I liked the dark brotherhood questline.Also companions and other guilds.
And maybe they mean lore wise? becouse every elder scrolls game has an amazing lore and backstory

Agreed. The only one that gripped me the most was the Dark Brotherhood, but that was for about 10-15mins...

I agree.

I love Skyrim very much, as a matter of fact...So far it has been over 1000 hrs as much. Still, while it does have a good, not great, general story it lacks in the overall questlines. Especially when it comes to branches, outcomes and the effects of it on the game world. And that may be a different train all together.

What is the point of this reply?
I don't care about the critics, I care about why anyone here would supposedly think that Skyrim deserves this reward?

A few guilds aside (*cough*MAGES GUILD*cough*) many of the side-quests, the mainquest, and the overall branching plot that connects Skyrim to earlier installments are very well written. When you take this game as a whole instead of focusing on the MQ, it's one of the best written games this year.

i bE an orK and Me likeZ to ruN roUNd in mE pantz .

Judging from IAA's description of their award ( http://www.interactive.org/awards/2011_14th_awards.asp), I would say that the the Outstanding Achievement in Story is not tied to main quests:
A Khajiit merchant handing me a thank-you gift, a giant continually pounding already-dead enemies near the body of his dead mammoth, and thugs showing up to pay me back for thievery, are all embodiments of story. Exploring, and finding and reading journals, to unravel the fates of expeditions and of families, constitutes story. Ad-lib adventures, just wandering into some cave and picking fights with wolves or picking people's pockets, constitutes story.

Quests, and Radiant Story, and all our ad-lib doings effect story. Setting -- visual, audial, political, and elsewise -- effects story. Characters, which include everything from you, the central figure of the game, to the lowliest rabbit, effect story. Point of view effects story. (Please note that I really do mean "effect", not "affect." Thank you ).

Everyone who plays Skyrim knows that has stories to tell. Not so many of us recognize Skyrim itself as one, big interactive story.

Well, in that case it is deserved. Despite it's shallowness in certain areas, the game world as a whole is damn impressive.

The "awards" are meaningless and pretentious..consider that Stanley Kubrick have never won "best director academy award" for instance and you will understand my previous observation.

Who cares about "rewards" ? if you think that Skyrim has a weak main quest maybe i can agree partially with you and so with others arguable arguments...but this game has to be considered as a "whole" and sincerely i don't think that the "whole story" and lore behind the elder scrolls series is inferior to other recent games/series that i' ve played.

Because, like the critics (who are the ones who decide who gets the award), I think that Skyrim has a very well developed world and story. I know, I know. Shock and awe.

I think you need to tie "Presented to the individual or team whose work has furthered the interactive experience through the creation of a game world" to "which best exemplifies the coalescence of setting, characters and plot." It looks like IAA's punctuation mistakenly left out a second dash (--) that should precede "which best exemplifies".

It's just someone's opinion, it's not like you have to agree with them or anything.

My dislike stems from Mel Gibson claiming that Braveheart was historically accurate at the time of its release. It's one of the least historically accurate movies I've ever seen. I can't think of a single event they portrayed accurately. On top of that, the hero is a Gary-Stu and the villain is just as laughably one-dimensional. I really do not like Braveheart.


As for gaming awards, it really doesn't matter how many awards Skyrim does or does not win. It's not like those awards invalidate anyone's opinion of the game. -shrugs-

They have a short amount of time to play a game and write a review, so you can't blame them if they haven't seen all of skyrim yet, although I got the feeling most played for about 30-70 hours before reviewing, which is enough time to at least gage the quality of the game

Lots of things gripped me in this game, but then they ended as quickly as they began. I'd agree with the best cheap thrills of the year award, best storyline wouldn't get my vote. So much potential wasted on predetermined release dates and platform.

Hey it may have glitches but you have to give it some credit. Just sooo many quests

The best written game of the year is Portal 2.

That said, Skyrim is not bad at all. Although they have very different approaches to screenwriting for the interactive medium.

So many Morrowind Fan boys...Why dont they just go to The Morrowind fourm?

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It's a shell of what used to be. Daggerfall and Morrowind are better.

Oh dear, I suspect the Pious Acolytes of Morrowind will not like this. No, not one bit.

LOL

I sometimes wonder the same thing. I'm not knocking anybody for liking Morrowind; by all accounts it was an excellent game, although I'd be hard pressed to accept the ancient graphics in an open-world RPG these days, and some of the landscapes always seemed too alien to me. But the problem is that some people simply and openly believe that wherever Skyrim does something differently than Morrowind, it was a mistake. And that's flat-out ridiculous.

Hm.. I like Skyrim more than Morrowind but it hadn't beat Daggerfall, yet..

I don't think the story concepts were bad, however, I think the pacing was waay off.

The Winterhold guild story has the potential to be epic, but the whole story goes by so fast that nothing can be all that impactful. You go from being a minor nobody -- barely worthy to being IN the guild to being the center of everything in probably 2 quests. If you'd had to develop somewhat to be "worthy" in some way, it would work. That's one of the things Rowling gets right about her "mage-hero's journey". If the whole thing would have been resolved by the end of book one, you'd have laughed. There's no realistic way that an untrained 11 year old is remotely able to take on the scourge of British Magery and hope to win. By making him develop and even make mistakes, you get to the point of caring about the characters, about the setting, and you want to see Voldy bite the big one. You make the fight more epic by building it up, and futhermore, you can understand how this character is supposed to reasonably fight and win. Winterhold bypasses all of that stuff and you have a Dovahkiin walking into the college barely able to cast a spell, and three days later walking out the Guildmaster after having spelled the big bad. All the elements of a great story are there, but since the story progresses at lightspeed, the hero doesn't grow or learn, and the results look silly.

The thieves guild is much better, it doesn't throw you right into the center of attention or action. You do a few jobs before the story really gets going, and it makes you care somewhat more for the characters and wanting to help out.

Hey if Bethesda takes a dump this year, will it win more awards than Mass Effect 3?