No.

I've been playing since steam decrypt and I'm level 11 and haven't left Whiterun yet. Best advice is to pace yourself and don't power game it.

QFT. Your game, your world. You never know, though, playing again with a different six/race character may throw up different opportunities. Joining a different combination of factions likewise. Trying different combinations of perks/equipment/fighting styles.

You could make the same arguments in the OP about Morrowind and Oblivion (not to mention GTA and other sandbox games). I don't see how it's a specifically Skyrim thing.

Aye, I hear you, especially with regards to rushing through games. I think much of that is born from the trade-in times that certain game selling outlets allow with console games. It promotes a 'Must rush through game and trade-in for Need for Speed 14 - Bum Rush!' attitude.

So it's like any other game in the series?

No, I don't feel it.

well of course games get boring after you hardcoe play em...i played fallout new vegas on my first and only playthrough for 100 hours, did i play it ever again? no, did i play any of the dlc? no, am i planning on playing it again before the next of the franchises pops out? probably not cause other things are coming up...

a game is never meant to be played forever...it also depends on what kind of a player you are? there are people that play even games with a straight story like 10 times in a row - i know people with 10 playthroughs of mass effect 2.... i am a person who never reads a book twice, never watches a movie twice and gets bored by anything - games too really fast (why i proll shouldnt by any in the first place)

and i can guarantee that after around 1-2 weeks with skyrim and around 100 hours of gameplay ill prollly not gonna play it again cause mods dont interest me BUT that doesnt matter - why? as said, its not meant to be forever, its meant to be fun for as long it lasts...and if you get even only 30 hours of joy from a game for 60 bucks? thats 2 bucks an hour of fun....thats not so bad...cheaper then a movie

You're not gonna be doing the same quests if you play some other type of character, warrior to mage/thief/hunter etc.

50+ hours on my first playthough and I'm simultaneously enjoying my ongoing game and looking forward to starting my next character.

The fact is, most people enjoying the game are busy playing it, not complaining on the internet about it. If you check what the internet thinks about any game or product - they hate them all, because the population of commenters always over-represents the upset and frustrated.

Of course, you then have an echo chamber where the people posting complaints see a few hundred other people complaining, and they assume this means everybody is having a bad experience.

I'm looking forward to mods, but I'm not done with the vanilla experience yet, the game, with a few small tweaks, runs great and I'm having a great time.

geez...

im still playing oblivion now years after i got the game, made multiple characters with various styles.. never a pure one though oddly enough... but im still enjoying it..

after having skyrim for 4 days i think it'll be the same for me people shouldnt be finishing it so fast dudes it was only released 5 days ago -.-

I am level 16, taking things slow, RP'ing, immersing myself... But I have already getting that sickly pang in my stumoch and in the fore of my mind I want to start again...

In Oblivion, I personally felt it was easy to do a Jack-of-all-trades master-of-none, even repeatedly with various characters. But it seems Skyrim is different... I'm constantly svcking in combat and getting my ass kicked becouse I'm not all sure how I want to approach combat. Although, I am fully immersed into my character - a wild-loving, adventerous Imperial, caring little to nothing about the Empire itself or politics - I'm just starting to lose... Something. I do not know what, but something has gone.

In Oblivion, I found a warrior but with light/leather armour very appealing, fun including combat. But, this doesn't seem to be the case in Skyrim. I mean, my character looks awsome, but he's just getting pumled with every hit he takes, forcing me to *Holds back vomit* lower the difficulty constantly.

Thoughts?

I agree with OP.

I think a large part of what's killed it for people is:

-Faction quest chains are short as hell. You'd be rebuilding an entirely new characterfor about ~16 hours just for the sake of doing ~3 hours of new faction quests. They also lack story, so there's no real characterization involved in the playthrough. You're simply doing the faction quests as basic work and that's that.

-Level scaling seems broken. In my experience, it DEMANDS the player work hard on a weapon and armor type (destruction and alteration/restoration count in these categories), otherwise leveled enemies are gonna tear you to shreds. This means less diversity.

-The Lore is bleh. Does anyone seriously care about it or feel moved by those overly-dramatic speeches the NPCs give? The lore is literally "that dragon is bad and only you can stop it." In Morrowind the lore was interesting because you would fulfill the prophecies in such a way that was simply well done. The prophecies would suggest you were godlike and had godlike abilities while simultaneously suggesting "false gods" are bad, but the way you obtained those abilities was very realistic. For example it was said the Nerevarine couldn't get sick and was immortal, then come to find out you become immune to disease and immortal because you obtain a disease that makes you immune to all other diseases and stops you from aging. You had the option of saying "OMG THE PROPHECY IS FULFILLED!!!" or saying "oh that makes sense, but I'm not a god." It was extremely well done because it gave the player insight on how the false gods came to be, then gave you the option of following in their footsteps or just treating yourself as a lucky mortal. Dovahkiin is just "u r dovahkiin, go kill dragon herp derp" without any interesting plot twists or real story development or climix.



