The other day I happened upon a mill...I forget which one, but it was one of those times where I was just taking it easy and exploring. I was just marveling in all the spender of this game with the tranquil scenery and such...absolutely amazing.

And the thing is I keep seeing things I've never seen before. From that mill I traveled a few feet West to a river with a small cascade waterfall...and there saw salmon swimming upstream up the waterfall like they would in real life...

I know in these forums there has been a lot of frustration and a lot of negativity. But I myself can say this is the best game I've bought for xbox 360. The best $60 I've spent in a long time, and I just wanted to say I appreciate it Bethesda. Well done...well done.

The only way this game would be better is if it weren't constrained by the parameters of our current technology and coding. The human mind is able to have a limitless imagination and I'd say you've all done amazingly in trying to put that in game form. I look forward to other ventures you come out with.

(I've also bought the GOTY edition for Oblivion )

Duel

Oh my god...finally someone with a positive thinking.I agree.Skyrim is the best game i bought in the last 2 years.I didn't had that feeling since Fallout 3 and obvilion.Enjoy the game

If there was a way to really find out what people thought of this game, I think you'd find yourself in the majority. The people who are picking at the game's faults (and there are faults) are ignoring how much fun you can actually have with it if you just let yourself.

Dispite what others may think I've allways liked Bethesda games.
The freedom to go where you want and do what you want is the reason I play them.
And when theres such great scenery in the game,well that makes them so much better.

I seem to always pay attention to the small things. For example: The fact that you can hear water running under the sewer drains in Solitude is awesome! They just really put a lot of heart and thought behind it and built a universe that they, as gamers themselves, would enjoy and It's just inspiring...makes me want to be a developer.

Don't let it bug you... amazing in-game experiences aren't cancelled out because someone complains on the forums.

I love the game as well and I recently decided to see if I could find all the locations on the map.so far I have found 230 and that number is still rising. It's amazing to think that I've been playing this game for 140 hrs now and still not been to every part of the map. There are not many games that you could say that about.

I didn't have much time to appretiate the landscape yet but I'll create a Kahjiit hermit at some point that will never go into towns and will live in the wild. Then I'll enjoy all this.

I saw something yesterday while exploring that made me smile. I am not sure if it is part of a quest or story but I thought it was pretty cool.

I was exploring down by the water near Winterhold and saw two skeletons. One had what looked like his leg caught in a bear trap and the other one was just sitting in the snow. I guess it was two lovers that didn't want to leave each other.

Yesterday was one of my first days to never fast travel, and while running back to Whiterun, I came upon a thief who threatens me for my valuables. But I wasn't the mood to kill so I threatened him: "Walk away. Right now." (at that time, I was wearing full set legendary Ebony armor with legendary Deadric bow, trying to look intimidating) So he let me off. So then I decided to follow this thief to see where he heads, but we came upon a frost troll, then another (where the thief eventually died), then another (are these trolls respawning itself??), then finally arrived at some sort of ruin where more frost trolls came running to tear my face off. After finishing the trolls off, I went into this particular stone ruin which turns out to be a secret shrine (spoiler?) which I save to explore it later (I wanted to sell off some loot+loads of dragon bones before I loot some more from this ruin) .

Anyways, the point is, this has been one of my most exciting play-throughs because I chose to explore a location without it being a quest. (although I've been enjoying the game a lot despite fast travelling all the time, but now.. it's even more exciting!) And walking 'home' has never been just a long boring walk because there is always something that distracts me and keeps me interested along the way.

Ha ha that's what I'm talking about!!!

You know what. I'm realizing more and more that the game was probably primarily designed for exploration, which is just pure awesomness. There is the temptation to get all the achievements and complete all the quests by fast traveling everywhere and that can seem like work. I think from now on I'm not going to fast travel. Probably stick to riding a horse or walking. Horse's seem to die rather quickly...lol.

