Yeah, I'm not terribly impressed with the loot system. And I think my biggest gripe so far about it would be that, despite the variety, there's plenty of it. And by plenty I mean too much. I never really have to worry about gold, and the shopkeepers rarely have anything worth spending it on anyway. I'm looking forward to mods that tone it down a bit (or a lot) so that I feel like I'm actually struggling at times to make ends meet. I'm level 22 right now, and feel like the game is holding my hand too much, and everything is just getting easier and easier to kill. And I haven't even done any smithing or enchanting.

BUT... my criticism isn't a blanket condemnation of the game. I have been enjoying it, and look forward to modders unleashing the potential that will make the game more of what I personally would like it to be. Ultimately, for me, it's Skyrim's modders that will make the game more deserving of its fame. Kudos to Bethesda for providing the scaffolding.

really i know there is a lot of caves but i normally find my self around an amazing site like multiple waterfalls leading into a crazy huge waterfall. you don't have to go into caves just don't do a quest just run around like i do and you'll see alot of cool stuff.

oh buy the way try hunting... and i mean just run around with a bow or something and just hunt, it's actually quite fun........ unless you don't like hunting lol

Where did he say it was a bad game? I'm pretty sure I read that he enjoyed it.

Yeah I agree, I don't understand people like the OP, powergame through the MQ, then for some reason lose the urge to do anything else gee I wonder why? For someone who has played alot of RPG's he isn't too clever, most RPG's are hack and slash and dungeon crawling, infact going back to the early days with Ultima this was the case, and that is why I used to play these games! The OP is playing the game wrong, my MC is level only level 21 yet I have put over 65 hours into the game ... how? I explore and RP, its not really that hard, instead of flying into the MQ try doing this great thing I like to call 'Exploring' as in instead of fast traveling everywhere, walk from point A to point B on the other side of the map, especially when running a quest! This way you get to see more of the beautifully crafted world, and even stop to do some hunting!

Skyrim is not just a dungeon crawl, I have run into lots of camps, hunters, traveling NPC's, forts, mines etc etc. For the OP to be confused why the game has got such high praise is ludicrous, did he ever stop to think that maybe it is HIS problem and not fact? Stating that the reviewers haven't played through the game is a load of BS too, I have seen many reviews such as Ausgamers where the reviewer stated that they were 70+ hours into the game and have even started other charachters! I love how some people have a view and feel as though it is FACT and everyone should agree!

I am off to play some more Skyrim, btw some of the dungeon quests are AMAZING, I just completed a quest to get a sword for a particular queen, that dungeon took 4 hours to get through, complete with puzzles and traps and there WAS a nice reward at the end, so to say they are all the same is a load of BS, some are long some are short, much more varied than the other TES games and yes I have played them all too.

If you think Skyrim's caves are repetitive.... go play Morrowind or Oblivion. They are so much worse.

I never quite got where the OP was stating his opinion as a fact that you should agree with.

I'd have to agree, except for breathaking lore. There wasn't much of it in the main arc, or rather, it was all over the place and not one bit was explored a bit deeper. It was just the same old generic big baddie (which should have been so much more) and fetching of macguffins.

1. There's actually not enough bears in my opinion. Wanna know how Long I spent in the arctic areas looking for bears and Sabre Tooth Tigers? Like....1.5 hrs, seriously. Those walrus things are too abundant.

2. It all depends on what you're looking for in the game to wear. If you like Light armor THEEEN yes your choices are limited to Leather, Hide, and Dwarven/Elven (which ever is actually light armor, I get them confused). But aside from that since you're upset about the enchantments...well there is an Enchanting skill that you have to level up so you can get stronger results on your items.

3. I think that the, as I've read in another thread post, "Machine-gun mages" suffice for the "rare cave demons" you're not able to find. Where else would you find a mage that can hit you with 8 spells in under 3 seconds? Also there's Giants and Mammoths in the wild..just wandering around...kind of hard to miss them, really. Don't believe me? Run into an open field and have a look for yourself!

4. Yeah there's the Google website that if you type in "Skyrim Mods" brings up a whole list of cool stuff ;D

Wow this thread grows fast ! Started reading at 1 page and now it has 6 lol.

