The following is an open letter to Bethesda,

As a life long fan of the series, I will not apologise for my tone today. I have been a The Elder Scrolls fan in times good, and I remain a The Elder Scrolls fan in times bad. I have tried to play Skyrim but, after three and a half months of doing so I can no longer bring myself to even bother. If I had to describe this 'game' (and there is much dispute over whether this term can accurately be applied) it would be "disppointment".

Sure, I was fooled for perhaps a minute or two by the 'slick' presentation, but the moment the imperial officer ordered me to walk to the execution block and 'my' character complied, the game was broken. I simply could not RP as my character would not have done that. Thanks Bethesda. And while I'm sure the drooling masses were blinded by the expansive new character appearance customisation options, I was busy searching in vain for my constellation selection, which it turns out is now chosen through guardian stones, no doubt to appease the noobs who will want to change their selection - it was bad enough Oblivion dumbing things down by asking 'Are you sure?' but this takes hand holding to new extremes.

Now some brainwashed Skyrim apologists will defend the near total removal of skill stats, pointing out that the only ones that are no longer included are athletics, acrobatics, mysticism, and luck - well how can you have a TES game without athletics, acrobatics, mysticism, and luck? You can't. "But Joe," they'll say, "they fixed the 3rd person view for the first time in the series making it a viable, functional alternative playing perspective". Well sure, but you can't fully rotate the camera while horse riding. Fail, Bethesda.

"Combat then, surely you can appreciate the vastly imporved battle system" they'll continue "Oh," I'll respond "you mean what's left of the combat system after they took away our clubs and spears?" And even if they were there, TES isn't about combat. "The dungeons...surely you must be happy with the scores of uniquely designed caves and ruins?" Too bright; have Bethesda even *been* in an underground cavern? Besides, I don't even get lost in these dungeons - that's the best bit! Even with quest markers (or 'Satan's sperm' as I call them) switched off, I still constantly have a general idea where I'm going. All the challenge now comes from surviving and solving the occasional puzzle (WITH MY EYES CLOSED), and never from wandering back and forth swearing I'd already explored this room like four times now.

And another thing! The menus, they're too...simple. I guess today's gamers prefer everything being 'neatly arranged' and 'intuitive' to navigate - where's the learning curve? Oh wait, there isn't one, you just pick it up and master it, no grinding whatsoever. Now Morrowind and Oblivion? Those were perfect games, the modding community can attest to that. If you wanted to get somewhere quickly in Morrowind you didn't fast travel like some damn casual!

You took a silt strider or had a mage teleport you. And there wasn't any of this streamlined perk nonsense either, gaining and improving abilities as you progress in level? Too streamlined. I mean any streamlining is too much streamlining - whatever's the opposite of streamlining - that's how it should be. And yes I know what 'streamlining' means, I know what all words mean, and without looking them up like a noob. People who are new or unfamiliar with things disgust me - you know that some people actually have to look up the difference between constitution and endurance? Of course you do, that's who you make games for these days ISN'T IT?

In closing, I know they'll be some brainwashed zombie sheeple who think I'm just being a perpetually negative, seemingly joyless, patronising, over exaggerating, under appreciating wet blanket (people still say 'wet blanket'), but what those puppets don't realise is that it's OUR JOB to take the game designers to task over their failings whilst undermining, if at all mentioning, their accomplishments. We pay THEIR wages, and the best way to ensure we get our moneys worth is by letting them know how utterly incompetent they are while at the same time outright ignoring any and all good decisions they may or may not have made and problems they may or may not have fixed.

Until you heed these words, I shall no longer call my self a fan of The Elder Scrolls series. Or if that doesn't feeling, I might perhaps instead proclaim Skyrim and all subsequent installments 'not actual Elder Scrolls games', it is something I must ponder.

Yours condescendingly,


Joesph. K

I mostly agree with you...but you want menus to be harder to navigate? I've heard it all

If they ever ask for feedback and make a feedback thread for the next game in the series...... please put this and I'm sure a much more detailed account. Putting this up here now hasn't and won't change anything. I'm sure this thread will go back and forth and back and forth arguing for 200 replies and then it will get locked and its existence will be forgotten except by a few.

You may have good points but slamming them into another thread that Bethseda probaly won't read does nothing. All this is now is another OLD TES VS. NEW TES thread.

I am Sorry you feel that way, I do not and I peresonally feel that this is the best Elder scrolls Game yet and I have played mony of them over the years.
In my view GREAT JOB BETHESDA

I really miss the CoD community sometimes... I miss the profanity and the ignorance because at least I knew they were never serious.

On topic it isn't your game it's Bethesda's. Yeah I wish somethings were different but at some point you have to understand that you're the consumer and they're the producer, you can sit there and feel secure with your money but at the end of the day they don't care about you Joe because you're one person.

I love it.

I have to say, you missed the satire mark a bit in the beginning, but the last paragraphs brought it back nicely.

