and retro goodness, it's not quite old enough to be retro good.

The differences between the vanilla versions of the past 3 TES games clearly shows how Beth is slowly stepping their game up.

I liked Oblivion, I love playing Skyrim and would still be playing the Xbox 360 version if it worked a bit better. True, I am a casual player who mainly prefers adventure/action games with a bit of RPG, so Skyrim was almost tailor made for me. I failed magic in Oblivion and never did all the quest lines despite playing the game for some 6 months, I did the main quest and all the fighting stuff, failed at thievery and magic and was not ever going to do the Dark Brotherhood stuff. I liked some of Oblivion and was impressed, but there was a lot I never did, and the dungeons all having the copy and paste effect dampened the enthusiasm a bit. In Skyrim I did everything, had multiple characters, had a lot of fun and have played the game for two years. I have now jumped ship to playing a modded game on the PC, but only because the Xbox 360 was having such trouble with my long term characters, and the PS3 was not going to be any better. And two years and still there is new stuff I have not yet discovered or seen while exploring around Skyrim.

This, more than any other grievance, is the largest issue I have with Skyrim's design. I cannot comprehend why the development team at Bethesda did this. It's insulting and patronizing and only reinforces the negative (and increasingly scathing) impression I have on modern gaming culture. I can only hope there will be mod(s) that will curtail the artificial railroading for the poorly paced questlines.

That and the repetitive dialogue. How many times does that general trader in Solitude have to remark about how I got here just before the execution (that happened two months ago)? How many times do guards have to gripe about Kynegrove while ignoring countless other sporadic dragon attacks that occurred since then? And why does Olfrid feel the need to remind me twenty times a day that he's the patron of the "great clan" Battle-Born? The 11/11/11 excuse won't work here; they did this on purpose.

repetetive dialogue never really bothers me, to me it doesn't really effect the game that much... but yes, it can be really annoying at times, like right now in the thieves guild travern, whenever i walk in that bald guy that sounds like The Transporter (i forget his name) he thinks he has to tell me that the Ragged Talon used to as busy as the imperial city everytime i walk by ... i just want to tell him to shut up!

Skyrim makes it clear that it's a scripted game. Olfrid will always argue with the owner of Warmaiden the first time you step in, the mercenaries and villagers of Karthwarsten (sp?) will always be standing there until the player arrives, and those miners near Markarth are just as statue-like until the player comes close enough to trigger the scene.

It's especially bad when you arrive at those places at night, when said NPCs normally would be sleeping and the scenes become utter nonsense. This shouldn't even be happening in an open-world game with day/night cycles and AI schedules.

Really disliked Morrowind. It was just too alien. If I could only play one game for the rest of my life it would probably be Oblivion.

Like many others, I say a bit of both. I am comparing Morroind and Skyrim as I never got far with Oblivion.

Steps Down include:

