I'm not here to troll. This is my honest opinion, and I don't intend to change any of yours. Also, I'll probably be making a few comparisons along the way.

I got Skyrim for Christmas. At first, I loved it. Played it for almost a straight two weeks. Heck, I even shelved Red Dead Redemption, another game I got, to concentrate solely on Skyrim. Levelled up my character to 30, completed the main quest, Thieve's Guild, and Dark Brotherhood. Okay, that was fun. Let's start a new character. Completed the Companions with him. Now I need a mage, who I used to complete the College. By that time, I had begun to get tired of the game, with around 80 hours clocked in total. And I haven't even touched the game in over two weeks. Here's why.

The main questline wasn't memorable. In fact, I barely remember anything about it, aside from learning the Shouts and meeting Paarthurnax. The ending of the game was pretty cool too, but to be honest, Alduin was too easy and anticlimactic. The characters were boring (aside from Esbern), the storyline wasn't written nearly as well as I expected, and it just seemed bland. In my humble opinion, it was the worst story TES has had. I even enjoyed Oblivion's questline of "fetch this, fetch that" more than Skyrim's. I was just over at a friend's house today playing Mass Effect and holy crap. I only got about 3 hours into the story, but I've gotten hooked. I can say the same for just about every Bioware game I've played; Dragon Age, KotOR, Baldur's Gate... Bethesda, if you read this, I strongly suggest you learn some things from them. Bioware knows what's up.

The gameplay itself was an improvement over Oblivion, I'll give it that. But there's still something strange about it. It's essentially just block, attack, block, attack. I've gotten into playing Demon's Souls and the combat in that is much more active, much more exhilirating than the combat of Skyrim. You actually have to time your attacks, hold your shield up, and roll out of the range of your opponents. Even the weakest enemies can give you a hard time, and running in two-handing a sword is a death sentence unlike in Skryim where you can take thirty hits before chugging a potion. By the time I shelved TES V, I dreaded every time I saw a Draugr simply because I had began to get tired of the combat. The dual-wielding weapons and magic and stuff was super cool at first, but after a while it just got uninteresting.

I can't help but notice how the series has been going. I started out with Morrowind and have played every other game except Arena and Redguard, and the games have been steadily getting worse. They've been going from more traditional RPGs to action-adventurers with barely any RPG in there. And before you say, "Barely any RPG? What's more RPG than creating your own character and being able to do LITERALLY ANYTHING YOU WANT?" Well, there's no real choice and consequences system. The dialogue options are uninteresting. For example, there's no dialogue option to tell Astrid, "You're a merciless killer and deserve death" or what have you. Instead, all you have is, "Fine, I'll kill one of these prisoners" despite the fact that you can still attack Astrid.

[EDIT] - Now, the atmosphere. It was much better in Oblivion; it was gritty, medieval, and was decently done, but it was certainly no Morrowind. In Morrowind, the moment you got out of the Census and Excise office, you were assaulted with racism, political intrigue, and you really felt like a foreigner in an unforgiving, alien world. In Skyrim, I felt like I was just another citizen. No one seemed to have any real quarrels with me regarding my race, my occupation, my criminal past. The guards even clearly knew my first character was the Listener but they did nothing about it except occasionally hinting that they know about it. What an awesome system of law, huh? The problem with the atmosphere is that the grittiness is getting generic and overdone. - [EDIT]

In fact, I'd be hesitant to award Skyrim as GotY. Only reason that keeps me from not awarding it is I've only played one other game that was nominated at the VGAs, and only for an hour or two.

Also, all you people who say "Get mods to make the game so much better" aren't helping your case at all. A game should be amazing without mods. You shouldn't need to fix hundreds of bugs, add more equipment and quests to have a great game. Sure, they may be nice and convenient, but I would never even nominate a game for GotY if it needs mods that badly.

I may be misleading you guys a bit. I still think Skyrim is a great game. The best game in the series? Not at all. Game of the Year? I hesitate.

Again, this post is all my opinion. If you think this game is the greatest thing to bless the Earth, good for you. Leave your flames at the door, and please keep discussion civil .

While I agree with your view that Skyrim has urged more towards a bare-bones action-adventure from its more traditional RPG roots in Morrowind, your example isn't the greatest because you do have the option to kill Astrid and free the people anyway, it even follows up into a "Destroy the dark brotherhood" quest. But it's really an exception that proves the rule as far as options and branching in questlines go.

Also, be prepared to be marked a "HATER" by the local forum inhabitants and your right to express an opinion discredited and all your valid arguments dismissed with non-argumentative "I disagree, I think it's the opposite!" one-liners. The Skyrim fanbase is starting to remind me of the Call of Duty community.

I was always more into exploration than story in the Elder Scrolls game. As for your experience, I'd say that 80 hours for $60 is a success.

That reminds me, I totally mixed up Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood and Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood. Gotta edit that now...

Also, I'll be editing in another section on atmosphere.

[EDIT] - Done the edits. The Dark Brotherhood thing should make more sense now.

