There may be very minor spoilers contained here but I will spoiler tag anything significant and be as vague as possible throughout.


Yes, another one of these but I'm not a Morrowwind really devoted fan like many on here, mostly because I never played it. I have played Oblivion a lot and while it was fun it had... problems. I generally think Skyrim is better than Oblivion but I really don't think it's all it could have, or should have, been. My problems with Skyrim are more problems I have with modern games in general. I've been gaming for 25 years, I literally grew up with video games (I'm 28) and I've watched some changes take place in games in general that I doubt many newer gamers even know happened. So enough about me, time to talk about my "problems" with Skyrim.


The (Dis)Connected World: It feels like the province of Skyrim is very disconnected. Having guards spout random one-liners in Whiterun because you did something in Riften is great, but it's not enough. Each of the holds feels entirely disconnected from the rest. Nothing you do in Whiterun is going to have any impact on Riften nor will Riften impact Whiterun. I think the one that bothers me the most is the Forsworn. While I understand they care about The Reach primarily they somehow just don't really "exist" for the rest of Skyrim.

Gothic 3 (not a perfect game, just an example) is a game where the world felt connected to me. There was more or less 3 areas of the game which were separate from one another but there was overlap as well. What you did in one city had lasting effects on other cities. Largely through the reputation system. Fallout New Vegas had the same. What you did in one area of the game "followed you" and effected other areas of the game in a meaningful way. This leads to my next point...


Consequences: There aren't any really. The civil war seems to be the closest thing to consequences for your actions and even that is largely superficial changes in the end. Also a few quests relocate, or add, useless NPCs to various locations. For example if you save a guy during a quest he will forever after wander around some city spouting one liners about how great you are when you pass by, the rest of the world doesn't give two turds that the guy is alive. Some quests literally have no effect at all. There was one quest I did that I guy camped out in the woods complained his castle had been taken by bandits and could I please get his home back. I said sure, slaughtered a bunch of bandits and opened the gate. The guy walks in and says "Hey, thanks for getting my castle back. Here's some money!" A while later I happen to be passing by again and the guy is sitting at his campfire (again) and gives me some random one liner about nothing and I realize the castle is filled with bandits again. I couldn't help feeling like I wasted my time on that quest (I've cleared that castle 5 times now and the guy is still siting outside because it's filled with bandits).

I said it in another thread and it pains me to say it but: Nothing you do in Skyrim has any effect on anything else. NPCs all exist for a specific purpose and nothing you can do will prevent that NPC from fulfilling that purpose (except the rare NPCs that you can actually kill that also offer quests). There's one guy you can get thrown in jail and ruin his life but still do a quest for him. Gothic 3 has a lot of quests that are mutually exclusive. You cannot do both because doing one quest pisses off another guy, or kills him, or otherwise changes the world in a way that prevents doing the other quest. Skyrim has been made "user-friendly" so you can't screw yourself out of experiencing content. When I played Ultima 7 it took me around 5 years to beat (I didn't have strategy guides back then or gamefaqs.com). Many times I did things that quite literally screwed me completely. I could no longer finish X quest (which was sometimes the main quest) because of a particular action I undertook, possibly doing another quest, or stealing from a guy and getting caught, or killing the wrong person. What you did and the choices you made mattered in the game and bad things could happen to YOU if made poor choices. Which leads me to my next point...


Regret: This isn't just Skyrim but most games for around the last decade. You seldom experience a feeling of regret because of a choice you made in game because of in game consequences. I know some of you are thinking "WTF? Why do I want to regret my choices in game?" or maybe you're thinking up jokes about "regretting buying games" or some such thing, but stick with me here. It's really hard to explain this point to people who didn't experience it. It's even harder to explain why it's important.

Older games didn't have these "user protections" that prevented you from wrecking your game. Ultima 7 for example I used to have one save file in which the world was dead. I literally killed everyone and everything (except respawning monsters). The game let me do that. True I could no longer finish the game, there were no quests to complete, or stores to buy things from and the save was generally useless but the point is it let me do that. Skyrim makes sure you can't screw yourself. You can't do anything that will force you to restart because you screwed yourself. Bethesda basically "child-proofed" the game so that the player can't "hurt themselves" by doing things that are a "bad idea." Again this isn't unique to Skyrim, it's a trend in gaming that results from comments like "if I shouldn't do it the game shouldn't let me." Well you know when I slaughtered everything in Ultima 7 I knew it was a bad idea if I wanted to finish the game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out killing random people is probably a bad thing to do.

