1) When you walk past someone you recognise you turn to them and say "wait....I know you". 2) When you're a policeman out on patrol and someone approaches you you say "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetrole" 3) When you walk into a shop, crawl around steal all their stuff and try and sell it back to them. 4) When you look for the "fast travel" option on your sat nav. 5) When you walk into random caves you walk past hoping it contains a shout. Feel free to add more.
^^^ After having been properly patched and total-modded. ...when having returned home after not being there for what seems like 2 or 3 years, you expect your wife and child(ren) to still be there and your wife should happily hand over to you all her money.
Yeah, I've never been able to get into the Elder Scrolls series either. It's a huge empty world with nothing to do. I don't get the appeal. Way too much effort. Just carry around a few extra mop buckets and drop them on the heads of any salespersons that you come across. There's no reason to hurt your knees.
The appeal is the mix of scripted quests and free-form exploration and dungeon-raiding. The sandbox style doesn't appeal to everyone but it's false to say there's nothing to do.
There's everything to do, which is too freeform and aimless for some people. It's akin to why some people don't enjoy MMORPGs because they (strictly speaking) can't "beat" them.
There's going on a mission for some wizards, then getting distracted by a ruin on a hill, then exploring it for an hour and gaining lots of shiny loot, then coming out again and seeing another cave and thinking oh I'll go explore that, except oh shit a dragon just attacked, and after that remembering oh yeah the Assasins wanted me to kill someone around here. And I still have to do that job for the wizards.
Not to mention the side jobs like mining to make your own armor, foraging to make potions and poisons, building your own house, becoming a merchant, or becoming a Bard and creating your own song. Back to the thread topic, you know you play too much Skyrim when you created that character who doesn't fight (using conjuration for those tight spots).
Yup. Give me a clear goal and I'll complete it. Dump me into a giant world and tell me to do whatever I want, and I'll flounder around for 30 minutes and then uninstall the game.
That's how I felt when I finally got Morrowind. I wasn't used to having that much freedom, and I had a much more active social life then, and I was like "I just don't have time to run through a game this big anymore. 10 years ago this would've been my dream game." Then years passed, life slowed down and I picked up Oblivion. I played that off and on for several years, finally beating it last year. I loved the total freedom of the game. I doubt I'll ever go back and replay it, but damn if it wasn't a great ride playing. I still need to become leader of the assassins guild since I'm the leader of every other guild. As for Skyrim....well I just got a PS3 and I picked up Skyrim. Just like in Fallout 3 and Oblivion, I never fast travel...but unlike Oblivion, often times I find myself just walking (not running) around and marveling at the gorgeous graphics, improved textures, lighting and so on. The caves are especially awesome. I'm not in a real hurry to get through the game since I don't have the cash to get a new game every other month. Stoo pretty much nailed my experiences with Oblivion and now Skyrim. I love open world and discovering all the little things off the beaten path. As for the topic at hand....well I haven't played it too much yet.
I've been a fan of The Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall, though I'm not looking forward to that MMORPG game Bethesda's working on now. Personally, I like being the only God like character in the game.