I felled sad.Also the cave o the giants located next to Riften maked me watch for over 30 minutes it's beatifull.Trees growing from rocks,the sound of the underground watterfals and the water....oh....Bethseda truly know how to make a living experience.Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESRqIwJDXNY

I've just remembered one time when I was walking from Dawnstar to Whiterun. I'm not playing as the dragonborn with this character. I mean, I didn't even talked to Alvor after leaving Helgen in the beggining of the game so he doesn't even know what a dragonborn is.
Back to the story, I was going to Whiterun when I saw a nord in full iron armor complete with horned helmet just like the guy from the adds. As a sneaky character I immediately hid behind a bush and waited for him to pass by because you never know what NPCs are friends or foes, then I continued my way only to find two frost spiders and a wolf lying dead by the road up ahead.
Then it ocurred to me that that guy might actually have been the dragonborn.

lol those salmon aren't really swimming, they are apart of the "Cascade down" scenery

Ahahahaha!! Nice! Should have got his autograph...

Exactly why I love Bethesda, they go into every little detail and every location has a backstory. A good example being the Abandoned Prison when you follow the road between the mountains east of Whiterun near the waterfall. It turns out it was an Imperial prison and the storm that hit that area flooded it and all the abandoned prisoners died and their ghosts wander the cells.

It's amazing.

One day I was walking near Whiterun when I came across a pool with a skeleton hand holding a steel sword sticking out of it.

Do you get the excalibur reference?

On my previous character, I was on my to a camp for the civil war questline when I saw that place. It was on the other side of the river and took an extra three minutes to get to, but I loved the place. Between the environment and the backstory, I had a blast clearing it. I got so caught up in the little story they'd created that I completely forgot about the civil war and being Dragonborn.

The OP has expressed what TRUE fans of TES series think. Can you honestly sit there and say that Morrowind wasn't a bug-free, flawless game, with perfection in every inch? There were bugs out the ass, an average (at best) combat system, with TONS of flaws. But it was an incredible, immersive game because of the detail and love the developers put into it.

The same goes for Skyrim. When I walk through the forest and see a burnt out hut with charred corpses, or I see rabbits and foxes flee away from me, I don't give a [censored] what bugs may supposedly be plaguing my game. When I can walk for hours, and not even get close to exploring the entirety of the game's world, I don't care whether the NPC interaction could be better, it's certainly better than previous games and that never stopped us.

A TRUE fan is not afraid to constructively criticise to see things improve. Skyrim is not an accident. many of the GOOD things about it happened because people criticised games like Oblivion. Why do you think we see a re-emergence of the Cart travel system? The more realistic Morrowindish feel compared to Oblivion? Etc, etc...?

Because the TRUE FANS COMPLAINED.

That would be a great find.

I have not found that yet.

I know, I have my own complaints about the game. I have no doubt that MANY complaints are sincere and genuine. But there are also so many rage-complaints, destructive criticism, and blaming of 'casuals'/'noobs'/'console gamers'.

Complaints aren't bad things, but too many, or ones that are completely baseless or redundant aren't helping. The best way to criticize something is to send a well-structured and worded e-mail to Bethesda, something they'll actually see.

But things they've said they're addressing, or things that have been complained about before (and are still on the front page) are not things we need to complain about. And threads that talk about the good parts of the game need to be more common, because there are a LOT of good things.

Edit: I mean, things like 'The Elder Scrolls is dying, and this is the worst game yet' or 'The series went WAY downhill', are not only destructive, they're useless and baseless opinions that seem to be common on these boards.

yeah, even though i've been quite critical about the game i still quite like it. no matter how much something infuriates me or causes me to facepalm about what the devs were smoking i still go back to it.

it's a really good game, warts and all.

Yeah, I think it is. Since most quests aren't that exciting, it is possible that the exploration bit makes up for it, which is great!
LOL and yeah, I bought the horse once and it died only a few in-game days (although at first I appreciated the fact that the horse sorta fought alongside with me, but I never gotten another horse after it died.)

With flaws/bugs and all, Skyrim is still one of the best games I've ever played.