JMO.. it does matter how fast you play the game. My first char I had 197 hrs on..finished the companions,One Quest away from finishing College, started MQ ( not quite 1/2 way through), started Bards ( only 5 quests in), 2 deadric quests done, 3 priest masks, 3 jarls ( whiterun, Markarth, Morthal ) I couldnt tell you how many caves, dungeons and forts I explored on my own. I never started TG,DB or Civil war, plus the rest of the masks,Jarls etc. so Im pretty darn sure at the speed I play Ida had at the very least another 100 hrs.

Now I cant say I speed raced through the quests or turtled my way either, Im kinda new to gameing so I would say Im probably slower than average. I dont think the game was ment to be played with only one char, you CANT do everything with one char.

The char I started with I wouldnt have used for DB & TG anyway, not much of a sneaky char. I know I hadn&seen everything, been everywhere, my map had spot with nothing their.

But I lost her ( and the x-box ) due to 3 dogs and a squirel. X-boxs were NOT meant to hit the floor and then get dragged down the hall and out the door.


Edit: sorry don't know what lil button I hit.

Did you know Skyrin whitens your teeth and improves your posture? What? That isn't true but Malik said it was!

370 hours, single playthrough here still feels like there is a lot to do.

I'd say 300 hours is pretty accurate if you complete every single quest (not including infinite Radiant quests).

About 200 hours on my current character and she hasn't finished a questline yet
Radiant AI did send me to Valtheim Towers twice but other than that no repeat content yet

how many NPCs you killed?

I managed to get 50 hours our of Mass Effect 2 on a single playthrough, so I was happy about that.

Did you clear every dungeon? Do every quest? theres a lot of things to do. I spent 80 hours doing just the Dark Brotherhood and mainquest.

I think if you go through the game measuring your progress by how many quests you finish, and using that as your completion goal, you'll never get the number of hours that the game designers say you should. This is because you aren't playing the game they way they designed it to be played. Do you own a house?, Do you own 4 houses? Have you spent any time setting them up with your personal stuff? Do you experiment with Alchemy, or just bang out dozens of the same potion for resale? Did you create any unique weapons with Smithing and Enchanting, or just create hundreds of pieces of low level junk to level up? Have you tried to get to someplace you've seen from a distance that looks interesting, or just run heads down to the next destination on your schedule? I think this is a "go anywhere, do anything" game, and the quests are just a way to deliver lore and get you moved around the map. I think I spent 30 hours just in one larger than normal subterranean environment, where some may have simply gone there, harvested some plants, and left. I think it would be pretty easy to log 300 hours if you tried to take advantage of everything the game offers, but obviously, that's not for everyone, and I'm not saying anyone is playing the game wrong. I'm just trying to theorize on how they got their number.

For me 300 hours is way too small an estimate. If you fully explore every inch of Skyrim as I have, even using fast travel, playtime is far beyond 300 hours.

MQ, DB, companions, college, thieves, civil war, 5 houses, 1 wife, laundry, 50 dungeon mid way, at least 24 beers, letting the game run as I make a sammich, 100 location somewhere around mid, getting rid of beer, all stones, letting the game run as I post this all deadric, Smithing, Enchanting, 2H, heavy all at 100 with the perks I thought I would want, less then 200 hrs.

Yeah yeah I know someone will say you shouldn't mix this with that blah and or blah blah. My RP is to be the badassest do it all dragonborn to ever walk Skyrim. Oh and that was my first play through just gets faster, if you doubt it at all xbox makes it easy to track for people.

You're still playing the game, aren't you? I put atleast 150 hours into my characters and I fast travel. Do you play on PC?

See the reason you feel a bit cheated is perhaps because you played the game with a mindset of "I want to finish this." Perhaps subconsciously you're just a completionist who must finish everything, and there's nothing wrong with that as there's a certain sense of accomplishment to be had with finishing things.
BUT
This is not a mindset one must have when playing Skyrim! You must simply play as though you are in this world and are completing things as they come to you. This will offer you the most enjoyment in your experience!

+1

I've been playing with this mindset and I can put +150 hours into a character. I'm trying to stray away from this gaming mentality with Elder Scrolls.