Other ways to give players a feeling of regret is simply by forcing them to make choices, for example suppose joining the Dark Brotherhood required you to kill an NPC that would forever screw you out of doing something else or doing whatever for that NPC would prevent you from joining the Dark Brotherhood. It forces a choice on the player, but not necessarily a choice they are aware they are making. So later on they find out "Oh... crap... Maybe I shouldn't have killed/helped that guy..." There needs to be the negative emotional response to choice just as much as positive, can't have one without the other and all that. Which leads to the next point...


Choice: As much as I hate to beat this horse (which if it isn't dead it's on life support), Skyrim has a serious lack of real choices to make. The civil war is a really good choice players have to make, most other things... not so much. 99% of quests in this game the "choice" you make is "Do I spend 30 minutes and get monies... or no?" I don't even think about what the task is, who I'm helping, or anything because none of that honestly matters. I know that once the quest is done it will be like it never happened. It's not just about the consequences though. There are a few quests around Skyrim that give you illusion of choice but they aren't usually choices are all (e.g. Cicero on the side of the road) because there is no meaningful consequences. Sometimes even if the end point is the same having a choice about which path the take is enough. Though different consequences is preferable because it gives the choice a feeling of significance. Especially when you can actually make the "wrong choice" or the "right choice." There's a quest in Whiterun involving some Alik'r (you all know the one I'm sure, if not, spoilers ahead).



Well enough about choices, consequences and what not.

Auto-mapping and the "Compass," and Quest Markers: This is something I wish had never become standard. Also a "dead horse" by now but I'm going to briefly touch on it anyway.

People who aren't old-gamers probably won't appreciate the problem. Most new-gamers I will hear say things like "WTF? No auto-mapping, this game svcks!" My ideal would be a game with an in-game map (looks like a "real map") with a "You Are Here" marker, and "real compass" that tells you nothing other than "you are facing North" and no quest markers but instead detailed journal notes and/or instructions provided by the quest giver. Then give the player the ability to place markers with about 250 characters for each marker. That's all just to save paper and environmental reasons and what-not. Most old-gamers probably remember having stacks of papers, notes, hand-drawn maps of dungeons, and assorted tables, lists, and charts for every RPG they got serious about (or maybe you have a really good memory and all that was in your head).

With things the way they are in Skyrim it strips away a lot of the sense of discovery. There was a thread just recently about a certain "Giant Dead Mudcrab" someone stumbled on and the thrill they got from finding it. I've never seen a post saying "OMG!! I found a Dragon on the top of a mountain with a word wall!!" Why? Because you just have to get close-ish to it and your compass says "Hey, right there." When it's a given that you will find it you have no sense of pride/accomplishment/joy when you find it. This system Skyrim uses also seriously hinders the ability for the programmers to include secrets and hidden areas (intentional or otherwise)...


Secrets: Anyone who's been a serious gamer for ~15+ years knows that the number of secrets and hidden areas in games has dropped off dramatically over the years. The very existence of the "compass" in Skyrim handicaps the possibility for "hidden areas." Sometimes a hidden area is hidden just because it's out of the way and the average player doesn't wander up that mountain, or check behind that waterfall, or whatever else. When your "compass" says "Go here" and when you get "close-ish" the game announces in a very in your face way "YOU FOUND IT!!!" It's really hard to "miss a cave."

It's not just locations though. It's also equipment, maybe special skills, whatever. These sorts of things can't exist in MMOs but they can in single player games. There are a few things which are close in Skyrim, like a 3 piece amulet, but the quest markers and compass really kill the sense of discovery. It just makes it a slightly longer "go here" quest. There needs to be a possibility of failure and/or not ever finding it for there to be a real sense of pride/joy in finding it and succeeding. Speaking of succeeding....


