No but if you walked into a picasso exhibition off a street that is laden with picasso peices the impact would be minimal.

For those that don't get what I mean yet, it's not the variety of things that bothers me, it's the mainquest and early-game centricity of the good discoveries. It just feels much more polished than the rest of the game which might be fine for some games butbothers me since this is an open world RPG with the motto "Do what you want, be what you want", not "Do the main quest, the other parts svck compared to it".

I think the car anology I made in my previous post is apt.
There is a difference between the fundamental mechanics of something, and its artistic design.
On the one hand you have the skeleton of the structure, and on the other hand you have what you dress it up with.

You are certainly right in your statements when it comes to the flesh, if you will, of a story, but not when it comes to its bones.
There are just some fundamental constants that have to do with how the human mind operates.
Take for instance Marlowe's law about deus-ex-machina.
Marlowe said that for someone to be shot in the third act, you have to show the audience a gun in the first or second.
The gun cannot suddenly appear without reference in the third act, as that would be a contrivance, it would immediately pull people out of the story.
This can be averted by using another trick, namely showing the audience the gun before the part where it becomes essential to resolve the plot.

This is one of these fundamental laws of storytelling, as I said, its skeleton.

Youre absolutely correct when you say that fashion and insight, or just 'trying something new' mean that art is subject to change.
But, for instance, in sculpting, if you do not take heed of the natural faults in the marble, of pressure points and balance and all that, then it will just crumble at the first gush of wind.
There needs to be a technical expertise, a stable anchor, on which the creativity can then build and add.

Isn′t it said that is was actually sir Francis Bacon who wrote Shakespeares works? (Bacon is one of my absolute heroes of the ages btw so I like to hold on to this "myth" as much as possible )

if you want riverwood to be more interesting try my mod in my signature, and yes i do think somewhere that has 6 building can barely be called a town!

I was saying quite the opposite, that if Riverwood could be called a town, the others could barely be called houses. There is no other town with as many interesting characters, quests, and services, nor with the aesthetic polish.

Sorry for quoting twice in a row, but yes, I agree with you here. Was just thinking about it deeper myself as well. This is a topic of debate through the centuries though and one entire bookshelves have been written on, so I think we better leave it at this for now

Blackreach. Your point is invalid.

Never suggest that shakespeare's plays were written by anyone but shakespeare. You're lucky the http://threewordphrase.com/meanprof2.gif didn't hear you.

Not to mention the fact that inputting all that detail and complexity to every dungeon/town/cave/etc, takes a lot of time. On the one hand you have the devs who might like to be able to have the time to put in all that extra stuff, and on the other hand you have the accountants and sales people wanting finished product, and legions of pouting fans screaming for the game and saying their future babies will be born without any hair if they don't get Skyrim shipped out and loaded onto thier machines NOW, by golly! They can't win on that one.

Is actually designed as part of the main quest although it is at least fortunate that they made it available outside it as well.

This is the case in most games, where the parts near the beginning of the game are more detailed and relatively bug free. The rest of the game, not so much.

It most certainly was Sir Bacon's work!! I live near the Royal Sahkespeare theatre and have to restrain myself from defacing it everytime i near the damn place.

I agree, if everything is awesome and gorgeous then becomes ordinary and boring, just like if everyone has ￡1,000,000 in their bank account, nobody is rich.

Not quite what I meant.

More like how they ruined the Matrix sequels by adding actions scenes so long that you get bored by them. Sometimes less is more.

People, please stop continually missing the point. Refer to some of my earlier posts. Not complaining about the existence of variety. I'm complaining about hearing about a theme park that's awesome and has awesome rides then going to find one awesome roller coaster at the main entrance and the rest of the place has 20 rigged ring toss games and a 10 metre diameter ferris wheel. To give a somewhat joking exxageration. Or to use the existing anology, to walk into an art gallery, see the Mona Lisa, the Scream and Persistence of Memory in the main foyer and then have the rest be hunky dory paintings from local folk.

I think I understand now. Yes, I agree with that.

My main disappointment stems from the sameness of the dungeons, I guess everyone is more interested in the grandness of the towns, so I guess this is the wrong topic to post my feelings.

I'm pretty fond that you are missing the point of the answers here.
the point is: yes some dungeons may look better than other, and it's normal.

You, sir are right. I just wish that all the places are spectacular such as the UL and Better cities mod for Oblivion. Those two mods are whats making me still play Oblivion from time to time.

Would you like the way that theme park or art gallery scenario was presented and organised? I know I wouldn't. My POINT is not that SOME are better than OTHERS, it's that SPECIFIC MAIN QUEST AND EARLY GAME BASED ONES are better than ANY OTHERS. It is highly unbalanced in what is supposed to be a free-roaming game that gives you multiple sides and choices. I know it may be better for the community who play it solely for the main quest but it's a dissapointment as someone who likes to play different characters who follow different stories.

skyrim is bigger than any theme park you'll ever be in, this means there's a lot of "awesome rollercoasters" as well as a lot of "normal rides".

and a lot of the "awesome" ones are not main quest related

I believe that a lot of that extra dialogue and handholding in the first parts and quests of the game, is a deliberate attempt to teach and guide rookie players who may be new to the whole RPG/questing genre. Considering its wide advertising and release over many platforms, it's not unreasonable to expect quite a few of the players who would end up buying the game may never have played this style of game before. And their entry into the Skyrim experience, and their ability to learn and appreciate the game without too much frustration and negative experiences, would be greatly aided by this extra teaching/handholding right at the start. Personally, I think it would have been rather odd and patronizing if they had continued that sort of kindergarten npc behavior much past where they stopped it.

Also, although not ever dungeon in the game is super-duper-cool and designed to be an epically memorable experience, I have yet to explore one that I felt was stupid or 'throwaway'... they all look sufficiently different and well enough created to me, and each provides thier own interest to the game. Lets face it- it would have taken years more to get everything 'perfect' in all the multitude of ways that many people seem to have wanted it to be. Wasn't going to happen. So, I gues we'll just have to settle for 'great', instead of perfect. And mods.... yay mods!

Hmm, I never thought of it like that.
Its a good explanation though, I like it.

WE GET YOU SOME OF US JUST DISAGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

It's supposed to be a representation of a 'real world' (albeit a fantasy world), not a museum. Real worlds have all kinds of places- fantastical, bland, and everything in between.