Wub wub wub it

500+ hours on Xbox and feel like i have done everything played oblivion for 3 years and did not feel as if i have done everything other then that it was great

Unsatisfied, but I'm obviously not their target audience anymore + I become more and more critical of games as I get older. Morrowind being one of the games that really pulled me into video gaming when I was young, seeing the series take so many steps in the wrong direction(AKA not the direction that makes a game good to me) has lead me to waste way too much time ranting about the game on various internet boards.

The dialogue/story/characters are lackluster for an RPG, and the combat / character building I feel is unacceptably bad for a game with so much combat. Hard to get much out of the many dungeons full of stuff to kill when killing them simply isn't very fun. They've obviously made some progress when it comes to combat, but at the same time they've taken some steps backward and they're way behind other competitors when it comes to first person melee/archery and magic combat. I have over 1k hours of Mount and Blade: Warband and much of that was during a period of time where Skyrim could've been the game I was sinking those hours into had it had decent combat. Morrowind shared these issues as did Oblivion, but it's more disappointing to see them persist in Skyrim given the time that has passed. And Morrowind had its charms that made up for these weaknesses more than anything in Oblivion or Skyrim.

Still a neat world to explore as usual, but there's something a little too procedural about many of the level designs that make much of it feel too similar.

I assume many of the changes were inevitable considering the popularity and "AAA-ness" of the series now, which is sad considering how promising Morrowind was for a great series to grow from. I hate the term "dumbing down" as it gets too frequently applied to things it doesn't actually apply to but there's no doubt overall Oblivion and Skyrim have considerably more "hand-holding" features and general immersion breaking mechanics than Morrowind did. There was nothing wrong with the boat/mage teleport/silt strider travel system in Morrowind, it was the character's speed and fatigue that needed changes(they went too far with that too though). There was also nothing wrong with using directions from NPCs - having them mark things on the map is fine but an arrow pointing directly to specific item/NPC/etc. objectives has made many quests very lazily/poorly designed as it's obvious the marker is a crutch for a lack of information directly from the game world via NPCs/books. Instead, we get help from a source clearly outside the game world and that does take away from the experience. Quest design has become reliant on fast travel and objective markers, they have devolved into a simplistic process of darting around the map markers, following the arrow, killing/collection whatever. You don't even need to be paying attention to what NPCs tell you to complete quests at this point.

And quests have also gotten relatively "rail-road" style where the PC has very few options when deciding how/if they want to deal with a quest. Some are just thrown in your face to be a stain in your quest list for the rest of the game in spite of your character not being the sort that'd ever accept/complete such a quest in the first place. Being forced into certain factions to access or complete certain things was also irritating.

Quests have another problem that's getting worse. NPCs are just assuming the player is the man/woman for every job, they're overly trusting and will throw any dangerous or important mission at the player because it's the player. Gone is the feeling that you had to earn people's trust. It's a given now, and it shatters any illusion that the game is anything more than a shallow fantasy where you're special, get special treatment, and you almost automatically win at life in Tamriel because you're the player character. Your abilities and deeds aren't often taken into account as they were in Morrowind where you had to work your way up in factions. Now you're sent of on dangerous important missions, alone, with no logic behind the NPC's reasoning for choosing you. It's just so blatantly fake it becomes irritating fast.

This also applies to little ambient touches. I don't want a guard noting my "sneak-thiefy-ness" or _insert skill > X value here_ as there's often no good reason for them to tell that from just watching you pass by. So much of the world's reactions to you are transparently just simple checks on your character's stats, and often end up seeming unrealistic/illogical.

And...radiant quests probably are the most blatant example of how fake things can seem. For whatever reason, some thief stole a plate armor of conjuration from...a hunter? What the hell is a hunter doing with said item in the first place? Obviously just randomly generated content that added nothing significant to the game other than a short distraction and some extra coin depending on the player's choice in dealing with the situition.