Challenge: Challenge comes in many different flavours but the fact is games are getting "easier." If you go to any video game forum today and make a thread saying "I beat the game!" the "nice" responses will be "yeah... so?" That wasn't always the case. These days beating a game is a matter of time, that's it. This is in part because of "Save Game" and "Difficulty Sliders" but it's also because the industry has taken the approach that "everyone should be able to beat the game." I still remember the first time I ever beat Rogue (a very old game from the 80s which inspired many later games now often known as "Diablo style games"). When you started a game of Rogue there was absolutely no guarantee you would win, in fact it was very possible that you could not win no matter what. It took a lot of skill and a fair amount of luck to beat Rogue. Even games like Super Mario 1, 2 or 3 on the Nintendo, if you can go from 1-1 to the end and beat those games you have some bragging rights (especially if you didn't use level warps). Modern games just don't afford players true bragging rights for much of anything. Of course there are exceptions, like if you got the survivor title in Guild Wars (before the change). I suspect that's why players now do things like "Dead is Dead" and "Naked Nord." We're forced to figure out ways to actually make it so it's not a given that we'll succeed. Some people want bragging rights. Also people like "games within games."


Mini Games: I think the Super Nintendo was the pinnacle of the mini game. Mini-games don't need to be very complicated things, or even important to the story. Fallout New Vegas had the casinos but it actually bugged me that you could get banned from playing. Skyrim has the bar brawls, but they are one time only. They could have easily put in something like an "underground fight club" thing that's just for fun. Other possibilities are: a foot race, a shooting competition, a coliseum with pre-set gear, or any number of other things. I honestly believe that large RPGs need mini-games. Just random little things that you can do to break up the game-play. Heck, even Starcraft 2 had the "Lost Viking" game and that was epic. A lot of times that's what mini-games are though, old games from the 80s or early 90s slapped in to a modern game just for fun, and they are fun.

Mini-games can also add a sense of flavour to the game. The Final Fantasy series did a great job of this in the past. FFVII had the Casino and Choco Breeding (among others). FFVIII had a card game, FFIX had a card game as well and many other mini-games. FFX had Blitz Ball. They add something to the main game even though they are technically separate from it.


Conclusion

I do like Skyrim. I just feel like they missed an opportunity for making a truly great game so we ended up with a good game instead. I understand things like auto-mapping, the "compass" and quest markers would have to be optional because some people like them. But for those old-timers like me that miss "the good old days" that's all we want, the option.

TLDR OMG YOU BASH SKYRIM YOU HATER *starts a new anti-hate thread*

just kidding

Good post and good points..
Most of these are the reason i went back to FNV after realising that i couldn't really get myself into the game as with the previous TES.
Hope the modding community patches up its weak points, though not everything can be improved.

I agree, Skyrim is a good game but a bad elder scrolls game in comparison imo.

Can you honestly name one thing that couldn't be better though? Think about it, EVERYTHING could be better than it is (except bacon of course, bacon is perfect no matter how you slice it). I guess I just get tired sometimes of all the people who are never "quite" content with a game. It is what it is, they made the game they were willing to make. We could spend the next hundred years arguing about the many ways it could be improved (and it could) but in the end, what does it matter? It just seems so futile to spend so much time and energy wishing for something that isn't.

As for things not affecting other cities, some are pleased that not all the guards want to kill them because they murdered someone elsewhere. And how would they know? Yet so many guards seem to have the same career and family histories.

Yea everything could be better. But to me, who have played Bethesda's FO3, FNV (mostly by obsi this one) and every other TES, it feels that in many things (not all) Bethesda has taken a step backwards in this game.

Regarding consequences, regret, and choice, I'm all for the player having to make tough decisions, seriously weigh the consequences of what they do, and being punished if they make poor decisions. Unfortunately, not nearly enough games do this. The real world isn't black-and-white with clear right and wrong choices, but in video games there's normally limited or no gray area and just clear black and white. In real life you could be presented with shady "I've got a deal for you" sorts of situations, and they might be tempted by the potential for great rewards, but at the same time there's normally the threat of severe consequences should they go through with it. You could have the option to cheat on your spouse, and on the one hand might get by with it and gain free bonus intimacy with someone else, but you could also potentially get busted and severely cripple or completely destroy your relationship and possible legal consequences as well (generally monetary). I'd like for the player to be faced with more real choices and these choices to carry serious consequences.