• Graphics. Skyrim was pretty much the same for the towns/cities, all around. Morrowind had Imperial towns, Giant Crab towns, Growing Tree towns, and Huts on the Plains towns.
• Towns. Speaking of towns, EVERY town had a vendor or two. Skyrim is sorely lack this and has me avoiding merchantless towns. I don't adventure near Rorikstead simply because I have NO place to unload my loot.
• Character Creation. Too streamlined for my taste. Give me more options with my character AT CREATION. I like attributes besides the big three.
• Leveling. Skyrim's leveling was so much faster. 3 stones gave leveling bonuses. Sleeping gave a leveling bonus. I realize many players play games to "beat" them and want to level as fast as they can, but I do not. I play games to enjoy the journey.
• Armors and Weapons. Skyrim just seemed to be lacking in variety to me. Weapom degradation can be tedious if done badly and many players dislike having to keep track, but it adds to my own personal immersion.
• Voice Acting. While it adds a little to the game, I just do not like it. Let me imagine the voices. I'll guarantee there will never be a complaint about voice acting
• Conversations. Skyrim's was much more limited than Morrowind's. The same setup with choices on one side available, but lacked ANY directional conversations. Try asking any Skyrim NPC in Whiterun where to find Belethor's and you can't. What direction is Markarth from Solitude? Nobody knows. "Check your map, imbecile!" seems to be the general attitude. Not so with Morrowind. Ask any Skyrim NPC where any interesting points of interest are, and they are mute, unless they have a radiant quest for you to do. I miss Morrowind's "encyclopedic" dialogues.
• Creatures. Morrowind definitely lacked the "common" critters of Skyrim, like Wolves, Foxes, Deer and such, but they had more unique critters like Dremora, Guars, Cliffracers, Kwama, and such. A ice mix would cool
• Crafting. A mixed bag. Smithing was a great addition while alchemy lost its allure (no alembics and such). Enchanting in Skyrim was lacking because of their paring dow... er, "streamlining" of the magic system.
• Magic. Speaking of magic, Skyrim's just svcked. Gone are a few schools of magic and MANY spell effects.
• Fast Travel. Along with magic comes fast travel, for me. I liked mark, recall, and the 2 "closest temple" teleports. I do, however, enjoy carriages better than sitting INSIDE of a living giant bug.
• Cities. The open cities of Morrowind were scads better than Skyrim's closed off, new instance cities.
• Factions. Morrowind's faction system was much more in depth than Skyrim's for me. They meant something in the game. You had to show some kind of ability for advancement in any specific faction, with a few exceptions.
• Diseases and Poisons. Morrowind's were much more deadly than Skyrim's little nuisancy ones. Morrowind also allowed for the curing of these with magic, not JUST potions. The poison arm of magic was totally dropped.
• Missing Slots. Morrowind allowed characters to wear clothing under their armor and robes over it.
• Random Dice Rolls. What they do is make my character in the game, not me. I know many disagree with me, though

Steps Up

• Graphics. Better be a step up! With a 9 year span between the 2 games, it is expected.
• Open Landmasses. Skyrim is much more open than Morrowind and its almost tunnel like pathing. Morrowind, however, had levitation.
• Shouts. These were an awesome innate ability addition, in my opinion.
• NPC Scheduling. The addition of NPC schedules was a great improvement.

That's about all for now

I think Dragon fights should have been a much rarer but much harder experience.

I know this feeling well, but I also wonder about what the best ways around it are.

I would like it if there was some kind of change in the world each time. For example: an NPC has three quests, but you only get one each playthrough. Or, when you start the game, the Civil War will be randomly set to one of three different stages, reflected by who the Jarls are - sometimes the Stormcloaks have more holds, sometimes less, sometimes the same.

However, I can also see the potential for bugs, as well as players moaning that this or that quest didn't appear.

I guess I don't understand how either of these criticisms are a step down from previous ES titles, as the same could be said of any of them.

In more general terms, the first criticism sounds like a desire to play a different game with each playthrough - which, while an interesting idea, could be difficult to implement as bigredpanda points out. And even if it were feasible to randomly seed the quests and associated dialogue, wouldn't they still be the same quests with different starting locations?

As for the second criticism, well, I'll take Skyrim's annoying spontaneous NPC dialogue over Oblivion's annoying spontaneous NPC dialogue any day.

Yes definitely. They are a bit too abundant really and become somewhat tedious after a while, especially every time you visit Winterhold. Rather puts my mages off making a visit to the college at times.

+1, except I think it is two steps forward and one step back. The combat mechanics are much more fun. Sneak is better. Graphics of course are a huge leap forward. Perks, while they certainly could be better, are better than no perks.

No attributes and a further reduction in skills is bad. Attributes, done right, add a huge aspect to the game. Vanilla Oblivion did NOT do attributes right, so from that point of view better to get rid of them than have such a badly flawed system. Fallout does attributes right, where they define the framework of your character and do not change all that much. I modded Oblivion to a more allout way of doing attributes and the improvement was huge.

Writing was a step back, which is a real shame. That is something that does nto have to and should not happen, with the budget that these games get. Hope that gets much better in the next release.