I can only say read the essentials from the game guide and you will notice that outside the caves a lot is happening. They have 2 or 3 pages with scenes like an orc which wants to be killed by you, or a courier who cries for help then gets killed by a dragon and you can get a secret letter which leads to a quest. Sabre cats attacking mamoths, giants vs dragon, bandits vs thalmer, imperials vs stormcloack, jail transports which you can intervene, etc ...! There is a lot of things but the world is big and if you fast travel a lot you will miss a lot. Have you ever had a bounty over 3000g? Then you cant put a feet in the town. But if you wander around in the woods at some time a few days later a bounty hunter will find you and you can pay. The worlds is also so responsive to what you do. Kill a smith and his aprentice will do the work from that moment on. Take out some guards at a village not town and they will be replaced and then they mourn about beeing outside. Kill a mills family and prices for food will explode (nice money gain if you are that evil to exploit the starving people). Its not perfect but thats not possible in such a great open world game.

well thats kind of par for the course in TES... the games are more about providing the ingredients to make your own story than anything else.

but seriously, why do they always fall back on caves as the standard dungeon? is that any better than sewers? skyrim has plenty of set pieces and enemy types... it just uses the same 2 90% of the time for some insane reason. they have trolls, atronachs, witches, giants, ghosts, liches, necromancers, skeletons, rival armies and dremora, so why am i fighting draugr and bandits the vast majority of the time? there are also about 3 themes to the 150+ dungeons; barrow, dwemer, and CAVE. theres the occasional fort(which i would've liked to see more of if only for variety's sake), but thats pretty much it. they go through great efforts to vary each dungeon, buts therein lies the problem i think; they relied too much on variety in design and specific stories to each dungeon while forgetting that sometimes you just need different atmosphere than "dank little hole in the mountain". with all the marshes and glaciers and forests, its kind of off-putting that these distinct and lovely regions are all home to the same bloody caves and barrows.

what did morrowind have? caves, crypts, dwemer ruins, daedric shrines, forts, giant magical trees... each one had its own atmosphere: THATS what is important. in skyrim the dwemer ruins, despite having working lights, are the same dank, blue darkness as the rest of the game. what happened to the modern yellow-lighting that made them so distinct and alien to the rest of the world? or the twisting, ominous red of daedric shrines? the ancestral crypts that looked like something out of the history channel? the dungeons of skyrim all have the exact same atmoshpere, and regardless of how well designed it is, one of anything will get boring fast in a game like this. hell, even OB knew enough to have lonely ayleid ruins and frenetic oblivion locations.

Its the tone of his OP that we have seen far too often, put 70 hours into a game then come here to complain about too many dungeons, it is hypocritical, I bet he fast traveled everywhere, then to state about IGN's review and say its wrong, yes that does sound like he thinks his opinion is fact! As soon as you start bringing others into your rant post you lose all credibility, he was basically calling the IGN reviewer a lier! What about the rest of them? Are they all wrong too? Therefore his view is fact.

And all of Skyrims are at least hand crafted and not copy and pasted over and over again like Oblivions were! Some are just caves, some are huge dungeons that can take 4+ hours to complete like the 'Go get the queens sword' quest I just completed, fantastic design, crawling with necromancers and draugh, traps, and puzzles. I think things in the past always seem brighter but if you go and play through again you realise that it is all just the same thing, at least the dungeon designers in Skyrim have brought in variety. I have found the atmosphere in many quite daunting!

I can't say if the OP is right or not in all points mentioned, as I'm "only" at ~40 hours gameplay. I'll just add my opinion, which is what forums are for.

Right now I've been trying not to go on the hunt for the main quest. Not that I'm trying to avoid it, but if I'm in a city and I'm told to go somewhere far, I just don't until I feel I'm somewhat done in my surroundings. Not that I try to clean every quest found there, but just explore the area without hurry.

I'm playing this game as what it was designed for: roleplay. Even more than I did on Oblivion. Maybe too much. So much that I even enjoy sitting on a tabern at 9pm, listening to the bard, while having a real life beer. I defined my character (skills and personality), and as a citizen of the worlds, he likes to go explore around. I note down places I find near the paths (mines, caves, etc.) for a later visit.

I always sleep at nights, except if I get caught on the wilderness on some quest. Also, if I plan on going on a mission, but it's afternoon, I just head to the nearest inn (or my house) and wake up early at morning. Also, as I don't run anywhere, I don't have that fast FPS-shooter-game feeling, and I enjoy the slow walk and the footsteps. Of course when I travel on horse I use the "run" mode (not sprint) if I'm not inside a town, and I already know the path. Else I don't have problem on just walking. This makes the game last more, not to mention my own pleasure.

About the caves and not finding too much monsters in the open world... well, I could agree with this but I like the way it is. What I don't like is to NOT be able to walk anywhere without someone trying to kill me every 30 seconds, as if this was some kind of Diablo, Trine, or similar game. As an open, explorable world, it should offer both wild areas and normal areas... Maybe a valley where spiders camp? OK.. a beach area full of big snakes? OK... but don't fill all the valleys and mountains with monsters here and there.

I understand you may like going around hunting and feel dissapointed, because the current design doesn't satisfy your hunger to go around killing, but I guess this is not what the game was designed for. That's something more WoW-like. And no ofense here.