Regarding the compass and that sort of thing, in a way I can agree with you and in a way I can't. It's bloody wonderful that Oblivion and Skyrim have organized my quest notes for me. In Morrowind it was just a cluttered mess of notes in a virtual notebook, all listed in the order that they were entered, meaning I might have to read through the last twenty-some pages of notes to find relevant information. If I was writing all this in real life, I'd organize them with related information lumped together. Similarly, it's nice that the game shows me which icon on my map was the location I need to go to, versus me having to look around the map for five minutes to find it. Now, I would like the idea of not having them show up if you haven't yet discovered that location, but if I've already found it I would like to save myself five minutes of pouring over the map to find it again. The player can write down a stack of notes, or the game can do it for them which is just convenience. We get the same result but without the hassle.

As for secrets, I do like secrets and discovering them. As I said before, I don't mind the game taking care of the notes that I would otherwise have ended up making myself anyway, but wouldn't mind if it didn't throw things at me that I hadn't already discovered, like secret cave entrances or quest locations in places that I haven't yet been to.

I wouldn't disagree. But think about it. What about your cellphone? Shouldn't it have been better? The steak you got at that restuarant last night? That last movie you went to? Yup, could have been just a bit better, if only....

Every single thing you encounter every single day could and should have been better. But in the end, we are always going to be ultimately stuck with what ever it is that we got. I just don't get why people spend so much time wishing (ESPECIALLY regarding games, not so much elsewhere).

I wasn't suggesting that the guards want to kill you because you have a bounty somewhere else. Besides the guards all seem to always know everything you do everywhere you go. The guards in Markarth know you're a new companion or whatever immediately.

I was thinking of things like being the Arch-Mage doesn't matter anywhere except in the college (and even then barely). Being the Harbinger of the companions doesn't matter outside Whiterun (and barely there). It's that nothing you do in one city matters elsewhere. It's actually not just the holds that are disconnected, even two NPCs standing next to each other are "disconnected" unless they belong to the same quest.

Considering when I got my cellphone and what it could do? No, actually, I was quite impressed by what it was capable of. That steak was very filling and left me quite satisfied. No complaints. The last movie... Yeah, that one could have been better. Talk about a crappy adaptation...

Skyrim? I agree with the OP. In many ways I feel like they stepped backwards. And the lack of many of these things leaves the game feeling empty and soulless. Why? Because nothing you do really feels like it matters or makes any real difference.

Do you realize that your complaints, and your descriptions of how to fix them, would basically turn the game into an unplayable tedium that 99.9% of gamers would never buy? Quest logs replacing markers in an open world? Seriously? Yeah, you did mention Gothic 3. And that was one of it's greatest flaws. Yep, down by the coast and to the west that bad old bandit was holed up. BUT, the coast is like MILES long, and he's a good mile or two INLAND. Sorry, no way simple "real life" quest logs work well in an open world. You can always turn the markers off if you don't want them.

Seriously, there's a universe of difference between what you seem to expect in a game and what actually sells. You seem to relish that it took you 5 years to beat Ultima 7. FIVE YEARS? Dude, seriously? Either you're REALLY bad at gaming or you intentionally muff yourself just because you can. Most gamers aren't masochists who paint themselves into corners where they can't finish the game. AND, newsflash, if the game allows for user judgement to make it unfinishable, it's considered a MAJOR flaw, and rightfully so. That's poor game design. The Ultima series was my least favorite, BTW, surpassed only by Might and Magic as truly the worst of the worst "big time" RPGs. Anyway, there is ZERO market for a game that will take you longer to finish then the average life of a new mid-range PC.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand what you're saying about consequences, and I do agree to an extent. Maybe you're missing things, paying too much attention to stuff that you shouldn't and not enough to stuff that you should. I played an assassin. The holds all recognized certain actions I took. But, being rural, they could have no idea *I* was the perpetrator, even if I did get caught. It's not like PCs walk around with neon signs on their foreheads. This I kind of like about Skyrim. It's "news", but it's not like they have photo ids of you. OTOH, if I "steal" a peddlers horse, who's just been murdered by bandits, shouldn't it NOT be stolen? And why do I have to pay a bounty if said peddler AND the bandits that killed him (thanks to me) are also dead? Those kinds of bit flags bother me.

With that said, there are too many named and consequential PCs in Skyrim, IMO, for their actions and reactions to be guided by each and every one of YOUR reactions. FO was simpler. It SEEMED to you that your actions and far-reaching consequences, but only because they were scripted (sort of). Skyrim is completely open.

Let me start off by saying, I love this game, and it's one of my favorites thus far, and I've played since Daggerfall. Now, I totally agree with this. I don't have a problem with the voice acting, or even the dialogue really, for me the problem is that the interconnected-ness of it all isn't very deep. Again, it doesn't ruin the game for me, but I agree. The Forsworn should be a bigger deal, especially if you .

