To be honest, i think i have a right to whine. I payed good money for a game made by a company who have made 3 games which i have enjoyed immensley. Fallout 3, oblivion and morrowind are three of my favourite games.
Skyrim has just disapointed be in ways that i diddnt expect from bethesda; it is such a huge change from the previous three games, reminding me more of a fps than a rpg, which is not what i expected. I expected the simplificationa and the bad character development, but not the objective style quests or the poor story development.

So no patch for you?

Yet for all that negativity you still are playing and have put 60 hours in?

Then why are we seeing so many grand reviews of Skyrim with scores all above 9 and some giving 10? If all you said was true then surely the best the game deserves is a 5 or 6 out of 10? Yet that doesn't seem the case? Why is that? Maybe for starters they are taking Skyrim on its OWN merrits without any ill feeling or emotions from previous TES titles? Maybe they arn't fussed by the same things you are?

I too am 60 hours in but I am only level 19 I have spent all this time exploring the vast lands and dungeon crawling, yet I still feel the need to play on isn't that curious? Surely if everything you stated was fact I would be bored and playing Modern Warfare 3 by now enjoying my 8 hour Playthough?

No I think you are sorely mistaken sir, I have found Skyrim better than Oblivion in so many ways and I am enjoying the quests... btw I haven't even started the MQ yet, the graybeards are still waiting my arrival!

I think WoW was an example of what I don't like... I liked TES due to the 'quests' which weren't all about combat, and were mentally challenging or interesting.. I dislike the 'follow white marker' mentality of the game these games.. But I guess you wouldnt understand that.

For me Oblivion was a mistake, and since it was complained about so much I assumed that Beth would do something about it, and they have in some ways.. but not enough. Sadly. So next TES I am not pre-ordering. I'm going to see how it is at someone elses place first.

Apparently we are not allowed to post anything but fluffy lovey covey crap that is approved by the Bethesda Defens Force. I actually like the game, hate the fans.

On the grand reviews:

They are of course utterly meaningless.
Look at the atrocity of games that have gotten excellent reviews, fable 3, dragon age 2..

When I was about eight years old I read in a magazine published by Nintendo about this amazing game. (cant remember which one)
The way it was described was so full of adventure and choice.
I bought it.
I returned it the same day, because it utterly svcked.

I learned a lesson that day.
You should only ever trust reviews made by consumers.
Do your friends say its a good game? Do consumer reviewers say its a good game?
You should never, ever, go by a review made by the industry or professional reviewers.
In the end these people care about one thing and one thing only. Selling games and making profit.

These 'grand reviews' arent worth the paper they are printed on, for the simple reason they are not reviews.
They are commercials.

P.S. How many 'reviews' of Skyrim lauded features that arent even in the game?
Such as affecting the economy.

For YOU it was a mistake. Consider the fact that Skyrim has sold 600% of the copies of Oblivion in the first 2 days its not much of a mistake i believe. I feel sorry you guy's can't enjoy skyrim but it's really your choice. People act as if 60 Dollars is out of this world pricing for a game. Consider that you've played 60 hours on 1 game. Thats a dollar an hour and i don't see how people don't understand how cheap it is. Beth is changing how they make the ES games a bit and why shouldn't they? Each game is enjoying more and more people buying it and playing it and giving feedback. What i see generally on these boards are people being pissy because they don't have a stats sheet to spend time on knowing what exactly too level at what time to make you're character actually strong at 100 stats of multiple stats. Thing is most people don't enjoy sitting on their couch doing 3 hours of research on a game THEN playing it and possibly having to do it again.

Also it seems that these boards are alot of people in their late 30's and up which make me think why you guy can't seem to get off morrowind EVER. Yes it was a great game and so what? It's 10 years old. It was great for its time and yet you guys can't see the flaws? Many of the older posters on these forums seem to pride themselves in the fact that they are "accomplished" Rpgs players and aren't the Teens playing this game. There's an aura of superiority that hangs over half of you and yet you can't except change. That argument saying that if you don't like it don't play it is very valid and everyone shrugs it off. They feel as if they spent 60 dollars on a game that they are entitled to everything they want when they want it. Yet these people fail to realize how much money is spent on this game to other 1 player games. Most 1 players last maybe 15 hours at max and seems you already multiplied that by 4. Looks like you got 280 dollars worth of gaming in 1 game and if you're bored that go?

