I'm having trouble expressing how disappointed I am. Up until today I hadn't gone very far in either the Stormcloak or Legion quest-lines.

So far I can sum up the Legion quest-line as:

• Intercept a caravan (of 4 guys)
  
• Intercept a courier (who was killed by a bear by the time I got to him)
  
• Defend Whiterun from generic, respawning Stormcloaks until an arbitrary number of dead Nord patriots, when I guess they call off the assault.
  
• And, of course, a half dozen 'attack the fort and kill roughly 40-50 generic Stormcloaks who endlessly respawn until they reach that arbitrary number when the Fort is taken. At least Oblivion gates had a sigil you had to make it to... All the while, I've been getting small payments of gold, and seemingly random-generated rewards.

And then the crowning jewel - the Assault on Windhelm. General Tullius leads seven or eight guys in an attack on the rebel capital, giving a very poorly voiced speech, with a quiver of steel arrows on his back. Firstly, why is the general leading, on foot, like a common grunt? What happened to the regal, stoic, 'Roman-ness'? What general would carry around bow and arrows? Certainly not Tullius, it just looked silly. Worse, the Imperial soldiers were all wearing the light Imperial armor, not the imposing Legion steel - if a general is going to lead a small assault of 'elite' troopers into a rebel city for fierce urban combat, to take a keep, they should definitely be wearing heavy, steel armor. Once again, I fight through dozens of faceless, anonymous, respawning Stormcloak soldiers who remind me of Star Wars Stormtroopers because of their helmets - and they're about as deadly too.

Then we arrive at the keep to find Ulfric, sitting on his throne with his second in command standing in front, threatening me, Tullius, and Rikke who have apparently lost our escort (maybe if they'd been issued adequate armor they'd have survived). I can walk up to Ulfric and talk to him, discussing interesting topics like 'How goes the war?' or 'What does it mean to be Dragonborn'. If I ask him about the first topic he makes no mention of being utterly defeated. Rather, he talks about 'sending a campaign' to take back Winterhold. Anyways, after a brief 3v2 fight we overwhelm Galmar and Ulfrik, the leader of the rebellion is laid low, and asks that he 'be executed by the Dragonborn, because it'll make for a better song' despite the fact that I haven't done anything even remotely Dragon-borny, except for participating in the Dragonslaying at Whiterun. Tullius hands me what he says is his sword, an enchanted Dwarven longsword, to make the kill with. Keep in mind that this whole time, Tullius has been using a generic Imperial sword, so where he got this Dwarf thing is anyone's guess. After I execute Ulfrik, Tullius says 'keep my sword'. Oh great. a Dwarven Sword of Devouring that you'd never even used. How special. Then, we go back outside to give a victory speech to the assembled soldiers (where were you guys when Ulfrik was held up in his keep, and could've had dozens of men lying in wait to ambush General Tullius? Oh and General, you still have that ugly quiver of arrows on your back spoiling your red-and-gold ensemble). This speech was at least a little bit better delivered than the first one, and Tullius admits afterwards that he hates giving speeches. I can see why. But aside from giving me thanks, Tullius mentions that I've done quite a bit, but if I happen to find any remaining rebel camps, make sure to kill them too. Good day, Legate (I've already been promoted to a Legate), see you on the other end of Sovngarde.

• Why do the rewards for these quests need to be random items? In Morrowind, there was Templar Armor, and in Oblivion there was that white armor worn by Adamus Phillida and other high-ranking legion officials - why couldn't Skyrim have progressively provided me with a set of unique-looking, high quality, 'Imperial Legate Armor' or something?
  
• Why do the quests svck/are so similar? We could've had alot of cool things like being an ambassador to a Jarl on the fence, and your actions to win him over might influence later stages of the campaign. We could've had weeding out traitors. We could've had some 'off the books' missions from Tullius resisting the Thalmor. Instead, we had a bunch of generic Imperial camps followed by a bunch of generic fort attacks.
  
• Why were there no moral dilemmas, and a shallow story? Alright, I liked the original premise of the Stormcloaks vs. Imperials - I like moral ambiguity. But there's never a point where I need to choose whether or not to disobey orders because it means executing civilians, or stop soldiers from executing prisoners. I never get to see scared Stormcloak civilians who might bring the war to my head, and make me question my choice in who I sided with. All of my enemies wear helmets that mask their faces, making the fight impersonal - I think there are only three 'faces' of my Stormcloak foes where I can look the enemy in the eye.

I think I've come to the conclusion that, if Bethesda is only going to do battles that have a dozen people, it's best to leave them alone altogether. They could've at least had ambient noise of warfare going on, to give the impression that there were other squads of soldiers fighting through different streets of Windhelm that I just couldn't see. The current system where both sides seem to have six or so guys at any one time, and more just spawn through doorways in arcade-like, and frankly beneath Elder Scrolls. In Morrowind, I think that every human NPC (aside from guards and maybe some vampires or slaves) had a name, even bandits. Now they're just Stormtroopers.

