On the whole, I think Skyrim is a better video game than Morrowind (and I think Oblivion was quite inferior to both), but I think you've pretty much nailed where Skyrim suffers compared to Morrowind. Morrowind had characters like Caius Cosades, Crassius Curio, Therana, Jim Stacey, etc. Characters that made you want to do quests that they were involved in. Skyrim's characters come across as much more instrumental---they're just around to give you quests and to get you to see the world. The quests themselves... some are good, like the quest that begins with the Alik warriors searching for a Redguard woman in Whiterun. But it's hard to disagree with the fairly widespread opinion that most quests in Skyrim seem lacking in inspiration. We can handle fetch-quests, or go-kill-this-dude-quests, as long as the back story and characters are interesting. But most of the time there's a very sketchy motivation for the quest, and the characters are quite generic. I find it hard to shake the feeling that, where it really matters (major factions, main quest), Skyrim's characters and writing could have used further fleshing out.

Really, the star of the show in Skyrim is the world itself. It's stunning.

Saying the changes were made in order to make money is a little disingenuous; it's always been the goal of business to make money. The reality is, however, that the changes were part of an effort to make more money. That is to say the goal was less about making an amazing game (which they arguably still want to) which will bring in a bit of money to pad funding for a future title, and has become more about making the next big blockbuster action-adventure experience that draws in a wide, but shallow audience.

Just look at what BioWare did with TOR. There's nothing really new there, but they know that the WoW formula is tried and true, and they're playing a numbers game. Will TOR be successful? Very likely. Is it the game it could have been? Not by a long shot.

The same is true of Skyrim, unfortunately.

Wide, but shallow.

Well there were the factions. In the amount of quests to completely finish the Companions or College you would've maybe gotten your 2nd or 3rd promotion out of 9 in one of the more numerous factions from Morrowind. They also had skill requirements for the ranks so you couldn't become head of the mage's guild with a barbarian that doesn't know a single spell. There also wasn't any compass of omniscience so you actually had to explore to find stuff. The quests were also written with that in mind so instead of not even being told where your supposed to go half the time like Skyrim they'd give you actual directions which you had to follow. More numerous skills, spell effects, stats, spells that you could actually fail at casting, spell creation etc.



Casuals are people that would, for instance, call people nerds for being gamers and voicing their opinions. They're also probably WoW players and might mention something about raid gear in a forum for a game that has no raids.

They sold out to the casuals at an alarming rate

you are also a nerd you know, you're on an internet forum about a video game and you just coined the term "raid gear." go home nerd.

anyway, i miss the things from oblivion. the somewhat interesting quests and quest-lines. the well made guilds (at least i dont go from apprentice to archmage without any other increase in rank between the two in oblivion). the hammers used to fix my weapons and armour (and the weapons and armour that can break). large scale battles (something on the scale of the battle of bruma was promised in exchange for greaves, speaking of which...). graves, i miss being able to wear different pants and shirts. spell making. the many different spell efects form oblivion and morrowind (has anyone seen a damage stamina spell? didnt think so. tht was my most loved spell too).

I hope you are joking, and I believe you are. But just in case serious I must say, oh my God sir, what a fail.

Bethesda went to win a GOTY for the series.

Cheers

No matter how I feel about it now when it's all shiny and new, I'll be very surprised if I consider Skyrim to be anything but a typical example of modern gaming in even a few short years. There's really nothing epic or noteworthy about it, and until it started crashing to the desktop all the time, was okay to play.

GotY means nothing. The vets see through that bull [censored]. Dumbed down game is dumbed down.

Thanks.

The world though is not as stunning as I would have hoped, there are certain areas that I love and are filled with detail and objects. The area to the far right of the map towards Markarth is awesome and is filled with plants and trees following the river. Winterhold is ablaze with snow and the fall forests near Riften are great. The rest though is pretty barren and boring. I think the tundra is too open and there is nothing there really as an example. Cites are still pretty small. Solitude was a major let down being the capital.

