I'm not going to call it burnout because I don't on these games and I control my playing so that I'll never be burned out. There's always something new I can do. What I do know about my style of play is that I enjoy the bulding of my character a lot and once she's become very powerful, my brain will start thinking of a new character to build for a new game. That means that I don't do the main quest early because I also tend to want to do a new character after the main quest...not sure if it'll be that way in Skyrim yet because I haven't done the MQ. Also, if I find that I need a change of scenery, I'll move over to FNV or FO3 or TES4. There's always another world to play in.

Gotta agree here, and this has always been my issue with ES games, and to a degree RPG's in general....I like the world to be a dangerous place, it makes exploring it more rewarding, but most games it's the opppsite, the longer you're around the less dangerous the world is.

Gothic 2 is IMO the best example of an RPG that makes the world always feel appreciably dangerous, I wish more RPG's went in that direction.

I actually picked up Dark Souls so i'd have something challenging and RPGey when I feel bored of Skyrim.

i burn out whenever i yearn to experience the glorious sights and sounds of a gears of war headshot.

This is why I have 5 characters going right now, whenever I feel like I've played a specific path too much, I hop over to something else for a whole, when I go back the the first one it feels a bit fresher.

pretty much this although dead thralls have sparked intrest for me in the game for me trying to find the best thralls is my loot now since all other loot is worthless

Have to agree with you here, and Risen (the not-so-buggy PC version) is another good example. Piranha Bytes seems to take its cues from Bethesda by providing players everything the Elder Scrolls games don't: a smaller, tighter, more challenging, and more storied gameworld where your actions, discoveries, and accomplishments are all a lot more consequential. Gold and experience are most tightly controlled too, so you can't become godlike.

Even though there's more to do in an Elder Scrolls game, Gothic 2 and Risen's open worlds end up providing me the same number of play hours as Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Those 4 games just get boring around the 100-hour mark, so I always quit: the challenge goes away and the exploration starts yielding the same modest set of experiences (same loot, same monsters, etc.) over and over again.

In contrast, you can generally finish every quest in a Piranha Bytes game after 100 hours, but the experiences are a lot more varied and meaningful. To me, Gothic 2 and Risen are what open-world RPGs should be.

I still love the Elder Scrolls though, obviously. Bethesda's ambition alone is worth the price.

during my run with oblivion, I always played for massive amounts of time, then stopped (or burned out) and started this cycle again. I feel skyrim will be the same way, I'm approaching the end of the first burn out. Sometimes I feel like a sheet of paper caught in the wind, it's easy for a game to pick me up for weeks before leaving my interest for a time.

At about 150 hours, my level 38 mage started to become stale for me. I had finished only one guild questline. I will probably return to that character to at least finish the MQ. But in the meantime I restarted with an Orc melee warrior on Master difficulty. The game is kicking my ass, but it rekindled my interest.

Yeah, I have yet to play anything that tops Gothic 2..I have Risen on Xbox 360...it's pretty good but I stopped playing it when Skyrim came out, probably head back to it soon as it seemed to pretty much be the real "Gothic 4". Really the thing that these games do so well to me is having a truly dangerous world, with consequences. I am not sure why most RPG's go in reverse but it's weird to me.

I feel like I like TES and Gothic games with different parts of my brain heh. At least Skyrim so far has provided more in the way of challenge than Morrwind or Oblivion did, granted I have to set limits for myself, turn of the HUD and other stuff, but it still feels a little closer to that "better be careful" feeling. I think the slight bump in difficulty will make the game hold my attention longer than the other titles did.