Rosveen - oh I completely agree in regards to choice vs consequences. There are no consequences in Howard-era Bethesda. It's also in keeping with the shift made from exploration being much more of a focus in Morrowind, to having your hand held and an arrow shoved up your nose so you know EXACTLY where to go. Oh my god was there whining about not knowing where to go when Morrowind was released. I could just hear the howls of outrage now if there were consequences for some actions and no recent save game to go back to.

10/10 I love it, just like I loved the other TES games I've played. I don't understand the people who rate it under 8, tbh. 1- what do you expect of a game? (more than 300 hours of gametime, millions of quests, spears?) 2- Why are you even on this forum?
I myself have 300 hours of gametime atm, and I'm still going. Playing on my 5th character and jumping between some when one gets a bit boring

No offense, but you should probably seek help.

I remember some of that too. When I played Morrowind, 90% of the time I just wandered and explored.Some of the quests were so vague I just didn't bother. I didn't complain, I just didn't do them.

Well made game in a lot of ways, but too much was taken out. Fewer spells, no ability to make spells, grossly simplified guild quest lines, linear dungeons, fewer skills, removal of attributes, no real consequences (fame/infamy), removal of factions, etc.

Skyrim is a well made province to explore, and there is much to like about it, but it feels more like an action game and less like an rpg to me. Because of this, I played it for about a month, got a good 60+ hours out of it, but then tired of it. It feels like everything is just skin-deep. I'm back playing Oblivion, with renewed appreciation for what Oblivion achieved and offers us rpg'ers.

9.5/10 I love this game. It's one of my favorites ever. I'm about 112 hours in and I've finished the main quest, civil war, companions, and a bunch of other side quests. Is it perfect? No. I wish the crime system was fixed (why do I sometimes get a bounty when there's NO ONE else in the building to see?), I also don't like unkillable NPCs but I can kind of understand why they did it. I'm also disappointed with being a werewolf. But the game is so huge and everything is so much better than Oblivion.

Bunny-hoping??

I'll never understand those who don't mind the loss of so many choices we used to make with our characters. Many say it's a personal thing- but the loss is real. Attributes, NPC interaction, spell making and spells-

I wonder if all the fans of the Elder Scrolls are even still here? Many of them seem to have disapeared.

Those who love Skyrim are still with us.

Actually, in a way, yes. Because running and jumping actually made us faster and able to jump higher and further. In Skyrim every person is locked into a speed and jump limit at birth (based on race/gender) plus a pre-set sprint speed, and that's it. In Oblivion, if you want to develop a character that runs fast and/or jumps father you can.

But what I also missed was:
* In-depth guilds
* Factions
* Greater NPC interaction
* Dungeons and Caves that aren't completely linear
* Attributes
* Spell Making
* Fame/Infamy

And that's just an incomplete list of objective things I feel shouldn't have been removed/changed.

On a subjective level, now that I've played both games, I prefer Oblivion's music and visual palette and overall vibe.

I miss spell-making. My grimoire in Morrowind and Oblivion was massive, something for every occasion. I don't mind losing attributes though; everything they covered has been reworked and is actually in Skyrim, except maybe bunny hopping. I do not miss having to hope around like an idiot across the landscape to level Acrobatics AT ALL. Not missing the pie-chart mini game with Speechcraft either.

Well I love Skyrim, but I still lament the loss of those things.

Attributes provided little choices, unless you could live with the fact that you were gimping your character, they forced you to grind unwanted cross-class skills. That is not a choice, that is a mechanic that encourages you to break character. Perks provide much more freedom to develop your character through the things you want your character to be doing.

Don't mistake fiddling with numbers for choice...

Wait... NPC interaction has never been a strong point of this series... hell, in Morrowind system was arguably worse - generic lines based on a single 1-100 value, having very primitive sets of whether or not an NPC will talk about certain things (basically, below 30 they stop being nice, below 10 they stop doing anything for you, and above 70 they'll do things they normally won't. Pretty much every "speech check" was just looking for 70 in disposition). And to increase disposition you pressed one of 4 buttons, which all did the same thing except some traded ease for money. Taunt was a good feature though, if stupidly abusable.

NPCs seemed to have a little more character until you clicked on any generic topics to have the NPC immediately respond with a generic line (Skyrim has less lines but NPCs generally don't share them as much) that you read a thousand times. Taking a look in the editor now, although not realised, Skyrim's new system seems rather more complex, and NPCs interact with each other in ways beyond "I saw a mudcrab". The system appears to be part unrealised, part realised but not very well expressed. Looking at this system NPCs are all set up to uniquely engage with the player, but most don't.

The guards are the truly generic NPCs, which interestingly is the case in Morrowind with mods such as LGNPC. Guards are generic, they were born to be that way and that way they shall remain forever more

Yes, the bunny-hop dilemma. If you did it, it made you feel like your character was a complete idiot, and if you didn't, you were playing the game like an idiot.

There are ways to level your acrobatics in Oblivion without bunny hopping everywhere. You can level your acrobatics all the way to 100 in a very short time this way. Then you can play without bunny hopping and still be able to jump across water. Or you can just roleplay it and not worry about it.

attributes govern gameplay mechanics, or, should. along with, developing a more in-depth character. i like the level what you use aspect of skyrim for many of the skills, but, as it has been implemented, it comes up short and weak.

