Skyrim - Two months later.

[chadachada123]

Eh. I honestly have started playing Dark Souls now. I'm some 140 hours into Skyrim, and haven't done much in the main campaign at all, but Dark Souls has more replay value to me.

It was a great run, minus the bugs, but it's like Oblivion...it just doesn't have the same replay value as other games do.

 

[Fronken]

Due to unemployment and extreme boredom, i burned myself out on Skyrim in the first week or two, which is a shame, as the game is great fun, although there are some bad things, the good things more than make up for it i think.

The biggest letdown for me was the repetetive nature of dungeons, i know they are all hand-crafted, and they arent repetetive in That sense, but the textures are the same in all dungeons, making them more than a bore to grind through after a couple of runs.

All dwarven ruins look the same, all Falmer areas look the same, all Norn ruins look the same, all Caves look the same, pretty much.

This was my main problem with Skyrim, and something that really dissapointed me.

 

[Kurokasumi]

I still like it. Just starting to get bored with it. Lvl 35 Assassin/light armor warrior. Clearing a whole dungeon with just a trail of slit throats and arrows in backs is pretty fun. As well killing things like master vampires or necromancers with a swift 1 hit kill throat slit for x30 damage with blade of woe is hilarous while I have a friend who struggles and dies mutliple times trying to use heavy armor and 2h weapons.
But anyway, game is just running dry. Not much variety weapon wise, and killing dragons is a nuisance now rather then some epic awesome thing you cant wait to happen. I just find myself wandering and nothing happening way too often.
And why the hell can't you fight with staves the same way you did in Dark Messiah? The system worked great. Why don't more games use it?

 

[Aphantas]

I have not been playing Skyrim for very long (maybe 4-5 hours?). I have only killed one dragon and been named Thane of Whiterun for what it is worth. Whiterun guards just seem to skip the trial and head straight for the execution.
However I am just not enjoying it. The world just fails to instil a sense of wonder in me. so far I have only two experiences where I was genuinely entralled. a random meeting with some wisps in a hidden hallow, followed by an untimely demise by the wispmother; and becoming lost in the forests at night after the dragons demise, guided back to town only by the distant lights of Dragonsreach's windows (I installed a darker nights mod, Skyrim is so bright at night otherwise).

The biggest problem I have with Skyrim is that towns seem to have no purpose other then being a NPC hub. The only reason I go into town is sell and buy the results of my forays into kleptomania, and drop off whatever momento I was entrusted to find. The towns lack a sense of safety, mainly because the world around them lacks a sense of danger.
Skyrim is a cold dark place where the days are harsh, and the nights harsher. Then why is it that I can rest in the middle of the tundra all night with no protection, and not suffer any ill-effects or even be bothered by monsters at all?

I would love to see a message along of the lines "during your slumber a passing thief stole 100 gold" or to see a wispmother come near when I am resting/sleeping in the wilderness, knowing that I am completely helpless to stop her sucking out my soul whilst I dream.

alas Skyrim seems to only remind me of my adventures in Spielburg and Mordavia, and the mad rushes back to town as soon the sun began to dip below the distant hills.

...now i wish I knew how to mod Skyrim.

 

[NewYork_Comedian]

Still playing it, still loving it.

Although I believe I am already seeing the cracks in the praise, and we are getting near the point that people will soon say "Skyrim actually sucked, but Im sure the next game will be amazing" that plagues big name franchises.

 

[repeating integers]

Talk about Skyrim?

OK.

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Do I need to say anything else?

 

[nokori3byo]

Finally retired my main character (male Nord warrior and master craftsman) at level 72 when I realized there was really no point in doing anything else with him. Maybe if some challenging DLC comes out...

I have revived an long-neglected alternate character (homely female wood elf) to grind the cheevos that my main guy wasn't quite evil enough to do. I'm finding it alright, but thinking it's about time to give the game a rest if not pack it in alltogether.

Still though, 200+ hours...can't complain.

 

[Tanner The Monotone]

So.

Talk about Skyrim. Anything you want to talk about. Are you still playing it after two months? Was it everything you'd hoped it would be? More than you'd hoped? Less, even? What could Bethesda have done better? What could they have done away with? What kind of things would you like to see in future Skyrim DLC or even future Elder Scrolls titles?

