Having played games since the 70s the amount of content and quality in Skyrim is staggering.

I have now clocked over 300 hours and still haven't seen all it has to offer.

But it isn't just about 'content' it is about the quality of the game.

Having played BG2 and Arcanum and Fallout 1 (plus the others) - this game offers a huge amount of variety and style. I have completed many, many missions just like I did in Fallout 1 with complete stealth and without ever engaging in combat until either the end boss or at all (just getting an item or goal and leaving).

I have been on diplomatic missions, spy missions etc.

Would I have made it a bit more 'stat' based - such as a speech check for a diplomatic solution that would be unavailable to others - yes, but overall this game is in my top 10 of all time.

I am amazed at the number of quests and the variety of the quests - it is a staggering amount. Again, do I wish some quests (although some do) had more stages or depth (betrayal etc.) yes, at times - but to find such depth is also rare imho and is often remembered more through nostalgic glasses than reality.

Anyways, I just want to continue offering my deep thanks to the Skyrim Team - it has been a long, long time since a game gripped me at this level and for so long.

Arcanum, BG2, Fallout 1, Fallout:NV, Skyrim - among my favorites.

Thanks Bethesda!

Yes, they are the new Planescape Torment of the 1st person shooter generation, hats off

The content has always been a strong point in Bethesda, I wish they put more substance into their stories (main, guilds, side quests) because as they are now, the impact of your decisions into the world around you are let's say underwhelming compared to other RPGs that have different content unlocked based on your decisions.

Sorry, I like Skyrim but it doesn't have nearly the depth of story that Planescape has.

Here here!
But brace yourself for the 'Skyrim is a terrible game' crowd and the 'IT'S NOT MORROWIND' fanatics. True, Skyrim has its faults, but it's a genuinely amazing game.

In my book Skyrim shares so little with Arcanum, BG2, Fallout 1 that I'm not sure if you're serious. Yes it shares some similarities with Fallout New Vegas, the bugs and the dated engine.

I agree more on the "content" and less on the "quality". I wish they put as much emphasis on the quality of the dialogue and guild questlines as they put into world details like ants, butterflies and [censored]. I do love Skyrim for its exploration and atmosphere, not as much as I love Planescape or Morrowind as a whole rpg experience though.

I was just feeling the same way. I was standing at the entrance of Labyrinthian (I had already cleared it and was there for the dragon priest masks) and I just thought 'wow, Bethesda has outdone themselves'.

Now, the game is certainly not perfect. But, aside from the bugs (which have ruined a few things for me) and the fact that the Nord ruins scare the willies outta me, this has to be the best game yet created.

I see that as the problem, really. The game has so much content that none of it can be particularly deep. Just the reality of game deveploment, there is no infinte budget nor time, and Bethesda decided to focus on width instead of depth.

As a result it's big, shiny, detailed open world dungeon crawler, where the dungeon crawling is boring due to level scaling of loot.

How many of you are on Bethesda's payroll ... Do you still have any of those floppy discs from the 70's? I too am an old gamer and comparing games from that era to this is impossible.....of course the amount of content is great....but the quality of the content is another story....I can remember old text based games that were much more challenging in regards to puzzles.....and hey look at my health bar going down...better pause this battle and drink a potion....could write a book on all the things they could have done right considering today's technology.....but hey it sure is pretty and look at all the fixes to make it look even prettier....even the modders are going crazy with mods to improve looks but not much being done for gameplay.

Yeah, i'm waiting for some more comprehensive overhaul mods before playing again. The game as it is quite boring, nothing varies but how you kill enemies

Oh, wait! I can get a mission to kill bandit leader at Redoran's Retreat instead of White River Watch!

Skyrim is undoubtedly a huge game in almost all respects...but the lack of depth and consequences are evident to me if compared to a good Rpg ( i.e. New Vegas)

Let's hope in the Dlcs.