Certainly if you just want to rush through all marked locations and quests it can be done under 300 hours. But that's the low bar in what this game has to offer.

no because there are different outcomes, character builds, and quest choices.

HOW DO YOU KEEP TRACK OF HOW MANY HOURS YOU"VE PLAYED!, lol jk but seriosly how do you guys know?

But i think 300 hours means all there game content meaning you have to count.

DB

Mages guild

TG

Companions

Main quest

both sides of the civil war

ALL the side quests

ALL the dungeons


im sure if you counted all that up you'd get close to 300+ hours

Im at 100 hourswith my current character, and i have finished.....the DB, that is it, level 47, play on master, i never , -never- fast travel, even if I am full up on items, i dont need the gold, am running at 79 thousand gold at the moment, so i just drop what is worthless, orworth less money, and pick up whats worth more, at a point, when ever inch of my 490 pound carry weight is reached, i see no point in picking anything else up, i go from location to location, explore everything between, and i can guarantee you, when all is done with this character, i ill reach that 300 hour point, when they say that, they mean without fast travelling, and doing -everything-, that includes EVERY cave.

There are no new outcomes, quest choices boil down to do I want to go there/take that/kill that or just leave it on my quest list, builds i can't say a thing about there is not way to know how long it takes you to do 3 clicks/button presses.

Yeah i definitly enjoy playing my character, i dont see the need to buy a house though as i have the entire mages guild at my dissposal, i do alchemy and enchanting, and yes i have stood on top of a mountain peak, gazed at the sun set and then fling my self off the mountain whilst in ethreal form.

I have over 210 hours on my first play through and still have not done mage college, thieves, or dark brotherhood. Still have not beaten Alduin and am only level 45. Still do not have maxed Smithing or enchanting and there are about 100 quests I have yet to tackle. I would say 300 is about correct.

I would say that some of you just play games fast and smash through content quickly and may not get 300 hours worth. This game is what you make of it really. You could cruise through all the main content rapidly if you choose to or you could spend 50 hours doing side quests for the companions and seeing how many caves you get to re clear.

I bet you didn't try to find all the Crimson Nirnroot in Blackreach. That takes atleast 1-2 hours and gets you to appreciate the place a lot more.

You are wrong theres a choice with evrey quest, for instance the DB tried to recruit me once, i could have done what the game tolled me to do and killed those people, but instead i killed that witch, to my surprise the game developers had expected a handfull of players to stumble on this and my journal updated giving me the choice to wipe out the entire DB if i wanted to.

Keep in mind they didn't tell me any of this would happen if i killed her.

Also with a another character-my mage, i had just become Arch-mage and as my first act i killed the majority of the village people for meddling in my affairs.

to my supprise one of my head mages turned aganst me in anger, i defeated her and she left the school, untill several weeks later she returned to face me and two of the other students helped her!, none of this was quest based, this turn of events was by my own design, i had chossen to destroy Winterhold and the consiqences were not just one mage turning aganst me, but she also was able to convince other students to come to her aid.

Also i should make note that i killed them all for there insolence and the rest of the school has been obidient after that.

The entire movie comparison is moot. You don't control what happens or the protagonist's actions in a movie. A movie is comperable to a book moreso than an RPG.

With an RPG you have tons of characters to make.. you aren't honestly surprised that all of the content svcked because you PLOWED through it and burnt yourself out on a jack-of-all-trades character?

Really?

You're complaining about problems that you created yourself and are blaming it on Bethesda. Skyrim is not the greatest game ever, true. I think Morrowind is a much better title. However, you can't possibly expect to count all of the playtime for one character. Of one gender and race, with one unique set of skills that takes a unique set of questlines (in your case, seemingly all). That is not the point of an RPG and you are missing it entirely.. perhaps RPGs aren't for you.

So kill this or kill that instead? Does it change anything at all? I mean I guess you could count both sides of the war too but does it matter (played both so I know what it changes) you can have either npc 1 or npc 2 tell you the same line. And what you make up yourself doesn't count as game content, I'm sure you have great ideas and stories but until beth can charge you to think can't really count it.

It was exactly the same in oblivion and morrowind as well. Kill person A or B, or fail the quest, or retrieve this item, or keep it.