I have just started my Skyrim experience and I must admit I am so far VERY disappointed in the experience. I am an avid Morrowind and Oblivion (especially Oblivion) player and the massive changes to the user interface made in Skyrim, to put it bluntly, just plain svck.

Yea so they want to 'save' money by combining console crap with PC. I get it.. but that does not make it right... NOR give the feel of a quality title. The controls stink, the inventory really svcks big time, I tried using even some basic items like those in Oblivion only to find they can not be used or manipulated.... I.E. Lanterns etc.

I do admit the visuals are stunning and very well done but the user interface really is bad in my opinion and needs to be revamped for PC players. I cannot stand consoles nor console controllers... It makes a game feel like an arcade game no matter what you are playing.. Oblivion and now Skyrim are NOT arcade games... they are full in depth roleplaying experiences that should be delved into in a manner that is not akin to an arcade shoot-em up.

Of course the other two complaints are this steam crap requirement.. I DO NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS in my home and cannot yet get it... Had to haul this big ass machine someplace to activate the dam game.. I am tired of devs ASSUMING we all live in the big city and have access...

Finally I am also tired of being a BETA TESTER for these devs. There is NO excuse for some of these bugs right out of the box,,, and I can say it because I AM a coder myself and although no one can find every single little bug without fault, game stopping, game crashing, game lock up bugs are INEXCUSEABLE period. My main code box is a top of the line system with the latest gen everything.. if something hardware wise is released during my code I upgrade that machine to insure full upward and downward compatibililty. I code downwards to insure this while also insuring compatibility and CAPABILITY with the latest gen stuff.

Well that is my rant.. There is much more to do in Skyrim... I only HOPE the storyline and the quests and the RPG element lives up to the Elder Scrolls experience. So far I am not impressed - especially with the crappy interface.

Take it light......
Malakie

For me, this is the best game ever .

I have seen so many unwarranted complaints about the interface. It's okay once you get used to it (I concede, I AM using an Xbox controller).

The controls are almost identical to Oblivion. The inventory is quite simple to manage, much more so than Oblivion or Morrowind. You're actually complaining about not being able to use a [censored] lantern, really? And the last time I checked, arcade games didn't use CONTROLLERS.

Sorry you just lost me when you said avid Oblivion player
Skyrim has its faults no doubt and may not equal MW for me (yet to decide on that) but in so many ways it hammers Oblivion into well oblivion

I dont know if its different outside of the UK, but have you been to a gaming retailer lately? As all over here... the pc game sections are getting smaller and smaller by the day, infact, Gamestation, our second biggest retailer in the country has stopped selling PC games completely.

As much as people dont like it... consoles are sadly the future, pc gamers are dwindling, we are only 2 generations away from the idea of pc gaming being something nerds do in a basemant, like those people that get together and play pong on their win 95 machines.

Well this [...] as you put it used HIS hard earned money to PAY for Bethesda to release this title and many more.. As I said before, using a controller makes games like this feel ARCADE like not RPG AND I never said the inventory was not easy to manage rather it svckED in its display, functionality etc... Have you even played Oblivion?

Tell me how do I manipulate items in my inventory other than a click that allows me to pretty much do nothing? How do I easily setup Hotkeys for changing weapons, spells etc with but a click? How do I USE just about EVERY item like Lanterns and more like Oblivion?

I know I know you are one of those 'Bethesda can do no wrong' and Skyrim is perfect people who cannot see the issues because of blinders.. Fine, but for many of us these issues are unexpected and should not be.. We expected Skyrim to blow us Oblivion players away INCLUDING with the interface. I keep gravitating back to Oblivion because the 'feel' is so much more immersive than Skyrim at this point. Graphically Skyrim is awesome.. But interface and such.. crap crap crap.

I understand that the interface may not be very well-designed for PC-centric controls, but it's hard to sympathize with someone who calls anything dealing with a console crap and "arcadey"/non-RPG-ish, as though inherently so. Why must nearly every PC interface complaint contain some form of explicit hatred and stereotypical misrepresentation of consoles? We have an entire genre of RPGs available to only those of us on consoles and I'd appreciate it if my platform of choice wasn't called "crap" or "arcadey" simply because a game controller works better with certain types of interfaces. I agree that keyboard and mouse controls need a separate interface of their own for how they function, but please... enough with the console bashing. It doesn't promote your point and instead of eliciting empathy, it invokes anger.

You must be high on crack. Even bad as Oblivion was untill the community fixed it it still wasn't this bad. This game was solely desgined for consoles and console players, period. A lot of us feel very misled by gamesas. Like class-action suit misled. If they offered me a refund I'd take it in a heartbeat. I certainly won't be buying anything else from them. gamesas is dead as a PC gaming house now.

Okay, yes.
Good, no.

It singlehandedly pulls down this game for a 9.5/10 to a 9/10 for me.

The UI does not bother me and since you are on pc it is easily fixed by a mod. I too feel that some elements have been lost in the streamline process but I chalk it up to an evolution of game design. Sure I would like seperate pants and greaves but they also included armor that doesnt have a top piece. It's a good game despite its deviation from certain Elder Scrolls elements. As for the lantern? Well more fix that too, ill take mod capability over a UI built for pc users any day. Bethesda has to finish the game and cannot please everyone. Sorry you feel the way you do.