There's also the console factor, it's obvious as a PC user console has become their priority in areas like controls and UI, and sadly they did a piss poor job of translating those onto the PC. Mods are required for a non-frustrating experience - and yes, PC user still get a superior experience due to mods, but some things we just shouldn't need mods and .ini tweaking to fix.

Level scaling is still a detriment not an improvement and they've yet again failed to balance anything whatsoever while removing fun factor spells that made the imbalance of Morrowind and to a lesser extent Oblivion more acceptable. Granted shouts were better designed than any magical abilities in previous games, but magic itself was very disappointing. Another disappointment and flat out irritating feature is the materialization of certain items after X level or skill level has been hit by the player. I'm specifically thinking of spell tomes but applies to enchanted gear and higher end materials. What's the point of playing a more mercantile character if we're not allowed to buy anything good from vendors until money has already become near obsolete? Fake and irritating.

THEY ALSO NEED A NEW ENGINE. Creation was not that much better than the gamebro it was crafted from, and the engine was never very good in the first place - it's not one of those engines that has aged well, it is overdue to be tossed. Maybe not from a financial standpoint but from my consumer point of view I am sick of the thing. I don't know whether to blame it entirely for many issues with their games but I doubt Bethesda's animators are that bad, and many of the issues Beth studio games have were apparent in Obsidian's FO:NV so that makes me assume the engine is definitely a limitation in many areas.

I could obviously ramble on endlessly, but to conclude before this becomes so long no one will ever read through it, I still believe Morrowind is the best game in the series by a considerable margin, and if I had to choose any of them to completely forget and play again fresh, the choice would be too easy. That is a disappointing fact.

At this point, I'm more excited for the next Witcher game than the next TES game.

I came to Skyrim as a newbie. I've not played any of the previous titles in the series...... In fact Skyrim os my first RPG. Since it's release, I have logged nearly ten times the number of hours in Skyrim than I have in any other PC game (over 2000 according to Steam!)..... And before you ask: Yes I do sit at home all day

I think the number of hours I've spent playing show how satisfied I am with the game. I just wish they'd kept supporting it and producing DLC's for longer. Certainly it has bugs and crashes which are annoying, but their annoyance factor is far outweighted by the content in my opinion...... Obviously if I felt differently I wouldn't have spent as long playing it as I have.

Let me see...mm..play it every day, have done for the last 18 months or so..!

Yes, I'd say I was well satisfied !!

I enjoy Skyrim, i wouldn't have joined the forums if i thought it was a bad game or anything. But i definitely wasn't satisfied.

Besides the many bugs and glitches, i think the main reason why i was unsatisfied, was the leveling up system. I've played Morrowind and Oblivion and I feel both games had a far superior leveling up system. To me Skyrim's way of leveling up feels like a step backwards not a step forwards. No attributes, far less skills, only able to choose Magicka health or stamina, and stamina reflects how much you can carry?

Throughout the game I was just putting perks into a perk tree because...that's what you do. Instead of making my strength better so i could hit higher, or endurance so i could take more damage, or even personality so i could chat up those lovely nord women , I was aimlessly placing perks in the relevant trees for my class...not that my class existed, that's all in your head.

Oblvion had some terrific and memorable quests, so did morrowind, but honestly the quests in skyrim are awful. most of them involve going to X and retrieving Y or killing Y, there's no quest or story to them. The only ones with a story were the faction or main quest...and even then they weren't particularly riveting or imaginative.

Talking about unimaginative things, for goodness sakes, the land! we've seen it all before, in fact we could probably see all the same trees and rocks if we stepped outside and went on a walk. It feels like for some reason Beth doesn't want to leave their comfort zone and create a whole new fantasy land, they just stick to the same old trees, rocks and snow.

Wouldn't it have been fantastic if they had come up with this whole new fantasy landscape, a frigid wasteland of snow and ice, something that captivates their audience, instead of bores them. I'll admit that Dawnguard DLC added some nice snow caves and structures....but you only ever need to visit them once, after that they don't get used, which is a shame.