And the best part is that there are already people who haven't figured out the joke.

Every game in the series differs from the previous one so you should have expected change for this one. Enjoy it for what it gets right or else move on to a different game.

I agree, should've been dragged kicking and screaming.

And with the rest of it too, it's missing that old school "complexity for the sake complexity" design.

Well I agree with alot but the menu thing, I hate other RPG menus... They are too complicated and very unplayer friendly... The thing that upsets me is the spamming of "essential" tag... God awfully annoying with that, I want to kill this useless Jaree-Ra, he svcks and his quest was boring so let me kill him, he's not important so why is he essential???

...if I had ordered a custom tailored wedding dress I could at least have taken it back to the designer and demand that they change and alter it according to my specifications, now I am just a b***** in an ugly dress

Nostalgia warms the heart and clouds the memory.

But I do miss spell crafting.
And stats/attributes
And.... spells... alot of them...


We not only lost loads of utility and flare in our mages with the neutered spell list we have this time around, we also lose alot of creativity in enchantments for items, both in look and custom, because there simply aren't that many effects to enchant- comparatively.

I do hate quest markers. Morrowind had detects that helped with this issue. But those are gone.

I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion on dungeons - one of the first comments I had about the game was "What the hell happened to the dungeons? What happened to "Where the hell am I? Am I backtracking? How do I get out of here?" I miss that. Now, you enter one place, follow a path, and you're at the other end. And if you have to backtrack, don't worry, it's impossible to get lost because there's pretty much only one way back or forward. Major disappointment.

I understand your opinion on the whole "head on the block" thing, but I'll have to agree and disagree. I've played many, many games that were far more engaging than Skyrim, that at the same time offered much less "freedom". But yeah, it would have been nice to just come out swinging at the beginning, refusing to bow down simply to be "saved" by a dragon (or wyvern, or whatever the hell people are calling it today) - and then run for your life. Bam. A few minutes in and you could already have some interesting situations and already be making a name for yourself.

I think the problem is that the Elder Scrolls wants to be seen as a sandbox, but also wants to push you into certain things, and I don't think it works as well as they think it does; as a result, they've gotten really bad at holding the player's hand and turning players off. Hasn't even been out four months and the criticisms are through the roof. I hope they pay attention to that.

Brainwashed zombie sheeple or not, it does not make your 60 dollars any more valuable than their 60 dollars. And the tone of the opening post clearly marks it as a flame bait/ troll attempt.

This one goes to the 1% end of the Bell Curve that says no matter what we change someone will hate it.... and the Devs move on trying to make the 70% of peeps in the middle of the curve happy because that's how a company stays in business...

For those of you who have posted in support of the OP, please read the quoted paragraph a little more closely. It's satire, and you've just been punk'd.

Is it satire? I've seen plenty of people make complaints that are just as ridiculous, and they were all completely serious.

I sure hope it's a joke though.

I wasn't totally sure until I read the last couple of paragraphs and then re-read the whole thing. He takes the most popular complaints and blows them up into the ridiculous (like the elimination of choice when they force you to go to the headsman's block instead of getting killed for running away). I know the internet makes tone difficult to gauge, but I'm 90% sure this is a well-written piece of satire.

I agree with most things you said but same could be said about everything nowadays. IMO they removed too much content and features that made TES fun.

I sure hope you're right, and after re-reading it I think you probably are.

Yeah, if that's satire, it's great! After looking at it a little closer it's actually really funny.

Then my first post is woefully ironic . I need to put my stats into my perception I suppose.

Personally, I could not care less about how you feel about the game and Bethesda in general. I'm not Skyrim, I'm not Bethesda and I'm not you. However, not only did you insult the game (which I could not care less about), but you insulted "casual" gamers by calling them noobs and brainwashed zombies simply because they do not spend all their free time playing RPGs. I felt that this was a totally unnecessary part of your "review". You could have said you felt Skyrim was created with the needs of the casual gamer in my (which it arguably is) but you certainly didn't need to insult these people, as they have not wronged you in any way. Of course, you lost any credibility as soon as you said Oblivion was a perfect game.
PS; If this is a satire, I am sorry for not recognizing it since plenty of people say this stuff and are serious.

"but, after three and a half months"

Sounds like a serious case of Sweetrollus Disapearus.

In all honesty, writing such a comment as your very first here on the forum will not give you any applause from anyone, not even the haters will side with you. It is too obvious that you are not looking for a dialogue, but want to use the forum as a stage for your rant.

I think we all wish that Bethesda didn't dumb down Skyrim as much as they did by getting rid of the spell-making and what not. But for the most part its still one of my favorite games and I can live with it.

Oh look another thread about throwing garbage at people who play skyrim and not Skyrim, and yes this post goes both ways whats the premise here...that theres no validity to "Whiners" ? that the only useful thing to do is praise Beth up and down? meh




Ima just keep walking
.