The graphics are really pretty, the atmosphere is great, and the rest of the world, I am unable to care about.

The NPCs are "forgotten, not forgettable". That is, I have no NPCs I hate, because that would imply they have enough personality to hate. I have no NPCs I like, because after 92 hours, they haven't individualized themselves. The only ones I remember much of anything about is that there's some chick in whiterun who wants to be a merchant, the first person on the right in Whiterun is a blacksmith with a well-connected daddy, and Sapphire's had a really bad time of it. And that should tell you everything I remember (disclaimer, I haven't played since November)

My character is 100% bland. At no point has the game offered me a chance to start defining his nature. I *COULD* invent something, but if I was going that far, I'd just write out my own adventures/world. I prefer the more "organic" style of developing a character that I found in DA:O. I make choices. Simple, meaningless choices on how my character might respond. When it comes time for an overt decision, I already know what he might do. Because he's NATURALLY developed into that. (Of course, I would point out that there's nothing fundamanetally wrong with writing a backstory and playing out a character subsequently. It's only inferior within the context of my personal enjoyment.) Skyrim is simply lacks the basic character interactions necessary to grow a role.

The leveling system is uninspiring. I had 11 or 12 unused perks when I stopped playing. I don't CARE how my character develops. H/M/S decision is based entirely on "how can I make my numbers look pretty?", without regard to how it might affect the character. Because they've reached a point where 10 points in any of them is trivial. The perks are "beyond awful". Fallout 3 had great perks. Skyrim does not. This makes it even harder to care about my character, because there's nothing I want to add to him.

The quests are a mixed bag. Factions... The College seems like it might be an interesting quest line... except I'm only 2 missions in. The Companions... not interesting me, just like every other primary melee guild. The only ones Bethesda has ever done a decent job with are MW's Legion and KotN*, and the Companions may well be on their way to having one that makes me long for the Fighters' Guild (shudder). The "evil" guilds are, once again, appearing to be the best of the bunch. Notice I haven't actually done more than 2-3 quests for any of them. Side-quests are generally a regression. Daedric Quests? LEARN FROM THESE! Best quests in the game, and MUCH better than any Daedric quests to date. Misc quests... sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.

Shouts... not terribly useful overall, and the global cooldown is decidedly limiting. A 2 tier cooldown might've been better: you can't use individual shouts over and over, but it may be possible to use Ice Form and immediately switch to Whirlwind Sprint... but then you're SOL if you need to use FUS RO DAH in the next few seconds. I also think this list pretty much summarizes what I use, and in what order.

Overall, the game just lacks "soul". Oblivion felt like they really believed in the game. Fallout 3 feels like Bethesda spent extra hours at night to make it just a tiny bit better. Morrowind feels like another labor of love. Skyrim feels like many of the features were checklists, and I just feel as though the developers didn't love Skyrim. Liked it, perhaps, but not loved.

Here's hoping the modders are out in force with some originality and love, because this game *needs* it to get me interested again.

I have been playing since Morrowind and I have to say I like Skyrim more then Oblivion. Oblivion seemed to be too day glo colored and generic with the horrid level scaling. Although it had some better quests then Skyrim. I think if BGS took all the good points from Morrowind, Skyrim, and Oblivion. They might have actually made an almost perfect Sandbox RPG. I guess I will always love Morrowind first for many reasons. It wasn't the same generic wildlife we have now. It was a different world with different lives and creatures. I felt pulled into the world of Nirn. A part of the reason I like it more then the newest ones. Is the fact that now I am fighting generic wolves, bears, and mythical creatures they use in like every fanatasy/sci fi story I have seen since I was a child and I am 45 now.

I could go through all that is wrong with Skyrim but all you have to do is read the forums to see what it is wrong with it. The bottom line is that the game is so far from anything done in previous TES games, things added and things removed, that if you like Modblivion stick with it. Bypass Skyrim.

Everyone one of them has been different in significant ways, whether or not the players realize it- some things are visual, some are game mechnical, and some are player interface related. each is a different flavor and while I think all three games are quite good, I can't understand why players feel that each subsequent TES game is some kind of sequel

Can you look me straight in the eye and honestly say that a game option such as fast travel is a game flaw? i ask because as I'm sure you know, the ability to FT doesn't equal it being a requirement. It's not even something the game pressures you into. I have little patience for the "FT needs to be removed" crowd. This is the same mentality that sticks "don't smash into face, it could hurt" warning stickers on sledgehammers. If you can resist mashing your gob with a sledgehammer, you can resist choosing to use FT. It is a non-issue

Overall I consider Skyrim to be closer to Morrowind than to Oblivion. It is enjoyable (Steam tells me that I have been playing for 182 hours in total), but I am starting to look forward to SkyriModded. The Construction Kit seems to be pretty close to release.

