this and only this i'm afraid :foodndrink:
everything else is just opinionated imo.

Look, I understand that the PS3 has more problems than any of the other platforms, but Skyrim does deserve GOTY. Hardware specific limitations and problems should not be ripping Skyrim of the GOTY title.

For me, personally, I play on a PC and the game has been pretty smooth since Day 1. A couple of bugs here and there; weird texture bugs, some Misc quests getting stuck, dragons flying backwards after 1.2 patch (WTF Beth), crashes to desktop (mostly fixed in 1.2 and after some tweaking in my setup) and some other minor ones I can't even recall. My overall experience has been incredible and I can't deny Skyrim is one of the greatest games to date.

Now, I have to agree, Bethesda's reputation as a developer might have taking a dip after all the complaints and they definitely need to think about what the hell is their QA department doing wrong. You don't need to test every hardware setup under the sun, but c'mon, backwards flying dragons and broken magical resistances after second patch? You have to wonder who is testing their products/patches and what are they smoking.

:rofl:

So true. The bugs in a game may not be a deal breaker for me, but when you release fixes that just make the game worse, someone needs to get fired.

Thats exactly the problem, as I see it. They dropped their loads on the graphics and the world itself, and then forgot/ran out of ressources to fill it. Its a beautifull, amazing world... and its also as shallow as it is pretty.





Being able to opt out of content does not bring variety or depth. When option A and option B are exactly the same, then calling it a choice is just hypocrite.



Anything you are describing is part of "the world". Yeah, its great, there are plenty of dungeons, and lots of cool stuff around. Its beautifull, we get it.

But its empty:
- Quests are unimaginative and repetitive, as well as being completely linear.
- Nothing you do has an impact on the world
- The storyline (Main and Side quests) is shallow at best, and feels rushed (Archmage after 5 errands with level 32 conj... right.)
- There is little RP element to the gameplay (dialogue options, quest branching, alternative methods of completing tasks, personality gauge) and what is there is broken anyway ("You the new guy?" Em... no, im the Harbinger...)

This plays like a single player MMO. You choose which "Kill this/fetch that" quest you want, and you go do it. Then you come back and you go do more of the same. Its a beautifull world, but everything that could be called "complexe and engaging gameplay" has simply never made it into the game. It still plays like a 1995 game, while the rest of the RPG industry has moved leaps and bounds foward, and a lot of us expect more nowdays.

Inbefore "dialogue options are just scripts!". Yes, they are. And the game lets you choose which script you want to run. In skyrim, there is no such choice. The game is huge, but in the end, its running on a single, unique, unchangeable script.

And of course you're also referring to something which hasn't even been released yet, in a thread about the merits of an award already being given out. Since CK isn't out until 2012 - it doesn't have much bearing on "GOTY".

Funny, because having it on a PC gives me even more reason to never vote this game GOTY. Let's start with the [censored] console interface that ported over into a barely functional mess that is not at all fluid when used with a keyboard and mouse. The game should have been created with a PC interface in mind FIRST, and THEN ported to the consoles. Same argument goes for the graphics limitations, open world limitations and npc count limitations. The game could easily have been GOTY material if they had designed it first and foremost for PCs and all of the possibilities that would entail, and then scaled it back to fit on a console. Instead they gave us a lowest common denominator polished piece of [censored].

Then I could go into the horrible magic system that included non-scaling destruction spells, removal of spell crafting and removal of a host of core spells from the previous games.

Only after that would I go into the myriad of bugs that have been reported, the random crashes to desktop even after their patches and their default stance that I am a criminal and therefore I must have Steam running in the background in order to play the game.

No, this game is not GOTY material, not even close.

This thread has largely degraded into insults and console-bashing, I see no reason to leave it open.