I sympathize with you, but I feel like Skyrim's stories should be more bland when compared to the games you mentioned because it allows the player to use their imagination a little more and RP. TES has always been more about creating exciting landscapes and lore so the player can immerse his/herself in a world of their own. I don't think this was Bethesda's intention, but I think it works well. Games like Dragon Ages hand you the story to you on a silver platter and with the excitement of being in a motion picture. That's fine, but it feels a little too Hollywood and dramatic for me. TES has always felt more relaxed as if the game is saying, "hey, you want to go be the Dragonborn? No? Okay, take care, man." I like that kind of atmosphere to build the story in my head. After all, it's a single player game and single player experience, so who else is going to care?

This is unfortunately true, but it says more about the game industry's declining state than Bethesda. When 5-8 hour long railroaded, heavily scripted and hand-holding campaigns that resemble a movie rather than a game are becoming the norm, it's hard not to appreciate a game like Skyrim coming by.

I'll admit the series has changed since Morrowind. But I was not disappointed with Skyrim at all. The graphics have improved a lot and the world is huge. I've spent 200 hours on multiple characters and I still haven't discovered every location.

But one thing you said is true, the MQ is good IMO, but the guild quests are very short and lacking story and depth. I don't like how when I complete the guild storyline I suddenly become master of the guild.

The TES series is all about exploring for me. Some people are dissapointed with the characters. I'm disappointed with some of them but not all of them.

I'm not disapointed the game is fun and time consuming in my opinion.. the only thing that I dislike about the game is the lack of creatures to kill in the game.. I hope Bethesda gives us a Expansion pack with a lot more creatures..

but beside that I have over 140 hrs clocked in and taking time off and playing some Battle field.. Because The game is too time consuming for my schedule.. I love it and it's better then oblivion the game is not as of morrowinds but close enough to where I can enjoy it.. There's a ton of things to do in the game but just about the same creatures that you battle. I think that has alot to do with it..

To each their own I guess...

** Just for the record there is nothing wrong with the game being to time consuming that is why I love and I enjoy about it.. it's not one of those Rpg's that after 60'hrs the game is basically over or even before that.. Just merly saying I really Can't find the time to fit the game in as much as I would like. ***

lol agree on a lot of your points, i think of skyrim more of a "lite rpg" with heavy action play. Have about 300 hrs playing and will continue to play it till me3 comes out. Then i will pick it up and play with mods 6months down the road.

While I don't agree, that's what's opinion about. I am going to thank you for presenting your opinion in a civil manner. I quite like Skyrim for what it is and I don't feel it's perfect. Most Haters present their opinion as if their opinion is more enlightened than others. I've had too many arguments with people that felt Skyrim desreves to be torn a new one and then torn to shreds but if you day lay one little criticism on New Vegas, Then you're being unfair.

sorry about that rant but again, thank you for presenting your opinion in a civil manner.

Olath, That's your opinion and I disagree with it. And here's why..

I got Skyrim for Christmas too. At first, I love it. Now, I love it even more. I don't think it's the "greatest thing to bless the Earth" and I haven't played all the other games, so I can't really get into that side of the discussion.

I play Skyrim without mods and I think it doesn't need them to be the GotY. I have played Dragon Age and KotOR (1 and 2) and I loved those games too. But Skyrim is much better (in my opinion).

A lot of your opinion doesn't have so much to do with the game as it does have to do with your desires. You played the main quest and got bored. I have barely played the main quest in my hours and hours of playing and haven't gotten bored in the slightest. I take my time and do side quests as much as I can, when I'm not thieving and smithing my time away. You seem to be playing the game to beat it and I just think that's probably the wrong way to approach this game. It's like RDR Undead Nightmare in that if you play the way it leads you can beat that game VERY quickly. But as an open world game I think you do yourself a disservice by playing it that way. And if you don't remember anything about it then that's really not the games fault is it? You think it's not memorable and it's all anticlimactic but that's just your opinion. My opinion is just the opposite. To each their own, I suppose.

By the way, if you want to taste real disappointment go buy the Old Republic. What a waste of time

I can easily be disappointed with a TES game, unless I compare it to the other stuff out there. example: Risen. good little game, but crap compared to TES. drakensang was fun...but crap compared to TES game. witcher 2 was too effing hard, but fun....and crap compared to TES game.

1. have you tried play the most difficult level? Master?

you can get 1-shotted by enemy archer, and you may need to shot dozen of arrows (me being an archer) to down a high level enemy (caster, etc).

i haven't tried this with tons of draugh battle (like one of the quest in early companion quest line), which i did with normal level. i bet its going to be heretic, as it pretty challenging on normal level already.

2. have you tried mod?

there's a mod "Deadly Dragon", you can choose the toughness of the dragon, make killing them a freaking pain, try at least the Hard level.

First off, I'd like to thank you for expressing your opinion without flaming. Much appreciated.