There are a few consequential decisions that can be made, the rest are left up to your imagination. Again, I think the problems isn't so much consequence on it's own, but the dialogue. Like you said, you can go and kill many a bandit for someone and they thank and praise you, then you run into them again and they are total asses. To me that's so much consequence, as dialogue as the first problem.

Sort or repeated yourself.

I do know what you mean. I have actually regretted some of my choices in game, some of the big ones in fact. There was one that actually bothered me for awhile. But I see what you mean, there's not enough of that to make the game feel like a emotional roller coaster. Some people don't like those, so it's more of a matter of opinion, I think.

Agreed. But look at the massive user base of this game. Out of millions, can you imagine the sheer amount of whining and crying that would ensue if some idiot who wasn't paying attention accidentally killed a main quest giver before doing the quest? It's really more of a safety check against those kinds of players, because nowadays the genre isn't only for those of us with a love of a pure and totally consequential RPG, there are those that are here just to have fun and kill things. Those people can't have a game like that. I'd probably mess up a few times and share a few choice words with the game.

Your DB idea would be a blast. I'd love it, a lot of people would. If the game made it clear that you'd be burning a bridge and that it was a serious decision, I'd be all for it. But again, see my above post. Some people would just tab out of the convo, kill everything then flood the forums with, "OMG QUEST BROKENS ESTYLKSJ" and you know it. I might like it to be a real consequence, but a lot wouldn't. Bethesda is aiming for population for their games, and since I like all their games, I'm okay with that, because it ensures they keep making those games. It's a trade-off I learn to live with.

That poor horse. On the bright side in the game your horse will beat everything else! :celebration:


Well enough about choices, consequences and what not.

Thank the gods for mods. I know that's a [censored] answer, but that's what will have to happen for all the above stated reasons. I will be okay with that, personally. I'm sorry.


I wasn't aware you could "win" Skyrim. Even after all the main quests and guild/faction quests, you can still just wander around. It's not exactly what you're talking about, but again, I'm personally fine with it. Opinions will be opinions. Rogue was a fun game, btw.


Not a good argument here from me, I'm just absolutely not a fan of mini-games, for me storyline and dialogue does it. Mini-games were a tedious side-task that I just had to do, haha.


I'm glad that out of all these types of threads you took the time to organize your thoughts and present them in a mature, advlt fashion that I could actually follow on and make agreements and disagreements in a fashion that didn't end with us calling each other names and punching our monitors, haha. I'll repeat myself for my own conclusion.

Bethesda is aiming for population for their games, and since I like all their games, I'm okay with that, because it ensures they keep making those games. It's a trade-off I learn to live with. I'm still having fun. That's the bottom line for me, personally.

That's why I was suggesting those functions be optional. I know not everyone wants to have to make their own maps, or follow NPC directions like "go south to the fork in the road and then south-west up the mountain to the cave." As long as quest markers remain there's no reason directions can't also exist and make everyone happy is there?

Ultima 7 took me 5 years but I didn't play it for 5 years straight. I was also much younger then. I also know many people are like you and think that "if the game allows for user judgement to make it unfinishable, it's considered a MAJOR flaw, and rightfully so" I don't entirely agree but whatever. I was trying to illustrate a change in the industry. Although I DO think if your first trip to the Greybeards you decide you want to slaughter every last one of them just because the game should let you. If you then cry because you can't finish the main story... well I don't think that's a flaw, I think that's a dumb user who didn't think things through all the way. Actions have consequences, randomly killing friendly people is not usually a good idea, no real surprises there.

As for the assassination thing and getting caught, as I said in my previous response: I'm not just talking about crime and punishment. The guards are the only NPCs that really acknowledge anything you do.

I really would appreciate not being forced to use the auto-navigation system. I mean is it really to much to ask to make it an option to play without and instead get a rough written description in your quest log where to go?

I have a lot of the same issues but they aren't my major ones. My major moment killers are all the things they add but seem half assed. The marriage system takes like 20 seconds and is [censored], the only reason dragons are there is so you can get some damn shouts. It feels as if Bethesda kept going: "This would be cool" but didn't really put a lot of effort into fleshing it out. I would rather have only 100 hours of side quests and a lot more fleshed out other things to do than fifty million side quests and half assed things to do.