@halsy. That's a bit overboard. They clearly stated what the UI would be like and for the most part that is my one Pc version related issue. Just download a UI mod and chill out.

I also have some issues with the UI myself but I don't see it as a huge deal. Mostly how a "quick to access and leave" wasn't accomplished but wasn't one of my goals, it was BGS's. And the disconnect of the quest log from the main 4.

As for Skyrim itself.

OP, Morrowind and Oblivon /=/ longtime player for one. Arena and Daggerfall players like myself who played them in the 90s get that honor if it exists.

Skyrim cohesively for me in 3-4 hours of play blasts past Oblivion for sure, Fallout 3 possibly, and is close to Morrowind. All 3 were disappointing BGS works. Morrowind and FO 3 were my most shocking experiences of blunders from BGS.

My issues currently mostly are in AI and how their not advanced with advanced reactions or enemies like bandits again popping at you all "kill me" with no secondary AI such as a warning shot then speaking to you from afar.

Dungeon design so far meet Morrowind. Writing I can't tell but seems better than Oblivion. Voice acting for sure is the best from a BGS game to date.

Aye, it does svck. I know what it's like.

I pretty much agree with the OP. Yeah, the interface is workable on a PC, but I think it's far from ideal. Maybe I missed it, but even having / being able to sort inventory by function or type (boots, helms, etc) instead of alphabetically would make things easier (and I feel insulted by the triangle graphic that lets me know which stuff is "better")

The worst part of the gaming experience for me is that Skyrim feels much more like Bethesda's Fallout than it does earlier Elder Scroll installments.

I'll agree that the UI is a bit klunky in its Console to PC port. I am pretty sure they didn't change at all how it works from the consoles to the pc, and just remapped the key entries which is kind of sad : /. I don't have that big of an issue with it though, because once you figure out what key does what in the menu it's okay to use. Also having a Razer Naga mouse doesn't hurt for the favorites list for weapons, spells and potions lol.

Yes, the way it used to be. Back when PC games were great. When the Atari and Nintendos of the world were meant for the kiddies while the grownups played PC games. I will gladly welcome a return to those times.

Although, console players shouldn't delude themselves into thinking "consoles are the future", because their not.

Look at PS3 and 360 now. Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, webbrowsers, etc.

Consoles are trying to be what PC's have always been and when consoles get to the point where they're just as good as PC's, THEY'LL BE PC's.

So we win either way.

Well, think about what you would do if most of the market plays console. You wouldn't focus on developing the game from a PC standpoint.

Am I the only person not having trouble with the default pc interface? It's fine. It's not the best thing in the world, but it's far from the godawful mess people keep claiming it to be.

As far as the internet issue, this is a tired old argument that has been done to death. Sorry, but you are in the minority, like the minority of the minority. Everyone has basic internet access these days. It's not up to the devs to ensure you have what 99% of the world has. They ASSUME that since you have a decent pc you also have internet- who uses a computer without internet? The mind doth boggle.

Now I played Oblvion on console so correct if i'm wrong but I thought the general thought on the PC interface was terrible also. FYI laterns weren't usable in oblivion, torches were like they're now.

The biggest existential question about the game is :

Why did they changed Fatigue with Stamina?!

The UI is garbage.** The problems with layout have been pointed out over and over, since the day they released photos of it.

What really svcks is it looks like they did nothing to fix the design errors many of us spent hours painstakingly noting.

Shame on them.


** pc or console, the UI is crap either way

Quoted for truth

Yes.. but the overlining feature of it all is simplicity. The main issue defining the consoles from the pc is the UI, and that UI is worked around the console pad, its simplified for the console pad. The main problem 99% of PC players have with the interface is a direct result of the simplification. There is not the over-complicated navigation options that PC's can cope with due to having a direct input device, say for example, going straight to a button labled "armor" in a list of choices. Instead you have to scroll through them. Its things like this that are causing the problems.

Could bethesda have improved this for the PC? Yes. No doubt
Is it worth their time?... obviously not.

The markets failing for the pc, it has been for years, PC gamers are now a niche, and everytime someone points it out someone drags some statistics up from somewhere, which always fail under scruitiny as the same sites they pull the statistics off, show that console users are almost double if not tripple the amount. Skyrim has been marketed as a console game, the PC version is a console port, thats how theyve made the game thats how they want the game to be percieved.

lol stupid kid go play oblivion then! this game is fine sure there are some bugs but can u name 1 game that got released in the last 10 years that didn't have a single bug, and the interface is just [censored] fine! its way better then oblivion had. (IMHO its faster more organized and i can see every item from all angels). k so u can't hold z and moove [censored] around who cares. and everyone who is complaining about this being a console port GO F UR SELFS it looks more like it was optimized to work with a controller then a actual console port (i do hope your smart enough to know the difference ) and even is this was a console port its a damn good one for all u stupid whiners out there heres a tip: GET RID OF UR PC UR NOT WORTHY ENOUGH

There it is, the iconic and annoying Xbox360 fan boy kid who thinks his console is the best, and never played Morrowind, where we could easely see every items with had in our inventory.




Though, in the game, the item viewer is pretty fun...