A few comments in no particular order:

* Quests: There are an absurd number of quests, some of which are randomly generated. This works pretty well for the TG questline, but not so well for all the others. Many of the quests are a bit bland, and most of the quest lines railroad you like in Oblivion. Like in Oblivion and Morrowind, most quests have little in terms of meaningful choices, and in most cases the influence of the player is limited to "do or don't do the quest". On the plus side, you actually get to take sides for or against the Empire. The deadric quests blend into the game much better than in Oblivion, and are overall some of the more interesting ones ... like in Oblivion. Depending on your play style, you may also run into a lot of essential characters (I did).

* Map: There are places to explore. Many of these places have a history and semi-hidden side quests. This is where the game really shines. Bethesda knows how to make this work. Most of the dungeons are one-way with a few side tunnels and a quick exit. Convenient, fun, but a bit immersion-breaking. There are lots of wild life (even foxes and bunnies), most of which will ignore or flee from you. Predators will attack, all to often on sight. There is another very welcome change: Climbing has been vastly improved. There are almost no invisible barriers, and it is very possible to scale many mountains. Much, much better than in Oblivion.

* Theme: As should be clear from trailers and screenshots, the habitats of Skyrim are inspired by look and feel of the viking era. Not as outlandish as Morrowind, but definately more interesting than the cities of Cyrodiil.

* Followers: There are loads of followers. The bad news is that most of them are pretty boring, with little dialog and seldom more than a short quest that you need to complete before getting them. It also seems that there is a bug that causes their number of HP and Stamina not to level when you do (there is a workaround for that). Followers are semi-essential. When they reach zero HP they kneel, and if they get more damage, they die.

* NPCs: I like the voice acting better in Skyrim than I liked it in Oblivion. Many NPCs are pretty bland, but this is mostly due to not having enough dialog.

* Horses: Horses work like in Oblivion, except that they aren't very fast. No fighting from horseback. Also horses seem quite aggressive. Strangely, horses are incredible climbers.

* Leveling: There are no classes, and you get to follow celestrial signs by finding the standing stone for that sign. This has the advantage that you just start playing, and you end up getting good at the things you do. The flip side is that your startings skills are decided by race, not by your background. As you level, you chose perks, and this is where you specialize. Unfortunately, some perks are overpowered while others are useless, so some rebalance is needed.

* Level scaling: Still exists, but it is closer to Fallout 3 than to Oblivion. Bandits will seldom use advanced armor (the boss bandit may wear powerful, leveled armor, though), but it is less obivious. Except in dragon fights (but there is a mod for deadlier dragons). Vendor inventory changes due to your level.

* Cities: Cities are similar in size to Oblivion, and the walled cities are in their own world space. Unfortunately, there are too few NPCs in the cities (why did they not use generic NPCs like in Fallout 3?). It seems that the number of guards is similar to the number of citizens in the city, which is a bit ... off. There are bards in the inns who actually sing a few tunes, which gives a nice mood. Or would, if there were more people in the inn ... On a more positive note, the interior cells respawn every 30 days (or some such), so if you loot a merchant cell, its contents will respawn at some point. You can also find chickens in the cities.

* Crafting: There are loads of crafting options. Aside from the classics (Alchemy and Enchanting), you can smith and improve weapons and armor, mine and smelt ore, chop wood and cook food. And you can see yourself while you are doing it (but not when going to sleep). Skillbased crafting gets a bit overpowered, just like in Morrowind and Oblivion.

* UI: The UI is a console port. For the most part it works reasonably well, but sometimes it gets confused most likely because you have multiple input units (keyboard and mouse), so e.g. during a conversation it may choose another reply than the one you tried to choose. There are a few UI mods that work well, but none of them fixes the issue above.

* Character customization: There are a number of templates (10 for each race/gender) that are pretty good starting points for making your character. You can choose scars, war paint, beards and "width". The face sliders work pretty well (but still no undo button), and the hair/eye color options are quite limited. The normal maps for the faces are a bit blocky, particularly visible on the nose and chin (mods fix this issue). There are no in-game ways to change war paint or hair do, and the ShowRaceMenu console command has some issues. The number of skills has been reduced (again), but in my view it is more cutting away the unnecessary fat than the "dumbing down" crowd claims.