Some valid points but your setting the bar pretty high.I think it's pretty unrealistic to have the expectation that this game was going to be perfectly tailored for your individual wants and desires.It's a seemingly repeated mantra here but it's impossible to keep all the people happy all the time and I think it's pretty easy to pick holes in ANY game regarding subjective faults.

In saying it's a breath of fresh air to read such a well written post with actual constructive criticism.Also don't forget the CK and mods will no doubt cater to many of your desires.Paitence is a virtue.

Enjoyed reading it and good luck to you.

Thinking of it .. One of the thing that always pissed me off in RPG it's name floating above the head. It's funny when they introduce themselves and from the start you knew it .. There's a part in the game where a NPC name appear after he introduce himself ...
Witcher 2 has difficult choice to make and game like BG2 had some conversation that could screw several quest or relationship. Follower and companions in every Bethesda game are just 'summons really' .. It's also a bit weird being a High Elves and invited by the stormcloak to 'follow' them. They should add different location to start depending of your race.

There's many thing that annoy me but eh .. Am I just nitpicking the GOTY ?

Well, good on you for knowing how to write reasonable sentences and not being whiny.

However, I think all of your complaints are actually worse in the other Elder Scrolls games, most the areas you mention in Skyrim are actually improvements from Morrowind and Oblivion at least.

They are valid complaints, but honestly you could make them with any open world RPG. I think with a game this big and mainstream it simply will not be able to fully please the more hardcoe gamer in certain areas. I know that when I pick up a TES title I know full well that the game will be 1) easy and that 2) I will have no lasting effect on the world, and 3) most of the 'non linearity' is just an illusion, it is a mostly linear game where you pick the order of things to do.

If you want consequences and all that you have to go for smaller titles or older games, I suggest Gothic 2 with the expansion if you've not played it.

P.S. 28 is young.

Point of order, OP: You can't really choose a side in the civil war.



I agree completely. Lack of choice and resultant consequences are the bane of modern RPGs. The Old Republic suffers from this as well. Just wait for the rage at release.

I want to point out you can turn off the Marker on the maps that tells you were your next quest is. You just unselect it from your quest menu then guess away.

I mean If you want greater difficulty turn up the difficulty. I do like some of your points. I agree 100% the feeling of disconnection.

I mean I walk into Dragonsreach all decked out in my archmage robes and Secret-fire tells me if I have the apptitude I should join the college? WTF . I saved my game and Unrelenting Forced his blind butt. Seriously I agree there should be more options for leaders of factions and more meaning to being the leader.

What I would like is a more complete crafting system. I can find silver swords but not make them. Things like that.

I would like it if their was a third option in the war. Marry the would be high queen, take the crown for yourself , Kick the snot out of the empire for banning Talos worship and make ulfric lick your boots for a month before chopping his head off.

If you cant be king fine!!!! let me be Jarl of helgen and rebuild it!

An option to become king would open up a whole new world of awesome. I soooooo badly want to commit genocide on the Thalmor. If I could murder every single one of them that would be great.


Another thing that would be cool would be an option to stop the psijic order from taking the eye of magnus...... Too powerful , not ready for it ... ummmmm yeah no I'll keep that thank you.

Minor things I know but any of them would ahve been sweet to have as an option.

That really isn't a choice since the game does not provide any alternative information concerning where you need to go. It is the "choice" between having far to much info and having NO INFO AT ALL.

That problem could've been solved by simply making quests droppable, or having a journal with some descriptions.

The problem isn't really lack of info so much as the fact that it's lack of info combined with 30 active quests, if you had two or three at a time it'd be easy to keep them straight.

Yes, it really would not have been difficult or much work to provide that choice to players. Just a couple of written descriptions where roughly to find quest targets for each quest (Fred Emtyhead in Solitude, or bla bla ruin somewhere north east of bla bla).

Quite a post there, gave my can of tuna a run for its money in terms of which one would last longer and so did it give my longest thread competition in terms of length (hah I win! *does a childish victory-dance* :twirl: ).

But it is the content that is what really matters in a post and yours is coherent and gets many great points across which most of them I must agree with.

