About 6 - 8 months.

A competent team of beta-testers full working in BGS.

Assassination contracts that can't be offered or filled soon enough: Rolff Stone-Fist in Windhelm and Heimskr, prophet of worms, n White Run.

When shouts disarm an NPC, they should be smart enough to retrieve their equipment after the battle. I can't tell you how many times I have lost weapons that way.

Replacing Todd Howard with someone who actually understands and appreciates RPGs.

Dont you DARE SAY THAT!

Improved quest writing with more options and choices and different ways of completing them, with different end results, that actually affect the world you play in differently, depending on your own choices. Depth over raw quantity.

More balanced combat, with appropriate challenge at all levels of difficulty, without having to choose to not use most of the features in the game, like perks, levels, crafts, shouts, and the better weapons and armor. More interesting combat wouldn't hurt, either. Not sure what it's like in Mount and Blade, but I'd sure be willing to see them try something different.

Better AI.

- NPCs that actually surrender when beaten
- NPCs that don't automatically attack you just because they're 'bad' but evaluate how much of a threat you are first
- disguises and NPCs that are smart enough to see through them
- the ability to give gifts of food, potions, weapons, etc., and heal NPCs to change their opinion of the player
- the ability to intimidate, taunt, persuade, deceive, etc., more people (more robust persuasion system in general)
- better schedules for NPCs

I know they could have done all this, since I did it for my own mod for Oblivion.

This.

The only quests I found memorable are the Daedric quests and a few of the main quests. The guild quests were cursory as well.

A usable world map.

its a grand game dont get me wrong but i would be a liar if i said it wasnt in need many things for one they should have kept underwater combat and exactly what was stopping them from having first person view on horses exactly? and for the people who dont like them there should have been a toggle for finishers. and lastly lycanthropy should have been a disease not a power up given as a reward for getting far into the companions questline. and its transformations should have been handled like bloodmoon and the disease could of course be caught from fighting a wild werewolf which could be one of the classes that currently are only seen in silver hand bases but they would also rarely be found in the wild and perhaps specific werewolf lair dungeons as well. but alas they where adamant about keeping to that neat 11 11 11 release date as opposed to doing all that.

I think that (minor spoiler) the Listener should actually run the Dark Brotherhood and not have to do all of the assassinations him or herself. There should be a tribute chest like in the Thieves Guild. There should be active recruiting like for the Blades. The way it works is the Night Mother tells the Listener who to kill, and the Listener tells his or her lackeys to go and do it. The Forsworn should be able to be befriended or joined on a much wider scale than just whats in the game. The Bards College should have more impact to the PC other than four lame quests. Also if the PC is a bard how come there is no animation for singing, dancing, or playing a musical instrument? How about earning money as a bard?

I think what people wish for - and get - the more is taken for granted. Having a medieval style fantasy simulation is impossible for now....which is what Skyrim would be if most of fan's wishes came true. I already think its an amazing game and i dont feel an ounce bored after countless hours, but two things i think would make a big difference is further bug fixes and a large Dlc of some sort. Everything else is fine and i really think a good portion of complaints is largely unfounded. One of which is that theres not enough 'choices'. I wonder if im playing the same game, because the Main Quest had many choices to make, whether deciding on who to trust, each with very gray areas, or simply deciding who to bring to join the Blades. I also had a big choice to make in certain Daedric quests, and Guild quests. In fact, theres so many choices, whether great or small, that they all go almost unrecognized and taken for granted. This is largely due to the 'sandbox open world' style of the game...because decisions don't have the dramatic punch that is usually present in more smaller linear Rpgs that concentrate largely on cut scenes and story.

It needed a design philosophy based on improving what didn't work instead of cutting what didn't work.

More involving dialogue, better quests (especially the guild related ones), consequences for your actions, more npcs to interact with, armies and bigger battles. The storytelling and the characters are generally pretty weak, so it's difficult for the player to attach any emotional connection to a given situation, it all feels too generic to be believable. So, more complex storytelling.

Less bugs please.

Proper factions and reputations.

To illustrate this, I'll give you an example

You kill every bandit you come across. Sounds like a fairly normal playstyle, no? So the city guards and so on should love you.

On the opposite side of the scale, you kill every guard you come across. So the bandits should embrace you as one of their own. And most citizens should despise you.

You're probably right, but perhaps they could have a couple of designated spots where you can have a house: on spot in a plain, one on a mountain, one in the forest, etc. Perhaps limit the size of the house, but still. If this cannot be done, have at least a house in the wilderness available through DLC: I'd settle for any house, anywhere (with the usual mannequins, weapon racks, bookshelves, etc.) A lot of console players just want a house in the Wilderness that we can call our own, decorate, and be sure that we won't lose our loot due to cells resetting.

A lot of good ideas in this thread.

This is good. On my first playthrough I was collecting Imperial gear, guard gear, etc., in case I could use them in covert operations when I joined the Stormcloaks... Well, you could walk to Ulfric in a Imperial Officer uniform and no one would notice. That's disappointing.

For thieves and assassins that would be great too: kill some random guard, steal his uniform, disguise yourself, and then infiltrate and go for your real target. But alas...

I agree, of all the features that I'd like improved, the quest design should be the first priority so as to allow better roleplaying and serious consequences for player choices.

It needed to be designed for pc and ported to console. Not because i'm bashing consoles though.

Bring back Jeff Baker! (the old Dunmer voice from Morrowind)

I'm not keen on the new London-ey ones.

Nothing really, sure Skyrim could use improvements but the game is still excellent even with the flaws. If i had to pick something, I would go with more polish although that should be fine by the time the GOTY edition comes out.

The whole game is too shallow. THe depth of the characters, quests and the story is seriously lacking.

-more depth,moral choices with tangible consequences (even "simple logical things" - like if i wear a Forsworn armour i want all the guards attacking me - and the opposite of course)

- optional hardcoe mode (with all Npcs killable after "they've done their job" or replaced by someone else)

-karma/reputation and the opportunity to join every faction - but with consequences,you can't join Forsworns and Stormcloacks/Empire at the same time without problems -or the companions and the Db,Thalmor and Empire etc..

-better animations,better wildlife creatures,mounted combat,more weapons (spears above all)

- more challenging dungeons/puzzles

-physical variety - with all due respect i don't think all the "old ladies" have a pin up body like in Skyrim

-more "advlt" contents (like Red Dead Redemption ; i miss the opportunity to catch a prisoner and send him to jail instead of killing everyone i.e.)

In hardcoe mode:

- balanced rewards; if i commit an homicide of an "innocent" -and discovered -i must pay at least 20000-50000 septim, lose some ability spending long time in jail or living permanently as a criminal paying the consequences of my action

- a time limit with aging - this would be the real challenge,with a more reliable and adaptable time scale of course