Its simple that stat system is gone and replaced with perks. They do the same thing and you actually can just sit and play the game than sit and not play the game so you can play the game effectively. If you don't enjoy it then just go. Leave 1 post saying constructive things then you leave the forums and come back maybe in a few months. Not expect it to be fixed in 13 days. Even if half the people here were complaining about no patch the 2nd that skyrim came out

Edit: Reviews are supposed to be the end all to buying a game? I won't listen to half my friends reviews. They are a REVIEW of an hour long span of the game and then on top of that not much more since most of them played like 10 hours and wrote a review. They're supposed to make you excited in a game. Also just because you don't enjoy a game doesn't mean it's atrocious. It simply means you don't like it but NO WAY could you possibly just not enjoy the game. I mean if 1 person hates the game even if its in a genre they like its a failed atrocity that happens to actually sell really well and is 1 of the best games for other people.

Edit2: Also i forgot to mention. Leveling up is fun. People enjoy it more then sitting at level 23 for a long time. The game was touted and is a 1-50 leveling game with a cap at 81. Just because they added more levels doesn't mean it's dumbed down. It means beth knows that most consumers nowadays actually enjoy leveling up and getting something new rather than sit at 23 for 5 hours

Well my local store says there arn't many people returning Skyrim that is a good sign, people are voting with their wallets! Compare that to say... Dragon Age II, or Duke Nukem Forever.... and the opposite was true. While I agree that some sites might have a vested interest I can assure you many don't yet the game still rates highly? Why would a site like Ausgamers for example, review Skyrim so highly if they have been honest with all the other reviews and titles? You think Bethesda are paying them to lie? No more likely the people not liking Skyrim are in the minority and the ones who love the game are to busy playing it to bother even coming here to tell us about it

Not sure why I do either... habit maybe,I did the same thing after Morrowind and Oblivion were released and I was equally as confused to the multitude of negative posts for both of those As widely accepted as Morrowind is for being the best in the TES series for the first month or so there were 10 pages of people complaining about it in these forums! I say everyone is entitled to their opinion but ONLY when they don't make it sound like their view is FACT! I trust certain review sites they have saved me lots of money in recommending me to not buy crappy games, yet if they give a game a positive review I have yet to be dissapointed after playing it!

I have over 100 hours in now, and only now hit 100 in destruction. The pace felt perfect to me. Ive done over 75 dungeons, so its not like im not using my destruction magic --what did you do to get 100 detsruction in under 50 hours? I have to guess you're ignoring everything but combat. Try some sidequesting and crafting and general exploration. I dont think the beauty of this game can be appreciated if you power through combat questlines and ignore everything else.

thats all the point Morrowind was 10 years ago, so 10 years later we have the right to expect better. The strategy guide for morrowind was a large 600 pages, Oblivion and simple and normal strategy guide...i bet skyrim have a magasine for strategy guide. 10 years ago the creators build a unique world with they'r heart.... now they are making Action Adventure game....not close to be RPG, becaue they want kids to ask the game to mommy cause its simple games, easy and quick....i spend arround 200-300hrs in morrowind.....in skyrim 60 hrs are just enough................

I can see where the OP is coming from, but I have a feeling what they did was try to play out every quest in the game. Probably, if you do that, the ratio of interesting quests to pure slash goes down considerably. Which is a bit of a shame. It's also possible that they simply didn't find some of the more interesting quests, but with the nod out to the daedric quests, I think that seems unlikely.

Personally, I feel like there are soooooo many quests in the game. My list, including the misc. quests, is up to like 30 unfinished quests and it seems impossible to bring that number down. Maybe it's s sheer numbers thing?

