After 375 hours I'm please to say that I'm still be surprised by stuff kicking off in this game.

I mean I must have fast travelled to Whiterun thousands of times of times so I kinda know what to expect, I've never had a Dragon there (unlike Dawnstar - the past ten times I've been there I fight a dragon) so I just run straight to my Breezehome or have a word with Adrianne at the forge.

Oh no, not this time I came upon a scene of bedlam, I was just stunned there for a few seconds watching as Commander Gaius led two or three of his man in a pitched battle against an Apprentice Storm Mage, Apprentice Fire Mage and an Apprentice Ice Mage plus the Pet Frostbite spider they had brought with them. As if that wasn't enough those two Redguards are by the gate so they are swinging away with their Scimitars along with a few of the townsfolk getting involved.

I panicked and pull my attack trigger, of course it had to be fireball I have on there so as well as catching the Mages I must have winged a guard as they all instantly turn on me!. I turn round and get the hell out of the Whiterun gate, I run 30 metres outside and turn round just in time to see one of the guards skewer one the mages. They come for me, I sheathe and get offered the chance to pay off my fine (40), I gratefully take it. Phew, thank god that's over.

Wrong as soon as I appear outside of Dragonsreach the guard there is battling with yet another Apprentice Ice Mage, somehow I ended up in the moat with a skeleton and a corpse of a Mage he must have just killed, by the time I'd clambered out he'd killed the other. Mad times.

I walk back down through town and see all the corpses lined up, not everyone pulled through, all the guards survived but Ahlam and Lillith Maiden Loom met their makers, secretly glad it wasn't Adrianne I did what comes natural to my thief and looted all the rings and mages gear.

I go up to make sure Adrianne isn't lying in a heap somewhere and she tells me she doesn't want to fight with me any more lol, me neither hon.

Last week was fun also, harvesting some Wheat from Rorikstead I had my first ever two Dragons at once encounter, one was a named dragon. Quite as easy fight to be honest as one was just interested in blasting everything that wasn't me so I could take them on one by one. Good times folks.

One time I came upon an Orc Stronghold and they were fighting a giant. After we killed off the giant.. An elder dragon and frost dragon showed up. While fighting them a bear attacked and 2 frostbite spiders... They helped me take them all out but that is probably the most epic battle I've ever had and probably ever will have.

Yep

nope

The Chill came as a bit of a surprise.

I had the exact same thing happen to me lol

Hopefully it's not scripted and just a random encounter.. That would take away some of the greatness. I think the giant was a scripted event though just like when you're first going to Whiterun and the Companions are fighting that giant on the farm. But I hope the dragons & creatures weren't scripted there.

After 200 hours I'm still discovering new locations and playing through new quests, so it's still surprising

It's not necessarily the random encounters, but yes, the best thing about the game is that it fonstantly manages to surprise me, be it nice work put into some small details or things being related to other thungs you wouldn't have expected. I might not be far into the game (about 70 hrs now), but regarding surprise and variety, they certainly did nothing wrong.

411 hours played, still finding cool new stuff the chill?? DONT TELL ME ILL FIND IT

I came across a pond on it's side, sticking 20' up in the air, and all these Abecean Longfins swimming through the air in this hole in the ground where the pond should be. That was a little surprising.

My most epic battle was months ago, I was playing about with two giant and a mammoth once can't remember why but I spent about twenty minutes luring them to another spot (a random one) only to realise that I had led them smack into another giant. I was like whoa never saw you big guy and ran onto the nearby path. Then it got ridiculous, I came along some vigilantes of stendar as well as two mages, so they all started kicking off, I was nearly dead frm the mages when a dragon decides to land, I ran away to hide on these rocks while the dragon sorted out the mammoths and trolls only to realise I was getting shot by arrows. I'd only got and ran too close to a fort who were shooting at me and the dragon.

At one point there were like four humans fighting, a couple of giants, a sabrecat, a dragons, and two three four (I can't remember), but loads of mammoths, quite surprised it didn't lag one little bit even with all that mayhem. While epic encounters do happen naturally, not to this scale, this just happened because I'd led the giants and mammoths over to some others. Make me wonder if you could go round all those Giant Camps in the Volcanic region, see if you lure them all together (hardest bit would be keeping track of the mammoth who wander off), kill them all then resurrect them all with ritual stone and fight that word wall dragon that circles round there.

I wish this game was like Black Ops with a theatre mode, where it connected upto Bethesda servers and you could save your last xx amount of gameplay so you can save it in your folder or upload it online, how cool would that be.

Tons of surprises every day i play Skyrim. Shoo most of the stuff mentioned in the Forums i have not even come across that is how unique experiances seem to be between players.

Today i was hunting some deer and when it was almost dead it seemed to have escaped. To my surprise i saw the deer heading back in my direction which made no sense til i killed it and found myself under acttack by the Skeever which had been chasing the deer previously.

I was messing around in Falkraeth today by just killing people (I always reload after doing this type of stuff)

Well.. Apparently, A certain Werewolf gotten glitched and was still in jail after a certain game and he had a ball with the guards. Quite funny, watch another werewolf making people go rag-doll and go flying across the town.

Yes, I never know when it's going to crash next.

Such primal power! I should try playing like that once in awhile instead of being so serious about escaping consequences with a save reload

yep, I'm around 400 hours and still finding stuff I didn't find on my other playthroughs, mostly small things around the map, like a caged wolf guarded by two 'trappers'.

The dungeon details...all of them are so awesome!

Cleaning out a bandit fort I enter their smithy and there's a bunch of imperial armors stacked there: "Odd that they would craft imperial armors" I think to myself. I continue exploring and a little bit later I find a dungeon with a prison cell and three dead imperial guards...and this in a radiant quest!

Do you know trolls charging speed is the same as your walking speed? Cause hearing strange thumps behind you only to turn around after a while to find a troll following you really close is suprising no matter how many times it happens. And oddly enough it's happened a few times...

It rained, for the first time... EVER!!! Plenty of snow to the north, sun to the south... can't recall where I was at the time, but seeing as I play my Khajiit like a true cat, avoiding water etc.. I was most bemused. Luckily there was a spider infested cave to hide in until the rain stopped.

The Chill was a nice little surprise. Especially now that I'm not caring about finding money and loot anymore I find myself exploring a helluva lot more and so coming across these surprises, and there are just too many things to mention.
I did come across a mammoth kind of going rogue all by itself, as I had killed its giant earlier.

Vanilla Oblivion still surprises me to this day and I had it since it released. Goes to show that just because you put a lot of time into the game doesn't mean you've seen everything it has to offer.

The game really didn't surprise me anymore after 30 hours or so. Since then, it has been more like routine than surprises.

Perhaps a negative surprise, but fighting two Blood Dragons at level 18 wasn't fun, especially since it was necessary if I wanted to proceed in MQ (they were patrolling around Sky Haven Temple)

^This... though being the content tourist that I am spent around 200hrs on my one and only character, mostly just running around and being in the world... I never even got halfway through the MQ. Skyrim has been shelved indefinitely because my preferred roleplaying type [mage] was surprisingly empty and increasingly disappointing.