I guess all in all the point of post is that I've had a mostly positive impression of Skyrim, but the Imperial quest-line really just jaded me - and I'm almost positive I won't do the Stormcloaks now, as I have no reason to think they'll be any better. I'd expected more from Bethesda. Hopefully they'll take note and, well, do a better job in the coming expansions and a future Elder Scrolls: VI.

/rant

Battle music didn't even play for me on the assault of windhelm :epicfuu:

You were the first one to KILL a dragon, so what are you taking about you not doing anything dragonborney.

Not to mention the Jarl's advisor of Whiterun has some gossipey soldiers like mentioned before.

might i suggest the 'spoilers forum' for threads/posts heavy laden with spoilers? hmmmm?

Uhm. The Stormcloak quest line is basically the same..

Just more invade-y than defend-y.

Sounds like the stormcloak quest line

You know, I love Skyrim. It's pretty much the best game ive ever played, and I'm an RPG fan. I can actually sympathize with this rant. I expected more too. I kind of expected to get more than a generic enchanted glass sword (that im not even going to use). And the ending was kind of underwhelming. I had the same feeling after the battle as the faceless AI soldiers. I kind of stood around..........talked to Lekke........ uhhhhh, should I.........I mean what.....i dont even.......??? Thats it?

Better rewards and new post-conflict dialogue could have been added, at the very least.

Upon being about to be blessed with the final reward for the quest line, the General says "here, keep my sword" and the ebony sword disappeared from my inventory and "Banded Iron Shield" was added instead. That made my day.

Also, why does a Roman general sound like he has some strange, monotonous Canadian drawl?

For a great getting pumped up to attack the final city just look to Dragon Age: Origins attacking Denerim. That literally made my hair stand up and i shook my controller i was so amped.

Don't worry, the Stormcloak quest line is as flat as the imperial one with bonus cynical whispers from Ulfric to his general during his speech.

Hmmmm? No. I said 'Heavy Spoilers' in the thread description, and then talked more about mechanics than story. If anyone didn't see an attack on Windhelm and Ulfrik's death being the result of being an Imperial, they're too thick to remember it being spoiled anyways. Nothing big here, but I warned anyways.

More to the point, I don't see how else we can 'remedy' things for the future other than posting on the forums. It seems most people have had similar experiences to myself. Incidentally, I was relatively satisfied with the Companions and Thieves Guild...but it seems like it'd have been more important to get the Imperials and Stormcloaks right, as they're a bigger part of Skyrim's storyline - and everyone is talking about the war. Such a let down...

Edit: They shouldn't have moved this, I posted it where I did because of the higher flow of traffic, gave appropriate warnings, and spoiled very little.

I finished the legion quest line recently myself. I don't think there was any problem with the length of the campaign (considering all the other quests you can get in Skyrim) but the potential variety and intensity seemed to be less than anticipated. I didn't hate what I saw and did, it just seemed to me like it could have been more. I do agree that leveled or non-existent quest rewards don't belong here, and that you lose some immersion (and some pride) when you can't get a unique piece of anything for your trouble. Still, my question remains where where Ulfric's retainers at the end? Why was the palace empty? Had he been abandoned? Were all his men slain outside? I guess that's what kind of got me to wondering.

In all, I'd rate the Imperial Quest line at about a 6 out of 10, good enough but not quite as engaging as I had hoped. I now have to see if the Main Quest is any better, should be interesting if nothing else.

I'd have rated it a 4/10. There was nothing unique, or interesting about it, except for the effort Bethesda made to include a castle siege scenario (Whiterun), poorly done though it was.

You're right too in your point about the palace, and I had forgot to talk about it. Why was Ulfrik's palace so empty? It looked positively cavernous, and even if they had him quietly railing against dozens of courtiers who'd abandoned him, while extolling the virtues of his one true friend, Galmar while sitting stern on his throne that'd have been better. Just explain, tell the story. I just don't think there was any thought, or honest work put into the Imperials and Stormcloaks, and before today I had expected to be blown away towards the end of the quest line(s). Is this an RPG or an action-adventure-hack-and-slash? Actually include writing in your 2nd biggest quest line o the game...

It was fun enough. Could have been more fleshed out obviously. Much better than running through an oblivion gate to me.

