I envy your first time Lyn1964. To know such terror and wonder while being so alive with the mystery of what is to come next in the epic artistry and design that is Skyrim. It reminds me all of sudden of the first time i read a Warren horror magazine EERIE when i was a child. The sense of magic i felt before, looking at it behind the glass newspaper stand pointing my finger at the cover to let my Mother know thats the one i wanted. Truly it didnt disappoint when i saw it for the very first time with a graphic style and imagery i had never seen before. Skyrim does the same thing every time i enter its world late at night ( which for some odd reason is the only time i seem to play it just like with Daggerfall). Every time i see a giant spider it still feels fresh and new all the while there being tons of things i have yet to find and experiance.

A few more things that make Skyrim awesome for me are

The bees buzzing about with their nest on a nearby tree. Those are some incredibly realistic looking scary bees.
The small camps with cooking pots one can cook up a hearty meal with.
The different types of fish to be captured and cooked or eaten Raaaaaw!!!
All the edible plant life in the wilderness.
The fog and mists effects.
The moons and how they are never boring to gaze at especially when the night is making the landscape look dreamlike.
The glow of nirnroots from far away.
Bridges and stone keeps as well as the open windows with steel bars along city walls which give a haunting timeless mood at sunset and sunrise.
The stylish look of company buildings where alcoholic drinks are made.
How different days are.

There's a canyon just to the east of the Throat of the World. Spanning this canyon is a fallen tree, allowing you to cross the canyon. There are some great 3rd person views when on this tree.

Had a nice little random encounter; not super awesome or anything, but it was a nice touch; came across a wandering peddler being attacked by bandits, so I helped kill the bandits and he thanked me for saving his life.

I was wandering around some time ago, and met one of these farmers with their painted cows. he told me his story of giving it to a giant (i had heard that some times before), and i went on, to a dungeon. about 2 in-gamehours later, i left the dungeon and what do i see walking on the street? a giant with a painted cow next to it. (no sign of the farmer, though) i just loved that, happy that the farmer had fullfilled his "quest"

Just some things I really like that add to Skyrim being such a great game.

1. Night and Day atmospheric changes. Different music and different fauna at night.

2. Masser and Secunda have seperate and independent moon phases (or a very convincing illusion of)

3. Bugs are attracted to Candlight at night.

4. Draugr "Sleep". It may make them easier to kill, but it lends a sense of legitimacy to their existence.

5. Riverwood. That town is just so well done. Shor's stone is really good too. I love how everyone gathers around the campfire and communal cookfire after toiling at work all day.

I realize this isn't reality and that you're not actually hurting anyone, but what do you get out of simulated cruelty? Some might say that by doing this sort of thing, you're making it seem a little more "ok" to yourself in real life. I'm not sure I buy that, but it's still a little disturbing.

If you watch closely at the old wood log, you can see ants crawling.

Yep. I noticed that a while back, too. Those are the little things I love most about Skyrim. A gigantic playground literally filled with little things like that... placed there for those who truly like to wander and explore.

Outside of Riverwood on the way to Whiterun, there are little trails of ants/beetles on the ground. Not sure if they are anywhere else in the game. I thought it was awesome though.


Just saw this post. Haha.

I'm on the fence with this. I just finished up my paladin/fighter build and I'm taking a break for a while from him. He would have been aligned chaotic good in the D&D world, so I spent a lot of time on quests to help people I'd meet, even if they were totally inconvenient. I just created a mage whom I intend to make a total sociopath with psychopathic tendencies so that I can justify some of the quests and actions I turned down to role-play properly with my other character (such as cannibalism and daedric quests that are particularly evil). It's definitely going to be strange since I don't get into that at all, but for the role-play experiment I thought it would be worth it. So, yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from, but I think one has to make sure they aren't blending reality with fiction. "Crime and Punishment" is an excellent book in this way. Dostoevsky does an amazing job putting the reader in the mind of a man who, in a period of despair, becomes consumed with pride and vanity that leads to psychosis. The amazing thing about the book is, even though the reader knows the man's actions were absolutely heinous and inexcusable, the author somehow gets the reader to sympathize with him. Of course, the psychosis is not something natural to the main character, so it's probably the fact that he's destroyed by guilt that makes us sympathize with him. I digress, I apologize.

