The dungeons are a step in the right direction but still short of what they need to be.

You have to be joking, most games nowadays only last 6-12 hours. Skyrim is a country in a box.

If Skyrim was only the MQ, then I think 12hrs would probably be generous.

Apples with Apples here.

When I think back to Final Fantasy 6/7/8/ - Those games where long and full of content.
The main quest lines themselves usually took as much time as what allot of people report getting in Skyrim while faffing about.

Tales of Phanasia and Chrono trigger. Also deep and for filling and only really had the single story line to follow.

They're the best they've ever been in a TES game.

This.

How much entertainment/game play do you expect from $60?

Unless you have the time or are very OCD, 4hrs a day of play time over about 2 weeks translates to 30-40hrs. About average for the industry. Decades ago I used to hope to get 1 month of play time out of my purchases but outside of Skyrim, those days are long gone.

I have 260hrs (+3 months) invested in my copy and have yet to do the civil war or companion questlines. I've only unlocked %60 of the achievements. I'd say that Skyrim is the best playtime/cost game I've bought in ages!

To the OP I have to ask what game in recent history has even 1/2 the content of Skyrim?

I'm almost 150 hours in and have been inside only Riverwood, Whiterun and Winterhold. When I get around to the rest of the major hold capitals, I'm sure I'll have 400-500 hours with this character.

It's not that the game lacks content, most of it seems a bit copy/paste and perhaps lacking inspiration. When I come back after a 2 hour dungeon raid, I don't want the next quest npc to send me back to another lengthy dungeon. While I do enjoy a good dungeon raid, it feels like my Nord spend more time underground than above. He likes to help people and kill bandits without constantly going underground.

Skyrim certainly doesn't suffer from not giving the player plenty to do. For a $60 game, I've definitely gotten my money's worth.

yes but that doesnt make it a waste of money.
ive played well over 300 hours of each tes ive played skyrim included. Without dlc or mods that pretty far rate for a computer game that cost ￡30 im getting a penny an hour! im down with that.
imo with games like tes they are only ever as good as the player makes them.

I'm very impressed with the amount of content in the game.

I was a little worried at first since it was being compared with Fallout 3, at statements something like 3 times the number of quests in Fallout 3. And FO3 had only 17 major quests.

but I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of content.

Although many of the quests fall back into the "get this" or "kill that" simplicity. But not all of them.

That doesn't mean they're good.

Then I feel you have your standards set way too high. Hand crafted dungeons which vary in size and complexity, that can be nordic ruins, caves, mines, icy areas or dwemer ruins, that most have some kind of story in side and a possible reward (high level boss, a word wall etc). I fail to see how you can possibly get any more in depth than that, unless you have every dungeon having a fully fleshed questline. Which would get tedious for the developers and for us.

Single player games do run out of content eventually. DLC can add back content but eventually that content will run dry as well. This is the nature of single player games. It might be hard for the mmo-era to grasp this. If you stuck it out to L51 then you must have felt the game was worth playing that long and I'd call that a success for Skyrim.

Just add some mods. I've released a sleestak mod which has them causing chaos in whiterun. With each update there will be new content thrusting up through the steaming cracks in the ground.
As more mods are released there will be more content.

Level 50? That's atleast 60 hours of gameplay, probably more if you didn't rush through everything. If you don't think that getting your moneys worth, then every game on the market right now must be a gigantic rip off. Wait for expansion packs, they aren't doing small DLC's anymore so it's gonna take a little while longer than it did for Fallout 3.

if you think there's not enough content (lol?) in Skyrim....


Mods.

This.

For you maybe, but not for the rest of us. I have 120 hours logged on Skyrim and that's more than any other game I've ever played.

MOAR OF EVERYTHING, IT'S NEVER ENOUGH! [censored] QUALITY, WE NEED MOAR, MOAAAR.


Seriously though, I'm around level 40, I've already walked trough the entire world, yet looking up UESP, I've seen that I've missed quite a lot, like an Underdark esque area, places that books tell you about, several artefacts, ghosts, wispmothers, Dragon priests, freaking Labyrinthian...

I think there's quite the number of content in this game...

There are plenty of 200+ hour games out there, Diablo, Diablo 2, Borderlands, Titan Quest, Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Space Rangers 1 and 2, Wizardry 7 and 8, Ufo enemy unknown, Ufo Afterlight, Ufo Aftershock, Star wars KOTOR 1 and 2, Space Empires 5, X games and Torment to name a few...

Sadly skyrim is pretty far from being in this list for me, Bethesda failed with skyrim imo.

I do love that most of the games in that list that actually have 200+ hours of content are other Bethesda titles.

Also, Diablo and Diablo 2? Really? Those games take about 30 hours to complete, and any other time is spent playing through the exact same story on a different difficulty level. Don't get me wrong, I love Blizzard's games, but 200+ hours of play is a ridiculous statement. Especially considering that we're talking about 200+ hours of single-player play on one character.

Nah, yeah. Skyrim can easily be "completed", whereas all the earlier TES games - even Oblivion - seems to have more content. Places to go. Etc. Maybe it's because of the tempo (fast travel and sprinting) that makes Skyrim feel so completable. Also the "cleared" tag. I've never felt this with other TES games: they can always offer me something new and neverbeforeseen. As if they were limitless. Skyrim isn't. After just a couple of evenings with it in November, it dawned to me that this game had way less to do than other TES games.

Then you certainly haven't looked hard enough.

What's really funny about people complaining about different things regarding this game, I read a thread last week where a player complained that there was too much to do.

Just when you think you've seen it all, something new pops up.

PS: Just read the post about D/D2/LOD only lasting 30 hours. I just finished a 5 hour session this morning with D2/LOD - it's a mod, so much like a brand new game. I can't even begin to estimate how many hours I have in that game, but considering I have 412 hours in Skyrim, it has to be well over 1000 by now since I play it almost every day for several hours.

Do we really need to look for interesting stuff? If so, then this game is really lacking in content.

Lord of the Rings online is the best RPG I've ever played. It's absolutely massive and very well done. People who talk about grinding in Skyrim make me laugh. They don't even know what grinding is. This is like elementary school for rejects.

This game is terrible. No story. Just grab a quest and do it. None of the quests tie in to each other. They each have sub categories, but overall they mean nothing.

Money is a joke. Potions are a joke. Fighting is a joke. The map is a joke. Questing is a joke. AI is a joke. UI is a joke.

Last night i decided to play. Some stupid quest. They wanted me to lure someone to their death for no particular reason. Why am I doing this? How does this affect the story? What benefit is this giving me once it's done?

How to play Skyrim: Go outside and walk in a random direction. Feel free to change directions. After 20 minutes to an hour…you’ll be somewhere! It’s just that easy. And hey, you didn’t even know you were going to end up there did you?

Wonderful.

2+2 =

I can't think of any other reason why my experiences with the game are radically different from some people's here, other than sheer rejection.

Proof to my point:
You can easily figure out this secret by... I don't know, LISTEN TO THE BOOMING [censored] VOICE