* Bugs: After 182 hours of playing, I have experienced one gamebreaking bug (fixed by reload) and 4 crashes to desktop (all with the 1.2 patch). I have experienced few minor bugs (aside from the resistance bug introduced with the 1.2 patch). So, for me, Skyrim has been the least buggy Bethesda game to date.

And this differs from previous TES games how? Aside from non-essential things like class, I don't remember having any meaningful RPG options in Oblivion and precious few in Morrowind.

Class is hardly essential. What kind of folderol is that? You can't play a nightblade because the game doesn't spell it out?

Class is essential because it's a TES RPG. There were nothing wrong with classes, despite what some might say. They worked in 4 TES RPG's so far there was no reason, other than dumbing down the game, to remove them.

Classes have been with RPGs since the early days of D&D, but that does not mean that they are essential. The are more a means to an end: To give the player a starting skill package or a trade. In my opinion, they are not really needed, but I would have liked some way to specify my characters background (e.g. by selecting a few skills that start a bit higher and, possibly, with the related skill perk). However, most of my friends, who are also avid role players, really liked the notion of just playing the game and see where it got them. It gave Skyrim a more natural feel.

In my view, RPGs are not about classes, skills or loot. RPGs are about chosing your own path, preferably with real choices and real consequences. Like most other TES games Skyrim does the "chose thy path" very well, but is pretty light on the choice part.

I think it's the best one yet and has definitely moved up to my favorite game. Although, I do miss a lot of things from Oblivion and some things from Morrowind.

Me: Skyrim>Oblivion>Morrowind.

They worked well? Then tell me, who was the better illusionist: The "Illusionist" class with 75 in illusion, or the "Barbarian" class with 75 in illusion?? Which one had more intelligence and willpower and hence more magicka and better spell effeciency???

Disagree. Although there is nothing "wrong" with classes in my view either, they are not 'required' just because this is a TES game. Where is it written that TES games require a class selection? Think about Oblivion. You could be a Knight even if your class was battlemage. You could actually play as a Knight, and you could actually get the Status of one too! All that was lacking was perks and penalties. You think that this is a requirement of TES games? Well, that's your opinion for sure, but I don;t think you could show proof that set classes are a requirement for a TES game. Set classes are a hold-over from pen and paper RPGs, and that's all.

It's so funny that you call the lack of a hand-holding technique like set classes 'dumbing down'. Don't you realize that it's "dumbing down" when the player has to be told by the game what a Knight or Scout or Assasin does? When the game takes you by the hand and tells you "this means THAT, THAT means THIS", then the game has a featurre that is dumbed down. When the game expects you to figure it out yourself, it's not dumbed down. How could an example of the game requiring you to do things on your own be 'dumbing down'? You're confused. You use the term 'dumbed down' as a catch-all for anything you don't like.

In this case, "dumbed down" depend on your point of view. Classes means that you have to think a bit when you create your character. Removing classes, removes the need to plan your character in advance, which can be seen as "dumbing down" the game. Same thing goes with removal of some skills.

the same principle that applpies to fast travel applies to overpowered skills or items: if they're in, it svcks. The game is ambiguous about how it's meant to be played, and more options is not better. There should either be limited, in-game transportation, and mostly walking, or fast travel from location to location like in, say, dragon age. Both have their own kind of feel and have different requirements to how locations and quests are designed. But Skyrim doesn't know what it wants because it tries to please everybody. and it tries to please everybody because $$$.

The game didn't tell you what class your character had to be, you DECIDED what class your character was. That is the big difference, the DECISION process. In previous TES games you have to make decisions that affected your whole game, that is part of the RPG experience. In Skyrim, you make decisions as you go and then change them when you don't like them. That isn't a decision with consequences and without consequences your decisions are meaningless in Skyrim.

Sure in previous TES games you could change what you wanted to be while in the a different class but you no longer would level up as fast or level up at all. Classes were essential because of the DECISION process along with the consequences of those decisions.

Skyrim doesn't know what it wants, and that's why fast travel exists? That's insane. How can you possibly back that up with a rational explanation? FT exists for players that want to be at a location now. It's a conveinence option for players that might want a more casual experience. Maybe I'm on a tight schedule today and I want to see how a quest reward was. Do I want to spent 20 minutes walking to Windhelm, or do I want to be there right away so I'm not late for my dentist appointment?

That has nothing to do with muddled game design. You're crackers my friend. Crackers.

lol. You're leaving a couple things out.