-The blind guard in one of the caves has a book on his table....with no words in it
-shouting butterflies apart and harvesting their wings from the ground. This Nord does not hop around trying to catch them

There are so many little details that give the world life and a lot of depth. My faviorite was running across a group of hunters taking a "jacuzzi" break in the hot springs near Fort Amol. When I saw the first one lying in the water, I thought it was a dead body and went to investigate. I was caught off guard when she said "need something?". Then I noticed the other two sitting nearby in the water. Very nice little touch.

Just today, I found out where all the old defeated Imperial Jarls hang out! In the basemant of the Blue Palace in Solitude, they sit around a table and make rude comments to my Stormcloak Dragonborn

I was wandering around The Reach at night on my way to Markarth after some adventuring when a couple of deer zipped past me. An instant later I heard an arrow flying through the air so I instantly thought, "great, I'm getting jumped by Forsworn". So, I unsheathed my weapon and turned. Across the river were two hunters, minding their own business hunting deer at night. So, I sat and watched them until they disappeared behind the distant hill... and thought, "how cool was that?".

Thats awesome bcuz i play PS3 and wen this update came out i noticed a lot of little things like wen you are under water in stead of seeing a green world you see the world but waving around the surface of the water i was so happy wen i saw this tiny detail!!!!!

Came across a wife and husband traveling on the road whose house was burned down. I gave them some money to make their troubles more tolerable and they thanked me before moving on.

Love the look of spell scrolls especially when looking at it from the top or bottom seeing the paper all curled up and being able to look inside the middle of it. Very artistic with a classical appeal.

A lot of the things I love have already been mentioned by others, the nature, wildlife including bugs I still remember the first time I saw ants moving on the ground and followed them to a stump or the first time I saw the shadow of a hawk on the ground and looked up. Or the first time I found a bird's nest(hawks have them too usually up on cliffs) or a bee hive. Pretty much anything that added realism I love and now cannot live without in other games.

One thing I havnt seen mentioned much that I've loved since day one is when you pause the game and the screen focuses in on your character leaving the background out of focus, just another reason I'm jealous of PC cause those paused moments could make some awesome screen shots.

Edit: also the night sky, both moons and the aurora = gdlk

Been walking around on foot, so I've had the opportunity to enjoy the landscape, and I gotta say that some of the views are breathtaking. Nothing quite like seeing the fog filling up the Rift, or in Falkreath, scattered rays of sunlight piercing the fog, deer running through the trees, or trudging through a snowstorm near Windhelm or Winterhold, having to scramble backwards as an Ice Wraith appears in front of you.

That feelings I get that makes me want to explore.
Getting hit by a giant and flying 30,000 feet into the air (Have the fixed this? I hope not)

The bandits. I LOVE the bandits.

There are also some really freaky places way out in the wilderness where you just "dafuq...?"

Just Passing through a Forest and catch a Hunter firing his bow to make his honest living.
Although, I guess the rabbits didn't make a living... anymore..

So many little things I love. Insects - the little eruptions of blue butterflies as you're travelling on the roads around Whiterun. The first time I saw this I was forced to stop and admire.

The aurora. Again their are times when you have just have to dismount you trusty stead to gaze in wonder at the light show. There are so few games that can do this. The little abandoned shacks or camps you find on your travels. I found one near Markarth with a sad little story attached of young lovers escaping their families.

I always feel like reviewers of Bethesda games never give enough credit to the sheer amount of content they contain. I couldn't believe Portal 2 won GOTY awards over Skyrim, given the respective sizes of the two games. And yes it is nice to have a thread celebrating what is an awesome game.

Anytime this happens to me I LMAO one time I even came close to pissing myself from laughing at jokes me and my friends were saying inparty chat and seeing that.

This + a million
Folk are sometimes so quick to criticise that they seem to just ignore this. There is an enormous amount of ambient content in this game - delightful, melancholy, creepy.
All sorts of stuff, simply walking from one place to another...

Totally agree. The sheer amount of content in Skyrim puts most games to shame. Liked portal 2 but it can't come close to Skyrim in my opinion. Should force reviewers to put in 100 hours before writing a review.

One of my favorite things in Skyrim is how the game reacts to your actions. For example, kill someone and other NPCs will know they are gone and talk about them being dead or how they miss them. Awesome touch.