And I still miss climbing from Daggerfall. The rooftop work made my thief feel so thiefy.

@OP, the Quest item you are given in Oblivion is weightless. Unlike the several items of clothing, mysterious gems, artifacts and weapons my previous character carried, when he stupidly "took all" at several chests, before stopping this practice entirely.

Step Down:

No Luck. Yeah yeah, this is a huge bone of contention on the Oblivion forums. It was in FO3 as well.

No weapon degradation.

Writing. Elven Bracers of Major Sure Grip? Really? My son has better names for his imaginary weapons when we battle.

No spellmaking.

Where are my greaves? Unfortunately, pants went away in FO3, I didn't realize that this was going to be transported to TES.

Special exit at the end of every dungeon. C'mon Man!

Finding filled Black Soul Gems in Geode Veins. C'mon Man!

Can't see my character in the menu.

Umm inventory? What happened guys? Not even alphabetical? C'mon Man!

Killcams

This is huge for me. As well as how NPCs in Skyrim, seem to have no boundaries. For example. Whenever I talk to the Jarl in Whiterun, Irileth, stands in my way. I have never seen his face, in first-person over two characters.

The biggest issue, is the writing though. It took me a couple of characters, before I could pinpoint it for myself:

I get a quest. I talk to the quest giver. Go find this thing in this hole in the ground. I talk to the quest giver about anything else that will help me find said item.

Someone else went out there, they never came back, perhaps if you find them.....

So you go out there. You're excited to learn more about this ancient whatever you are looking for. Perhaps to wield it for yourself! You find the fallen treasure hunter's body.... and a journal!

As you open the journal, the game tells you to go find this thing in this sub-layer of the dungeon. BEFORE I CAN READ ABOUT IT MYSELF. Thanks for ruining the ending of the story for me! Now that I know what's going to happen, before it happens, I don't care as much, you know? Just go get the damn thing. An example. It happens in every quest. I know, before I should know.

I have lots of other issues. But the world is so beautiful, see below.

Step Up:

Game world is freaking beautiful. I love to walk around in it!

Radiant quests are not quite there, but it's a start. --->Hey I'm a big, strong Nord smith, and this guy took my pick axe, and I want it back. Will you, a petite woman wearing a robe, go get it for me? Cuz I'm too much of a [censored] to do it myself. FAIL. Make me want to get something for you. Which leads to better writing. Yeah I know you can't have that much detail in every radiant quest, but make me care, even just a little.

Leveling is a step in the right direction. Bethesda, as usual, throws a ton of OP perks in there.... you just gotta avoid them.

I'm concerned about the direction that TES is headed in. I love their open worlds very much, and can only hope that future art directors for the series who peruse these forums take many of our concerns into consideration.

EDIT: I forgot: Why do I need to unsheathe my weapon when casting a spell? And where are my hotkeys?

Before I start I just want to say that no one is wrong. Everyone has different tastes and desires in computer games. What I like someone else may hate and vice versa.

For myself, personally, Skyrim is a step up. I hated having to bring up menus all the time in the previous TES games. With Skyrim I feel like I'm actually there instead of checking some kind of data pad constantly. Getting rid of repairs is a great example.

And I love how mod friendly the game is.

But like I said, this is for me personally. I just don't believe in the "this TES game is best" mentality. They all have their pros and cons.

I agree 100% with you. Oblivion was mostly horrible. Only Patrick Stewart voice acting and the music were the good things. The rest... I dont want even care to give an opinion! Morrowind was the best, so yes, Morrowind with Skyrim mechanics would be amazing.

Nonetheless, considering how bad his predecesor was, Skyrim is a STEP UP. Perhaps a tie with Morrowind, because each has what the other lacks

The best way around the rail-roading? Simple - don't do it! TES is supposed to be an open-world game built around discovery. So, let the player discover! The way force-feeding was handled in Skyrim, I get the distinct impression Beth felt that their playerbase wanted to do all content on a single play-through, AND / OR were too stupid to find things on their own. It's insulting and infuriating to the RP'er in me.

