At least Star Trek has way better writing and characters than Skyrim.

Deep Six Nine? Just kidding.

You don't know anything about the "dragonborn" nor do you know that you may potentially be one when Skyrim opens. You won't even discover this unless you begin to follow the main quest immediately. Dragons about or not, your destiny has not been written from the start of the game. In Oblivion, before you kill your first rodent, your "destiny" has already been established. You cannot avoid it.

So, no, Skyrim doesn't determine your "destiny" from the opening credits. You can choose to avoid the MQ altogether and get out there and role-play without even considering what it is to be "dragonborn". Not so with Oblivion. The main quest is hoisted upon you from the very start.

You're right. One of the caveats I mentioned was that QA may have discovered the bugs and reported them but "business decided they weren't showstoppers" that are big enough to stop a release. When it falls into that category, business is at fault. However, some of the bugs are plain as day (dragons doing the backstroke after a patch). Those are bugs that are created in development, to be sure, but when you have such an ambitious product, even bugs like that can be expected to creep in when other bugs are being fixed in a patch. That would have been considered a showstopper by business... thus, something like that falls squarely in the lap of QA.

Development can never be expected to be perfectly bug free. Otherwise there would be no need for QA.

oblivion doesn't 'hoist' the mq upon the player. you exit the sewers and then you go wherever you want. just because the emperor talks about destiny and the stars during character creation doesn't mean you know what's going on. you know to go to the priory. that's it.

in skyrim, you know about a civil war and the return of dragons right from the start. you exit a cave and then you go wherever you want.

both games give you a bit of info and then after a short intro let you out on your own.

neither game has the 'upper hand' on the other.

to be honest, i got going with the mq in skyrim waaaay before i got anywhere near the priory in oblivion. i went after the gold claw and had this heavy freakin dragonstone that i couldn't get rid of.

and, i was directed to whiterun by a quest marker and the people of riverwood. in fact, in skyrim it's not long, at all, before you're killing your first dragon. i didn't even think that simply going to the jarl would trigger so much of the main quest.

regardless, both games don't force anything and it's no big deal either way.

imo, lol.

Heh, I remember the MQ in Oblivion (been a long time). I did indeed decide not to pursue it beyond the first couple of parts. But when I decided to go back and take it up again at level 18 or so, the quest monsters had leveled up WAY past the 'good guy' npc's that were supposed to accompany me through the big battle to defeat the daedra... and they all got slaughtered like dogs, and there I was, surrounded by a bunch of hungry daedra that were all my equal or better.... it wasn't pretty. Never got past there on the MQ, but I still enjoyed exploring the world and dinking around, anyway. At least in Skyrim, you can take up any quests pretty much any time, without having to worry about those kind of level issues.

It's kind of a love/hate relationship for me. If I just did not care about the game, I would just shelve it and not worry about it. There are certain aspects that I really love but there are other things that I really hate. If I did not love the parts I love as much as I do, I would just shelve the game and not worry about it. But the fact that I love certain aspects about it really makes me hate the stuff I hate all that much more.

For example, I played a bunch of this weekend and had a good ole time exploring a draugr ruin. I snuck around and did some backstabbing and sniping, I lured one of the mini-bosses onto a high catwalk and FusRoDuh-ed him to Oblivion. Then I went to Marketh and pickpocketed everyone blind trying to find the mark with the gold ring I was supposed to steal. It was a lot of fun and I loved it. But I hate seeing those red dots in the compass telling me where the enemy is and I hate the sneak crosshair telling me whether I am hidden or not because that kind of stuff just ruins immersion for me. So I play with no HUD. I love the way you can look around and judge by NPC reactions whether you are hidden or not.

Well, then I get killed by some no name bandit because I misjudged how much health I had left because I can't see my health bar because I got the HUD turned off and I get pissed off at Bethesda for not giving us the option to turn off all the other screen clutter but leave the "invisible" status bars. I mean really, they went to all the trouble to make them invisible when not needed but then gave us no way to turn off the other screen clutter without loosing the "invisible" status bars. What's up with that? And don't tell me to mod it because I am on a console.

Stupid stuff like that makes me really annoyed when playing a game that I love so much. so, I complain about it, loudly and often, hoping that someday they will fix it.

Does that make any sense?

And unfortunately, there is no substitute for a TES game. I had a whole thread about that issue. If open world exploration style roleplay is your thing, it is TES/Fallout or nothing (unless you are on a PC and like sci-fi games).

yes, it makes sense. and, i feel the same way.

the aspects of skyrim that get me so pissed, but, can be so easily fixed. or, they are making these game decisions that get me worried bigtime about the future.

I see your post as completely valid and well thought out (I'd like to see you get your wish about independent toggles for various elements of the HUD, as well), so I wasn't thinking of your kind of player when I made that post you quoted.

My concern was with the very frequent, repetitive complainers who never start threads about positive experiences in Skyrim, but often start up threads complaining with words like 'hate' and 'broken' and 'shallow' and 'empty'. I wonder why these people feel compelled to share their very biased criticism using exaggerated condemnations of the game, calling for 'solutions' that are mostly retrogressive (ie, they just liked elements of older iterations of TES better, and have no other constructive solution to offer), and tend to argue their same point over and over as a 'response' to any post that doesn't agree with them. If they really do 'hate', are they simply idiots who haven't taken their consumer dollars elsewhere?

Skyrim is considered both commercially and critically successful, so people making grandiose, sweeping statements about the game being broken, or failing on any large scale are just airing their opinion, and I resent the way some of these people present their opinion as a claim of fact, and shared by the majority. The majority of Skyrim players are not the loud minority of complainers on the official forum.

I see the irony because it seems stupid to me to spend your time and money on something you 'hate' - especially when A. You are not forced to, and B. There's mods for PC users to address what they don't like without calling for everyone to play the game the way they think it should be played. C. There's not only more than one game you can play, there's more than one type of game available to play. If you can't fix it, you can still take your support elsewhere.
I realize there's no substitute for a TES game if you love elements of TES, but for those who hate elements maybe they should be looking at their other options as far as game playing goes?

It's a tenet of free trade and capitalism that consumers support what they like. If you spend money and time on something it should be proof enough to the producers of the product that you like it. Without removing your support (money) it's reasonable for them to not take broad criticisms like 'broken' seriously.

Okay, I should conclude my rant. Really what I wanted to say was that I'm sick of reading a lot of angry, indignant, self-important criticism of Skyrim. The creative choices concerning Skyrim are Bethesda's and nobody else's. If you think what they've done with their product is wrong you can take your consumer support elsewhere. Gamers have developed a culture where they feel they have the right to influence the product, but in reality they don't. Cough up 30 million dollars and you get to say what goes. Your rights extend to either buying the product or not buying the product, everything else is a public relations illusion.

I agree with the stamina part. I play a Nightblade and I feel very "dumb" and op when I can swing and cause the same amount of damage even when the stamina bar is depleted! I should AT LEAST cause ~1/3 of the damage since my character is supposedly fatigued. That's like having the sprint feature allow you to keep running after you've depleted your bar! It's insane!!