I can't help but feel that threads like this are started by people who have never played TES games before. For the life of me, I can't see how Skyrim is not an improvement over previous TES titles. It seems that there are many people who are determined to project New Vegas onto TES as if it were a TES title. It wasn't. If you want to play New Vegas, I'm sure you already own it... go play it. Problem solved. I really can't understand how anyone would think that Skyrim is less enjoyable than Oblivion and Morrowind. Either it's nostalgia sickness or something else, but when I pop those games in now, I can literally only play them for 15 minutes before I think, "man, Skyrim is so much better", even though I played those games til the wheels fell off and thoroughly enjoyed them.


I disagree. Other than Glarthir's quest, they were all fetch this, fetch that... now you have to go this other town where someone else will tell you to fetch this, fetch that. And the MQ for Oblivion I found painfully ridiculous and tedious starting about halfway through it. Though I don't think that the MQ for Skyrim was spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, I thought it was better than Oblivion's. The battle of Bruma, all cities unite to save the world from certian destruction... that means send only two town guards to the epic battle from each of the cities? Seriously? That was probably one of the biggest letdowns of that MQ. Not to mention I got kind of tired of Martin Septim fully clad in awesome armor kicking back and looking cool (nothing more) at Cloud Ruler Temple while sending me on all of his fetch quests. And the Oblivion gates? After 5 of them, unless one is mental, they become tedious and annoying.

Let's not forget the horrid universal enemy levelling system in which all of Cyrodil's bandits and goblins steadily become extinct... wiped out by the invading army of Minotaur that had previously never been seen before. Seriously? I level up and all I get to eventually fight are Minotaur and Ogres in abundance? Screw the Oblivion gates... who the hell is sounding the alarm that the entire friggin' countryside has been taken over by Minotaurs and Ogres? Since it's a threat to the region but may not seem to be a threat to the rest of the world, the least they can do is send out one town guard from each town... that's half the force they sent to defeat the daedric army at Bruma. I'm a badass fighter/mage/thief (yeah, that's the other thing... it was easy to become a master jack-of-all trades with one character in all other TES titles)... one of a kind! How in the hell do the merchants or anyone else survive this fresh wave of mythical and fantasy creatures that can surely one-hit the lonely trader travelling from town to town. How is that not a national crisis (aside for making fighting boring and tedious)?

For console players, who could forget Loading pauses as you wander the countryside? Especially when on horseback (thank God I played it on PC, that would have driven me to drink)?

I wish people would stop saying, "they probably ran out of time". Bethesda didn't sit down and decide the direction of the game, including all the cool stuff we wanted including more factions, longer quest lines, etc, start working on that stuff and then decide, "oh no, it's getting too close to release, lets change our direction here!". They decided up front what features were in, what features were out, and then built the game. I'm not saying time was considered at the start, but believe me, they didn't change a bunch of stuff mid-stream because of time. The major features of the game were decided up-front. So the fact that there are thin quest lines, a lack of recognition by NPC's to your accomplishments, no tangible way to discern an NPC's disposition towards you, these were all decisions made by the development team who probably spent more time in other areas such as dungeon design.

I have to say, the dungeon design is spectacular, but the lack of depth in the game is the worst of the 3 TES games I have played. The lack of options continues to get worse with each title, and now with Skyrim there is no real reason to complete quests. No one seems to notice and the rewards are usually crappy. The economy has never really been good in TES games, but I really wish it would improve there as well. I have items I can wear that improve my bartering, but I don't even bother using them because I have too much money and nothing to spend it on, so what's the point?

Skyrim could of been so much more, and I would rather wait an extra year to get it all right personally, than to have a pretty game with a ton of bugs built for console fans who generally don't play a game for very long before moving on to the next shiny trinket in the window.

Now, see, The Plebian, I have the reverse problem.

I could easily go back to Morrowind (as long as I don't have to play Tribunal) and have fun. I've put in far more hours into Oblivion this year than Skyrim (which hasn't been past the loader since November), and had more fun doing it.

Skyrim is a very frustrating experience (that's even ignoring the worst UI ever designed). My combat flow gets ruined by terribly directed and overly repeated killcams. My character progression occurs at Mach 4, and my reward is 10 points of a relatively meaningless attribute (at higher levels, 10 points isn't crap) and a perk point that goes into some very stereotypical perks. It's not exactly something I'd call "progress". The NPCs are extremely clunky and mechanical, and not at all "virtual people" that I can relate to. This may or may not be related to disposition and reputation now being complete jokes.

