Of course he's serious. If he were being sarcastic, he would have put what he said between tags, because sarcasm has more oomph when you announce that it is sarcasm, especially when you show off your mad HTML skills while doing it.

MOAR SKILLS NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM

So, Jack, do tell . . . why are you the most hateable person on this forum? Is it because you don't use "sarcastic" HTML tags? (See post #26, above).

Uuuh, you. Again, not trying to be rude.

I am sure we can find people who never used these or hated these so "I never used it anyway.", "I hated it, I am glad it is removed." type comments will definitely happen in such a case. Therefore the question is not if he is sarcastic or not, the question is how many of these might actually happen? I am too scared to answer that question myself though...

Given that Daggerfall had well over 30 skills, Morrowind had 28 skills, Oblivion had 21 and Skyrim has 18 skills, I would not be surprised if the number gets cut to between 12 and 15 by TES VI and skills get eliminated entirely by TES VII. The arguments for eliminating attributes would seem to apply with equal weight to skills. However, I would expect that the game would keep track of it some way behind the scenes, like reputation/disposition is no longer represented by a number that we can see but there is some type of reputation/disposition mechanic going on in the background.

And the simplification continues...

to original post
If the skills you mentioned are boring then don't use them, use less boring skills. Then when you play you won't be bored. I probably solved your problem.

There is such a thing as too much streamlining (AKA: cutting the fat). As much as I enjoyed Oblivion, even with all it's faults, it had already crossed the line of too much streamlining. Skyrim, for all it's beauty, is a bridge too far.

Far to much has been removed, what's been added in it's place doesn't make up for the loss. It's time to start bringing it back.

^^^^^Yep.

I agree. I just don't think Bethesda gets it. And they are making so much money with their current formula of reducing "numbers" in each successive game that there is no reason for them to correct course.

what's amazing to me is that with gamesas's next game that they develop i am, for the first time, going to contemplate not buying the game until after i have come to this forum and some others, to get the real scoop on the game.

i would have never thought that after fallout3.

Which is why I find it highly unlikely that I'll purchase another TES game again. I sincerely hope they don't continue this with Fallout. There are some folks that already aren't happy with the direction they are taking it. If they continue that direction, I may follow suit as well.

Ahhh, so The Elder Scrolls VI preview is out already.

Don't ever make such a reference again to something like this. i will kill you myself. sorry i... i just don't want TES VI to be like the OP

Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Howard approaches TES VI in a way quite similar to the OP.

You and me both buddy.

you and i are not the first to talk about not buying the next gamesas game. which, is crazy for me to contemplate when i think of how i felt after buying morrowind, oblivion and fallout3.

While I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt that this was an attempt at humor rather than deliberate trolling, the fact that you stuck around to make obtuse comments makes that difficult.