for me its dragon riding, the staff enchanter, horsecombat, marriage, miraaks sword, spears, werebears, destroy the darkbrotherhood questline, and the main quest

Every single faction.

Just the quests. Everything else in skyrim is great.

Was there anything, then, that you actually enjoyed?

This I'll agree with. Though I have to say I think part of why they feel so "short" in comparison to the previous two games is that they had multiple bases of operation that required a lot of extra walking or fast travel to finish. If I used the COC command in Morrowind or liberal fast-traveling in Oblivion I think I could knock out a single faction in about the same amount of time.

Can't formulate a hypothesis about the lack of actual depth though. I didn't really care about anyone I worked with, and I was annoyed (as I always have been) when I was made boss when I was, in general, just a regular mercenary looking for stuff to do. Perhaps the next game will have an actual "mercenary" guild that doesn't have some grand plot like the Morrowind/Oblivion Fighter's Guild or the Companions, just pay me to go kill things, man.

That's kind of a recurring theme though with the Elder Scrolls factions. I've never once felt any real tangible connection with any of their members and other than Gentleman Jim Stacey I can't remember most of their names other than the obvious Lucian LaChance, who I don't remember for any sort of touching mentor / pupil relationship or even the grand betrayal, just that I winced to see him hung upside down with his crotch ripped off.

The factions could have been way better, that's for sure.

yeah, factions were somewhat lacking, didnt they have a different idea planned for attacking the forts during the MQ or something?

Percius of the Fighters Guild in Morrowind was a mentor figure if you went out of your way to talk to him, but I do agree that the guilds have always had fairly generic NPC's in them. Although some have been memorable (Modryn Oreyn for example).

The main reason I think the guilds in Skyrim feel so short is that they cut out the generic fetch/kill/escort quests in favor of radiant quests, but didn't make you do radiant quests to advance in rank. The guild progression feels better if you do, say, three radiant quests before doing the 'story quest', but it just felt to me that the ranks didn't really mean as much as in Oblivion and Morrowind.

Something like that.

One part that was cut out was the Stormcloaks invading Markarth. After they took back the city, Galmar apparently executed Ondelemar, the Thalmor Justiciar there.

AWWWWW!!! i would have bought a 20 dollar DLC JUST to see that happen!!!

Considering that your only "ranks" ever seem to be "New Guy" and "Boss", I definitely think the rank system leaves something to be desired. I would indeed have rather been forced to do a few more run of the mill quests in between being thrust into positions of trust and authority one after the other.

Remember having to prove yourself by going out and being a research assistant / academic saboteur for the Mages' Guild in Morrowind? Okay, I take it back, I do remember the Mages Guild as being ridiculously fun, complex, and engaging in Morrowind, and really the faction with the most choices for how it's quests could end.

The magic system is a joke with the lost spell effects and spell creation.

The factions are pathetic.

Then there is the bugs: enemies still fail to respawn in the wilderness and plants will also not respawn scattered all around the map 1.3 was the cause of this. Weapons and shields also fail to clean up this has been an issue since release. Then in the vanilla game enemies fail to clean up such as the old orc and the sabre cats and bandits that attack mammoth camps. That is to name a few enemies that fail to clean up. Moving on to ash piles they still fail to clean up in static locations such as the ritual stone.

This is with the vanilla game.

I'm an odd duck in that I actually like the Magic system the most in Skyrim, and as far as my playstyle goes, absolutely nothing is lost from the random Fortify / Spirit damage effects being missing and Spell Making being gone, and this is coming from someone who's default character across all five core games was "Mage."

I'm sure I'll invite some "YOU'RE NOT A REAL WIZARD IF YOU DIDN'T USE SPELLMAKIN'" commentary for that but eh.

You can blame the geniuses at the Marketing Department for the 11-11-11 date.

your a duck? are you by any chance from the future on a assassination mission to kill Samuel L Jackson?

just keep blaming 11. its all 19s fault, but he always manages to pin it on 11.

Khajiit tail animations. Seriously. The tails being animated post-death and clipped through chairs is NOT OKAY! Talk about a total downgrade from Oblivion.

I cannot like the system with the lost spell effects that added a lot of versatility to the system and spell creation was the core of the system it allowed a mage to get in tune with their art and learn their own spell combinations.

That's fair. I really do understand why people dislike it, I'm just saying I actually rather enjoy it. The two-spell system when combined with favorites offered me a playstyle that I just can't help but like, and on-the-fly switching between sets as the situation requires them - to me - was a lot more useful to how I prefer to play than simply having developed some quirky niche spell.

I guess I can't begrudge "being in tune with their art" being a lamentable scenario when even with spellmaking, no matter how high our skills got, no matter how many schools we mastered, we were still constantly being introduced to NPC mages and researchers discovering and developing things we never got to. I guess since that was always taken from me (and it always is in every game, no matter how badass a wizard you end up being someone always manages to discover "That Spell" that you can never replicate in the mechanics) I never really cared.

Master lock and have level one lock picking? No Problem, pick away!

Slaughter all forsworn camps in the reach? No problem, no one knows cares.

Kill 300 legionaries/stormcloaks? So what, you can join the Legion and Stormcloaks with no repercussions.

This is actually another thing I'm a-okay with. Perhaps I'm not a pure enough player but if I get to the bottom of a dungeon / ruin / crashed subway train and my progress is impeded by a door / the end-of-dungeon treasure is in a locked milk crate and I'm not allowed to even TRY to open it, there's nothing in the world other than a quest bringing me back that will inspire me to waddle back to that spot.

There are no dungeons that you cannot reach the end if you don't have a high enough lock picking skill. All lock pickable doors lead to mid level loot or mid level chests. The best loot is in the end that you can reach with no problem.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Useful_Spells

This here is why I miss spell creation roleplaying options. Hence getting in tune with the art as a roleplayer. The role I play I become Skyim has taken that from me with ES magic.

What I have proposed and what I think would be excellent is a merger pf the two systems. The duel casting spells in Skyrim the having to equip spells that for me I missed in Oblivion loved it in Morrowind. Then we keep the new ash spells, thrower spells, sun magic, runes and so on. Then we get the cut effects dating back to Morrowind and spell creation. That would be a better magic system with eberything that suits either or who would use spell creation and those who would not. It was never forced and it would not be this way we would have freedom of choice again on this matter.

Then a pure mage has lost an old ability they used in earlier games.

You can slay Legendary Dragons, throw fire/ice with your voice and manipulate Time... but good luck swinging your sword under water... also hate that you cant Sprint Jump and Attack while in air like in Oblivion, also why the hell there is no Dodge action? those are the things that really made the game feel like it was unfinished.