Also, having NPC's spout their life stories each and every time you pass them is just bad writing. It would add considerably to the ambience if NPC's were coded to greet your character like normal people, and have the player learn about this or that character through town gossip, some of which the player could actively solicit himself.

Objectively it has done as much good as it has done bad stuff. However personally, it took most damage in segments I most like about TES, so out this perspective it's a step down. The fact that it can only stand shoulder to shoulder with more than a decade old game is a step down in itself.

I see most of the step downs are because of the spellmaking. As I never played as a mage (and I′ve been playing elder scrolls for 11 years now), may explain why I dont care its lack

This is a very important and true observation.

To be fair though, I think Skyrim is the only one of the three last games (with MW and OB) that works decently unmodded. Oblivion really needs OOO or something similar and I wouldn't play MW without MGE, MCP and a head/body mod.

A different version? Well, if there is a version without ballon faces, bad voices, boring quests, rainbow butterfly world, nice combat system, etc, tell me, I want to play it

Step up:

Graphics
Animations: Combat, archery, magic All really fun to play with.

Step Down:

Gameplay
Story
Dumbing Down

Random rambling:

- Health Regen as Defautlt in an RPG. Nothing against health regen. But give it to the player by a game mechanic, Standing stone, crafted potions, reward rings or a daily power. Health regen is number one in dumbing down. It devalues restoration, potions, the lady standing stone, food recipes and poisons. Nothing more dumbed down than a poison that lasts 4 seconds on the player and health regen going the opposite direction. Reason why anything that poisons is a joke. Do you know that there are "cure poison" potions in this game? Has anyone ever used them? It takes longer to go into the menu to grab the potion than to just let the 4 seconds pass. Is Bethesda secretly telling the players that they are trolls? Only thing that regens in Skyrim other than the player. Maybe they are calling us trolls.

- The excessive hand holding and spoon feeding hand of Bethesda as game master. Where before it was a journal entry made by the PC, now it is an order given by Bethesda's god hand. It's the game telling me what I have to do instead of me figuring out what to do by my own initiative. Example: Go to frostglow lighthouse and immediately: "Investigate the cause of the murder". Why is the game ordering me to do it? Am I too dumb to walk in and ask myself, "What happened here? I should investigate. Maybe fullfil the owner's last wishes". Nope, i'm doing what the game is telling me to do. Instead of finding out what could have been a great little secret. A most recent example of extreme hand holding and spoon feeding, I went to Arkham City after I read "The Aetherium Wars", Can I read the book and wonder if I could investigate? Nope. The game is telling me to do it. But thats just the beginning. A dead woman that has no reason at all to be there was placed there as a ghost to hold me by the hand and tell me everything I should do in that place. Apparently, I'm too stupid to read the journal, connect the name to the book and investigate. Even tells me how to do the "puzzle" because she teleports at the moment where the game thinks she should grab my hand. There is absolutely no reason why that NPC should be there other than to hold your hand. Don't have to mention the GPS markers that take all the exploring aspect. 4 shards that haven't been seen in a million years, NPC, "we have to find them", GPS "Found them!" Another one evident form of dumbing down and hand holding you into railroading you into doing what the game wants you to do is the wedding. "Your bonus, should you choose to do it is to kill the bride where everyone sees you, preferebly when she addresess the crowd in the balcony". WTF? really? Go and kill her in the matter that takes less effort than changing a light bulb? I'm not going to do it. Watch how you fail the bonus if you don't kill her before she's done with the speech. Wrong. She will be stuck on a loop where she goes up and down the stairs an infinite amount of times and gives the exact same speech until you decide to kill her in the balcony. Freedom. Do whatever you want, as long as you do it how the way game wants you to do it. Otherwise you might not get a chest in Hjerim and have an amulet stuck in your inventory forever.

