You may say I'm ridiculous to ask this question, because isn't it better to have more play time for a game? Actually, for some people, quality is more important than quantity. This can be represented as how much fun you get per hour of gameplay, or how many gameplay hours do you need to spend each play session to feel satisfied.

Will Skyrim be a time consuming game in which you have to spend a lot of time per play session to feel that you had fun?

I would imagine completing the MQ would take about 20-30 hours the first time, give or take.

It sounds wierd to say that now because it only takes me about 3 hours to complete the MQ in oblivion now

I think it'll be on par with Morrowind and Oblvion.

All TES games are time consuming, yes. But in my opinion, you have to play for a very short time to begin having fun.

The amount of time dedicated to a game is completely up to the user, Skyrim in itself won't be time consuming unless the player deems such, yeah I do feel the thread is ridiculous however.

Where Morrowind had you dabbling in much of the guilds and factions as a way to get the MQ done (BUT NOT THE ONLY WAY)

in Oblivion you could complete the MQ without setting foot in any of the Guilds, axing the thought of the MQ being more than a day long.

who knows how Skyrim will handle it.

It'll be as time consuming as you want it to be- just like any game.

You said it, not me. :shrug:



Skyrim will be a game. It will not do anything. The player will decide how much time to let it consume, though I'm sure some will blame it for their lack of control.

The problem is.. speeding up how fast content is thrown at you does not give you the same amount of "fun" as exploring the content more leisurely. I had a whole lot less fun in an hour of Oblivion where I rocketed through six levels than I did in Morrowind struggling to achieve one level. Only when I slowed DOWN Oblivion leveling did it become fun, because I felt like I was in control of my own destiny and could appreciate each level of power to anticipate and savor the next.

This is pretty much why there is fast travel. Lot's of people don't have the time to walk both ways on a quest. If not for fast travel many people might only be able to walk to the quest, then have to wait to even begin it for the next time they're able to get some play time in.

The awesome thing about TES is that its quality AND quantity. You have fun the whole time your playing- the whole 80 hours of it( at least 80- and at least thats how it is for me. I assume TES is seen as equally awesome by everyone here.) :clap: Yay for Bethesda!!

This is a serious (potentially life-changing) factor for multiplayer games, I think, but it's never applied to TES games for me. Single player, save anywhere and any time; and in Skyrim, some really enjoyable combat (hopefully).

I'm not worried about Skyrim being too time consuming. The Elder Scrolls has always been a series where you need to spend a lot f time playing the game to finish it, but that doesn't mean he entertainment you can get out of a certain amount of time has to be less than other games. While certainly, the pacing can be a little slow in some games, I don't feel that's a problem as long as the game keeps you entertained. What becomes a problem is if the game starts to feel like it has the occassional good moment and everything between that is padding, and I don't expect that to be a problem with Skyrim. Now, I wouldn't recommend Skyrim, or the Elder Scrolls series as a whole, for that matter, if you expect to put 20 hours into the game, beat it and put it back on your shelf. But that doesn't mean you need long sessions to feel it's worth while, if you're sessions are each short, it just means you'll need more sessions to finish the game.

Actually, Morrowind has both more quantity and quality than Oblivion, so the theory that Skyrim being shorter means having better quality doesn't necessarily hold much weight.

In any case, why do people complain about Elder Scrolls game being time consuming? That's like someone saying FIFA 11 is too much like football; if you can't commit to the way the game plays no-one is forcing you to buy it. Why should someone who enjoys long and deep RPGs sacrifice their enjoyment so that others can have a shorter and shallow game?

i think this is a very interesting thread actually. i have alot of games. and because im pretty busy with school, i mostly play those that i feel i can enjoy playing for an hour or so, not the ones that i feel i have to get really into and play for a long time to enjoy. oblivion and morrowind are of the kind that i need to play many hours to really enjoy. but when i do play those kind of games for a long time, its much more enjoyable than playing, say, battlefield for an hour or two.

im sure Skyrim will be the same kind as morrowind and oblivion when it comes to this. you gotta devote alot of hours into it to fully enjoy it - but if you do, it provides quality entertainment.

