I know people might not want this thread but I just felt like throwing it out here for discussion purposes anyway. I'll keep it short.

Basically, Skyrim's game world feels like it's 50% mountains and 50% roads. Whereas in Oblivion you could cut through the landscape in any direction you wanted, in Skyrim you have to take the same roads all the time and the result is the world feels tiny and like it's funneling you from place to place.

In addition, the game is constantly funneling you towards quests and storylines. You can't walk into Whiterun without engaging in main-quest related dialogue. You can't walk into Riften without being offered Thieve's Guild membership. Solitude and Windhelm both have scripted civil-war related scenes that play when you walk into the cities. Markarth has two scripted scenes that play when you walk in.

Oblivion never had scripted scenes and really never prompted you towards any questlines. In Skyrim the process of joining the Dark Brotherhood is linear and pointed out to you endlessly until you do it. In Oblivion it was literally just kill an innocent person, there was no quest for it.

The irony of this too is that Skyrim's questlines are undeniably far shorter than Oblivion's. The guild's pacing is awful. 2 quests into the Companions and you're part of the Inner Circle. 3 quests into the Dark Brotherhood and there's already a conspiracy. Same goes for the Thieve's Guild.

This sums up the broad reason why Skyrim is a step backwards to be honest. Feel free to disagree and discuss. Please don't lock the thread though because these are valid points and I'm just looking for a legit conversation, no blind hate.

Then play Oblivion.

I can see your point about Skyrim funneling you around to an extent.
But I often climb up hills and mountains to cut across terrain. It's still possible.

And besides, when the alternative to wonderfully crafted, visually breath-taking partial linearity is this:

...I will take a bit of railroading gladly.

Skyrim is linear in the sense that dungeons don't have branching paths and neither do most quests. Also, I agree. The mountains do cramp up the game world. I think the scale should have been larger. I wouldn't mind some procedural generation here and there if it meant having a larger map.

I agree with you that the guild questlines are very weak and short. The guilds are for me the most disappointing part, alongside the character stats system, especially coming from the great storylines (thieves, DB) of Oblivion. The topography is not bothering me, it's pretty much what I expected from this province and there still are some large plains like the bowl in the middle. The quest dialogue is not that bad, after all I wanted the world to feel more connected to the events than it was in Oblivion.

I dont feel like it was any more linear than Oblivion

I know, right?

I mean, expanding on the funneling aspect of the game world, 6 months after Skyrim's release I feel like I've seen every part of the game world many times over. Like I'd start a new chararcter, walk down a random road and in 5 minutes I'd be like "damn, this fort again? I just cleared it with my last character". Whereas 6 years after Oblivion's release I could go back to it today and the world would still feel fresh to an extent. I know part of that is due to procedural generation but it also just has to do with the size and openness of it.

I agree with you, Baldure. It's a pity also that most of the quests can only be done in one single way. There's no variety in doing things.

Concerning guilds, it feels like doing 3 quests and you become leader. To be honest, I enjoyed Morrowind's guild system far more where you had to meet prerequisites to climb. What I really miss are the consequences in joining a guild. Guilds in Skyrim have become arbitrary, nobody cares what I do.

Right now only mods keep me on playing Skyrim. I'm looking forward to Dawnguard...

I disagree. I feel that both Skyrim and Oblivion have beautiful, large open worlds. I play both and can safely say that I'm nowhere near finished seeing it all. There's so much to do! For example, I've hardly set foot in the Reach, and in Oblivion I've almost never touched County Cheydinhal.

I dont get why people have such a problem being prompted towards a quest. They're not forcing you to do it, they just put it in your journal. Bethesda figured if you didn't want to do a quest you would just ignore it, that's how the game was made. Its basically an OCD thing where you cant stand there being a quest there that you wont use. If that's the way you do things I feel sorry for you, because you're letting thing like scripted scenes and a quest you wont do ruin your game. Tell me what open world game doesn't try to get you to do the story.

Now I do agree that the guild quest were lacking and they could've use a lot more work.