It's a good game, i enjoy it, but i wasn't satisfied by it.

Satisfied, but only because of mod support. I wouldn't even have bought Skyrim if it didn't have mod support. I already knew from my experience with Oblivion that I wouldn't like unmodded Skyrim and I was right. Unmodded Skyrim is a good example of a modern very casual and simple easy game that holds your hand too much. The unmodded game just bored me. I want to use my brains when I play. I don't want the game to tell me things like where enemies are and if they have spotted me when I sneak. I want to notice these things myself with my own eyes and ears. And I really don't want to follow arrows on my screen with zero brain use. I want a functional real map screen and directions and land marks. And so on. There are dozens of other things I could mention.

Modded Skyrim is a great game even though not everything can be easily fixed with mods. I have played the game with mods now for 700 hours, and I'm still playing and enjoying it very much. I haven't even finished most of the game's quests yet because I roleplay a lot, so there's still a lot of playtime left.

Well said.

I like playing it. I interchange it with a couple of other strategy game on a regular basis. On my 6th or 7th run threw on it.

I had some long diatribe about the philosophical underpinnings of Skyrim's persistant-but-not-persistant nature having to essentially be "Unsatisfying" to keep players hooked in for a final fullfillment.

But I'm not a fan of lengthy exposition. So just think of it like crack. You take your first hit of an Elder Scrolls game, and you're always looking for that feeling again. You never find it.

Skyrim gave me the satisfaction I desired.

This is true outside of modding. I found it again through Lost Spires, but other than that you never do indeed.

Mostly satisfied. It's definitely one of the best games of the last 5-years and I've put 217 hours into it so far (and still only seen about 20% of the game because I'm a restartaholic). However I'm extremely disappointed in how badly it was dumbed down. So much magic removed, so few weapons, boring characters (only Tullius and Ulfric have a personality), boring factions compared to the two previous TES games - especially Companions and Dark Brotherhood; the quality of those factions is so bad compared to in Oblivion.

Overall: convincing, satisfied, but could do just a bit better. i rate 8/10 without mods and 9/10 with all the mods i know.

Needs work:

1. fix the goddam lip syncing bug! I cant believe gamesas introduced this bug in their final release. That is just not cool. Is kinda annoying if you dont use subtitles.

2. Somehow Skyrim doesnt have the oblivion magical feel. Perhaps it is because skyrim is lacking oblivion's music and 'feeling'. Oblivion made me lost in a dream fantasy world, and the music is simply stunning. Skyrim? I dont feel anything while playing. I understand many people prefer skyrim to oblivion but coming from oblivion, i think the 'feeling' is lacking in skyrim.

Both. The wide open game world and open ended character development are still the points that draw me to TES games. While I may not like the elimination of attributes or other design decisions, that aspect of the game is still there.

In the end it is the story lines that I really do not like.

DB: IMHO the best of the lot but still not as good as Oblivion DB.

TG: Thugs guild mroe than thieves guild. And the way that you are railroaded at the end ... ugh.

Companions:

"Hello newbie"

Two days later: "all hail our new leader"

... but I can barely swing a sword ...

Mages:

"Hello newbie"

Two days later: "all hail our new leader"

... but I can barely cast a spell ...

Bards College

"Hello newbie"

Two minutes later: "all hail our new leader"

... but I can barely sing a song ...

Hated the breathless way that they pushed you into and through the MQ.

Liked many of the side quests.

Liked the fact that on many of the side quests you made the discovery through books, maps, or overheard conversations and were not doing everything at somebody else's bidding.

For me it gets 7/10 without mods and 8/10 with mods. I did enjoy it and I am still playing it. With better writing it would be 9.5/10.

Very satisfied..NOW! But I am on PS3, and had given the game up when we weren't getting any of the downloads. Now that I have the downloads, it's just unbelievable how much there is to do. I am really sad there won't be any more DLC.