Yeah, I like atmosphere and characters of Winterhold. It could have been done better, but what's there is cool. Like the character archetypes are more entertaining. The old professor who's naively fascinated with everything, the young mages who try to push their limits and experiment on others, etc..

I started the game as a warrior, but being a mage gives me a better "adventurous" feel for some reason. It seems like a good starting point for the plot. A lot of Skyrim is based around draugrs, for example. The mages college gives one of the better introductions to it. If you start with the companions or even Bleak falls though, the draugr thing just gets thrown on you. Suddenly you're fighting zombies, and you just go on with your life. It doesn't have the same sense of discovery to it.

Thieves' Guild for me.

So I tried to join the Companions on my new character.. and when it came time to spar with Vilkas, I Fus-Ro-Dah'ed as an opener, just for a laugh. He got pissed that I used magic.

Now I hate the Companions. These Nords don't know what's good for them.

college of winterhold quests are epic...they aren't bad..people didn't like how it wasn't a long questline...but its long enough...its tough...wait till you do em...they aren't easy if you never did em before. you get lots of rewards...you get to become arch mage..you get a lot of loot...they are good quests...i wish there were more but there's 5 or 6...it takes all day for me to do em..and thats a lot of playing.

I've done the College, the Companions, the Dark Brotherhood and most (though not all) of the Thieves Guild lines. My favourite is probably still the College, I really got svcked into events, I felt that there was real immediacy to the dangers encountered in that story. Unlike the other lines I didn't get bored half way through and go do something else.