The world feeling disconnected most certainly strikes true when NPC's in one place don't seem to have much anything to say about the other places it can be pretty disappointing and one thing in particular that I was hoping for was to get some recognition from the court wizards of each of the different holds after I became the Arch Mage. Surely the court wizards have some ties to the College of Winterhold, surely some history with the place. I had imagined most of them had studied there once and moved on to serve as court wizards but still had their own ties with the College and would perhaps still do business there from time to time. I was expecting perhaps a "fetch & deliver" quest for some court wizard running low on let's just say Fire Salts or perhaps a wizard would require knowledge from a book they could get at the College but nowhere else. But instead after becoming Arch Mage I return to Whiterun only to have the local court wizard talk down to me as usual.

Consequences are handled way wrong in this game too. Another example of an NPC being thrown into jail is one particular NPC which is also a trainer in one of the 18 skills. I would have thought after getting him thrown into jail that person would respond to me with hate and would refuse to serve me, but, no. Instead I can now walk up to him behind bars in a cramped cell that probably stinks and he will ask me what he can do for me and then I can buy training from him all the same as before. Is he simply that nonchalant or did Bethesda mess up ? Well in the scripted sequence where he got thrown in he sure as heck didn't seem happy but as soon as the sequence was over it was all smiles and cheap services from him so I'm guessing it's the latter rather than the former of the two possible reasons I mentioned.

Regret is great in any good RPG. After Oblivion I always dreamed Skyrim would not allow you to do nearly everything and that it would leave you with many choices which would pit one faction up against another forcing you to choose your true allegiances, but now that I see Skyrim is not that game I dream the next game will. Yes there is the oft mentioned civil war conflict but when I find myself holding back on it because it feels like this one rare confetti I need to savor and make sure I thoroughly enjoy because there are no more pieces left in the box it shows that choice is such a small part of the game. There are also other choices but most of them are like one example where I'm now tasked with killing someone but I don't want to kill him so my choice is simply to do nothing because the only choice is "Kill or don't kill". If I refute the task the ones that gave me it won't make any attempt at doing the deed themselves so I'm not made to choose between them or the one I must kill. I just need to do nothing, choice over, best outcome for me came the moment I got the quest. And that is not any true choice. And on the freedom that leaves the player with regret such as the freedom to assassinate anyone essential or not, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4kEVRZU6oE&feature=channel_video_title but then they just become distracting and annoying.

The player should be allowed to mess up, it's not a matter of life or death if your save is not perfect and if it truly matters to someone to do everything perfectly they can always make a new character. And don't give me any of that "I don't have enough free time to spend hours on a game..." because really, is a game something you must hurry up and finish so you can get to the next thing ? A lot of people seem to be a little bit confused about this, if you truly play games to have fun in your pass time then what is wrong with spending a lot of time on it ? A game is not a job you need to finish quickly, it's a source of entertainment for one to indulge himself in after long hours of hard work and study. And the mindset that you're missing out on other content by not being fast enough is as wrong as taking a Sunday drive for the scenery at a speed of 120 KM/h. You're going so quickly you're only getting glances at the scenery but not truly soaking in the true beauty of it. Put that foot down and shift your gaming gear from fifth to second and relax. Enjoy taking your time with a game and it will only be so much more satisfying.

Auto mapping... augh :sick: . Stay away from my map please! I'm asking in pretty italics. This is one of the problems brought upon us by voice recorded dialogue. These days you find an interesting artifact with a rich history behind it and you can't ask the people of the nearby village about local legends and rumors. No instead once we find an artifact a quest will pop up in our quest log with a short description like "find the other half of artifact X" and all of a sudden you see a location you've never heard of before has popped up on your map and people will tell you "just turn off map markers and the compass arrow", well great, even if you do that you can't just close your eyes and erase the new location you just noticed on your map from your memory and you can't go ask the local villagers about clues where to learn more about the artifact even if you could erase the location from your memory.

Dovahkiin: "Hey, I was exploring the ruins of this nearby crypt and I found this strange magical artifact, think you know anyone who might know about it ?"
Villager: "I'm a fisherman by trade."
Dovahkiin: "That's great but the artifa..."
Villager: "I'm a fisherman by trade."
Dovahkiin: "I know! You just said that but the artifa..."
Villager: "I'm a fisherman by trade."
Dovahkiin: "YES, I KNOW!"
Vollager: "I'm a fisherman by trade."
Dovahkiin: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHlnCzalw1s" :flame: :swear: :banghead: :brokencomputer: :facepalm:

On the matter of secrets there is little to say. One thing I do miss however is that with dungeons being so linear in Skyrim it is actually hard to miss secrets in them. In Morrowind you could walk right under a Daedric item of considerable power yet never know because you didn't bother to check every nook and cranny. I remember levitating around in one dungeon and being pretty happy with my find when I noticed a Daedric mask just laying there halfway through the dungeon (important: secrets at the end are way too obvious, you always expect something good at the end but not always on your way towards it) unguarded for anyone with enough acrobatic or magical skills to get up there.