Well, thats a good thing then.

Skyrim is certainly the best game I have played in a decade, but there are some features and design choices I simply do not agree with.
I abhor the dumbing down, the loss of attributes, birthsigns, classes, and spellmaking.

Spellmaking out is undefendable, especially since we now have magic that is less varied and useful than that of dragon age 1.
Its staggeringly unbelievable that a bioware game has better magic than a TES game.

I am quite dissapointed by the lack of diversity in enemies and NPC's.
It just makes no sense that Vvardenfell was more cosmopolitan than Skyrim when Skyrim has been a part of the empire for centuries longer.
It feels like they made a conscious effort to make everything except Nord's uber rare for that 'Conan' feel, and I really hate Conan. Conan is just bland and unimaginative.
There arent even any daedra except for two quests.
Its wolves, bears, draugr, bandits and a few very rare others such as wisps and ice wraiths. Dwemer ruins filled with falmer and a construct or two.
Compared to Morrowind, which had animals, undead, bandits, daedra, constructs galore.

Silver weapons to damage daedra and etherial undead? Well its not like there even are any, but again this is a dumbing down.

There is nothing good I can say about the UI or the quest log.

These things dissapoint.
And I expected better.

So yeah. when you wait for a game for 5 years and especially after the heavy critique Oblivion rightly got, I just do not understand why they had to dumb down or outright remove these features.

To be fair, there is probably also an entire page I could write about what I do like about Skyrim.
From the couriers delivering notes, the potion recipes you can buy and find, the spell tomes, the world building, these are all great features.
Things like, get hated enough and someone will send the dark brotherhood after you, thats simply awesome.

Its just that it could have been so much more with a little more attention to variety and depth, both of which are sorely lacking.

Really CBF reading all the other posts so I'll just reply to the OP: dude.. I had this same feeling and issue until I worked out which were radiant quests and decided to ignore them -and- ALL forts and locations with bears or bandits in them. After that I realized that this game is larger in scope than both MW and OB, realized that non-cave, non-fort (esp non-fort) dungeons are positively fantastic and on par with the best unique dungeons of MW -AND- realized that in addition to the endless hours of [censored] generic quests this game seems to like to throw at you there is actually an insane ammount of utterly cool quests and locations to discover too. I spent my first 40 or so hrs pretty much around Whiterun and started getting pretty frustrated that I was not only seeming to get nowhere (other than that Companions questline you mentioned) but all I was seeing was random "go there, kill bandits/bears/dragons, retrieve item/person" quests.

Then I decided "eff this, I'm gonna go explore" - 40 hrs of THAT later, my perception has completely changed, and I -still- haven't even gotten properly started on the MQ.
So yeah.. what does Skyrim need in order to become utterly awesome (without the unrealistic stuff I wish for, like more choices and consequences) - simple.. mods.. and ones that -will- get done. Once this game has an option of immersive declining of quests (or at least a way to hide them) and a MUCH IMPROVED journal (being worked on, as I understand) so that we can actually FIND locations and read our journal much more,instead of just gps-ing and fast-travelling to dungeons, I have a feeling this game will be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Morrowind, except it will have much better graphics and combat.

Skyrim is good because it can be modded, you don't judge its vanilla-version. Same goes for Morrowind and Oblivion.

Sooo book sizes mean something? Gamers changed ALOT since morrowind since the 90s. I'm only 17 yet i remember sitting when i was younger with a book on MM7 and taking a few hours to just make characters. I'd even sit in my room and make 5-7 different sets of characters to do different things each time i played. Yes complexity is lost in games nowadays but you honestly can't say you didn't expect it. It's like suddenly skyrim dumbed down gaming while all other games are complex. The fact is the notion of complexity for most people is sitting with a book studying some stuff on a game for a few hours and then playing it while watching your paper to make sure you're doing it right. Thing is People don't enjoy that. Ik it seems to be a shock but the vast majority of gamers want to buy the game sit down on the computers or console and PLAY not focus on books.

