First off let me say that I'm 35 and have played every Elder Scrolls game extensively. Due to my work schedule and family life I have little time to play each day or every other day so I havn't played a 50+ hours like some have. I played the heck out of Oblivion and loved the mods people created for the game and look forward to the mods to Skyrim by the community to fix/enhance this game on the PC.


Pro's -

- I like combat better than the other games. I feel there is a little more going on then prior versions, although multiple combatants still feels odd.

- "Dungeons" delving makes me actually feel like I'm in some dark dank crypt and exploring it feels very challenging

- The voice acting. Thank god everywhere I go I don't hear the same few voices for all races and towns like Oblivion. Big kudos to realism there.

- When I first walked up to The first main city I was amazed at the architecture and the overall look and still am to this day throughout the game.

- Undead. An RPG wouldn't be an RPG without undead and wow they look/act better in this game than I ever thought they could.

- Increased AI for things going on day to day with the average joe in the game and creatures is fun to watch and a great immersion effect.

- Dragons. - Just watching the dragon and getting to fight it has been a huge joy in this game. Any RPG fan can relate I believe.

- Smithing, tanning and cooking. Very fun and while they need some tweaking from modders, I am glad they are in the game.



Con's -

-Ability stats? This is an RPG! How can there be no stats?

-Disease. I guess I contracted some kind of disease but since I have no way to know (stat decreases, a status page, something?) instead of the page that says "diseases contracted 1" which isn't helpful since once you are cured it still shows so who knows what's current and isn't after playing for a long time. When I went to the first town people kept saying I looked sick. I thought they were roleplaying my character I created?!?

- The menu system. Overly taylored for a game controller. Character creation was annoying trying to move the sliders on my 1920X1080 monitor.

- Keybinding... Did anyone that beta tested change a key on the keyboard or was there no testing what-so-ever on the PC side. When you change your sheath button and others the ingame commands still say to hit the original button and are no longer correct. Some buttons do multiple things but the configuration doesn't say what they all do. I.E. the sheath button is also the drop item button in your inventory? How would I know that? The booklet and game configuration don't say this...

- Weapon/armor degradation. We can actually smith now, and your items never get wear and tear like in previous versions of the game... At least make a toggle switch for it so the "hardcoe" gamers can have it that way. Not needing to carry a back up weapon in an RPG seems silly IMO.-

- Shadows. What the hell has happened to the smooth Oblivion shadows? Oblivion was on consoles too so I don't understand the dumbing down of them?





Anyhow this was my first impression of about 10+ hours in and I am having a great time. I know the majority if not all my cons list will be changed by modders but I just wanted to add my 2 cents as a long time Dungeons and Dragons player, elder scrolls player, and all around RPG fan.

The resource is now being shared by statics and static moveables, only the player character, NPC's and creatures cast shadows in Oblivion.

I guess it was better the old way? I don't know but the huge ugly jagged shadows in this game couldn't have been what they wanted?

You can see this if you go to Magic -> Active Effects in the menu.

Thanks.