This being my first game of this type has kept me entertained very well these past few months (I play slow). I do enjoy the scenery, I don't mind a bit of the 'sameness' so much, but there is much room for improvement. I, like others it seems, would like to have a more meaningful interaction with the world. If I save somebody's life, I'd like them to remember that. If I gain some importance in title, let the townsfolk interact properly. If I kill somebody in plain sight, let people be wary for a while since I did something wrong.I love role playing in general, and the more in depth one can get the world around the player in both character development and dialog the better. This game has room for that, easily.

I've never had a PC game like this so learning about the Mods (and hoping I learn how to download/use them with little hassle), and knowing people can come up with some spectacular things is something to look forward to. Might just get those missing pieces.

Other then a few surprises this game was lacking a good storyline. The main story was very predictable and repetitive. I am playing the game right now but if they put Morrowind in as DLC. This will blow the game WIDE OPEN. for now though i give it a 8.5/10 I have to admit the graphics are way better then the previous games but the story line is eh. New armor looks really cool but they can do so much with this. I think they rushed it.

It is good, and better than Oblivion when it came out. Price is ok.

Only the user interface and the controls could have been better.

I would give it 8/10, I would give it 9/10 if it wasn't for all the bugs and freezes, I've never played a game before that has ever frozen my console once, this crashes every few hours and has stupid flaws like my weapons locking up now and then and damn annoying bugs with the stores.

But yes it does have plenty of room for improvement for the future, my first TES and I'll still be playing it for a long time yet.

The OP quote was "leveled items just totally killed [any] kind of fun you could have exploring." If you get a leveled item at a low level, that means you have to explore even more to find better stuff... I guess if you find your dream item too early then you might be disappointed, but there's so much stuff out there to find. I don't think gimping is that much of problem in Skyrim for most people. I see more complaints of it being too easy than too hard. There's only about a dozen leveled items anyway.

I agree with other posters that it would be nice if there was more in the way of "consequences" for stuff that you do. But the only way to make this work with the same budget would be to ditch the voice acting. It is too expensive to write dialog for you being Archmage, Guild Leader, head of the Companions, Listener, an army officer, and all the million other things, for all the NPCs, then have it all voiced. I take this problem as being the price you pay for having so much content. Wanting the best aspects of Mass Effect with the best aspects of TES is understandable, but I don't think it is a realistic complaint. Personally I would like a virtual reality holodeck.

I absolutely love it.

That's not to say I don't think it has it's problems. First off, let me say that I'm a PC gamer, and so far, I have found mods (before the CK is even released!) to solve most of the biggest issues I've had with the game. Now, on to the problems:

1. The inappropriateness (is that a word?) of much of the NPC dialog. It does get tiresome when I'm asked if I fetch the mead for the companions when I am the Harbinger, or when I get told I'm "Brynjolf's new protoge. Don't look like much to me: even though I'm the guild master, and I really can't understand why Farengar keeps telling me I should check out the mage's college, when I'm the Archmage, and wearing the Archmage's robes. BUT- fixed with a mod.

2. The crashes. Actually, they have gotten much worse since I downloaded 1.4. I was getting a crash maybe once a session before, now I get 5 or 6 a session. This is probably the single biggest problem I am having with the game right now. NOT fixed with a mod, but it is definitely teaching me to quick-save more often.

3. Ugly, ugly head gear. Almost all of them. BUT- fixed with a mod.

4. Dragons killing off NPCs I want to keep around- most notably Alvor in Riverwood. I swear, the guy's got like a deathwish, or something. Generally fixed by not fast travelling to places with vulnerable NPCs.

Here's the bottom line though: I've got more than 300 hours (haven't checked in a while, so could be much higher), and I still spend several hours every day in the game. Despite whatever issues I might have, I can't keep away.

I feel that regardless what comes, I've gotten FAR more than $60 worth of entertainment from this game, and I'm far from done with it.

Same as it was on release day.

AWESOME, BEST GAME EVER!

I've played and enjoyed Skyrim too much to give it anything less than a 9/10 on my personal scale of approval, but I can understand if someone else gives it a number less than that. Depending upon your tastes, Skyrim might certainly looked flawed to you when set against more complex and intricate games like Oblivion and Morrowind.

But personally, I'm really not bothered by these changes, because I'm not really into most RPGs. Skyrim intrigues me for its detailed world and dense, complex lore, and not much else.

7/10 the dialogue options ingame are very poor, and you need the quest marker for know where you need you go... ie you arrive to some place searching for someone,, and you cant ask where can you find he/she,,, you need explore every house and every corner oooor use quest marks
More dialogues and more options to play as you want

OP - change your thread title to Skyrim vs Morrowind... because that's what you're saying.

Taking away attributes and spell making is really only superficial stuff. The core of the game is still the same as it has been since Daggerfall and there are inherent problems:
-the storytelling elements not combining well with the open-world sandbox elements (epic stories does not affect the general environment because the sandbox quests cannot adapt to a dynamic world).
-the first-person action mechanics being in conflict with the rpg mechanics (is my character a good lockpicker or not? the stats tells me no, the game tells me yes).
-repetitive mundane quests to fill the world with something to do outside of the actual story elements.
-a combat system that lacks tactical consideration or depth.

All of these problems exists in the previous TES games, and Skyrim repeats them. However at least Skyrim has finally done away with the hideous and crippled character development system based on classes with major/minor skills and attributes tied to these skills and replaced it with perks that integrate much better with the skill development mechanics.