Yeah, Morrowind's guilds were really long and actually forced you to improve the skills relevant to that guild to advance. The guild conflicts were great too. My only problem with Morrowind's guilds is that the quests were mostly very simple and could feel very similar to each other. That's why I feel Oblivion did it the best. The guild's were still quite lengthy, didn't overburden you with plot, but they also had plenty of variety and creativity in the quests. Unfortunately they didn't carry over the promotion requirements but oh well.

The prompting is definitely the thing I have the least problem with. It's just the combination of all the issues which kind of kills it for me. If the game prompted you towards quests the way it does but the world was more open, and the questlines were longer and more on Oblivion's level I really wouldn't mind too much. As it stands the quest prompting is just sort of another example of how the game on a whole feels less open-ended.

Why the heck do you people post here?! You can choose to take a side in the civil war! You can choose different quest options that end radically different! Yeah of course it's linear!!!!

Morrowind's treated the player like they were actually.... a part of a guild. They didn't funnel you into some "epic" storyline. You accomplished everyday tasks that guild members would naturally do on a daily basis. At the end there was some usually some little mini-plotline, but for the most part you were doing jobs people would hire the Fighter's Guild to carry out, or the Mage's, etc. The loss of stat requirements for advancement is a travesty. I guess Beth also figured that players didn't want everyday quests.

I still loved Oblivion's questlines though. I enjoyed the storyline of all four major guilds. Even the Arena turned out to be pretty good.

Well put.

If every quest were 'oh you can have two choices!' then it'd get repetitive and dull. We have plenty of quests with variety, and that was a huge gamble for Bethesda. Why? Because now they have to figure out how it works in lore. Who won the Civil War? Was the Dark Brotherhood destroyed, or did they fulfill THAT contract?

Having choices is repetitive and dull? News to me.

That's easy - they just decide what's lore. Perhaps by guaging which option the most people go for.

From what I see, the choice you get almost invariably is kill them/don't kill them. I don't see plenty of variety. The quest structure is for the most part on rails with the choice being do the quest/don't do the quest, do the quest now/do the quest later. I think they'd really benefit from working towards having at least a few key quests with several possible outcomes.

I forgot to bring up the Civil War in the OP but that's one of the worst parts of the game easily. I mean let's be real, the whole questline was cut and paste and exactly the same for both sides. It's very short/anticlimactic and you also can't complete the civil war questline without starting the main quest.

I really don't understand how they could have made something, that was thematically so important....seem so insignificant. But then again, the main quest was supposed to seem so important as well....

Quests being too short might be partially a consequence of the original radiant storytelling not living up to expectations, but I think it's such a big game Bethesda felt they had to cater for people not used to a totally open world format. The irony is, I think it takes away some of the joy of the game - for me, having quests constantly pushed in my face makes the game feel linear and one of the joys of this type of game is stumbling across serious quests you never new existed after you thought you'd seen everything. But it's like they're scared if they don't wave all the content at people they won't be able to find it. All the guilds are either waved at you or forced on you. They don't seem to want the player to go find them.

Yeah that's an excellent point, and a good rebuttal to the person who said signposting isn't a problem because you can ignore it. It still really detracts from the feeling of discovery and it takes the uniqueness out of each playthrough. When I witness the same scripted events and quest signposting with each character all of the sudden my playthroughs just start to meld together.

lemme explain something to you :
There are dragons attacks everywhere wich appears that is your mainquest;
The Thieves Guild needs some people to make it the ultimate thieves again;and for last
There is a Civil War going on what do you think they want to talk ?Unicorns and rainbows????
Oblivion was a bit unrealistic, i mean there is deadra portals everywhere and they are like whoah portals ok nice job, kvatch was attacked whoaO and you closed the gate good good lemme go back my home and drink some water, and apperantly no one gives a damn thing to it.
I Love Oblivion,but you saying that oblivion isn′t linear and all that you gotta be kidding me!

I agree, I definatly was not happy with being able to become the leader of ANY guild in two to three hours.

Most ignorant post ever...So a grey vs grey with 2 factions that are both flawed, but with redeemable qualities is not well written? Two ravaged leaders, one fighting because it's duty and to protect the empire he loves, one leader fighting for his country in a futile and flawed cause is not well written? Yeah not well written...