If you've played previous TES games, you'd know the answer.

God I hope so!

TES is time consuming, that is one reason why it is such a great series

I'm not taking a single day off work until 11/11/11. That way I'll have a good 2 weeks or so that I can just be a bum and throw myself at the game.

I got it all figured out. I'm gonna get up early and hit the gym every other day so I don't get as squishy as my couch. Should get home by 8:30am. Play till midday, stop for lunch go for a walk, resume play till 6:30 when the fiancé comes home. Cook her dinner, catch up on the days events. Resume play till bed time.

I'll probably have to spend a Saturday doing grown up stuff around the house though.

It had better be time consuming or else it won't be Elder Scrolls!

You can tell that we need new information when topics like this start showing up.

So I've created to graphs based on the basic path of enjoyment from early TES game development into their current trend.
http://i54.tinypic.com/x2kvuu.png represents the original game design, where there is a slow start, and the average gamer will end up quitting (I should mention, the average gamer of TODAY, not the average gamer of the times of these games) before they actually start enjoying the game. This was the basic shape of a game aimed at appealing to people who have lots of time to invest in their games; the games needed to be created so that there would still be producing interesting content a couple dozen hours into the game because the majority played for that long. However, now, the majority of the people playing will only play a total of 15-40 hours (rough estimate), so now the goal has become to pack as much as you can into those first 15-40 hours rather than spread it out over 200 hours of gameplay.

http://i55.tinypic.com/4fxukz.png shows the current trend in role playing games. The difference between the two graphs is the root of the "morrowind vs oblivion" arguments; people with the time to invest in the game feel cheated because once they got passed the allotted time for the average gamer, new content and replay value drop significantly where the first graph had a steady stream of it. Unless bethesda doesn't care about money (unlikely) or their marketing/consultant department sense a shift in the trend of games (even more unlikely), skyrim will have a lot of info and excitement packed into those first 40 hours, and anyone who chooses to play for longer will notice (speculation here) repetitions in the radiant story system and a series of collection quests/troph hunts that are only there to add the "200+ hours of content!" tag. The REAL content will have stopped coming at around 60 or so hours.

tl;dr: no, Skyrim will not force you to play for a hundred hours to have fun with the game.

I'm playing FONV using hardcoe and no fast traveling, just to prolong the experience. I just rounded capped level 30, and I haven't even visited Benny yet. It svcks!

Yes, I do think this question is ridiculous. Put as much time into it as you want. If you want a nice liniar 20-30 hour game that will make you feel satisfied just play the main quest and be done with it.

This is a game series where you can easily sink 4-8 hours into a session, and hardly have done anything. I for one am glad that the game worlds are so expansive, this is an open world game y'know. I don't really buy the whole quality versus quantity thing. Like Todd is really just going to say "Yeah, just get these done quick we want X amount of dungeons regardless if we think they're good or not." That's just not the way game development works (at least I hope not). Everything they are putting into the game they probably think is quality, otherwise it wouldn't have been put in.

And don't bring up Daggerfall as an example, that games downfall (regarding quality vs. quantity) was that they were understaffed for a game of that size. I'm pretty sure they have a pretty sufficient amount of developers for Skyrim to make a large expansive game, whilst still retaining a great deal of quality.

A game is never too time consuming, if you have fun it is time well spent, and if you′re in it for the story only one plagued with age, illnesses or bad fortune can complain about time consumption, for surely you have more time than you think.

That one should live each day as if it was his last is a false statement, to relax and let yourself take in the beauty of each moment is far more desirable than skipping past and between each thing life has to offer, only to realize in ones final moment that there are no memories of the experiences that were never truly enjoyed and not a singly scenery truly taken in.

Come, let us sit down and view the sunset on the docks of Anvil.

. . . . . . . . . . . Signed:


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - A brat acting like a sage. (Granted he still thinks there is a hint of truth behind his words.)