I finished the stormcloaks a long time ago, and recently started the empire side with a new character, and I am having to force myself through it. So boring. It seems like they didn't put any effort into it at all. Anyone agree or disagree?

Don't tell me this! I am just about to start the quest on the side of the Stormcloaks.

feels like there was minimal effort on one side then they literaly copy-pasted the other side, one of the reason i have not finished the imperial side of the chain (that and, stormcloaks rule!! )

Agree and disagree, the fort parts do get a bit redundant after a while but, the other quests like finding the crown are fun the first few times. I think they could have gone way more in depth with the civil war story kinda of a missed oppertuniy.

I actually thought the Civil War was one of the stronger Faction lines in the game. It ties all the events of Skyrim together quite well. I'm not suggesting it's perfect, but it does a great job of getting you around the world in appropriate context, and reshaping the land in subtle, but perceivable ways. I would have liked to see some "Bonus" Objectives, like assassinating Stormcloak/Imperial officers to weaken the resistance before a fort invasion, better, less generic rewards (The two can tie-in together like the Dark Brotherhood's Main+Bonus objective), and more consistency in some of the radiant events. (Fort repopulation, stuff like that)

Then skip em.

There could have been more variety, but I did enjoy it. I wish we could invade the walled cities rather than their forts, although the smaller cities wouldn't work as well. I really enjoyed the final quest though.

I found the civil war along with alot of the "quest chains" to be a bit sad really, I beat main story with out thinking I was close to beating it, same with the civil war, and I felt that alot of the factions where just too short (compared to morrowind and oblivion) There was a few side quests I liked (like the daedric one where you get drunk and have a heck of a time) but yeah all in all I found most of the meat in the game quick to chew through so to say.

As much as I like Skyrim as a whole, the factions are the weakest part of the game... Including the Civil War.

It really odd to think that the same people who are responsible for Skyrim's quests, are (Largely) responsible for the amazing Great Houses of Morrowind. Why can they not seem to replicate those quest design results in the newer generation games?

I'm pretty sure the entire writing staff changed sometime around when Oblivion came out.

I kind of enjoyed it actually. Killing and owning all these low-level imperial soldiers was actually getting my blood racing!! But also, the war could have functioned as a "second main quest" depending on whose side you chose. So yeah, I do kind of agree...missed opportunity.

you mean replaced by a monkey with a typewriter?

Yea i know what you mean. I only completed the civil war once on the stormcloak side. Most of Skyrim's main questlines were so short that i never really got to know most of the members of many of the guilds and even the ones i did meet i never cared much for anyway because things went by so fast i never got to know them. For instance...It was the same for many characters throughout the game. Not to mention the pacing of the quests felt wrong. The Companions in particular seemed like 5 quests long to me. The College of Winterhold was even worse, "Hey students! Since I've taught you all how to use one spell, how about we go into a deep dark dungeon and get swarmed with Draugr because I'm sure that won't end badly at all!"

I love Skyrim and I think it beats Oblivion(which i started with) in every way but one thing Oblivion did right was it's pacing in its quests. Though I have to admit I thought the Thieves Guild in Skyrim was awesome and even better than Oblivion's Thieves guild.

I don't think the individuals own the structure of the quests.

Many of Skyrim's factions have individual hallmarks of a great guild. Companions have an identity, Civil war has Context, Dark Brotherhood has variance and some minor branching, even the Thieves Guild has a persistent feeling to it, and aside from the horrible writing in the main quest itself, has characters that connect around Skyrim.

But Morrowind's factions had all of these hallmarks, except perhaps the Morag Tong. These are really separate issues from what the writing staff's talents would bring to the gameplay department. Not to devalue those. A great quest designer with great writing talent can not only make a fun questline to play, they can also make it paced well, have interesting characters and a meaningful place amidst the rest of the game. Just look at Emil Pagliaro's (I think I spelled that wrong) Dark Brotherhood quests, and pretty much everything in Fallout 3.