I'm right there with you, OP. It's just incredible how much I have to play with and how much I'm enjoying it. Unfortunately, the forums have been somewhat taken over with complainers who would have written the game differently. They'll be after every positive comment again today, while most of those who love the game are off playing the game. What's clear to me is that the devs really poured themselves into Skyrim and for that, I'm grateful. Traveling around in their world is a blast. I'm heading further down the MQ road tonight and it'll be for the first time after exploring for many hundreds of hours since 11.11.11 over a few characters. It's a journey I can't wait to take. Keep your eyes on the skies!

Yes, the DLCs will show if they have listened to criticism. And if they haven't, i'm wondering why i should buy another Bethesda game. I mean, what does Skyrim have that Oblivion doesn't? (Apart from the different setting, of course.)

I'm going to say this: I don't blasted care about choices and consequences. I came to western RPGs for the core engagement of exploration and discovery, not some stupid little power game where doing x makes y happen, and in a [censored] cutscene of stills with poor voiceover (Ie New Vegas). I'm fine with having games that have them, if a company wants to take the style then it's fine. But let me have the last series to hold true to the old Werstern RPGs that were about discovery and exploration while everyone else does choices and consequences, and none of them ever seem to try to make me care about the characters and just be gray for no [censored] reason other than black and white's bad.(ergo Star Wars and Lord of the Rings must be bad.)

Skyrim is the best [censored] RPG to come out in years for the people that want exploration and honestly it's the only good one to come out in years and it's sad because everyone other than Bethesda is obsessed with Choices and consequences or making MMOs.

I've expressed my opinion..and so remain your statement...no one is "obsessed" here,don't get angry so fast

In my opinion Skyrim IS an action adventure game with some rpg elements...It is up to the developers now (reading the complaints on the forum/blog) if choose to insert more Rpg elements or less in the future Dlcs.

But perhaps they are focusing on other aspects now and we talk about nothing here,who knows.



Well,let's see..the aurora borealis and the shoouts are enough? not to mention all the others things missing from one to another...

Unintentional double post -deleted

Sure it looks nice, but it's hardly thing one keeps playing for. And Shouts are mostly spell effects that were removed from magic schools. I'd rather have Sigil Stones

sorry i didn't mean to take such an aggressive stance, kinda grumpy this morning. I do find Skyrim an RPG, it just targets a different core engagement than Witcher 2 and New Vegas, and it's the core engagement that I came to the WRPG genre in the days of Ultima, The gold box games and lands of Lore and Wizardry. I don't really like the fact that Skyrim's the best game for it, because it doesn't have any competition. Obsidion, Bioware and CD Project make choices and consequences focussed RPGs while Bethesda's alone in the exploration focussed ones, and it gives them a lot of Leeway with critics. I would love it to be Robust but I just have to be greatful that one company still is successful at making them.

Gets better with mods. You can quote me on that if you want.

What's this? A positive post in these forums? We can't have that

Actually I am amazed the the size, content and detail. Just like I was with Oblivion and Morrowind (and Fallout 3 for that matter).

I've been playing Skyrim nearly every day since nearly the release, and I have not come close to completing everything.

That appears to be typical with Elder Scrolls games.

Could not agree more. People say that skyrim is not an RPG, when it clearly is. RPGs is not about numbers, but role-playing your character! I can play almost anyone i want in skyrim and thus it is a great role-playing game.

Arcanium was an good game, very cool, however it was not as large content vise as Skyrim.
And yes it's engine was also pretty dated on release.
Most memorable content was discovering the underground city and the hoker quest.

RPGs is about different things for different people, it's a very broad category. The thing is, regarding video game RPGs, that some of us are used to rich layers of stats when we are playing one. Stats that we can usually not only see, but modify so as to better represent us. The good games that fall in this category (the ones Op mentioned and a few others) have spoiled us in such a way that nowadays we look at these 1-st-person-shooters-rpg-wannabe and ask ourselves where the [censored] is the RPG heritage and who is going to carry it on. Our expectations are not that absurd because this series itself had strong RPG mechanics before Skyrim.

Fallout 2...