If i bought Skyrim to read a book i would've bought the fat book thing from a best buy and read reviews. while it was fun back then the industry has changed not just bethesda, Seems though the Forums see this as bethesda is the only company making gaming less "complex". There's different levels of complexity in everything. Personally i was finding it hard to figure out exactly what i wanted to do in skyrim and still do when i make new characters(in terms of skills to perk out). We got a Good action adventure game with a decent chunk of rpg elements. Beth changed something as all companies do in gaming and as with all companies the forums get flooded with Negative posts all the time no matter how well the game does for itself and how far its come. People get stuck on removal and can't see why they do anything.

Edit: NO NO NO you have to judge the Vanilla sold product to the games out for years and years with [censored] tons of mods >.> Simple as that. Mods make the ES games what they are on the comp and it seems that people forget how many [censored] mods they pumped into morrowind to make it so amazing.

Also why the hell do you guys think its bad for Beth to be making money? At the core of every gaming business is that it's exactly that, a business. The only reason they are in the world are to make the game and make money. Without money no more games. No more games means 10 years from now skyrim will be haled as the best elder scrolls game. No matter how many posts you can whine about your lack of "complexity" it's not coming back. Done are the times of sitting and using pen and paper for games and spending hours making characters. It's also been gone for a damn good while now.

So how is that different than playing a thief in Morrowind then?

IF you picked any non-combat skills before, you were on a big disadvantage from characters that did not, there was a good reason why picking acrobatics and athletics considered a really bad choice.

And really, in most complaints I hear about how level scaling ruined their character, I just don't see them using their actually learned skills properly. I play a thief-mage in Skyrim and I raised the Sneak skill way above my combat skills, making me weak in actual combat, but I realised if I'm having a hard time somewhere I could just use my really high sneak skill, and sneak past them, maybe backstab them or steal their stuff.
People powerleveling smithing and enchanting could just make some uber-powerful items (they're high level, getting materials will be easier thanks to leveled merchants), people say smithing is overpowered anyway...

The attributes thing... still makes no sense. Record of your character's progress? What? Skills do that, skills are the one that are raised while you are doing them. Yeah sure, the multiplier is dependant on the attributes attached to the skills, but so are perks dependant on the skills you are using.
And perks/skills don't describe your character? How so? How do you differentiate a warrior from a thief? One of them would have higher skill in other skills than the other and they would have more perks in them. You could see the difference from the beginning to the end quite clearly too, and in the end, not everybody would look the same either.
So unless speed and jumping length (which was not attribute dependant) was your only unique characteristics, then you cannot describe yourself, yes...

And no, spellmaking wouldn't help, because in the current system the only thing it may do is just change the stats of already existing spells, which just seem completely needless, literally, just a "bigger fireball" thing. It worked before, because spells were generalized, they were just balls that explode, releasing their content, all spells worked the same, magical battles involved more dodging than willpower or tactics even in Morrowind. While we have less spells, they are definitely more varied, with their own useage. More spell effects would be nice, and something tells me after the first DLC there will be a feedback how overpowered these spells will be...


http://static.product-reviews.net/wp-content/uploads/skyrim-official-strategy-guide-preview.jpg

Just wait 'til you get to the end of that quest. That was quite well done.



As for the OP, I agree somewhat and disagree otherwhat.

Places do feel more lifeless than Oblivion since you can't talk to 90% of NPCs. The whole friendship/faction reputation/radiant story thing was set up to be quite interesting, but the idea was really watered down by making it impossible to talk to anyone to become friends (or enemies), except with a special select few. Imperials and Nords are often indistinguishable. There's not a whole lot of choice in factions (choice as in 'us vs. them', not 'us or not'), which makes faction reputations seem like nothing but scripted events. A few of the guild questlines are also left feeling rushed since you go from one important quest to the next, with no mandated radiant quests to help draw them out (the Companions seems to make your very first job a radiant quest, but after that it's all the hand-crafted/important bits; ).

