There's tons of breadcrumbs to prod you in the right direction for new quests and areas. Guards will sometimes talk about dungeons nearby which will then be marked on your map. You can ask about rumors/work in the taverns. Whenever you visit a new town or village there will usually be some scripted event introducing you to that place's main quest. If you steal things from houses you will often come across unusual gems which guide you to the thieves' guild in Riften. Etc.

You barely have to put in any effort to find most of the content in Skyrim compared to the previous games. Only a select few areas are isolated with no related quests and can only be found by your own initiative.

Well in a sense. If a cave is set to be level 35-40 and you go into it for the first time it is set at level 35. If you go into it for the first time at level 37 it is set at 37. If you go into it for the first time at level 77 it is set at 40.

I have to say this isn't as hard to find out as people are suggesting. Interiors are set at the point you first enter them, not the point you first discover their door. Any enemies on the outside will be set at the time you discovered the location, but they are seperate from the interiors.

To see this in action, visit the fort just west of Whiterun when you are at low level. Avoid going inside for the time being. Ten or so levels later, attack the fort. All the bandits on the outside are low level, all the bandits on the inside are at your current level. Next game, avoid that whole cell until you are at high level, then attack the fort. All the bandits on the outside are the same level as the ones inside (And if youi attck the whole fort at low level, all the bandits inside are at low levels).

To be honest, the first Mass Effect was, in effect (lol) pretty linear. Yes, there were side missions you could do, but (1) they were boring as watching paint dry because of their generic, cut-and-paste maps, and (2) you got nothing out of them except money which was totally useless. You could find all the weapons you needed in the game without doing side missions. After I figured out how badly the side missions stank, I just went straight for the story missions, which were excellent. So while technically you could say there were side things to do, those parts of the game were pointless and unappealing, and the only part of the game worth a damn was the great main story, making it (in my opinion) effectively pretty linear.

Which is fine; a book can be a pretty linear thing too. It's just not what TES does.

You equate linearity with "dumbing down", really?

"The remains of the day" was also linear, I hope you're not saying it's dumb.

That's true; linear is not the same as "dumb", although I could in some sense accept it in relation to TES. What is acceptable with other games would simply be a real loss for TES, or GTA, or any other open-world or sandbox game.

BioWare games are not good because of their gameplay but the writing. BioWare essentially makes interactive movies and if they made an open world RPG it would be just as epic as their linear RPGs.

Well, I did like the gameplay once I got used to it. It was pretty much FPS-style play, although in the second one they seemed to lean more toward player skill and less toward character skill than in the first one - which I ended up deciding is a good thing.

But yeah, the story to Mass Effect is amazing. Really great science fiction; it got me back into reading Heinlein.

That said, I do have to agree that while by no means are more linear games inherently "dumb", I suppose it's fair to say that making an open-world game like TES or GTA more linear would indeed be "dumbing down" the game.

^ This

TES games are not for everyone.

W...wh...wha...what?

True but linear players can get used to them and learn to love them, like me.

Actually, you can play parts of them in variable order. They just aren't open-ended.

Have you tried World of Warcraft?

I think I said this earlier, but Mass Effect was effectively fairly linear. There were side missions to take on, but they were generally boring, had very poor maps, and were not necessary in terms of getting funds, getting better weapons, or affecting anything. As soon as I figured this out, I skipped them and played right through the excellent Main Story Missions, which were pitch-perfect science fiction.

Mass Effect 2 improved on this, however, adding some excellent side missions as well as the Loyalty missions. There's more worth doing in ME2 than just the main story.

Play it slow and easy,there is no end or there should'nt be hehe that would be a crackup if they designed it to lead you round n round n round the daisy wheel, Boy! imagine realising after months of play you're never going to get the bad guy?

OP just play the main quest and move on to another game. The MQ will take you to various places in the world and introduce you to various characters. Maybe do a guild or two but then it's time to move on.

It's no big deal, open world RPGs can do that to some people. I have a small case of what you have. Next TES game that comes out I am going to just play randomly and ignore the main quest until I have sunk 100 or so hours into the game.

It is a game-design issue, TES games tend to sacrifice sense of purpose for sense of freedom. It easily becomes a case of mercenary-syndrome, where the only motivation for your character is material gain. There is a need for more personal drive behind how you build your character's story.

"What's the matter, somebody stole your sweet-roll?"
"As a matter of fact...yes, somebody DID steal my sweet-roll and now I am (censored) and I am going to find that (censored) and show him what I do to people who steal my sweet-rolls..."

Where people talk about how Bioware writes better storylines, it's not only in the cinematics and the linnearity, but in making the story matter to the character in the player's mind. But TES repeats the same concept of stranger-in-a-foreign-land, with no ties or connections to people, places or events within.

So let me get this right..............you are complaining because there is to much in the game for you to handle.

So you want to see a significant amount and it not to be endless? Just stop playing after 100 hours, thats 5 times as much as most single player games take, and you will not be dedicating your life to it.

Unlike you I enjoy the replay value of TES games, always create different characters for different factions.

True, but then there's no real way to combine a compelling personal story revolving around a well-defined character with the freedom to define your character yourself. If the game is going to have a plot revolving around a well-defined main character, well, then the writers have to write a good character. Bioware did this with Mass Effect and still managed to leave the player some leeway, but obviously they had to give up the idea of near-total freedom to make the character the way you want it.

Bethesda gives you that freedom, but that in turn prevents them from being able to write a compelling story revolving around the character in any detail. They still write a compelling story, and it does revolve around the character, but only around one specific characteristic of the main character; they're the Nevarine (however you spell it) or the Dovahkiin, or some other person fated to do some big thing. That's all that matters as far as the main story, and the details of the character don't affect that at all.

Tradeoffs.