I agree. If anything, this whole questline should constitute as being secondary under the Main Quest itself but still be a fully fleshed out part of the game. I mean, the conflict is central to the game and you hear about every minute or so when in a city so it really should have been afforded more time and thought.

played both sides youd think you would have become a jarl or somthing cool stormcloak sides you felt no impact of removing legion support from areas you just had storm cloacks move into town after whiterun you did have people mentioning what the life under ulfric was like but it didnt matter belethors was funny about it though but in the end it seemed meaningless after ulfric wins weres this damn mooot they speak of he just dissapears and does nthing it was pointless and should have been thrown aside or worked into the main quest as somthing to do yknow like getting better support to fortify towns from dragon attacks that sort of thing but hey it could have been worse the imperial side was even worse they coulda at least made you jarl of windhelm no real thank you at the end the storys were far too cloned and the thing that bugged me the most was the grey quarter and argonian dock area mabye with some legion influence things get better for the elves and argonian but nope nothing happens as for the storm cloacks once again nada happened any true nord? so what! no true nord seemed to care dawnstar still cant sleep they dont give a damn about the war, lad in falkreath just wants a dog, and winterhold just wants to be a damn city you had no real input on the lands which had major problems the goverments werent dealing with and when you think about it either way skyrim is screwed if skyrim is independant then when the empire falls theyre screwed its not like theyd ask black marsh or hammerfell for help racist bastards the way the story was handled from a lore standpoint doesnt make you care about the plight of any true nord i found myself more comppeled by alikr warriors from hammerfell currently dealing with the thalmor menace

I had something like this happen, on one of the missions I reported back the the general and he said "Good work, have this blade"
Dwarven Shield added

Anyway, I was kind of disappointed that you just report to the legate and say "that fort is as good as ours" or something like that like 5 times, 2 shotting random stormcloaks while their bodies disappear as soon as they're dead, then you take windhelm. It was a pretty big let down.

Not only was it epic, but all the choices that you had made so far really mattered!

I found the Whiterun-battle more interesting when playing the Stormcloak campaign. While the catapults fire away you take first the gatehouse, then the drawbridge, the cities different districts and finally you enter Dragonsreach and fight the jarl until he surrenders. But from then on - all the Civil War quests were very unengaging.

I have just finished the Imperial questline myself, and I agree with what has been posted. There were parts where it showed promise, I had hoped it would make up for the Legion being non joinable in Oblivion, unfortunately it ended up being a letdown.

It started off well enough, I liked the general Tullius character, and his voice actor, I had hoped to deal more with that npc later, and less with the more wooden Legate Rikka, but it was not to be. Giving a set of Imperial armor upon joining was a nice touch, I had hoped to upgrade that with more advanced Imperial armor as I won battles and advanced in rank. This was not the case however. The only item rewards you get are seemingly random. The general gave me an enchanted daedric sword as my first reward (I started the line at a pretty late level) the next 2 "rewards" was a plain steel shield, and a banded iron chestpiece, none of these Imperial issue I'm sure. Where was an upgraded set of Imperial armor? Imperial plate steel perhaps? Imperial ebony for such a useful soldier maybe? I never really got much to show for my "advancing through the ranks" no new armor, still taking my orders from the same Legate Rikka, even when I myself was promoted to Legate as well. Perhaps a mission where I was put in command of a fort about to come under attack from the stormcloaks would have helped with that, perhaps being able to give orders to the garrison to prepare the defenses, pick where to station the men, etc.


The mission where we were to recover the crown was the highpoint of the questline for me, It was the only mission where having a small amount of soldiers really made sense. Running through a ruin with a group of legion soldiers fighting off stormcloaks and undead felt really unique compared to the fort assaults. The assaults themselves were a decent idea, but could have been implemented better. Having a battle in the courtyard with soldiers respawning every so often didn't really feel right at all, at least the battles themselves sometimes captured the hectic nature of melee combat especially with friendly npcs always seemingly getting in my line of fire I think a better solution would have been to attack the fort, have the large battle outside, then have everyone head for the doors and sweep out the inside, anything but respawns.

The defense of Whiterun started off epic enough, the Jarl and Legate talking about the battle, tactics etc. then getting sent outside and seeing npcs running about, catapult rounds landing in town, destroying buildings. It was a letdown however, that all the fighting took place on the gate. I understand that technical considerations come into play during a fight with supposedly large armies, so the best they could do was send stormcloaks in waves against the gate. It really felt silly, how easy it was to repel that. I found it odd that they didn't make the attack multi pronged to overcome technical limitations and yet still make it feel like an epic battle. Why not have it so you stabilize the situation at the gate, but a soldier runs up and says they need help, the stormcloaks are climbing over at east wall or something, Thus you end up fighting many smaller battles all around the city. Perhaps checking in with the leadership to see how things are going and what area needs assistance.

I also found it odd how none of the battles included npcs from said town, I realize having the court wizard of Windhelm die in the invasion would mess up at least one quest, but I'm sure a way could be found to add some flavor to the battles. There should have been an epic last stand defense LOTR style in Ulfric's castle, Instead all we got, was little more than an execution of the two poor saps standing there.

The General alludes to the Thalamor peace not being permanent as ulfric's head rolls, let us hope much can be learned from the Imperial Campaign in Skyrim.