Skyrim's main quest? Dragons that are so threatening that after a while, I started HUNTING them. For sport. After that, don't ask me. I couldn't finish any of the questlines, because it would require me to keep playing without anything to actually work towards. More perks?? Shouldn't I use the 11 I haven't first? I'm not even to the "content cap" of 50 yet. Finishing a questline? I don't care about my comrades, because they're cardboard cutouts. I don't care about the danger to the world, because there's no reason to form an emotional attachment to anything in it.

Nothing to work towards, no reason to progress my character, no attachment to the world or the people in it. I honestly don't see how anyone can expect me to consider that "the best TES yet"

I noticed it. You may not see it because you're not "zooming in" on faces like in Oblivion. But for instance, I noticed that Farkas and Vilkas were scowling at my character at first, then started to smile as I progressed through the quest line.

I prefer disposition to be subtle and "under the hood," myself. When I first played Oblivion, I thought that speech minigame was insane.

Sorry to hear that. Have a cookie.

Chocolate chip? Coconut? Lemon? Oatmeal? Peanut butter?

Don't tease people with cookies without the details!

Yes, but there is no longer a way to change their feelings for you via a mini-game using speechcraft, they don't really behave that much differently from disliking you to loving you. You almost always seem to get the same options.


Everything he said was true, and your opinion, I don't think is shared by many. Most people like Morrowind or Daggerfall the most. Skyrim has some nice features, there is no doubt, but the game is shallow and has the least replay-ability of any of the TES games I have played. I just don't really care about the world like I did in MW, and the quests are too thin and sit in a world that isn't very reactive to your deeds. I am glad you liked the game a lot, I like it too, but some of the things mentioned in this thread would make a good game great.

Every TES game since MW has to do three things right:
1. It has to let me create any character I want, beeing a warrior, mage, thief or some crazy cross class and eventually the overpowered jack of all trades. If I want something else I play NWN with a very restricted but great balanced class system.
2. I want to explore stuff. Running through dungeons and killing things is what you always do in TES games, and quests are just the hints towards stuff you should explore next.
3. It has to be open for mods. I like most user created content better than the original stuff, I did so in MW and OB and I do so in Skyrim.

Skyrim delivered all three, I'm happy with my custom armors and weapons, I can run around in different interiors and smack dragons, draugr and other creatures. The dungeons are better than MW's, I don't even want to talk about OB in this regard. I don't miss classes at all, spellcrafting never really mattered to me but I really like the crafting abilities. The quests and story aren't great, but they never really were. MW and OB had some great quests, so does Skyrim, most of them are and were almost rather dull "kill x and bring y back" tasks.

You have no idea how happy you made me with this retort! It literally made me laugh out loud. I'm glad someone has a sense of humor!


Everything in the world can be improved. If that weren't true, BASF wouldn't be in business. I never said there aren't things worthy of improvement in Skyrim. I just believe that the game, overall, is an improvement itself over the other TES titles. If you want to start saying things like "your opinion... [isn't] shared by many", you're going to have to go about the unfortunate task of legitmate polling and statistical anolysis. Otherwise, that statement is meaningless. If Skyrim isn't an improvement on the series, then it would be a failure, no? When a sequel svcks worse than the original, it usually is deemed a failure. However, if you visit sites like Metacritic and Amazon where they allow user reviews, you will see that the majority of user reviews believe that Skyrim is an improvement. And if you look at sales numbers, for the time that Skyrim has been out it well surpasses Oblivion's and Morrowind's. So, if I wanted to, I could say that data proves that my opinion is actually well within the majority... but I won't.

I share a similar view to that of StrelokCK. That is, TES games have *never* had strong questlines... but that has never stopped me from throwing away hours, weeks, months, years of my life playing each installment. The questlines are there if I want them, but I play TES titles for the exploration, the character building (what I would call RPG elements but what NV heads would poo poo on), and the dungeon crawling. I don't need a questline to be entertained, I can, and always have, sort of make up my own.

I want raisin.

FINALLY!

Someone who understands the difference between a well-written story and a poorly-written story.
The hell have you been hiding during the other 300 threads that've been posted with people claiming Skyrim is the greatest thing ever and the writing is well done?!

Bringing up Metacritic doesn't make Skyrim a great game. Game journalism is a joke these days, there's just no standard of quality anymore.