Anyway... Being that you are listing the names of the people in Morrowind really shows Bethesda's story telling was better back then. You felt more connected as you say. The characters in this game just feel wooden and I might as well get a quest from a sheet of paper. They also (now this is the biggest one) don't say anything at all after you helped them. They say thanks, but after MOST just go back to generic dialogue. Not even a future nod to you. I think once I helped someone out and after I bought there precious item back they told me to get out their face!

Yep, they've jumped on you on your last Skyrim bashing thread, and the one before that, and the one before that too, and of course the one before that one and the one that was even before that one and ...

If you flesh out your opinions in a constructive manner people might not flame you and may actually take your threads seriously. Kust a little hint for the future.

and also, although this would apply to the series as a whole, where are quests for non-warrior/thief/mage types? there is a guild supposedly for the type that like to talk (the bards) but those are just more of the same (according to the forums, i refuse to do them untill i get playable instraments and composable music) instead of making music for people or talking someone up or anythign interesting.

Look at all of the things gutted since Daggerfall. Sad.

I think I qualify as one of those "vets".

I've been lost in TES since the day Arena was released... yeh, I'm an old gamer, and I'm having an absolute blast.

And I'm definitely not alone.

Most of us are enjoying everything Skyrim has to offer. We're not wasting time complaining about what it isn't.
That accomplishes nothing.

Yesterday I got a message from two of my friends saying "Hey call me asap, we just got that skyrim game and we need help, this game wasn't made for idiots lol". I admit, they have taken out a lot of stuff from previous games that I wish they didn't, but I still love the game.

So complaining about the level scaling that wasn't didn't do anything at all? Archery wasn't too weak? Werewolves? VARIED LANDSCAPES? They listen if you complain enough.

Hear hear bring back etiquette

Omg I just have a moment in inspiration. They didn't dumb the game down, the older vets like myself, from Arena and Daggerfall are just use to not having waypoints on every quest, or swords that do 350 damage. The game isn't dumbed down. its the younger generation of gamers! with a few exceptions. Now that I think about it, thats sadder then the original thought that the game is dumbed down.

I miss being able to buy boats, and explore hundreds of miles of terrain (even if it was randomly generated) and walk about in cities that had a hundred or so houses instead of 12. I think the problem for us old vets is, we've seen the world differently when cities were really cities, Daggerfall was a massive city that you had to use a map just to find your way to the castle, hundreds of houses. The scale shrank so much that these supposed great cities like Soiltude have been shrunk down to 20 houses with a wall around it. Thats not my Solitude. my Solidute had thousands of people living in it, not 35. It makes it harder to really embrace the world when everything seems to be a little bit off in scale. Or the fact that there is like a dozen legendary artifacts in one province which is just unheard of, they should be spread out all over Tamriel.

They would be fools to pay attention to anything in these forums right now.

After the game has been out for a while and after there has been some serious gameplay put in and mods released, they'll look at things.

The two things gamers hate the most
1) The way things are
2) Change

Oh sure, there are some fairly barren regions. But the authenticity and coherence of the world is really impressive. (And if we just stick to comparative judgements, I don't think Skyrim's world is more barren/boring than Morrowind's).

On cities: yeah, it's a shame that the biggest is probably no bigger than, say, Balmore or Ald'ruhn. Not sure we'll ever see a Vivec again. Really, what annoys me most about the cities/towns is that every town, aside form the 5 major cities, has the same architecture. It's not so much that there's only 6 varieties of town architecture (Morrowind probably only had about that many). But it's jarring that Dawnstar's architecture is the same as Falkreath's. At least with Morrowind, while you'd see all the same architecture in the Redoran region, it was different to the architecture you'd see in the Telvanni region. But that's a minor gripe.

Looks like they got something right:

• Skyrim is the Fastest-Selling Game in Steam History
  
• Skyrim is UK Christmas 2011 number one
  
• Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Game of the Year!

What happened to the series?

The old "fans" grew bitter and jaded, unable to be satisfied with anything but endless complaining.

Old fans?

Most of the complaints I'm seeing come from forum accounts created after 12-1-11. Even the OP has been here for less than 2 weeks.

Most of the old fans can adapt.

We're fans of the series, the lore, the open world.

These discussions would be more fun with nostalgia glasses and elitism casting such a heavy shadow over things.