Then there's the whole level scaling issue, which makes finding things feel uneventful. Half the time you only find vendor trash, and when you do find something cool and special, it will soon start appearing everywhere, making it feel not so special. I think it also wasn't until level 10 or 15 or so that I finally shed the robes I got in the starter dungeon, or replaced the weapons I got in the first few levels, either. Why is silver weaponry so gimped? Dragons are exceedingly weak (I'm more scared of sabrecats and bears than I am of blood dragons). Other enemies that I can begin taking out with relative ease miraculously stop appearing in new places and become challenging after gaining an extra title to their name. Rare bosses turn into generic lackies.

Some of this is understandable (besides the level scaling, which is still just plainly too extreme). There's never enough development time to do everything you could want to do with the new systems that are in place. But in some aspects, it feels like there was a lack of care. Radiant quests are already there, so why are some guild questlines so rushed by not mandating them? Why not allow for more NPCs to be able to give radiant quests to play into the faction/friendship system? Why can't more NPCs be more talkative in general? It's not like they're not sharing voices or anything.


On the otherhand, though, I do feel there's a lot of potential here. Though the graphics are dated, the environments are stunningly realized. Craggy mountains, plains, plateaus, valleys... very well done. Weather is a lot better in many ways. The dungeons are very lovely to look at. Many sidequests, particularly the Daedric quests, feel a lot more natural than the simple 'seek someone out, do task, get reward' (though Skyrim does have its share of those, there's those others that you seamlessly stumble into). Also another thing that I like is how quests don't necessarily end when you complete them -- I finished one particular quest (got the reward) a good 10 or so levels ago, but just tonight had something happen that was directly related to it. It was very nice to see continuing repercussions even after I finished the task asked of me.


Overall, the game is fun as it is, if rough around the edges and not fully realized given the underlying systems. I'm really excited to see what modders will be able to do once the CK comes out.

Really hate how i always end up with a million in lock picking and level beacuse of it, that does irk me, but i really don't feel hybrids are impossible.
I feel that they're acual hybrids, you sacrifice something and you're rewarded with versetility while going a more pure route has it's own rewards, it dosen't make sense for me that a spellsword should be just as good as a pure warrior with his blade if they are the same level, in the older games i felt being anything but a hybrid was without benefit or reward and it svcked.

While i would love to have attributes,perks and skills and like you said beeing faster, more agile, i do miss being able to make a fast, agile, dodging character that uses shortblades and not svck at it, aswell as the big skill list Morrowind had but i really don't think my character lacks identity, definition or that the system is lifeless, not anymore than the past system anyway, tbh i feel the opposite, the perks allow me to greter define and specilize what my character is than atleast Oblivion did, only diffirence is i don't have a character sheet to stare at with a name, if i bothered to type something in at all, if i decided i wanted to play a ranger that's what i played.
But too be fair, i hated the old leveling system since to get the most of it i had to grind skills that my character wouldn't really touch otherwise or just grind say acrobatics by jumping up and down stairs, always installed something like the nGCD leveling system for Morrowind and Oblivion so i could play the way i wanted to play, the new system might have gone abit too far but atleast it's better then the old ones.

The sad truth?

Skyrim does not stand true to the series RPG wise. Sure 80h is worth the money but its less then 1/3 of the time i spent in morrowind or oblivion unmodded becose its just pale, easy and stripped to the bone!

Less action and more rpg elements... Damn consoles!

And why am i saying this? Becose i [censored] LOVE the TES series but Skyrim doesnt have the content other then diving into dungeons to get worse loot than i can craft myself = no reward at all !

And the loss of stats surely kills class identities. I started out as a mage and now i got 100 destruction, 100 conjuration, 100 one handed 70ish light armor becose there isnt even a reason to wear robes!!! I switched to playing a warrior class right off the bat and theres no identity at all.

Thats my 2 cents and while its a GREAT game its a WEAK TES game.

I sort of agree with a lot of what you have said, yet all those things have not stopped me from being massively compelled to play the game at all times.

Im not going to reply to every comment here, but just in general.

There seems like there are two types of ppl who have opposed my post.

