Has anyone ever found the story element of any of the questlines interesting at all? Because personally I get enjoyment out of the adventure element of the questlines but the story has never really drawn me in. To be honest, though, the only video game where I cared about the story at all was Bioshock Infinite. I'm just wondering if I'm alone on this.

I thought the stories behind most of the guilds were interesting. I also thought the NPCs were vivid and engaging, moreso than the guild-related NPCs in earlier games.

However, I also think Bethesda failed to develop the guild stories adequately. And they made some bad game design choices, as in a key point in the Companions storyline.

The main quest suffers from "Chosen One" syndrome. But so did several of Bethesda's other main quests. I really hope they abandon that in the future.

The Main Quest and the Civil War (so the game's two biggest quests) both suffered from weak storytelling. In the Main Quest, it was the handling of the Blades, and in the Civil War, it's the weak background, and the fairly biased propaganda base. I really enjoyed many of the sidequests, though, both long ones and short ones.

Dawnguard, Dragonborn, & the Thieves Guild really shined for me. Dark Brotherhood & Companions were pretty good. College of Winterhold was kind of weak. The Main Quest was garbage. I always do the Main Quest, though, for pure grinding, no matter the character. That, & opening other parts of the world(Dragons, Shouts, Dragonborn DLC, etc.)

Main Quest, Civil War and Dragonborn have great and inspiring stories which can take you deep in their events.

In other hand Thieves Guild, Companions and Dawnguard has so weak and uninspiring stories that they have absolutely no replay value.

I found Dragonborn to have the best storyline of the bunch. It was actually good, and I enjoyed it.

The rest... not so much. I'm kinda not a big fan of games that offer me victories only in the most hollow of storylines and give me no option but to make the world a much worse place in storylines which actually impact the world in the long run.

I think that all of the storylines in the game are good; there are parts of some of them that I don't care for that much but overall I don't think they're that bad. I do wish that some of them like the Companions weren't so short, but there are an awful lot of pretty good side quest in the game too.

The Theives Guild and Dragonborn were the ones that I was acctualy drawn into the story. Quite a few miscellenious quests were also fun stories.

I thought the Dark Brotherhood and Dragonborn were okay.

The Thieves Guild elicited a ton of facepalms from me constantly, the Main Quest was infuriatingly boring nearing the end (made worse by the stilted voice acting in Sovngarde) among other grievances, and the rest were kinda boring or unremarkable. Well, they pass by far too quickly. I'd say that maybe they were supposed to be padded out a little by radiant quests, but the way you're rushed from one quest to another kinda argues against that. "You need to do this, quickly!"

My characters drive what I do in these games, so the only way I will ever manage to complete Skyrim's Main Quest, beyond the point where you have to deal with the Blades, is if I were to create a really dumb and gullible character who can't manage to think for himself. Badly written? Yes. There is no character motivation that I can come up with that would make anybody want to do what Delphine proposes, except "advance the Main Quest," which is metagaming.

I adore traveling, exploring and dungeon crawling in Skyrim. Questlines? Not so much. For my purposes, they all have subjective flaws that cause me to not want to complete them for one reason or another. My character is in the College, but will only advance it just a few quests due to TES' habit of making you rise to the top and/or killing off guildmates who have become your friends. For me at least, the questlines sort of go downhill from there. Even the darn Bard's quests try to force 18 skill increases at you if you complete it. And don't get me started on killing dragons; I wish I could side with them instead of the blue or red coats.

Chalk this up as one of my grievances. Nothing I hate more than when the game pretty much goes "but thou must!" Even flipping Delphine acknowledges that you can't progress unless you do what she says--no matter how illogical or out of character it may be. Pointing out the flaws in your own story like that doesn't make them better. Had the same thing right in the first quest in Dawnguard. Sure, escort the vampire girl who is most likely very important and carries an Elder Scroll somewhere where even she doesn't know she'll be safe. Seriously, do it! Even your old pal Isran agrees that's what you should do, so later he can yell at you for doing the thing he told you to do!

I love the story elements in general. Some were done better than others. Sadly, for me, the main quest fell short around Paarthurnax and the Blades delima. I liked the ending but the blades abandonment stung and I was irked I couldn't retaliate in some form.

I really enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood and Dawnguard stories. Theives guild story was fun but I couldn't engage with the characters. The Companions was great but too short. The others are great, but either too short or too shallow.