- Funny how repairing gear is too tedious to keep in the game rather than improving it but enchanted weapons work the same way repair hammers did on Oblivion but they are OK. You have wood axes, pickaxes and repair hammers and hundreds of work benches all around the world. Maybe you could have used those hammers to repair your gear at a workbench, the same way you mine ore or cut wood. This also would have made smithing valuable if you could reinforce your armor to make it last longer instead of more damage.

- Crafting Buffs. I think this is the first game I've played where there are permanent crafting buffs. "oops, I broke the game give me a harder difficulty Bethesda, this game is too easy!"

- No attributes. Congratulations, all races are now exactly the same and the will be now the starting classes. And since there are no attributes all quest rewards not involving a unique looking item, svcks. Spent 3 hours looking for 25 pages and all I got was a necklace with 50 stamina and 50 carry weight. Thanks! Totally worth it. Maybe they meant to put map markers on them. "Volundrung looks awesome... Absorb 50 stamina.... Wow, Volundrung svcks!" I still used it because of how it looks but it's no better than a steel warhammer. Ever picked up an enemy staff in Oblivion? It has about 8 to 10 enchantments.

- Vampires. If you stay at stage 1 you won't take damage in daylight and you get a raise in about 10 stats and special abilities, meaning you have a good reason to feed. If you don't feed, you get even better stats and your appearance starts changing into more hideous vampire as you progress in stages. Stage 4 NPCs are hostile you and you melt in the sun. Even have smoke coming out of you. Seems reasonable but nope, make being a vampire have no consequences other than having orange eyes which no one in the world will recognize making being a vampire in Skyrim a joke.

- Damage centered game. All enemies are the same reskinned. Every encounter can be resolved by minor healing potions. Making every enemy exactly the same. No need to have strategy to face any enemy, you just need minor healing potions. Because you can spam 18645528204 million of them. godmode. "You can't drink any more potions right now". A bright floating yellow ball inflicts more fear and makes the player automatially cautious than any enemy in Skyrim. Skyrim enemies are a joke. No, burden, diseases (astral vapors? anyone?), disintegrate weapon armor, silence, drain and damage attributes. "You have been silenced" At least ghosts in Skyrim are immune to normal weapons.

- Storylines. Who is Alduin? He is evil, that is all you need to know. That's it. He was not Akatosh, he was another dragon and a real wun at that. He was at the top of the mountain and 2 nords and a high volumed annoying Linda Carter (I love Linda Carter) Sent him somewhere. That's his background. Miraak has more backstory than him. Potema would have made a better antagonist. At least she has a cool biograhy. But well, random sidequest will have to do. While doing the College sidequest, at every dialogue chance you get, ask at the NPCs: WTF does the blue ball do? Who is Magnus? It's just evil and could destroy the world. HOW? WHAT DOES IT DO? Any NPC, please answer me! Maybe in some book. Nope. And can the new Archmage be more dumb Main quest, Dad and Dr. Li again? Maybe they could have made new characters? Thieves guild that are more bullies than thieves and are broke but have a vault that was stolen from even though they are broke? Worst thieves ever. Companions. "I don't even know who this person is, but anyway, welcome harbinger"... That's it?

Stamina=sprint meter

- TES V: The Truman Show. Do you feel like you're constantly the center of attention and the world is scipted only for you? Do you walk 20 feet away from the NPCs because any close and they are going to tell you yet again name and occupation where you are constantly thinking to yourself: OMG, Shut up, get away from me!, whereas before just a Hi!, Hello, good evening makes you automatically in a good mood say hi! back with the same enthusiasm as the NPC? Do NPCs in Skyrim wait for me to go near them to ask where is their good hammer for the eleventeenth time?

- Can this game give me more gems? I feel like I don't get enough gems.

By the way, Morrowind. Not a good skyrim game. Here's why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPkdbntfiSM

Yeah I did not like healt regen neither. Fortunately its easy to deactivate via console. So is one of the first things I did when I started.

I was referring to the OP's claim that enchanting was removed from Oblivion, When that is clearly not true at all.