My favorite game so far published by Bethesda is New Vegas, and I think one of the reasons I love it is because there's SOOOOOOOO many unique factions to play as and the weapon balancing and character customization is so well done that each character plays unique. I don't end up with the same gun every single playthrough, because the BEST gun is highly subjective, depending on my character's stats. My second favorite was Oblivion, again, probably because it provided a lot of factions to work with, and the factions had real substance and story. Third favorite was Morrowind because although the factions lacked story, the character customization was better, since leveling a new skill from level 5 was an absolute [censored], meaning you generally stuck to the skills your race/class specialized in. Fallout 3 is way in the back. Why? Because there were ZERO factions. No matter who you roleplay as, the game forces you to support the same faction, and even if you truly insist on being "the bad guy," you end up being the most illogical psychopath known to man, because your decisions wouldn't make a DAMN bit of sense.

I hate to say it, but while the first playthrough of Skyrim may be fun, in the long run Skyrim might belong at the bottom of the list, near FO3.

This ^^ I usually end up playing all three types, and not trying to do every faction with just one. That way it's different next time around. And the appeal is still strong for me!!

Do I recognise the games faults? Yep

Do I recognise the games excellent points? Yep

Am I annoyed by some things? Yep

Do I love other parts of the game? Yep

Is my interest ebbing? Nope

I'm still at the "Bloody Hell its a Spiky Flame Belching Homicidal Dragon" stage

You feel this way because you set your mind up for it. Be open minded.

@ OP: I don't think you're doing it right, so to speak.

I was livid when I first saw the UI, and it took me hours to figure out properly remapping the keys and making the favorites and hotkeys work, but now that I have everything set up the way I like, and it actually works, I find it quick and pretty user friendly. Agreed, the UI could use a major overhaul, but I like the game enough that I don't mind, and I've also become pretty fast on the buttons so it doesn't seem so tedious.

As for the graphics, this is THE most beautiful game I've ever played. I have everything maxed out, and it runs smooth as a baby's butt.

As for gameplay, that's really all you, man. An open world game like Skyrim is always going to be exactly what you make of it. It sounds like you're a min-max'er, in which case this is not a game for you. I don't loot everything, I don't run back and forth to sell everything I find and accumulate gold. I take the good stuff I find and trade it for other stuff that I need, like alchemy ingredients and smithing gear, which keeps my character pretty simpel. I'm level 10 and I'm wearing my homemade Steel Armor, wield my homemade Steel Weapons, and I love it. I explore a lot, and mostly do small side quests so as to not 'exhaust' the game too soon. And I will be playing another character entirely different from my current one once I complete my first play through.

So make the most of it, stop and smell the flowers, and don't just go straight for Alduins throat in an attempt to beat the game at lvl 5.

I thin the game is amazing. It's an epic. But that is my concern as well. I'm level 20 right now and I was saying this in another thread is it seems like it forces you a long a certain path too much where you basically get the full experience. Yes I could replay it as a different character force myself to do other things but it seems like i would be forcing myself to just explore things i didnt last time for the sake of it and I'd still be going along the same storyline.

The game is massive, engrossing, tons of things to do and a masterpiece. No doubt, but I do think it's replayability is somewhat limited.

That said I've never seen so many games within a game in my life. Just running around catching butterflies is so realistic and a game in itself.

The game is so massive, I'm basically able to try different things even with my character, different builds etc on my one playthrough.

The game has a wow factor to it, and it's not as ebbing as other games. Some games have that initial wow fact and wear off. They lack depth and substance. I'm still wow'd so far. I think bethesda struck a good balance.

Can you really see every quest ending and take every side on one character.
I know there is at least the SC VS Imp's and then some quests have different endings and routs to completion.
Different play styles and guilds maybe.

I guess if you play one character long enough to visit every area or location and fully explore them and do every quest at least one time if it did not require taking sides I could see getting bored with the game.

This^

Just a general contribution - I have invested quite a good amount of time into the game, and I honestly think it is absolutely amazing in almost every way. I am feeding off it like some sort of drug addict.

I don't know if that is necessarily true though. Look a game like wow that reduces complexity but just adds content. There is so much to do. I think skyrim is very accessible but retains depth in different ways.