Personally I burned myself out on Skyrim within the first month, and can't bring myself to touch it again now. There was just something it lacked. I played Morrowind religiously for about three years, and still go back to it occasionally now. Even Oblivion kept me entertained longer.

There wasn't enough to do in it. If you could make custom spells like in oblivion, then I would still be playing it.

Patiently waiting for the first DLC.

 

[Gingerbeard]

I really don't understand why some of you find Oblivion better than Skyrim. In my opinion, Oblivion has all the flaws Yahtzee mentioned and a few other besides. The only interesting characters are Uriel and Martin Septim, and Uriel dies 5 minutes in. Besides, I never liked the main quest; it's so damn un-epic I just find it irritating:
In Morrowind, (hardly-a-spoiler alert) I was Nerevarine, reincarnation of the half-god Nerevar.

In skyrim, I'm Dovakhiin, the killer of Dragons.

In Oblivion, I was "That bloke who closed the Oblivion gates"...(I once read a fanfic in which the player's character committed suicide after the end of the main quest)

Apart from that RP problem, there is the boredom pie, AWFUL voice-acting (except Uriel and Martin)and the fact that everyone looks as if they had some disfiguring disease.

Also, the siliy, silly leveling system, which meant that the roads where one met a few wolves at level one were soon filled with minotaurs and atronachs.
(It wasn't such a big problem, since fast travel enabled me to jump wherever I wanted instantly, thus skipping the dull, ugly copypasted 100 square meters of woodland).

 

[spartan231490]

I loved the game, still do. I still think it's the best game that came out last year, probably the best game that came out in 10 years.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Am I still playing it now? Not really. I'll pop the disc in now and then but I don't play regularly.

I definitely do feel, however, that I've got my moneys worth considering how much I did play it. It was a great ride while it lasted but I just don't feel driven to play the game more at this point. Sure there are still forts, caves, quests, etc. that I haven't visited but I've never really been a completionist in that sense.

What would drive me to want to see and do more is really tied to my one real complaint about the game: the scaling difficulty. It feels like after ramping up nicely for the first 20 or so levels, the difficulty has essentially been on a straight line since then. It's not that I find the game too easy or too hard (I actually find the difficulty to be in a fairly good zone overall), but it's just been there for a long while without changing. I haven't spent much time at all enchanting or crafting, but I've never felt any drive to do so as it would just make experience easier. To me, the game is clearly missing those easy zones where you can just go smash stuff and, more importantly, those really hard areas that you know you need special gear and skills to even survive in. If there was a zone that I knew I needed to be at least level 50 with some crafted gear for, and then another zone that I needed to be level 75 with uber crafted gear for, or something like that, I may be encouraged to push forward. Now, however, I can do and see anything I want and it's never hard or easy.. it's just the same. Maybe it's because I grew up with the constantly ramping challenge of JRPGs and it's what I expect of the RPG genre, but scaling difficulty just doesn't do it for me in the long run.

 

[JWRosser]

Done three characters, got all achievements bar two...currently working with my thief/assassin to get them. Although I don't play it as frequently I did when it first came out, I still love it, and there is still stuff to do. It's provided me with a lot of hours of entertainment, and it's one of those games where I can sit and watch someone else play it. I think it's brilliant.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

I've gotten up to a lv. 48 Imperial (both race and allegience), using equal parts stealthy archery and sword-&-board combat. I don't really like the way that the leveling-to-skill system works in Skyrim. Rydell and Carter put it best:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9245-Skyrim-Tales

Despite this design flaw, I still think it's a fun game overall, and I devoted an entire week to it, playing it in almost every spare minute of my free time. Right now I'm trying to get my study schedule back in order until next week, when I'm beginning my epic Mass Effect Countdown on Tuesday, in which I'll read each of the major novels and play each game in chronological order, 1 thing a week, until March 6.

Mass Effect: Revelation
Mass Effect
Mass Effect: Ascension & Mass Effect: Redemption (short comic, a tack-on)
Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect: Retribution
MASS EFFECT 3!