That's why I specified *user* reviews. And I agree with you that game journalism is a joke. I'd never say "oh yeah, Game Informer gave it a 10 out of 10!". That would be stupid.

I don't think you need to do any polls to determine what TES game is most popular with people who have played at least 3 games in the series, you only need to use your eyes and ears. Morrowind usually wins any kind of discussion like that, however, I am not here to talk about that so I will let it go.

The reason the game scores so high is, it is a good game that is geared toward the masses and while I understand that the goal is to sell as many units as possible, that doesn't always equate to delivering the best product. So, Bethesda has done well to expand it's fanbase, there is no doubt, but just because they have, yes I'm going to say it, dumbed down the series, doesn't really mean it's better, just more accessible.

I agree that the quests have never been great, but there was more meaning behind them in MW for instance. It changed the interactions between factions and there were more options. There were more quests to perform and I even think OB had better quests. I mean, how did I become the Arch Mage of the college with little to no experience with magic? It made no sense whatsoever. And I can barely even remember the quests which were some of the most forgettable I have ever played in a TES game. And why do we continue to have less and less factions? By the time we get to TES VIII will there just be a Fighters Guild and a Mages Guild, with a few quests each? If so, I wonder if the people will still be arguing that TES VIII is the best in the series so far...

Oh, sorry I missed that. I agree with you on the user reviews. An 8/10 seems like a fair score for the game.

Ok. I take issue with this mantra. I have played at least 3 games in the series as have many who happen to agree with me. Get outta here with this comment. It's old, tired, and utterly false.

Then again those same people's first rpg was Skyrim.....To be honest Beth was never good with quests or story.

At the end of the day, we were younger when we played our first TES game, and there-by stupider. Everything is better when we were kids, because we weren't smart enough to figure out how hard it svcked. One could argue Skyrim's npcs have no depth and are cardboard cutouts that give you no reason to care for them, or one could argue Morrowinds mainly text dialog system just didn't make the npcs feel alive to them. There are people who think Oblivion is better than Skyrim, and others who think Morrowind will forever sit upon the golden thrown of epic for time immimorial. Odds are one's favorate TES game is also the first one they played. Not always the case, but I'm willing to bet it's the way most people pick.

Holy [censored]. More Morrowind-worshipping. I'm half tempted to buy a copy, play it, and if it isn't 10 times better than anything I've ever played start asking the Acolytes of Morrowind to give me my money back.

It's not utterly false (not on these forums at least). These favorite game polls happen a lot around here and Morrowind usually ends up with twice as many votes as Skyrim.

I played Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim and I also played a lot of other classic RPGs like Baldur's Gate. I can say that for me, Morrowind was the weakest TES so far, even thugh Oblivion looked like a freaking fairy tale on some kind of shrooms trip. That doesn't mean MW was a bad game, I just didn't like it, and there are others who feel the same. Same thing about Skyrim. If the "new" generation of games taught me anything (or two things), than it's the fact that the fanbase will always whine, sometimes for good reasons (dull writing in Skyrim and TES in general), sometimes just for the sake of whining. The other thing the new generation taught me is the fact that sometimes things are popular for a good reason, examples are COD4, Half Life 2, Portal, Saints Row and Skyrim.

You don't have to complete the College quest line if you think your character shouldn't be archmage btw. There's no obligation to do any of the quests, my last character ran straight out of Helgen and didn't do any quest so far and I still spent about 12 hours with him, and I'm not done yet.

And besides, the best game ever made is fairly simple: Counter Strike. There are basically two maps and one mode which are really great, and I probably spent more time with CS than with any other game combined. Complexity doesn't always equal fun, and I'll chose fun over complexity every day.

Nostalgia does not mean you're too blind/stupid to realize what you liked 10 years ago svcks now mmkay? also inb4 those who play Morrowind and Oblivion to this day and says it rocks sawks.

...And the Acolytes of Morrowind are the only ones, I think, that care enough to vote in those polls in those numbers. You do know what a non-scientific poll is, I assume.

My last comment was directed to Plebeian. I'm on a mobile device and can't use quotes -.-

Agreed. It has it's shortcomings like the bland, soulless NPCs and stereotypic, mustache-twirling evil figure Alduin (whom no one cares about) but all in all it's a great ride.
Also, your icon is so full of win. Baron Underbheit forever. I must get an iron jaw like that one day and parade around in town. Then I can die happy.