The game SPELLED OUT what the classes were, and THEN you picked a class. They took your hand and neatly spelled it out so you didn;t have to do anything on your own. The saving grace there was you could makea custom class, which many players did anyway. In Skyrim, with the different Stones, races, and choice of perks, you essentially have the same thing but it's a more complex mechnaic and requires more player input, time, and thought. Don't tell me that's "dumbing down". Your not looking at what the game presented to you and your not realizing what it means is not an example of the game "dumbing down".

Skyrim's biggest weakness compared to Oblivion and Morrowind, could be the quests, even the main quest failed to impress me.

Don't get me wrong Skyrim is fun to play, its like a popcorn movie, but I think its been gutted compared to the previous games. I don't care if you put the most up to date graphics in the game, the story is what keeps me interested, not graphics.

If I wanted pretty graphics and no story, I would walk outside and experience real life

+1, Bethesda have become overzealous in fixing what isn't broken, and removing the small things that made the series better.

What you are missing are the CONSEQUENCES that went into picking a class BEFORE you even started the game. In Skyrim you can change what you want on the fly without it affecting the game in any way. In previous TES games if you changed what you wanted to be you were still stuck with the majors and minors, or just majors in Oblivion, and because of that you couldn't level up like you could if you stayed withing your class.

There are no CONSEQUENCES in Skyrim, that is why classes are essential.

As far as the races go, there is no difference between them. They all start with the same health, same magical and same stamina. Where are the consequences for picking one race over another? There is NONE.

[censored] me, at least in MO and OB, the classes made you pause and think when you were creating your character. Now you pick whatever race is your favorite and jam 'accept'. Despite what your opinion on the classes may be, they did nothing to harm the game. There was nothing wrong with picking one at the start, nobody hated the idea, and it did'nt ruin anyones experience, so why remove it? It was a small harmless piece of RP immersion, and it certainly didn't warrant removal.

Skyrim does an excellent job of giving the player options to change his/her character's development at any time. Combat is much better than previous titles and I think magic is too (in terms of sounds, effects, and gameplay), although, many feel that the lack of Spellmaking and overall number of spells reduces variety. NPC interaction is debatable too. There are very few options to change NPC disposition and in many cases, disposition just doesn't exist. Exploration is incredible given the breath-taking landscapes and exciting dungeons and caves.

Skyrim will feel very similar to Oblivion, despite the shedding of some features. I've played TES since Daggerfall and Skyrim is my favorite so far, except for Morrowind, because I feel the actual act of RPing is limited compared to Morrowind. Having that said, Skyrim is wonderfully fun in it's own way.

simple. When they designed morrowind they had to place each location depending on how difficult it should be to find it. Many locations were easy to find. Some were too hard, so frustration could build up, that was an issue. some were intentionally hard to find and there were usually goodies there. Since oblivion, they dodged the issue with the walkthrough-arrow. The arrow is a design flaw much like convenience functions are sometimes a design flaw, as they encourage the "grinding through content" assembly line mentality that makes for impersonal, characterless games.
The morrowind feel was that the world and its hills, mountains and trees became familiar to you. Exploring felt like you really were out there. Finding locations was a way to get to know the world, discovering quests and locations on the side, and fighting. that was accomplished by having to actually walk the distances.

I will comment on fast travel here a minute. I for one understand and agree with the reasons why it's a bad thing. However, it is optional. That means I can explore, even though everything is shown to me on the damn compass, and I do not have to use Fast Travel.

The problem is when you design the game based on Fast Travel being in the game you make decisions that you might not make if the only travel options were carriages or walking or horses.

I personally do not have a problem with Fast Travel, I don't use it. I'm not forced to. To me it's not that big a deal when there are so many other things in the game that are broken and way more important than how you travel from town to town.

Didn't like Oblivion so I won't bother comparing Skyrim to it.

I preferred the MQ of Morrowind to Skyrim's. Skyrim's was fine (I personally enjoyed the last battle and final scene) but I enjoyed how Morrowind made you become part of its world via the Ashlander Tribes, the Houses and the interaction with its local temples. I also really loved the encounter with Azura and its reveal on Nerevarine history; failure was still clearly a possibility.

Skyrim's leveling system is the best to date for me. I don't miss classes or levelling points into attributes; I also don't miss the failure system, particularly in Speechcraft and Restoration. Skyrim's perks are an excellent step i the right direction though the system of course needs tinkering.

Someone mentioned above how they found Skyrim similar to Morrowind and I agree. Both draw you in with their splendid environments; being a stranger gives you an excuse for your ignorance and a reason to gape at the beauty around you.