I'll also toss my coins into the loop too, in regard to faction duration. Even with the "Unlimited" radiant quests, all of the factions did feel way too short. That's mostly because of the awful pacing. You barely get introduced to Kodlak Whitemane before there's a full-blown invasion on Jorrvaskr. And after what is an amazing introduction to the College of Winterhold, the faction takes a nosedive to sudden world destruction. It's like Bethesda was afraid that the average CoDpawn's attention span isn't large enough to accommodate plot development. They want their wizz-bangs in the first quest. Screw finding mushrooms, or clearing rats. Screw running Sujamma contracts to thirsty miners, I WANT EXPLOSIONS AND SHOOTEY BOOMS NAO!!!!!!!!!! It comes back to something I said a while ago, that got a lot of anger, but I stand by it. It's not a bad thing to be disliked occasionally, if it's for the right reason. To illicit a strong emotional reaction is the purpose of art, and combining pain-in-the-ass Jobs, with the great, heroic moments that Skyrim saturates the player with creates an important level of contrast that prevents that feeling of "Blah, this again?" from happening at unintended times. (IE: Blah... another dragon?, wouldn't you rather have the player say HELL YES, A DRAGON AFTER THAT IRRITATING SUJAMMA RUN??? BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!!!!)

Bit off topic, but it seems alot of the game has been kinda tuned down a bit, the combat and such has improved but at the cost of skills and such. I'm not even sure why cooking is in it, it's just a side thing to do but potions will always be better.

Same with quests, Like everyone has said, the only faction I felt was a bit long was the theives guild, the companions went waaay to fast. Main story was the same, I was just going through one day, thinking it would be long like oblivion sending me here and there and all over, and I found it was over rather quickly.

The companions as well, I didn't really get attached to anyone and it was all wham bam thank ya ma'am, I didn't mind the dark brotherhood, it seemed to have some meat on it, but again not much. I've been really let down by the quests and progress in the game, it seems much to short, especially for a game in the elder scrolls series, I think they spent to much time making a Huge beautiful world and not enough time filling it with meaningful content. Look at how big Morrowind's landmass was, and the main quest and side quests had you going all over that bad boy. Even oblivion with the addition of fast traveling still felt like it required effort and took time to do.

I agree to a point. I did find the civil war quest to be less interesting than the others, which is unfortunate since I feel they are the most "pressured" quest to follow besides the main one. Also, I was surprised to see that a large amount of the quests involved scouting or infiltration, when my character at the time was specifically built for brute force and only brute force. I guess I expected it to be mostly warrior oriented. That, and the quest line was pretty short. All of them are kind of short. If they were twice as long, it'd be good, but that's asking a lot from a game that is jam packed with content already.

I do have an unrelated question involving the civil war line - I was looking forward to going to all the stormcloak outposts and killing everyone, but it seems like all of the leaders at the camps aren't killable. Kind of disappointing. Is there any thing I'm missing to be able to kill the leaders?

Well, hopefully the Dawnguard quests are better paced. Bethesda actually tends to do better with DLC's. Knight's of the Nine was one of the stronger factions period, Point lookout had probably the most memorable Bethesda plot ever, and everything about Shivering Isles was awesome...

The entire quest line is very mundane and underwhelming at best I was not impressed or wowed on any level during the war and there was zero consequences really concerning any aspect of the war, nothing was fundamentally changed or altered after the quest.

Then the quest was duplicated from the empire to the Stormcloak wide very uninvolved on what could have been to very different and drastic story changes, the great houses would have been good to look at in that they all had different missions and views and quest lines, they was not mirror images of one another.

I thought they were one of the better ones in that you actually see a difference in the world after you are done.

Yeah, they were really boring. All it was: go to the fortress, kill a [censored]load of bad guys, repeat. Although, I did like changing the guard uniforms. I don't know about you, but I just think Skyrim just feels safer when all the guards wear the same uniform. Much more unified. All wearing the blue colors of the stormcloaks, with the exception of the purple Riften and White winterhold.

this should probably be in spoilers. Anyway, to summarise, the entire civil questline is basically a chain of "fetch quests"; clear out this place, report to someone. Ok we're done here go report to the biggie leader for another place to go. Report to camp leader, get quest to clear out a place. Rinse and repeat.

How incredibly flat.

Some covert missions would have been nice, missions akin to the one in the main quest where you sneak inside a certain place to obtain certain information.

depends on how you play it. I had some of the greatest gameplay with my Orc who i was roleplaying during the stronghold invasions. I would not heal, save and where imeperial armor during the fights for the strong holds, on Master diff, and it was super fun and challenging with my two handed berserk Orc. Story is not so great, but the gameplay, if you play it right is the best action you can get in the game imho.

I think the most disappointing thing about the civil war quest line is how the soldiers you fight at any given fort don't appear to level with you. At all.
Not even a little bit.

I've played both factions, and all I know is this:
When I sided with the stormcloaks, it really seemed to trip up the thalmor. That made me very happy.

Compared to Oblivion, all of the factions are terrible.