I can't agree with you about the challenge of a TES game however. Yes there should be hard things in a TES game, even unbeatable things if you don't make your character right. But the problem is Bethesda seems to be taking a turn towards limiting freedom of character customization to better be able to handle the difficulty curves of the game, and that is something that should not be done. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1302338-a-small-observation-on-the-amount-of-spells-in-the-game/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1303444-excusion-of-spell-making-a-bad-developing-decision-and-why/ (that's two links but not one just so you don't miss either one of them) and many claim this is because you could become "overpowered" too easily if you were given too much freedom with spells in earlier games. But who cares in a single player game about just how hard a game is ? Yes the game should be hard but not in the way of limiting character choice so it is equally as hard for everyone. If bragging rights are of importance to someone being able to choose to be a thief type character rather than a mage should even be desirable in terms of bragging rights. "Hey I beat the game as a thief! Not with overpowered cookie cutter spells!". But even then Bethesda is failing on this and there are already many ways to easily obliterate anything on master difficulty if you know what you are doing, even without the spell variety that used to be present and even without being able to make situational super spells. My own character archetype took a blow from this, the kind of character I played in Morrowind and Oblivion could unfortunately not be re-created in Skyrim due to the sheer lack of spells.

Granted difficulty could be handled in different ways but I don't think difficulty is of too much importance as long as the solution of the designers seems to be to limit player choice in the process of balancing the challenge of the game against the tools provided to the player.

Mini games can be fun but ultimately are not the reason one is drawn to a game in the first place but I can understand their usefulness as a tool to provide the player with some fresh air from normal gameplay. But for me the various fun things you can do with the environment and the books in the games have always been enough to provide me with ample entertainment during those times when I'm just not in the mood for adventuring or dealing with the problems of peasants and lords alike. In Morrowind it was popular practice to decorate your house and even make fortresses out of items. I once made a shack made up entirely out of gold. The physics were not quite present in Morrowind so you could stack a ton of coins on top of each other and they would never fall, so I did that and found a square area where I just stacked coins to make walls all the way around and then I made a small entrance by leaving a part of one of the walls open and before long I had a little gold shack to put my character in. And in Oblivion I'd have fun flinging items around with spells and such. One of the greatest things about spell making was that you decided the range of a spell up to a certain point. I'd always make a 1 point damage fireball with 100 in AoE when I was playing mages, and then I'd find places where I could fling them inside without getting into trouble and I'd wreak havoc on the items just by making the room explode and even without doing that on my more lawful characters just watching huge fireballs explode on mountain walls far away could be quite pretty, you could even fling many successive ones and watch a series of explosions in patterns far away. And in both games I read books from cover to cover which was always much fun and gave you a breather from the adventuring while also giving you more insight into the lore of the world or even in some cases simply providing you with entertainment through simple stories. And then there was much more in both games, and in many cases the same is true for Skyrim. Basically the trivial things I can do in the game are my minigame

I also have to agree with your conclusion, Skyrim is good but it's not great for a TES game and even arguably generally just for an RPG. I had to use my brain more to figure things out in Neverwinter Nights yet that game doesn't offer nearly the same amount of free roaming as Skyrim does. I'm no small fan of TES and spent a good 300$ on getting a collectors edition of the game which came to such a high price since it had to be shipped to the country (only 3 copies of Collectors Skyrim were sent to the country I'm in (yes I checked) and I got one of those 3 copies) and I was looking a great deal forward to Skyrim so it should come as no surprise that I was a little bit shocked with what I found after a few hours of playing the game. But I do not regret my decision one bit. The TES series has provided me with the best entertainment I've had from any video game and it deserves all of the support it can get from me, and even if the latest installment was not up to my expectations I still like it none the less and Skyrim makes it into my top-10 list for games with relative ease.

That's all.