"cross-class" skills wouldn't occur if the freedom of skyrim was added to the depth of morrowind and oblivion.

like i've said for many topics: it would take a few of us very little time to come up with great, creative ideas to add to the game. currently, skyrim has no substance and is way too simplistic.

My thoughts exactly. Especially for a T rated game, if it was rated "Everyone" I could understand the need for simplicity, but when you're target audience is teenagers+ you could make things a little bit more complex. Too bad it didn't happen..... Mods anyone? I'd love to have some complicating ones

I listen to you guys, as you 'prove' the loss of attributes was insignificant number crunching, and it amazes me.

Another points to Morrowind to show there is no loss of NPC interaction, forgetting Oblivion...but of course someone will show who can incontrovertably prove Oblivion actually was a blank screen.....

This is called rationalization at best, sophism at worst.

There is a bottom line available that will allow a fan of Skyrim more dignity- that regardless of the losses, you find Skyrim as good, better, or the same. I don't, but you may. That's OK. No one can tell you how you play YOUR game. Skyrim is not a gyp- there are many wonderful features in it. There are many improvements.

for me, and many others, the character build is now without interest, and in a RPG, the character build is almost everything. Without it, Skyrim is as good as the next unexplored castle. But unexplored assets run out- character builds take a long time. Skyrim is a action adventure game more than an RPG.

The forum is left with fans of Skyrim- how could it not be? I visit much less now than at first. For you fans, Skyrim is the beginning of a wonderful new direction by Bethesda. For me, it is an end. This is the first game by Bethesda I will not purchase downloadable content. If the next Elder Scrolls game is built like Skyrim, the series has ended for me. Does that mean I'll never play again? No, it means the series is like everybody else's out there. We'll have to see if new games coming up find the niche left vacant by Bethesda. Capitalism usually finds a way if a need is there.

Forest parkour was a fun and fast way to increase acrobatics, and high skill opened up plenty of new roads. Would be perfect in Skyrim's mountaneous terrain, but alas dovahkiin doesn't have wings, nor much in the way of legs either

The lack of consequences (and thus true choice and freedom) bothers me a lot. The loss of attributes (vs fixing them) bothers me. The brush-stroke NPC, quest and story development is extremely disappointing. IMO, Skyrim isn't an RPG, and BGS is no longer a maker of RPGs.

But I'm still loving it. It's not the ideal Skyrim, and I'm hoping the above issues can be mitigated with mods, but I think it's a great game overall. I've put an unhealthy number of hours into it, and expect to continue until I get help.

my thoughts, almost, exactly: i play on the 360 and don't want help!

i wish people would truely understand your first statement.

Exactly this... 7/10 as well for its beauty and sheer amount of content. However as others said, it lacks a "soul" aka these elements these people are refering to. And for the same reason it wasn't as addicting for me as the previous TES. Can still feel the addiction of daggerfall, morrowind, fallout, even oblivion and how they absorbed me in the game. However this did not happen with Skyrim. It "got old, fast".

See how many people ask how to get immersed in the game more easily? This did not happen with previous titles. A game is supposed to absorb you on its own - every exceptional game does that - you shouldn't make an effort to get absorbed into it. If you do, boredom is not far behind.

Yeah, some of the quests were a pain but for the most part, I enjoyed using the quest descriptions for clues and then going out and discovering the landmarks they mention to complete a quest, without a compass or an arrow creating the path for me. I had so much fun exploring that I just couldn't understand all the [censored]ing and moaning about it.

7.5, and modders are going to have to re-imagine the game to squeeze more points out of it in modded form.

The atmosphere is good, the world looks nice, but after that...

There's nothing to get attached to:

Cooking is shallow and bland (and it didn't need to be)
Smithing is poorly done (and didn't need to be)
Leveling is uninspiring and excessive (and didn't need to be)
Perks are lame (and Fallout 3 proves they didn't need to be)
NPCs are horribly bland (and that's just a crime against RPGness)
Too many basic quests, and the few truly awesome quests aren't enough to make up for it.
Alchemy needed the school identification spell that is used in the novel (it rarely identified an effect, but it would tell you Effect #1 is Alteration, and may or may not give you information about other effects)

It's not a bad game. I've played a *lot* of worse games. The problem with Skyrim is the flaws are both bone deep and places where the developer can and has done better. That's a real heartbreaker.

Better than Oblivion but still so bad to the point of being absolutely done with it. I could go on and on about things that have been said to death because i agree with quite a few of them but all i really have to say is it was rushed. the game has no soul and you can't really be what you want because the game limits your options so there are some things you have to do.
If you area a mage who most would think of as a canditate for enchantment you need to realise that since there are no cast enchantments or even the ability to make a staff that its useless. instead a warrior benifits the most since they have all the armor that needs enchanting and if you want to have good armor smithing is a must since you can't pay for that service or enchating. Not to mention unless you want to ignore chests your lockpicking will level you since there is no morrowind or even fallout system in place that limits your ability to pick a lock but also no alternative like the previous open lock spell.
sadly this is the last TES game ill purchase at release as it was not worth the money to be truthful. Yes it was fun and not complete junk but not what i wanted and i will instead go for some unknown game that sounds good and inventive. I guess this more action RPG trend is not for me i liked the combat and spell failure in morrowind it made me feel as if my character actually progressed. This whole damage bonus deal just makes it seem like a glorified Hack-n-Slash, open world Baldurs Gate.