I could deal with the broken balance.
I could deal with not having stats.
I could deal with no spellmaking.

What I can't deal with is how the world is so dead around you.

It looks so pretty.

But dear God does it ruin the narrative when a Guard one minute praises me for being the Dragonborn, or whispers "Hail Sithis," but then when I see that exact same Guard later he says "what's wrong, someone steal your sweet roll?"

Ah, so you're like me, don't fancy those clunky two-handed weapons.

Don't forget an arrow in the knee.

I'd love to see all Guard, guild related and skill related comments removed. They should just comment on what the player is wearing, since that's the only thing they ever seem to get right.

I don't mind if some of them comment on guild or skill related things if those comments don't start flowing until a generous amount of time has passed.

If I have been a member of the Companions for a good amount of time and I'm not a stranger to Whiterun at all, recognition is not a bad thing if they actually recognize what the hell has actually happened. If a Guard was like "word about is you participated in the raid of the northern fort, good job, very well done" that would be amazing.

Im a grumpy old man, whats worse, I enjoy being one.

I do like your posts though, the emoticons make me smile.

Size of the worldspace.
reputation system.
unleveled enemies.
Text dialog that is far more moddable than voice ever will be.
More length and depth to quests and quest lines
Branching quests, with decisions you make opening up or closing off other quests/locations/guilds/whatever.
Spellmaking.

What was not in previous games, but -should- be, is sense and useage to the minigames like milling, smithing, farming, hunting, etc. If you have the option to hunt, there should be a need to do same, for example.

-NO Regenerating health
-Replacing strength, edurance, etc with just health, magica, stamina, (I know the system in oblivion needed to be reworked, but they went too far, I don't like how you can't increase your speed or the amount you carry), as well as the different stats races and genders had
-Getting rid of hand to hand and acrobatics
-Armour doesn't degrade anymore
-Fewer armour/weapon types (no silver or mithril, in addition to the fact that you no longer need a silver weapon to harm spirits)
-Combining longsword and short sword into just sword
-Fewer spells, diseases, and enemy types.
-No more dark dungeons (underground caves are one of the two places in the world with absolute darkness, the other being the bottom of the ocean, they shouldn't be well lit, even with numorous torches on the wall)
-No reason to sleep (I know the whole you-need-to rest-to-level system was bad, but I find it funny how my man character has spent almost an in game year and only has one hour of sleep)
-Intros to Thieves and Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion were better
-No ranking within guilds (seriously, in the college of winterhold, I immediatly go from student to arch mage in a matter of in game days)
-Everyone in the cities spouting the same one line to you if you get within 10 feet (this is even worse than when the npcs have really disjoineted conversations in Oblivion)
-removal of disposition and morality systems (again, these were bad, but shouldn't have been taken out entirely)
-All horses have the same health and cost (exception being Shadowmere)
-removal of arena
-no one comments on your actions (the Black Horse corrier was something I kinda liked)
-the removal of enchanted arrows (I know this is a balancing issue, but I would like at least a small fire/ice bonus to my arrows)

Oh, I also miss being able to jump from the ground on to the roof of a three storey building. That really helped with... immersion? Yeah, that's the one...

Nice thread sniping. Posts like this should be bannable. Look at the title dude. If you have a legitimate point don't mask it with sarcasm, it's insulting.

Things I miss from prior games:

1) Rest till healed. No heal regeneration.
2) Lock bash.
3) Nymphs.
4) Wall climbing Skill.
5) A Pack Mule.
6) Being able to write on the in-game map.
7) Gold has weight and storing it in a bank.
8) Being a werewolf is a curse, not a perk.
9) The realism of one character not being able to join every faction.
10) Faction interaction.
11) Spears. I barely used them but it just seems odd not having them.
12) Ice Armor and weapons. I thought this would be obvious in Skyrim.
13) Building a Stronghold.

I see a lot of Regenerating health complaints. I have to say, I don't necessarily agree. If you think Regenerating health is an issue, Regenerating magicka has to be an issue as well, since starting with a healing spell and having regenerating magicka means health naturally regenerates, but in a more tedious manner. I do think it needs to be toned way down, at least scaling with difficulty. (Down to maybe 0.25% of Max per second out of combat on Master, The Default is 0.70%)