 

[King of Asgaard]

I've created four characters, clocked in over 150 hours between them. Still playing with the fourth.
My biggest complaint with Skyrim is not the repetitive quests, dodgy character models or inbalanced combat, but the story, particularly the characters.
Now Bethesda are no great writers by any means as seen with their previous story lines.
But they have produced likeable characters in the past, like Moira Brown and Stenislaus Braun, so why is it that only three characters were memorable in Skyrim? (Paarthurnax, General Tullius and Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun)
The Blades were total dicks, especially considering that one quest (you know what I mean).
Ulfric Stormcloak was supposed to be this inspiring leader who fathered the whole rebellion, but who acts like a spoiled child when things don't go his way. (i.e Give me what I want or go fuck yourself)
The Greybeards are stubborn old bastards who have nothing to do.
The nail that seals the coffin, though, was the fact that most half-way decent characters are killed off during the big quest lines.
Also, the final mission was anticlimactic.

Dragons were all right, though.
Wow, that was quite a mouthful.

 

[michael87cn]

So.

Talk about Skyrim. Anything you want to talk about. Are you still playing it after two months? Was it everything you'd hoped it would be? More than you'd hoped? Less, even? What could Bethesda have done better? What could they have done away with? What kind of things would you like to see in future Skyrim DLC or even future Elder Scrolls titles?

Personally I burned myself out on Skyrim within the first month, and can't bring myself to touch it again now. There was just something it lacked. I played Morrowind religiously for about three years, and still go back to it occasionally now. Even Oblivion kept me entertained longer.

Haven't had money for it yet. Haven't played it yet. Still want to really badly. Also lack free time.

Morrowind bores me now, but back in the day when there was nothing better, I enjoyed it.

 

[Adventurer2626]

This is for me personally but I think others may have the same feeling. SWOTOR's release date may have hurt Skyrim's popularity some. November and maybe even December were OMG FUS RO DAH!!!! However, I find that my time has been steadily drifting away from Skyrim and towards SWOTOR. Then again, the newness of SWOTOR has been tarnishing for me the past couple days. So I think it's going to be a neck and neck battle between those for our playtime. Who will release better content more quickly? I just feel that I shouldn't be feeling so jaded about the both of them this early.

With Skyrim I've consumed all the new shinies I've dug up and now I'm repeating the same quests on alts and my main character is stuck in the old Oblivion schlock of level your skills and go find more dungeons to purge with extreme prejudice! I am on the post-Halloween candy coma. I ate too much and now my tummy hurts.

The problem for me with SWOTOR is that it is becoming an RPG (albeit a frickin awesome one) that is online rather than an online RPG. This is probably due to two things: one, the game is trying to make an MMO have a sweet interactive story and still be an MMO (hard to get right) and two, I dragged my feet and didn't get started until all my friends were 20+ and I'm not willing to jeopardize my enjoyment by blowing through content to catch up to them. I love hearing about the Escapist guys going through the wonderful storyline together and am quite jealous that I haven't found that experience yet.

Moral of the story is don't eat, sleep and drink videogames; it's a bad life choice. Try to hold back some. Stop and smell the [insert flowers here]. Because now I'm already having to look at alternative ways to play just to enjoy the both of them. I just feel really disjointed and confused. Hopefully after things settle down that will change. Magic 8 ball says: answer uncertain, ask again later.

 

[dvd_72]

Still going strong, but I have also heavily modded it. My character is basically Guts from the Berserk anime/manga. I'm loving just slaughtering bandits with my gigantic hunk of steel

 

[Zagzag]

Talk about Skyrim?

OK.

Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack. Wabbajack.

Do I need to say anything else?

No you don't...
There is nothing else to say.
Did you have parental supervision?

 

[Warlokk]

5 different characters, 370+ hours, bunch of mods loaded, main quest finished once and almost a 2nd time, all guild quests finished at least once, civil war completed for Stormcloaks so far. Yeah you could say I've enjoyed the hell out of it... I've finally reached the point where I'm also playing other stuff, but I still fire it up to keep going with my current Imperial Mage Knight. It's a fantastic game, I lost count of how many times I stopped and said "Wow".

 

[Hipsy_Gypsy]

Ahahaha...

I haven't touched Skyrim yet. It's been sitting beside the Xbox 360 since the middle of December. Am I really missing out on that much? I think I'd clock the first guard who says, "I used to be--"

And that is all he will say. ಠ_ಠ