This being said, I see that this gameworld has still a LOT to offer to me, so I'm trying to enjoy it slowly, with no hurries. It's a long walk from the Blue Palace to the Inn on Solitude (I mean walking, not runing), but believe me, I enjoy everytime I have to do it...

With all this what I'm trying to say is that both main quest and game itself can be really long (or even unlimited) if you enjoy yourself.

If you keep doing bounty quests, you need to enter caves etc.

Did you also do quests that involves from robbing banks. Killing people, talking to he or she.

I mean. It seems to me that YOU are the one that killed the first dragon then did 10 quests in total including 5 bounty quests, which all generally is dungeon crawlers.

The game is amazing and this is either your first game, ever, or you have no experience with RPGs.
Sure, there is more to wish for, but, there is not a single game out there that will give you more then skyrim. And thats why we are all very pleased with it.

To be fair though, Morrowind did have a handful of interesting dungeons. I still remember this giant maze from the vanilla main game that I found by chance one time. Overall, however, Skyrim's dungeons are definitely better.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The filler, the little things are what make the Elder Scroll games so life like. The little things that have nothing to do with the game, like bears attacking deer, or butterflies in the air.

Now it is clear to me. Quests exists to NOT do them. How could I be so blind. The devs clearly communicated this to some loyal fans. Thanks for letting us know how to properly play this game.

Basicly there need to be more activities to do in the cities and towns. The only really feature you can do in a town is craft gear/potions/enchantments, but ther is really nothing else to do there.

The inns arent that funny. A taverm brawl or drinking game would have been perfect to implement in skyrim. Even Oblivion needed it.

An arena or atleast another form of competetion would aslo have fit in the game.

TES really need other activities than going into caves/dungeons all the time.

This thread gave me cancer.

On a more serious note, most arguments I've read here are stupid. There's no "bulldozing through the mq" when the main quest in particular doesn't promote exploring or stopping to do anything else like Morrowind did.

Skyrim is a heap of fun for about 40 hours. Beyond that, you've seen everything there is to see. It has no merit beyond the main quest line and the guilds.

I can cope with 40 hours of fun for 60 bucks. It's just that... Morrowind was so much better. Damn it.

Are you kidding me? You can have a drinking contest and brawl!! Seriously are you playing this game !?

are you... agreeing with me or disagreeing? im saying that skyrim does indeed have a lot of individual variety in dungeons, but no thematic variety. as in, every cave is different and unique, but there still all caves. previous titles had tedious dungeons, but they at least had different kinds of dungeons to break up the monotony. its atmosphere, and its not something i can explain in just one trait; its the lighting, the particular state of ruin, the type of enemies you fight, the ambient noises... all the things we usually hardly notice but that developers know have a huge impact on how engaging a certain dungeon might be. skyrim has great atmosphere... but it only has one. however great the howling wind and dynamic lighting effect are, its boring if they comprise the atmosphere in every single dungeon. dwemer ruins need that eerily modern lighting, barrows need a dull, brown, washed-out look, and to put it frankly, somewhere has to be red... i dont care what or where, but skyrim needs a tileset with an ominous tone.

and i still play oblivion and morrowind from time to time... played both just before skyrim came out. if i ever got bored of a cave, i thought "ill alleviate this staleness by going to an oblivion gate or a fort". i cannot do that in skyrim, because every dwemer ruin has the same dank and murky atmosphere of every cave, fort, and.... other cave. skyrim tries far too hard to make every cave unique and have its own story and forgets that sometimes id like to go somewhere that isnt a bloody cave.

Yeah brawls are pretty crazy stuff.

Spam right click on one person at a time and always win. Not repeatable either.

Dont know why everyone is [censored]in about dungeons i've been through 2 play through and about 30% of that game play was dungeons people need to stop expecting such godly freakin games from bethesda they read the comments people made about oblivion and made the game based on what THE FANS LIKED and imo they did a great job on it. if you like morrowind with its crappy combat system and trying to find a stupid mine in the middle of the bland boring ashlands from the vague directions the quest giver gives you "go find a rock on a coast then travel south until you find another rock then head east to the burial tomb" that was real directions from the damn first ashlander quest! so if that crappy frustrating boring game was better then skyrim please by all means go play it! and leave this masterpiece to the real fans. Oh and repetitive caves? oblivion gates were constantly reused and so were most of the ruins and caves.

Thread title is a pretty good way of summing up Morrowind, which is the "End all RPG" the way people here go on about it.

So it musn't be that bad...

I like the underlying message of the OP, in that the game is just dumbed down, but I love caves.
I still play Daggerfall all the time, and, due to lack of content in the wilderness, I spend most of my time... in caves. Epic, cluster-[censored] caves. And they are wayyyy cooler than Skyrim caves, but that was a given, before I even pre-ordered.
Skyrim caves are still fun though... even if it is what the universe revolves around.