Skyrim - 300+ hours of content?

It's fun to find them. You know not EVERYTHING fun has to be a goal or quest. I know, it's simplistic. I'm probably at the limit of enjoying it though.

@DeepO You gave the impression that you had done everything the game had to offer, when there are many unfinished non-repeatable quests. Not to mention you that you hadn't rushed. That just doesn't jive with my experience of the game. To do what you did, you'd have to rush/fast travel from location to location, without really exploring the territory and ignoring a lot of the small things misc quests/favors/random encounters. That's fine, and maybe that's all you appreciate. But for others it is not. That's all I'm saying.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
@DeepO You gave the impression that you had done everything the game had to offer,

That was indeed my impression when I finally put my playthrough to rest.
Surely I haven´t done absolutely everything and there may be few quests I´ve missed, but by that time I would hardly consider looking for few needles in a haystack to be a worthwhile endeavour and I doubt I would come across anything major anyway.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
when there are many unfinished non-repeatable quests.

What makes you so sure about this anyway? If you´re basing this on a crpgnuts´s "405" post, I´ve already addressed it here.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Not to mention you that you hadn't rushed. That just doesn't jive with my experience of the game.

It most definitely jives with mine.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
To do what you did, you'd have to rush/fast travel from location to location, without really exploring the territory and ignoring a lot of the small things misc quests/favors/random encounters.

No. I did use fast travel (unlike in Morrowind, the game doesn´t have enough support for not using it anyway imo, though it´s certainly better than in Oblivion) but I only started to use it more often once I´ve roughly explored all territories on foot (I haven´t used carriages to "discover" cities, for example). Those 325 locations wouldn´t discover themselves after all.
And I was not ignoring small things.
Also, it´s not my fault that the game is quest marker driven and without these finishing some quests in nigh impossible. Morrowind´s direction system made this aspect of exploration a lot more engaging, at least for me.

There´s not just "rushing everything" and "exploring every single inch" and nothing between, you know .
And according to my preferences, "exploring every inch" would not be an enjoyable way to play the game, because most of those inches are empty/devoid of anything new.

But this is pretty silly .

Miscellaneous objectives, yep they count as "quests". Point taken.

There are little things that you can discover that don't appear on you compass. Unless you are thorough you can miss them. So there's probably stuff you missed, but nothing major like a dungeon.

Wow, and thought I did a lot of quests! Steam says I've logged a total of 139 hours.

I've completed 128 quests (and an additional 246 miscellaneous quests which is a grand total of 374 quests, if you actually count miscellaneous) and discovered 292 locations, and after a certain point I just decided there wasn't anything unique left with the game. I'm certain it's entirely possible to get 300 hours out of the game, but as someone mentioned earlier, only so many of those hours are truly unique and stand out. Otherwise, I feel like I'm forcing myself to do the same fetch quests over and over.

I do know that I still have the entire right side of Skyrim left to explore. I have cleared just about every dungeon/tower/cave on the left side of Skyrim, so I can easily see upwards of 300 hours or more. Once I feel the desire to jump back into Skyrim, the first thing I'll do is begin dungeon diving the right side countryside. I aim to eventually work on other magic schools to reach those master level spells.

I agree with those who say it's almost impossible to measure in a game like this, so why bother… Steam has me at 101 hours and I feel like I'm a bit more than half-way through… but that means half-way through when I'm most likely going to put this character aside and start anew. I'd say I'm not OCD, but I'm also not a speed demon. If I pick up a book that seems interesting to me, I read it. If I desire a new ebony long bow with a new enchantment option, I build it. If a character seems to have an interesting backstory, I listen to it… In other words, I'm playing the game that's being presented to me, as designed.

Obviously, some of what I'm playing is Radiant, but that doesn't make it any less fun, nor does it automatically relegate that content to the "not to be counted bin."

Ok since you count every radiant quest as fun do you count every draugr filled dungeon with boss and word wall at the end as much fun as five previous ones? How about every Falmer's water cave or every bandit/silver hand/dark mage occupied fort?

zahratustra: Hint, not everyone likes the same stuff.

The reason I stopped playing: too much similarity in random dungeons/caves etc. Same enemies, same features, same…well stuff. I logged 97 hours in the end, and only completed about 1/3 of the available quests (based on numbers people have bandied about here). For the most part, the quests classified as miscellaneous were not really that fun - whereas the other were quite good (e.g. Wolf Queen one). But the only quests I have listed as incomplete now are uninteresting or not along my chosen path (e.g. companions or thief quest lines - I'm a mage). I'm sure there is '300+ hours of content' - but a large proportion is not particularly interesting, at least that's my feeling having played a fairly large chunk of the game which involved the main quest, mage quests and civil war. Nonetheless, I certainly got my moneys worth, which is really all that matters in the end. Now, I'm waiting for modders to work their magic - or the 1st substantial DLC that comes along.

I initially thought 300+ hours sounded like an exaggeration but i just finished my 1st complete playthrough at 237 hours with every guild done and every quest i could find in all the citys + all daedric's and the main quest.
Once i realised radiant assigned almost every kill or fetch quest to random dungeons i stopped exploring and focused solely on quests so i still have many locations unexplored.
I also made the mistake of taking both smithing and enchanting resulting in my char being way too overpowered even at master difficulty so im guessing i breezed through most dungeons alot faster then intended.
300+ hours sounds about right tho chances are it will start to feel repetative long before that. This game desperatly needs a monster mod.
Spellmaking and something ala deadly reflex couldnt hurt either.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
zahratustra: Hint, not everyone likes the same stuff.