I didn't rush to complete the quests at all. I was 40+ hours in before I completed the main quest. My first 20 hours on my main character was spent levelling, making money, and taking my time to enjoy the game. I do have to agree that a lot of what I said was based on many of my desires, but it was also based on things Mr. Howard had hyped up and blown out of proportion that ended up disappointing me. For example, he once said you can sabotage the economy of towns which I have since tested and it seems the only way you can do so is by killing the shop keepers themselves. Which essentially means you destroy the economy completely. Then you're screwed.

I agree and disagree about it being my own fault about the story being "meh." I agree that it may not have appealed to me personally, I've also had this discussion with several other people who have agreed that Skyrim's story wasn't that great. After playing RPGs that are focues more on story and less on gameplay, Skyrim's seemed very weak. And I don't really care about story-based RPGs versus action-RPGs; I mentioned Demon's Souls in the original post, which is very much an action-RPG with a story on the side, and I can say without a doubt I'd rate it higher than Skyrim.

Agreed, though, on the "to each their own" comment.



1) I have. I'd prefer not to have to attack a measly bandit forty-six times to kill him when he can attack me once and bring my health down to 10%. And this is coming from a guy who's clocked in over 250 hours in Demon's Souls.

2) See the third last paragraph in the original post. To reiterate, you shouldn't need mods to make a great game.

You know I can agree with alot of what you have to say. But overall I disagree, the reason being, I like different things in my RPG's than you do, or someone else does. You know what my favorite things to do in RDR were? Treasure hunting and collecting flowers. I actually liked alot of the scenery, but then again I love the desert sw ( US ). I should mention that RDR was my husbands game, and the 1st I started playing in over 20 yrs. More or less I did the things my husband didn't like doing.

I already know from reading alot of posts that their are alot of games out their that one person really likes and another doesn't. Any game can be picked apart.

I think it works this way... " I like what I like because I like it".

BTW I don't think Skyrim is perfect, I do think their is alot that could have been done different or better, but I also know that something else would have been lost, because their can only be so much done.

That said I Love Skyrim 350 plus hrs and I'm not at all board or anywere near done with all the questlines.

Skyrim is a game of hundreds of stories. For me TES has never been about the "main quest" line. I usually only play the main quest line with one or two out of many of the characters I create. IMO its not comparable to a game like mass effect which has an amazing story that has me waiting on the edge of my seat for the next game.

I stopped reading when I got to where you said you played your third character - a mage - and had a total of 80 hours played (your words.)

When you barely scratch the surface of a game, and then come to this forum to tell us your opinion of the game, I'm not interested.

I have 4 characters I play on a daily rotation, each one is different from the others, and I just got to 350 hours, highest level toon is 42; the other 3 are in the low to mid-30s.

It really annoys me when people say that. 80 hours is plenty of time to get a good feel for the game. It's more than enough time to run through the main quest, do some of the guild quests, run a few dungeons, do a few Daedric quests and a variety of side quests. You really don't have to do every little quest or visit every single dungeon before you know how the game plays and learn what to expect as you continue to play.

I agree. I think 80 hours is all I ever put into Oblivion, but I had a great time. That being said, I'm amazed that I've put 237 hours into Skyrim and still haven't lost the desire to put it down. That speaks volumes.

I myself fell for all the hype clocked 300 hours of which most were pretty average.I will give them credit for making a amazing looking world but everything else about it is bland to say the least.I have recently gone back to playing The Witcher 2 i just prefer a strong narrative where decisions play a part and characters are strongly developed.Characters in Skyrim are on par with MMO's whats that say?.I will come back to playing it when the modders get into the swing of things i know some people out there can make the game enjoyable.

The Elder Scrolls series hasn't really placed any significant emphasis on choices and consequences since Daggerfall. Yeah, there was some in Morrowind, particularly between the factions, but even that was fairly basic. Oblivion had virtually no player choice involved in its storytelling and neither does Skyrim (with the exception of the Civil War questline), so I'm not disappointed about it; it's more or less what I expected out of an Elder Scrolls game. Bethesda is more interested in creating an artistically stunning world crammed with content that the player can explore at his or her whim than writing strong characters and questlines.

Only disappointment I had with the game was it locking up during the wagon ride to the execution. Found a workaround, they evenutally patched it and 149 hours later, I'm having a great time. I love exploring; I love the stories that pop up in individual ruins. I won't say this is the best game I've ever played but it's in my personal top 5 favorite list. Going to be hard to put it down.

80 hours...that's not bad. I'm at 500+-, and I still think it's a good game.

Keep in mind, most linear FPS single player games come in at less than 20 hours, and once you done that, you can't change it...and there is no 'new stuff' to discover, ever.

I think one of the biggest reasons for the blandness of the quests is the Radiant Story. When you get right down to it, all it does for most of the quests is spawn the item your after in a chest at the end of some random dungeon. That or pick some random dungeon where you need to go kill the leader. But it generally changes nothing else, so the dungeon you go into really has nothing to do with the quest you're doing.