More thoughts: dungeons are linear but still not copy-pasted, probably because they aren't built out of a set of predefined rooms like in Oblivion and Morrowind. Some are pretty cool and varied, and others are boring, but I guess you can't expect every cave or mine to be extremely exciting.
Too much reliance on bandits etc. as enemies. The monsters and stuff you find are really cool, which is why it's such a shame you almost never see them (except the undead, which are pretty common). The "10x more soldiers and bandits than civilians" thing is still as jarring as ever. Considering how many thriving cities there are in Skyrim, it doesn't make much sense for there to be so many outlaws.
Most dungeons have a side-quest or "misc" quest in them. It's nothing special, but gives much better context for those locations than "a wretched den of evil" or whatever. I like having some minor character interaction or even just some named NPCs with a bit of background to fight instead of just ancient ruins filled with untold treasures for no particular reason, and all the ruins etc. you might find are generally populated with monsters and stuff, so at least it makes sense that treasure there would be unclaimed.
Quests haven't really improved much. I have yet to really get into any of the guild or main story stuff, but the ones I've done haven't been all that special so far. Nothing offensive outright, but this isn't exactly Arcanum here. However, one thing the game does a very good job of is giving you new things to do. There are random encounters you can have which start side-quests, you'll often witness events when visiting locations which kickstart quests, etc. I have tons of stuff in my journal after playing for around 10 hours, and it'd probably take twice as long to get through it - yet that's likely less than 10% of what the game has to offer. You're at least never going to run into a situation where you have nothing to do or no clear direction.
Exploration is still fun and rewarding. Anyone who says Skyrim is smaller than Oblivion is outright wrong - if anything it's bigger, and those locations you do find are far more interesting than the copy-paste dungeons of that game. There are fewer random locations you'll come across, but frankly if it means much better quality of content then I don't mind in the least.
Also, anyone come across a Wispmother yet? I found one at like level 4 and had a pretty tough time with it. Really cool how it lured me off the beaten path with one of its wisps only to severely kick my ass after leading me into the woods. Those kinds of memorable encounters are what were significantly lacking from previous Bethesda games.
MetalCraze said:
As for mainstream - I gladly played through GTA4 (which nonetheless was worse than VC and SA) and GTA is not just some mainstream, it's even more MAJESTIC. And I'm certainly looking forward to GTA5 IF they will bring back silliness of SA back into it.
Fucking popamole bullshit, no jetpacks, no planes, no tanks, fewer guns, tiny game world, shitty plot with stupid characters and dissonance between in-game actions and the story, stupid jokes about gay people and sex, "omg so edgy" cocaine use in every fucking cutscene, DLC whoring that reused all the same stuff and only added a few guns and buildings, boring and repetitive challenge missions like races and fetch quests, fake difficulty crap like enemies randomly spawning behind you and cars scripted to block the road at certain times you can't possibly avoid the first time playing, etc. Game is fucking decline incarnate and you're an idiot for even playing it. Go fap to that fat faggot Roman you fucking cocksucker.