If anything bothers me about this game it's how buggy it is and not finished. The pathfinding for such a beautiful game is horrible. I know wow had these same issues at first. It's such a huge world. Players/npc's getting stuck etc.. It's that bad right now.

Skyrim graphcially is a huge open world single player epic story. IT's about 1000 times technically superior to a game like wow. It's like playing a movie like lord of rings. But it's also suffering from the same initial problems wow was. It's also a single player experience vs a multiplayer one.

The lore doesn't interest you, get over it. You aregeting tired over running all over the place, its a open world, game get over it.

They actually release every product by restarting it. Im fed up with people saying they dumbed down the game. They didn't.

Aye, but once 'new content' has been played and done that's it, it's a one trick pony. More stuff cannot compensate for lowering the complexity of core game systems. Pong with 300 different backgrounds is still Pong after all (not the best anology I know).

Of course this is partly subjective. Some people love to grind, others don't. I like a mix of both but sacrificing complexity is a big no no.

I dont disagree. What makes me not want to replay moreso though is the fact it takes some npc's hours to jsut walk to a location. They are slow and stupid. I think there is quite a bit of depth as far as grinding is concerned. Like i said be careful what you wish for. The problem is the developer will hear that and take out the walk altogether. I like the walk. I dont need fast travel. Just fix the bugs and make the npc's more responsive.

This game still retains depth. It reminds me of vanilla wow where everyone is saying how blizzard ruined it and made it too simple. This game still retains a lto of depth. I'm having fun with alchemy, enchanting, becoming a bard. All sorts of stuff. There still random encounters and dungeons i come across. Different player builds.

There is still depth. You can choose to not even join the companions. There are tons of branching quests. You can choose the legion or stormcloaks or neither. You still have choices. Be careful what you wish for.

I consider myself and educated gamer who likes depth. I've struggled figuring things out in this game. I wonder how some noob feels. Be careful what you wish for because next things you know it will be even more simple. I may refuse to install a patch because i like how the game is.

I like a mix of grinding too. I'm in the same boat as you. I think this game strikes a good balance as is. It's like vanilla wow. I basically stopped playing wow because they became total jerks. I'm here because this game still retains a good mix of depth and decency.

This may be the beginning of the end for bethesda. They may just become cheese from here on out. But as it stands this game strikes that perfect balance and is one of the best games ever made. I felt the same way about wow when it first came out and the first expansion. Then they just lost me. Became control freaks everything in between.

When the developer starts trying to control what a gamer can and can't do and go overboard that's more the issue imo. Blizzard and so many other developers have crossed that line. Bethesda hasn't yet.

I don't see Bethesda becoming microsoft or blizzard yet and out threatening and sueing people who are just trying to play a game their way. It's one thing if these people are really hurting the industry it's another if these companies just become greedy. Like I said I may refuse a patch. The problem is these developers make that really hard to do. It's like we aren't control freaks. Oh here we are forcing this patch on you and if you don't like it gtfo. You can't play a game you bought and paid for, on our servers and we've sued everyone else out.

Is the game ebbing that way? Yes. But it hasn't gone one way or the other yet. It still allows the gamer a lot of freedom. It just has kind of stepped it up for the masses as well. It has both right now which is a win/win imo.

It hasn't completely sold out yet. I understand it. It's greed and these companies have to compete with each other and it's smart business to have control of your crap and get as many people in as you can so you can compete. But in the same respect that's the issue. You really don't ahve to. You can have your own business nad a really good business without pulling that crap. You don't need to be or beat activision. You can just separate yourself.

The game still has a wow factor that hasn't worn off with me yet. If they start going the other way even moreso they might run into issues pissing off a lot of people though. I think they are right at that point right now where they've hit that perfect balance and thsi game will sell a ton and everyone can be happy in equal regards. There is some give and take for both sides. The problem is once they start catering to idiocy too much.

Blizzard has done that.Call of duty. These companies cater to idiots who want to be nickeled and dimed, treated like garbage and everything in between. They end up surrounded by people and jerks just like that. If you want to be abused go play those games and try reasoning with those people. Been there. Done that. Bethesda not so much. Yes they have some of that. But it's not nearly as bad. I can tell. Trust me.

Is that an excuse and reason to ever be that way. Not really. But I can understand bethesda wanting to compete in regards.

It seems to me that most of the people that have been complaining about the game are those that wouldn't normally play it. The Elder Scrolls series has gotten big, even past it's general target audience and now it's working it's way into the fps crowd. Thing is, when an fps player gets a hold of Skyrim and finds the focus is on story/exploration they aren't to thrilled. Now that's not to say all complaints are as there always are and always will be a few veteran elder scrolls players that grumble about every release. Just my two cents.