Huge fan of Bethesda's big 2 titles. Bought Oblivion before I even owned a 360. Couldn't find one in the town I was working in at the time. Skyrim is the only game I've ever waited for a midnight release for. This being said I opened my collectors edition at 1230 and by 130 I went to bed. The first time I put Morrowind or Daggerfall in I was instantly hooked, played for hours upon hours. Still play Morrowind on my 360 all the time. After 30-40 hours of Skyrim I've lent it out to a friend. I just can't seem to get into it and I can't put my finger on it why? They fixed or made better a lot of my complaints I had with Oblivion but it still does not have the depth of it's previous titles in the series. They make the worlds bigger but with less depth in story telling, questing, equipment, skills, no classes, spell making, throwing weapons, etc etc. I could really go on all day. I know I'm rambling so I'll stop at I have no real interest in picking it back up. I'd give it 6/10.

I'm still playing one character after 675 hours and still finding new, previously undiscovered places - 9.7/10

I'd like to give a 10, but there are a few bugs and glitches which need immediate attention and effect general gameplay somewhat. Even with the obvious flaws, it's still the best rpg out there imho !

the lack of attributes and many worthless perks and skills, combined, with no major/minors and abysmal character development, seriously, hinders skyrim.

I'm liking it as much a month later as I did when I got it. I pretty much disagree with most of, if not all of the criticisms as far as gameplay goes (that's just my personal taste, that's all). I'm quite happy with the overall design of it. I even haven't really had any major tech issues, only some very minor infrequent lag, and a few freezes (no big deal for me, all I had to do was turn the PS3 off to reset). I am going to wait until the patch arrives before I play any more though, just to be safe. All in all, an enjoyable experience for me, I'd give it a 9.5 out of 10.

And Daggerfall/Morrowind was not the first open rpg game with a large, explorable world that you could explore in any order you wanted.

Darklands (Microprose) came years before and TES actually copied (stole??) many of the elements of character development, radiant quests and reputation straight from Darklands.

Some interesting views, all welcome. I guess I'm with Rosveen and Longknife (plus a few others) on it , and I think that the games faliures can bee summed up by saying it's meant to be a massive and deep experience, but overall it feels very shallow.

Mods make no difference to me as I'm on online on the Xbox, and with Fast Travel even though it is optiona,l the game itself is built so that it's pretty essential and any wandering to and from locations is just bland and dull anyway (unlike Morrowind, which felt more treacherous). The whole game just feeld like a test of your organisational skills, with you planning which route to take so you maximze the things you can do in one go.

And the quests themselves, are really poor. I remember when *spoiler* the Stormcloaks (think it was Ulfred) asked me to attack Whiterun with them and I got presented with 2 options - "Yes" or "Yes" - I just gave up on expecting any kind of true involvement in the game after that.*end spoiler*

And as Longknife says the fact that you pickup something to make you 20% stronger, then run into enemies which are 20% stronger themselves is a joke. Also, you lose all the fear from leveled monsters - I should be thinking "bugger! a dragon/giant/whatever! run" until I'm a high level and thinking "a drueger, no problem!", instead of entering a cave full of druegers who are 50 times more powerful than the last ones I encountered.

I'd give it a 6/10, not bad by any means, but DAO, Divinity 2 and Fallout 3 are 2 Xbox RPGs that I had far more fun with. If Morrowind had Skyrims presentation, combat and was updated with better speech options then it'd cream it (IMO)

This game is amazing, hands down. Every review I have read anywhere agrees with this statement. HOWEVER, laziness and the dumb 11/11/11 deadline is what kept this game from being not only amazing, but possibly the greatest achievement in gaming history. Had they taken the time to re-evaluate combat, hire a few more voice actors, tweak the AI, and just spent another year polishing-- this could have gone down as the greatest game ever made.

But you saying "the failure that was Oblivion" really sent your credibility flying out the window... so yeah.

I wish I had waited a few weeks (or months) till the patches settled down and the mod community sorted some of the more major problems with the game. Overall I'd say the game was massively over-hyped and I find it quite shallow, in the way that I get the sense that my actions have no real impact on the world and alot of the RPG elements are simplified or stripped out. Having said this I'm very much looking forward to more in-depth mods to add another dimension to the game.

This kind of thing is my main problem with the game. I kept on feeling that I wanted to reply differently or refuse quests. Makes it feel like a linear FPS set in an open world.

Purchased on 11/11/11, played daily straight through the end of January. In hiatus now as I'm devoting a bit of extra time into another hobby (fish keeping). I played through 4 times, 4 characters, definitely more bang for my buck than any other game I've ever played. Closest after that is DA:O, with two complete playthroughs.

Exactly, for all that open world out there it felt as if you were an onlooker as opposed to a participator.

But, did you actually enjoy it? Did your pulse race as you partook in quests or discovered new areas/monsters etc? Or did it feel like you were just going to work/school like it did with me?

Nobody cares about what could have been, it doesn't matter. We're judging the game we got and that's the one released on 11.11.11., not some imaginary perfect game that probably if only and it certainly would have been!

Poor developers' decisions are the reason behind Skyrim's flaws, not the deadline.

i tried playing oblivion and felt i was in a morning cartoon,if they decided to revamp the game to modern graphics then yeah i'd be on that again otherwise i'm just waiting for those excellent modders to stomp out some truly epic mods

i just run around chasing dragonflies