I'd just like to say I wasn't trying to make it personal, just trying to point out what you did earlier in that post; that the "dumbed down" term implies that people who like the game that way are stupid and that people shouldn't act surprised when they get a negative reaction after using it But I'll use more tact from now on.

I am aware, if I thought it was personal, I would have been handing out warnings. But I did delete the exchange as some of it was waaaay off-topic, and repetitive from other threads on the part of one participant.

back on topic now, which, iirc, was the Wired article and the OP's opinion that there were no meaningful choices in the game.

I don't take an issue with people who like it, not sure where you got that impression. It's just the posts like the one I quoted which I take issue with, for reasons I gave already. Mocking those who don't like it by calling them haters and trying to rub the awards it gets in their faces isn't the best way to go about expressing your approval of the game. Acting as if it's his sports team that just scored points on theirs.

Their wrong b/c morrowind had 27 skills and skyrim has 18 OMG CONSOLES ARE DU BING GAMES DOWN damn console kiddies hope they grow and unrdstnd THIS is not worht besides wired is not a gaming site their bought .

Thanks for reading, I'm looking for feedback.

Skyrim is great. But in terms of production quality, polish, and gameplay enjoyment (even if it's shorter), the real GOTY is Arkham city. I'm surprized so far by how much it got overlooked in favor of skyrim

If it didn't come with GFWL I'd agree.

Don't take notice of reviewers myself now days and shallow games seem to get good reviews because they initially wow you. Saints Row 3 was the same but the game was very repetitive, full of hand holding and the missions was mostly killing waves of enemies like space invaders.

Yeah it's a problem with game reviewers reviewing things as if they're a movie and a few hours is enough to judge well enough. I don't really pay attention to them either. The first few hours of Skyrim were amazing no doubt, they really did do a great job on making it seem huge and the visuals are just such an improvement over Oblivion's. But you don't buy a TES game for a few hours of play time and the game play was the same stale combat they've been tossing into their games for quite awhile now along with pretty shallow dialogue and disappointingly lacking faction content.

The game client that comes with it has no basis on which to say if a it'd GOTY or not. In the end it's down to who pays them the most and how easy it's for the devs, customers come last, even if they hate the client.

Well I'm not a game reviewer, and GFWL disqualifies anything from being my personal GOTY.

hehe, I'm not a fan of it myself but personally I never had an issue with it in the games I have but yeah prefer a game not to have GFWL. It always makes me laugh if I see a video and the Xbox message comes up saying someone has appeared online. I never quiet understood the big deal with people talking to you while playing a game either and I'm glad I don't personally have loads of people bothering me while playing a game.

I've never had technical issues with it, it's just a huge pain to deal with and involves far too many steps to actually play a game. It's just a huge hassle, no customer should have to deal with the excessive steps it makes you take just to prove you bought a game. It makes you regret paying for it and getting it legally, a cracked version would be less of a pain.

Well, I assume they took character leveling into account, but I don't really care what magazine/company gives what game x rating on y list. The sales usually decide wheter a game is a sucsess or not.

I'm loving Skyrim, but honestly I don't think I'd even pick it as my GOTY. Maybe if Portal 2 and Bastion hadn't come out this year.

And, yeah. One of the things I'd agree in this game's shortcomings is the lack of many meaningful choices (by which I mean choices that reflect significant change in the world, illicit lasting reactions from NPCs, and have consequences). I'd say even an older RPG like Planescape: Torment has Skyrim beat in that regard.

edit: With that said, I'd be interested in seeing some concrete examples from people that feel, say, Morrowind offered more in that area. Because, for the most part, I'm having trouble thinking of too many instances of it.

maybe because the criticism is from peoples no smarter than they look ...
who expect pre-mashed gammes, and think the *quests* got anything to do with anything

if you played morrowind, you know that vivec, helseth, azura manipulated you like the fool you are
in the end you kill your best friend (dagoth ur) and wife (almalexia)
and are given a silly teleportation ring that will weaken the space-time continuum
that little blindness of yours helped bringing about both the red year and the oblivion crisis - how cute

In oblivion you end up as the next sheogarth in shivering island
what an accomplishment, the personification of madness

my only criticism on those two is the obsolute lack of free will and good outcome

even in the good old daggerfall the trickery is that you gave a child that get sent to oblivion
to be groomed as god knows what and may return in a future game

so there we go again, everyone wants you, of course they want you, you re a pawn in a large game
but at least in skyrim, as long as you screw up most daedra,
most of what you do have no impact, which is good
thought you do bring back the nightingale, no necessarily good
(if you played arena)

but the real choices however are fighting dragons and beating up thalmor
but no one talk much to congratulate you on that
if anything they see you as a threat

so if anyone is going to make criticism, at least show you know what the game is about
and criticise the right stuff

