I could understand a best gameworld/sandbox, soundtrack, or series lore (not that Skyrim adds much of interest particularly by itself) award, but story? No way... Skyrim's story isn't deserving of any awards. It's full of holes, full of contradictions, completely lacks pacing, completely lacks proper antagonist motivation, fails to actually teach much about the dragons and Alduin's involvement (biggest source would be Paarthurnax and even what he says is minimal), fails to lead to any reaction, lacks cathartic closure, and overall fails to tie even the issues it presents together into a coherent story.

As the heading said you have got to be kidding me?I bang on about The Witcher 2 a bit but it's story is alot better and it branches out in different directions.It is a complete farce Skyrim got such an award.

I'm a heavy critic of Skyrim and yet believe the main quest and many side quests are well written. The guild builds were truncated on purpose, so its difficult to judge them as if they were intact.

Skyrim does not have a writing problem. It does not have a graphics problem- I know, not good enough for PC and problems with Playstation- and it does not have a game play mechanics problem, Skyrim has a character developement problem, and that's not going to show up in a best written category.

And if the overwhelming appreciation of Skyrim on this forum is any indication, it may not show up at all!

There are numerous interesting stories in Skyrim, but I'll still take The Witcher 2 or even SWTOR where story is concerned.

Even though I really like Skyrim's story, I have to say that Witcher 2 was better in that regard.

Guild builds were truncated?

The Witcher 2 probably did have a better story. But a game like the Witcher 2 totally depends on the main storyline. In Skyrim the player doesn't even have to participate in the story at all if he/she doesn't want to.

I give you that. I guess it all comes down to what criteria influenced their decision.

Yea. I think Bethesda was influenced by the fact that ES games are all about exploration and discovering new areas, picking up quests along the way.

The Witcher 2 is all about story from what I've heard. So it's easier to make it a better story, especially since it was a book first.

I have to agree that it's kind of odd that an Elder Scrolls game won best story. Maybe they made a mistake and Skyrim was supposed to get the art direction award and Uncharted get the best story award. It seems more likely.

Also OP, try to be less Morrowind really devoted fan wannabe, its not as cool as you might think

He's obviously joking. Troy was atrocious. I assume he's referring to the recent turd with Pitt, Bloom, Bana, and O'Toole.

On topic: the MQ and guilds are a bit weak. I liked DB and TG actually, but all should have been fleshed out.

The movie was great but man, that ending was just heart wrenching. Not to mention the actual fate of William was actually far, far worse than getting beheaded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcoVxbutl8g <---- How it truly should have ended because hell yeah. Scotts for the win.


On the topic: I think the story is fine. Okay, it had some cliche points here and there but the main quest was okay and the side quests (the scripted ones, not the radiant) were absolutely brilliant. Namira's quest was one of my fav. When I got that I expected a generic "Go swing your sword at some ghosts, 'kay?" but made a gruesome discovery instead. Wohoo. What I think this game lacks is the ambient, not quest-related dialogue. Too many caharcters have no soul or personality of their own which is a real shame.

I can′t say I agree with this. The MQ is generic, so are the Guild Quests. There are some interesiting SQ′s but they are way too short.

Really? I honestly consider the story elements and writing in Skyrim to be one of its weakest areas. The other choices must have either been really sad, or those in charge of judging cannot possibly be taken seriously.

I said the same thing! GOTY is debatable but story? Fus Ro Da now with added dragons is about it

Congratulations, Bethesda! Well earned!

This thread reminds me a little of CoD storyline praise by its fanbase. In fact, there are a lot of anologies to draw between Skyrim's newfound fanbase and CoD's.

Anyway, I like to think that anyone with half a sane mind stopped caring about these "rewards" and critic reviews a long time ago. Just the fact that most reviewers put out their scores for RPG's within a rather short timespan (I've picked up that GameSpot's reviewer played Skyrim 10 hours before writing its review) makes them unreliable. I was stunned by Skyrim for the first 10, hell make that 30 hours, too. It's enough for a first impression at best. Then again I guess people are just not used to lengthy games anymore.

Meh, there are better stories out there. But it's whatever.

I was being serious...I find that even WWE has better scripts, characters and acting than Braveheart, in fact if they had replaced Edward Longshanks with Vince McMahon it would have made the movie BETTER, without making it any less historically accurate overall...

The problem with skyrim is, it has the makings of a great story, the plot, the lore. But it's let down by being too short, feeling so rushed and not gripping you enough.

I don't think so.Braveheart is the usual Mel Gibson predictable "trick" .A decent hollywood movie..nothing more nothing less.
As an "entertainment product" in my opinion Skyrim is far superior to Braveheart (even the music from the great Jeremy Soule is on a league on his own in comparison to the rethoric Horner's theme of the Gibson movie in my opinion)
A movie needs to have a great screenplay/story...in a game those aspects are marginal because fun and immersion are the things that stands out for most of the players (not all obviously)

If you want a game with a good/decent story then only Red Dead Redemption comes to mind to me in this moment of the recent ones...but in the end i remember most other things about the Rockstar masterpiece than the almost decent story

oh but maybe the "crowd" are most pleased with pseudo-Shakespearean dialogues coupled with two or three decent animations and some pathetic six scene than with a very good background lore (yes, unfortunately you will find the real "story" in Tes games in the books and casual encounters that you made instead of the "driven" main story that you found on 99,99% of other titles..oh but maybe 99,99% of the Skyrim players don't read books and skip dialogues i forgot.. )

The lore of the elder scrolls is great but for Skyrim to win an outstanding achievement in story? What a joke. Skyrim does not do the lore of TES any justice, its to poorly writen, executed and in some cases just boring. There are many other games that deserve this reward far more then Skyrim does.

Again, the critics clearly don't agree with you. And again, no one outside of a very small community of nit-pickers cares about whether it "does the lore of TES any justice."

It just won't stand, man

And thereign lies the problem, the very same problem with many things. Apathy, and complacency.