I posted a thread asking which side to take on Roleplaying perspectives a few days ago.

(http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1470943-stormcloaks-or-the-empire-for-rp-purpose/)

I really thought long and hard for many days, trying to amass whatever little information I could find about both factions from the thread and the game. As it turns out, the ambiguity of either side's difference was not intended by Betheda, but it was simply a combination of lazy, poor writing and bad storytelling as it always has been the case of TES games.

In the end, there were almost no differences between both sides, and even the dialogue structures when you take a side are copy-pastes of one another with different topics and subjects. And whoever wins the CW doesn't change nothing, let alone adds SINGLE dialogue in the entire game in which NPC mentions which side won the war. For example, it felt absolutely pointless to support the empire when Elisif doesn't even have a dialogue mentioning their victory in the Civil war afterwards.

This is beyond the point of stupidity and not even worth debating which side to join. Elisif is unaware of CW's result. No other characters beside Tulius, Ulfric, Rikke, and Galmar recognize that the CW is over. I appreciate all those forum members who gave me advices, but I shouldn't have bothered seriously contemplating on the question in the first place.

I spent 150 hours without doing ANY guild quests, main quests, or CW quests because I was absolutely immersed in the atmosphere and vastness of Skyrim's world. Well-designed unique dungeons and epic side quests those saw a huge improvement from linear and boring side quests of Oblivion made me think that Skyrim will offer a true great experience with Main quests and CWs. So I held off playing them as late as possible, and only now did I realize that was a mistake.

The main quests were horribly short and nonsensical. Guild quests were good but felt short, and CW was.... well, let's just say when I realized I won't ever be defeated or attacked, I tried killing my comrades to lose a battle. My side still won even after I killed every soldier on my side. I couldn't lose a battle or a hold.

After seeing these, I went through the whole CW in 2 hours. I switched sides to see if there are any differences, running through the CW in 1 hour this time.

I was a fool to expect any good stories or interactions from Bethesda. Skyrim is still a great game, but I really feel my first 150 hours were wasted on doing dungeons and side quests in anticipation of how great MQ and CW would be.

I didn't even spend this much time contemplating a choice in The Witcher 2... I'm sorry to let off my frustrations to this board, but I'm truly disappointed how CW was handled in general, both in stories and battle mechanics. I don't even know how Stormcloak vs Empire argument could make a debate after playing the CW. Not only it's ambiguous, but there is no real difference worth considering.

Well you kind of ruined the fun of it by finishing it too quick.
I have a character that has been doing the war for 11 hours and I have only just been sent to solitude's stormcloak camp.

The civil war was originally supposed to be a lot more complex in it's structure, with a lot more diverse battles. That, like many other features of Skyrim suggests that they just ran out of time with the game

There is a mod that attempts to bring back features originally designed for it, but i hear it's quite buggy: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/37216//?

Yeah, I expected some sort of DLC to tie some lose ends, but...I guess we're going to find out what happened afterwards when TES: VI launches.

When capturing a hold, instead of killing an entire fort, we could have destroyed their resources, raid a town in order to replace a Jarl(NPC's would hide in houses), etc.

The end was also rather disappointing. It had so much potential. I was also expecting alot of Aldmeri ass-kicking :c

there's actually some minor differences.

for example, siding with the emperials would mean that Mer/Beast races are treated better then when Stormcloaks win the war.

Yep, you nailed it perfectly right there. Crappily done story and crappily done faction. All it felt like to me was a drunk fight. Go here, clear out these ruins, go back, you are a hero.

Arbitrarily inflating the civil war questline via sidequests and/or attacking irrelevant enemy camps does not make the Civil War a less shallow experience.

all I did was no fast travel. No other things were done.

I feel you man. Nothing irks me more than the stale copy-pasteness of the CW. Far too rushed. There's little reward for it, and on my Imperials, it bugs the [censored] outta me that I can ask people "How do you feel about Ulfric's death?" without any implication at all that I was the one who killed him. Nope, sorry. Nothing. It's the same in Solitude. Copy/paste.

That said, I get goosebumps watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfyatsDCYbc

That still doesn't make it any less shallow, especially if most of the time you ended up just travelling to and from your destination.

Oblivion had some decidedly nonlinear side quests like Shadow Over Hackdirt. Not sure Skyrim's side quests are any less linear than Oblivion.

Yeah, it was lackluster. That's why I don't get the Stormcloaks vs Imperials debate. The questline didn't make me invested in the war enough to really care about one side or the other.

If they decide to continue it in the next game(s), hopefully they'll improve it.

I hate the Civil war, it wasn't very fun and it floods the forum with the "Empire vs Stormcloaks" threads. I'm up for RP, but people take it a bit too seriously.

Absolutely true. I've gotten to where I don't even want to post on any thread that has the CW theme. Even one that looks past the game to the Thalmor problem turned into one and competely ruined it. And one on Balgruuf got flamed because of it.

Even though an Imperial supporter I'm turned off by the whole theme, it's not worth the time some people put into debating it and many of those are people I respect for that matter.