They produced an excellent game as it is, and missing release dates can spell disaster. Running past release date is never a good thing. People lose jobs over that, and companies can lose huge amounts of money in development costs from time-schedule overruns. Obviously they needed to hit the Christmas season with this game; overshooting the release date in a time when there is such a thing as the internet and post-release patches is just not good.

It would be one thing if the game weren't playable as released, but it in fact was very stable for the vast majority of users. I've had several CTDs, which are no problem since I save regularly (some 3,200 saves by level 45) and I've had a few graphical burps, like a nigh-invisible dragon. Most of those could be resolved by quitting and restarting. Nothing serious, and almost everybody is in that same situation. There are a handful of people who have had serious problems, but they are, again, a relative handful.

While I agree that marriage seems like a half-baked feature, the sheer quality of the game astonishes, from the excellent key voice actors to the awesome stories of the return of Alduin, the Companions and their big secret, the Civil War, and all the background information you get about the ancient times when Ysgramor returned to avenge...well, you know what he came to avenge.

But anybody that complains about this game should go and do one thing before continuing to blab about how bad it is, and how big a disappointment it is, and how they feel betrayed by Bethesda, or Microsoft and Sony, or Todd Howard, or whoever. Go and watch the http://reckoning.amalur.com/ Go watch those, then go play Skyrim for an hour. Go walk through the towns, and the forests, and the mountains, and see the glaciers and the snowstorms; go see the aroura-rise at night - and then remember how cartoonish and worthless Kingdoms of Amalur looks in comparison.

Games get postponed all the time, they shouldn't have committed to a release date so early, games should be done when they're done. I would've waited a year maybe two, hell I would've waited for the next generation of consoles if we got a truly great experience. Voice actors are meh as far as I have experienced, the writing is drab, the stories manage to fall extremely flat, quests are extremely redundant, the loot svcks, npcs are boring, magic is stripped, there is no feeling of real interaction or change in the world...I'm sure I could keep going and I'm sure others could feel in complaints. Is it fun? Yeah sure but I was expecting more, and seeing all their cool ideas at game jam made me realize that if they took the time and effort they really could have taken things to the next level had they been willing to. Is the world pretty? Of course it is but nice environs do not make for a great game.

Environments alone do not make a game, that's true - but great visuals are simply mandatory for this sort of game. They aren't a bonus, they're simply required.

And I do hope you realize the utter impossibility of them delaying the release of the game by two years - and waiting for the next generation of consoles? Utterly impossible. They already waited five years since the last installment in the franchise. Waiting another four or whatever might well have killed the franchise off. If Todd Howard had gone and said "we need to delay release of the game by two years to get it ready" they would have had him out on the street before the end of the day. Then they would have replaced him, probably with somebody from entirely outside the company, but regardless it would have been with somebody whose explicit orders were to "get the damn game released on time". A couple months might have been feasible if the Christmas season weren't looming, but missing the Christmas season was out of the question.

And what more could you want from the voice acting? Aside from some little oddities (Why was Esbern voiced by two different actors?) the voice acting ranges from pretty good to excellent.

Was there a video attached? I was too busy eating popcorn and reading posts from a bunch of advlts acting like three-year old entitlement babies.

MMOs thataway --------------------->

Please go there...

Games get postponed all the time,

You know, postponing games isn't always a garantee that it will actually make the game better. Just look what happened to Duke Nukem, Ruined Forever.

Besides, how do you know Beth had the cash to actually postpone the game a year? You're thinking of Diablo of course. Well the problem is, Blizzard must be rolling in cash to allow another delay in Diablo (which would be logical since they've been collecting monthly subscriptions from millions of people for years now).

Skyrim has quite a few flaws and nobody will deny it, but it simply is a good game and in my opnion, it is (or will become) the best of breed in the TES series.

I don't and it doesn't but it could have. Frankly I doubt it could have been made any worse than it is, perhaps more buggy but there are patches for that.

I suppose "12" is your age.

They've not added nothing.
Todd Howard is the executive producer and simply do his job (very well if you ask me) you can't call him a "liar" because his work is to sell you an entertainment product and this "game jam" is nothing more than a "joke" for the "moaning children" that call him and the developers team "liars", accuse them of "laziness" etc.
He's tried to explain that some "spectacular" features have been cutted off/removed for various and valid reasons and maybe only some of those things you've seen in the video will be included in a future Dlc.

And i personally think that the essential ones like mounted combat,footprints etc. are already in advanced development for future dlcs.

Remember also that consoles can't run properly some of the "heavy" graphics add-ons like seasonal foliage due to hardware limits so no chance for that ones on xbox360/ps3.

For "the rest" well... is the same old story ("Morrowind was the best","oblivion was better","i want back some features from previous games" etc..) but lets put in that way:

-Morrowind:great Rpg,great world design,decent story,npcs all killable,more creatures, levitation,spears,more guilds, no fast travel, consequences on what you did etc.. but too dispersive and "dated"; horrible animations and graphic models (especially the Npcs) and no acting voices so more dialogues option/less immersion (or more for some in that way)

-Oblivion: great action game with some rpg elements; better combat and better graphics,fast travel,spell making,poor main quest/ less immersion ,excellent guilds quests,good daedric quests,oblivion gates and dungeons too repetitive,acting voices/less dialogues,decent world design (exceptional the vegetation) tons of bugs

-Skyrim: extraordinary action game with some rpg elements and a solid lore/background; breathtaking game world,better combat and better graphics,dragons,shouts,civil war,almost decent main quest, very good/excellent guilds and Daedric quests (but Mages guild and companions guild were way too short compared to the Oblivion ones even if well balanced and more focused ) exceptional dungeons design (and yes there is even one dungeon without "artificial lights" near Riften populated only by cave bears if you seek for it) possibility to be a werewolf in the vanilla game,perks,dual wielding,killing animations,Black Reach,the dwarfs ruins and a credible "underworld" at last (just think about the possibility of a Dlc settled in the past with giant/dwarfs and stuff like this in the same game world but in a different era..) etc.

in short: Bethesda have added tons of things that the community have requested for years in the past ..yes, even marriage and fast travel..but hey..they're completely optional and no one forces you to wear an amulet and marry the first stranger you encounter (marriable npc) or to rp and don't use fast travel at all...

but you know the lazy human being prefer moaning and complaining behind a pc instead of think positive and understand that Skyrim is a masterpiece -maybe unfinished and certainly with his flaws- and most of all that Todd Howard and Bethesda have their targets and budget/time restrictions to deal with and even other projects/things to do in the meantime.

I'm curious. How is it a bad game then? Have you played other games these past years, and have you followed the trend in the gaming industry?

What Skyrim does is quite frankly unique. Almost every AAA developer is going for the railroaded 10hrs max sp gaming experience, and to hide that they've made their game half-arsed they add useless features like co-op, multiplayer or go MMO.

Maybe because of that my standards are lowered but Skyrim is a good enough game. Now that the CK is released it can only get much better.