I ve seen peoples saying that witcher 2 has more choices ... yeah sure ... I m convinced
I read everything and seen all the walkthrough and was still unconvinced to buy it
and not just because it s small and you are basicaly paying for a push button movie
ok not as bad as dragn age 2, but I was certainly expecting witcher 2 to be larger at least

In any case, I got the feeling skyrim is just like an intoduction,
much like the initial part of a mmorpg, with 10 xpack coming right up

of course I could be wrong, maybe all those passages to other provinces are an inside joke
but to tell the story of the *new dragonborn* complete from start to finish,
same epic size as talos story, would be magnificient

if my guess is right, then we are still nobody at the end of the introduction
and alduin is ... nothing ... compared to what s to come

but that remain to be seen, if bethesda got the guts to takle something like that
If I was in Todd Howard Shoes, I would.
And for balance I would take a long hard look at Diablo I in hell difficulty, in the hell plane
because that game managed to stay challenging even after you got maxed out
(which isn t true for diablo II)

Skyrim already got one thing, even if you are maxed out, it s still fun to explore
But challenge wise it flat out too soon, and shouldn t flat out at all

*****

Anyway, peoples react to the sort of criticism in that thread because they are *dumb*
they are like kid throwing a tantrum and not knowing what they want
If you are going to criticize, at least be articulate about it

try to paint a clear picture of what you like
not just a random *witcher 2 give 5 meaningless choices instead of 2*
you got to be specific about what exactly made you vibrate
because I saw all the witcher 2 video, and I saw nothing there

I ll give a specific example with dragon age 2
In one of the video, hawke has like 4 choices to answer,
and it make massive changes in the game

BUT NONE ARE WHAT I WOULD CHOOSE IF GIVEN A CHOICE
And for me, it all looked like bad results
And this is far worst than not having any choice
(In which case you can at least faithfully complain the story svck)
(Like I did for morrowind about killing dagoth ur and almalexia)

this is far worst because the game maker will not fix it on the next itteration

a good system would simulate both psychology and society dynamics
so that its no longer based on what line you choosed
but on what you do exactly
(ex: shooting all thalmor on sight...should bring up sudden possibility of support
from anyone seing them as a threat ... even the empire)
in short instead of depending on previous dialogue choices
dialogues options now depend on your interaction with the world
as well as your ethics

other things: why are males offering me sixual favors... I mean marriage ...
unless I declared myself gay... I found it slightly irritating
we should be given a choice at character creation, and choosing straight
would mean we are not hitting on them in any sort of way
and peoples who want to play gay or bi simply choose that

It s not like it s hard to do

Anyway. that s an example of constructive criticism versus advanced nilhilism (original poster)

Choices are meaningful to the player's experience - which faction to join, which skills to develop. In that sense they are meaningful because they make the game different for everyone. Of course there's little impact on the world because each quest line has defined story parameters and the end goal is to reach that point. Some of the big quests and the main quest have a defined end goal. That's as inevitable as the story arc in a movie or book. But the fact that not everyone does every quest in the same order, the same manner and with exactly the same outcome (the forsworn for example) affects each player's individual experience.

Yes the game seems simpler than its predecessors. In that sense even I think the storylines are dumbed down. However for it to win game of the year so many times may simply indicate a lack of suitable competition this time round. It's not competing against Oblivion; it's competing against junk like Modern Warfare 3.

After reading this thread I have actually changed my opinion. I see a lot of good arguments for both "sides", but the thing is - Skyrim is not that game. Skyrim is not a game where your actions come back to haunt you a year after or where your choice to do something may eventually make something else undoable. Todd himself has said that they haven't even considered that it's wierd that you're able to be both arch mage and leader of the Companions, since it's not relevant. There's too much content to have rules made up to govern what you can and can't do. The game aims at being a massive world, with tons of quests and dungeons to explore, and I ceratinly can't think of a game that does this better.

Still - I don't consider the game to have any meaningful choices. That is my opinion and in my own tiny world, I'm right about it. Give the game the GoTY award or don't, just do it for what it is, not for what it isn't.

@Astarsis: Lovely post.