Good to know Bill. Can you also hint how many times can one like the same stuff?

Originally Posted by booboo
Nonetheless, I certainly got my moneys worth, which is really all that matters in the end. Now, I'm waiting for modders to work their magic - or the 1st substantial DLC that comes along.

Originally Posted by JDR13

Isn't Skyrim supposed to be a bigger game overall than Morrowind or Oblivion?

According to Bethesda Skyrim and Oblivion have roughly the same map size, but as Skyrim has more mountains, they have more "ground" to work with, and traveling also takes more time.

Morrowind was by far the smallest main TES game, though it feels a lot larger than it actually is. Part of the reason is due to the slower movement speed, but also the fact that you don't get a green arrow pointing you in the right direction at all time.

If my memory serves, Morrowind was roughly 8 square miles (only counting the parts covered by solid ground), while oblivion was around 16 square miles.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
Ok since you count every radiant quest as fun do you count every draugr filled dungeon with boss and word wall at the end as much fun as five previous ones? How about every Falmer's water cave or every bandit/silver hand/dark mage occupied fort?

You're making it sound far more repetitive than it actually is…as Dartagnan mentioned earlier in the thread, there are many dungeons that come with a story attached to it, and even some unique characters that you "storm the dungeon" with. These stories might not be "epic," but they really help in making these dungeons feel like they serve a purpose and seem "alive." Also, the dungeons are all fairly unique in layout, artwork, and design, which is impressive given the overall scope of the game.

Some of the mini side-quests associated with dungeons are quite good, imo, such as the one where:



It's moments like these that truly make the world feel more alive and engaging, and Skyrim certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of actually having several moments of this nature that the player can stumble upon rather than a lifeless dungeon over and over. Not every dungeon has something like this, but the fact that so many do is impressive.

Nervarine, topic of this thread is not "Is Skyrim fun?" but "Skyrim - 300+ hours of content?". I am not trying to imply that this game is not a great value for money, alive or engaging. I have also stated that, in my book, it is up there with Morrowind and head and shoulders above Oblivion.
I am simply wondering how many people (I know there will be some) are able to squeeze 300+ hours in a single play through.

Originally Posted by Fluent
So you can smelt the iron ore into ingots, then grab some leather strips and make a dagger or 2 . Can't hurt to train your smithing every chance you get. Notice I didn't say "make 50 daggers" though.

I think you missed my point, by the time you already have daedric armor chances are you don't need the iron ore because you don't need to raise your smithing skill anymore,it's just compulsion. Just like you don't really need to keep picking a flower when you already have hundreds of it stashed in your house/inventory, or keep looting hide armor off low level bandits when a single level-scaled item found on an average chest or foe is worth 100 times that, or keep inspecting every draugr that went down in one hit only to find bonemeal and an ancient worthless weapon, or keep inspecting every barrel in the game on the off chance it contains some alto wine and a couple of gold coins when you're carrying 100000+ gold and much more than that in stashed loot.

These games teach you to loot and check everything you can when you're starting out, but after you've played the game for dozens of hours you should have moved on from pauper-style gameplay.

Nicely put Kapitan!

If only I could, Kapitan - if only I could….

I'm getting better w/ my klepto/hoarding compulsiveness, once and awhile I dont bother looting trash mobs. Rarely, but I'm getting better. This isnt about rational thought tho, this is compulsive behaviour and games like this cater to it

Originally Posted by zahratustra
Nervarine, topic of this thread is not "Is Skyrim fun?" but "Skyrim - 300+ hours of content?". I am not trying to imply that this game is not a great value for money, alive or engaging. I have also stated that, in my book, it is up there with Morrowind and head and shoulders above Oblivion.
I am simply wondering how many people (I know there will be some) are able to squeeze 300+ hours in a single play through.

"Ok since you count every radiant quest as fun do you count every draugr filled dungeon with boss and word wall at the end as much fun as five previous ones? How about every Falmer's water cave or every bandit/silver hand/dark mage occupied fort?

I'm not the one that brought up the topic of "fun" . I think the quality of content and overall enjoyment factor is absolutely relevant to any discussion of lasting value. For example, Two Worlds 2 probably has 300+ hours of "content," but the quality of most of that content is so mind-numbingly boring and shallow that it doesn't really count - it's more of a "50-60 hours of enjoyable, meaningful content" type of game.

The quality of the content throughout Skyrim's game world is relatively high and has just enough story, meaning and depth that statements of 100-300 hours of content are absolutely believable, depending on how dedicated each player is to completing all of this content and the pace at which they play the game; it's not just mindless dungeon crawling with no context or purpose in that time period for completionist players.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
Good to know Bill. Can you also hint how many times can one like the same stuff?

How have you not starved to death?

To answer your question Zahra, I don't honestly think I could squeeze 300+ hours into one character without mods.

My opinion is that of Booboo's post - I've reached the point where nothing is interesting anymore. I'm still fighting the same Draugr in dungeons, and I've even stopped looting as a whole due to loot being fairly generic a large percentage of the time. I believe I've had my money's worth, but it's time to put it down until the Creation Kit and good mods are released.

The people who claim there's hundreds of hours' worth of content are the LARPers who spend endless hours rearranging the crap in they're virtual houses or wandering around picking flowers all day long.