The first are people who claim that the dungeons are great and exploring is fun ect. They ARE fun, and i would give this game a 10/10 if it was a dungeon crawler. The fact is, this game was sold as an open world rpg, not a dungeon crawler. If i wanted to play a dungeon crawler, which i dont, id play diablo or WoW or perhaps dark souls. These games do dungeons far better than skyrim, with loot that is actually useful. I found the ebony mail recently. It went onto a manequine in my house because it still wasnt better than my deadric plate. The dungeons in these games are also much less repeditive, and most have a multiplayer element that makes them less so. Its not fun to sit on your own doing dungeons, not for me anyway. Even dark souls had interactions, if petty ones, to other people playing, not to mention enemies that required tack to best rather than a health bar a mile long.

In morrowind, my house was so full of stuff i found while questing and exploring, my game crashed when i tried to open it. It was all meticulously placed around the place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxyOclNtkZc
this link should give you an idea. Mine wasnt quite as insane as this one, but it was close.

In skyrinm, after 60 hours, i have found 3 staffs, 2 shields, and 4 weapons worthy of keeping. The rest has gone to vendors or the disenchant button for it was utter rubbish. I remember in oblivion hording so much fantastic loot by 60 hours that my chest in my little shack took over a minute to open. Deadric artifacts actually meant something; they were worthy of using in both games. In skyrim, my crafted deadric set surpasses all of the artifacts. Heck, gold/eltonbrand isnt even in the game to my knowledge, which was possibly the best one handed weapon in tes 3 and 4.

The second type of people are those who praise the simplicity, or say that the market has changed, or that they cbf spending hours on their character. This game was sold as an RPG. What you are praising is a step away from rpg elements, therefore the genre. This game, with its changes, may be more appealing to the masses. Perhaps this is not because the game is better or improved, just the masses have never been overly interested in rpg's that require careful planning or figuring things out. That is fine; rpg's have always been rather a niche market, and not everyone has the time or can be bothered to play through such a game. Bethesda, however, has prevoiusly targeted this niche market, producing fantastic rpg's. Like i keep saying, this game was sold as a rpg. I bought it, expecting an experience similar to previous games, and got an action adventure game with a few rpg elements. Rpg;s are about choosing what to do, making judgements why the character your roleplaying is doing it. In skyrim, the npc's tell you to "go there" . Your journal tells you the same. There is no story behind it, nothing to compell you to actually go out and do it, not to mention the nonexistant rewards for all but the deadric and end of faction quests. This is simply not an RPG and not what i expected or payed for.

A few other people said to ignore certain quests or that there will be more bad quests than good ones if you play them all. I played them all in oblivion, and close to all in morrowind (maybe leaving half a dozen quests from people out in the wilderness such as the naked nords or stranded adventurers). And not only once. I played through every quest in oblivion over 3 times, the guild lines over 5 times. Each time, i enoyed them. All of them. I find it rediculous that it is expected than only a portion of quests in skyrim should be fun, or that i should explore instead of quest. Even newer games, such as fallout 3 had interesting quests where it could be seen that a lot of effort was put in. The quests in skyrim seem repeditive, thus unenjoyable. I repeated my tes4 quests 5 times. After playing skyrim for a few hours, new quests alredy feel as if ive done them twenty times because thet're all so similar. I did aknowledge there are some good ones. The deadric quests are fantastic. There are a few exellent side quests, such as the murder mystery in windhelm, or the opening thieves and dark brotherhood quests. After 60 hours, i should not, however, be strugling to find 3.

With the main quest, i stated it was a mild improvment over oblivions. The only reason for this is the exclusion of the cliff racer reminicent oblivion gates, and their replacment by dragons. Dragons are much lass annoying than the gates for the simple fact that theyre so easy to kill, so you can just move on faster. In the way of content, the main quest in skyrim is terrible. The emperors assassination, the blades sanctuary, kvatch ect was much more enjoyable in oblivion than the mq in skyrim. I have gotten up to the quest where i am to go to a dwemer ruin to find a particular paper based item that i wount name. I have given up on it at this point tbh. Its just boring.

