So. Skyrim is one of my favorite games of all time. I absolutely love it. My main character is at level 52, having a long career ranging from Harbinger of the Companions to Legate in the Imperial Legion to Vampire Hunter. It's been fun to seem him evolve as time went on. More than that, what's been fascinating about Skyrim is delving into these old ruins. Going backward and finding all these ancient relics of power and using them to react to the new challenges Skyrim gives me. From the Eye of Magnus, to Ysgrammor's Shield to Auriel's Bow there is always some ancient artifact of power out there for us to find during these quests.

And it's always been that way hasn't it? When I was playing Oblivion, I was going after Umbra and the Crusader Relics. In Morrowind, there was stuff like the Lord's Mail.

My point is, in The Elder Scrolls I always feel like I'm chasing the past. I always feel like my character is digging backward to find ancient stuff. Always. And you know what'd be nice? A chance for something new. A chance for my character to create that crazy new relic of power, a chance to create that new enemy that will show up over and over again. I want to feel like I'm really affecting things, and not just grabbing a hold of what's been there for centuries. Give me....give me a quest to trap the essence of some ancient abomination to create a new artifact. Give me an scheming wizard using his skills with alchemy in disgusting experiments that will create new enemies to roam the land. Make things I do change things.

I know, you guys like to leave it open. You don't like to say "The main character did X." But Bethesda? You're smart. You're smart, and you know how to dance your way around lore. In my new artifact example, it's easy to just talk about the beast trapped inside and not give specifics on what got there. In the wizard example, just give the credit to the wizard and his "team of unknown assistants".

I dunno. I guess I'm a little bored of finding the latest world destroying doom artifact that people haven't rounded up yet (Who's running this thing? Lord British? Yeesh).

Edit: One line expansion. In Skyrim, we're already in what feels like the past. So why are we constantly reaching further backward?

But we can enchant items to make them legendary WOMAD's, we can create as many items as we wish to do so as well as become the Dragonborn of Legend and save the day, essentially becoming the hero or anti-hero if you so wish. Some good points but without the ability to have others experience your game symultaneously, this is how single player games tend to lean.

A very interesting topic though my good sir!