I don't think I capped more then 300 hours in FO3 and that was with significant time invested in mods and screen shooting. my OBlivion play wasn't more then 400 hours for that same reason too. Skyrim only lasted like 150 hours at most (completed all queast over 3 characters aside from repetitive ones via radiant.) NV however lasted well into 500 hours and I actually go all the DLC as well as mods up the wazzo.

Currently Space marine is taking my time. MP is pretty fun.

As the floodwaters of my Skyrim playing time start to recess, I'm again thinking of the things I liked and disliked.

I somewhat LIKED being able to play out EVERY questline in ONE play though. Granted it has removed almost all desire to play it again with a different build. I've invested 250+ hours in my current play through and feel that I've MORE than gotten my moneys worth. (and then some!) Replay value at this point is moot - I'll play a few other titles and maybe next winter pick up Skyrim again and it might be "fresh" again.

On the other end of the scale, Morrowind had great visuals (for its time) but my #1 frustration with it was that I was making game changing decisions along the way without knowing it! How could a player know about these decisions before hand without a players guide, internet help or a bunch of play throughs?

In idea - have we evolved to the point of having 'configurable games' ? (for different play styles?)

Before even building a charater to play the game could ask how you wished to play out the game? Multiple play throughs with your in game decisions effecting how and IF you can play different quest lines (grossly effecting the amount of content and play time available to the play in one play through) ?? Or if you'd prefer, none of your in game decisions have any effect on the amount of game play and you can experience almost everything in one play through? (I say ALMOST as you couldent experience any of the game changing conflicts that the 1st style would present)

Just a though.

I want to preface this rant by saying that I love Skyrim more than any other PC title I've ever played. And even now as I pretty much wasted the current content with bad gameplay mechanics, the experience was still much worth it.

But.

I think they need to fix the games RPG elements to be in line with today's standards (or even mid 90s). Now it feels like a exploration/fps with swords and sorcery, rather than an RPG game. It's a great exploration game, but if I wanted to play a role-playing game, I'm [censored] out of luck.

1. There are no choices/consequences. Nothing you do has any impact on the gameworld, and NPCs are completely oblivious to your previous actions. This makes your character feel disconnected from the world. It's not only the fact that nobody seems to understand that you're the leader of all factions, dragonborn and the like, but the simple act of reading a book around a subject should open some dialogue options that reflect your knowledge, rather than presenting you as this hulk with alzheimers.

2. It has no replay value as there are no character specialization limitations. Every character ends up being a generalized know-it-all/do-it-all in the end. What's the point of doing a new playthrough when the end result seems to be so dull and generalized character?

3. Pacing. Going from the executioner's block from being the legendary Dragonborn in less than 20 minutes and then in the next instant you're doing fetching jobs for companions as "whelp"... What? It's all very chaotic. Also, going from ragged robes to ebony plate within a hour of gameplay is very depressing.

4. The only enjoyable form of combat gameplay in Skyrim is with sword/shield and two-handed weapons. Magic has scaling problems and the gameplay completely circumvents the difficulty slider. If things take longer to kill, it doesn't make the game harder, just more tedious. Pretty much every non-melee skill is unpolished or somehow broken. Crafting loops, too fast gear replacements in the early game wastes loads of cool looking sets early on. I wish I was forced to spend at least few hours worth of gameplay in that fur or iron armor.

5. Exploration game manhandled into being a directed experience by focusing too much on faction quests and main quests, and pretty much randomizing the rest. I feel like the main quest or faction quests should've been much more limited, much more delayed and much more subtle in every possible way. A better design (for an exploration/rpg) would've been to focus all attention on making a multitude of mini quests with a lot of meaningful choices/consequences through dialogue and action, and have some sort of alignment system (similar to Baldur's Gates) to then steer you towards the right faction that is unique to each character. This way, players could take their time exploring their immediate surroundings and feel like the miniquests are the soul of their character, rather than becoming the jarl of all holds, leader of all factions and end the civil war while saving the world from dragons.

I hope the upcoming DLCs will fix some of this. These are some things that are too huge to be left on modders hands.

I completely agree. I think Todd Howard totally screwed magic up and a lot of people are still confusing "looking like magic" with "feeling like magic". I have a http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1352641-really-no-custom-spellmaking/page__st__180__p__20407116#entry20407116 of how magic became a mess of useless lights.

Based on my experience with their previous games (Oblivion and Fallout 3), i expected an open world dungeon crawler with atleast one feature that's true beauty could only be achived with mods. And now having played it extensively, that is exactly what i got

However it is shallower than i expected, but fortunately the " " feature was only the UI, that was quickly fixed with mods.