Modding has been mentioned a few times. Modding fixed many balance and scaling issues in oblivion, i agree, but vanilla oblivion was still fun to play because of the quests. Morrowind did not need mods at all, expet for those that improved graphics, which is to be expected of a 9 year old game. Still, i played morrowind for the first time AFTER oblivion, and i played it vanilla. Modding should net be required to play a game. Modding should be used to enhance a game, but not to make it playable. Personally, i think modding will not be able to fix skyrims problems. Unless someone was to completley redo EVERY quest, EVERY dungeon, EVERY loot chest and redo the entire character system, i see no real hope. Without an entire 3rd party coice acting team, the quests probably cant be fixed unless a morrowind style daloug system was implemented, which would be difficult if not a bad thing. Oscuro has gone, martigen and fran have both stated that they havent the time for modding. Without these 3 modding gods, i see no hope.

I believe the only hope for skyrim is quest mods. Tears of the fiend, malevolent and ruins tale by symiaz were perhaps the best questlines ive played in any game ever. A plethora of unique places, very few dungeons and interesting plots and characters. If symyaz returns, which i doubt, i will play his mods, and other quest mods.

To sum it up, i think skyrim is the result of a company who has given up on what its original fans desired, perhaps on its fans altogether. The terrible UI, the lack of a modifiable exe thanks to the new patch, the forced steam use and the 30 day delayed dlc has done wonders to alienate pc players such as myself. The company has ignored the complaints of over simplification in oblivion, and simplified it more. The number of equipment options has gone from about 17 to 7. The amount of skills from 27 to 18. Shortswords have been cut. The journal entries arent even full sentences. The scaling has returned worse than ever. Bethesda seem to have done all in their power to displease their original fans, fans that got the company to where it is today.

How well something sells on the first two days only tells you how well it was advertised. How well something sells a year after the hype from advertising has gone down and the opinions of the player-base influences new buyers tells you how good the game actually is.

Dis-agree completely.

I'm over 80 hours and just when I think "okay i've discovered all the locations!!!" I'll run into 4-5 more.

I have yet to even start the thieves guild, main quest passed top of the throat, civil war, half the daedric quests, bards college (haven't even been to) and a whole swarm of small quests.

I didn't even know there was a roaming band of Khajit traders until about 5 hours ago.

I've even hit a few daedric quests which I thought had much better variety and interesting layouts than any of those in Oblivion and I am actually struggling to figure out who I want to support in the civil war.

Oh and I hate Thalmors and kill them all on sight. :vaultboy:

There's some quirks I dislike but the list of negatives to positives for me is lower than Oblivion, Morrowind or even Daggerfall. I'm not done the game so I can't judge the whole yet, but the first 80 hours have certainly been my most compelling so far in a TES game.

You say you disagree, yet the only evidense you give is deadric quests are good, which confirms what i said and that there is a lot of dungeons to explore.
My gripe wasnt lack of content, just lack diversity or decent writing in the content thats present. The game is definetly as big or bigger as the others, just it seems very repeditive.

I dont necessarily want classes back, but i don't disagree that they're not necessarily a bad idea. It seems odd to me that you start out at level 15-25 in all skills...have you been training at EVERYTHING up until now, or something? Do you come from Jack-of-all-Trades town?

So yeah, i guess I do wish you could choose a class, or make your own. Having it be purely based on racials really makes the beginning, at the very least, feel very bland. For example, there's no point in playing a sword and board class for the first hour, because you can't even get a shield until after you leave helgen, and even once you have it it doesn't hardly do anything until you perk it up a little bit...if i could say "I will be using shields!" then they might actually start out a bit more useful and i might end up using them.


What i WILL say for skyrim, though, is that never before have i seen such opportunity for mod development. The tools are very clearly already here, just waiting for the CK release to bring thousands of dreams into reality. Perhaps Skyrim will be remembered as the best TES game for modders.