That's funny. They didn't scale up when I played it. Possible that it was added at a later patch (or with the expansions). I was fighting level 15 enemies when I was 17, not level 17 ones. Will have to try it again to verify it.

Edit: Which does mean that a game had level scaling (to a degree) added to improve it, and if what you say is true, it did improve it.

Oblivion is seriously flawed but I still spent 200 hours on it. You have to have perspective with this shit... bad compared to Morrowind can still mean excellent compared to 95% of other games. Everything is relative.

Anyway I stopped buying boxes two years ago and sold the ones I had, so this release is pointless for me.

Sadly there is no reason to buy a box when everything is "steam" only or some crazy off the wall DRM that will sell your first born :(

I agree with a lot of you guys, who buys boxed pc games anymore? its cool if you do that no problem whatsoever, but I just don't think theres any one out there who does it any more!

i'm a bit of a collection junkie, I actually do like boxes and manuals and maps when available. :)

However...even though I have the boxed version of Ultima II, without GOG I certainly wouldn't be able to play it now.

Playability > collection swag, but its nice to have both :)

As for the whole "Oblivion sucks" "Skyrim sucks" "scaling sucks" "no, your mother sucks" conversation...well, I liked all those games. Had a bit of a fight to play Arena, but I'd gotten it off a Retrogamer magazine disc, and I knew nothing about DOSBOX at the time (not the games fault, but anyway, it was a little frustrating) I thought they each had their strong points and weak points, but overall I enjoyed them for what they were. Yes, I played Morrowind on Xbox because I didn't have a PC at that point. I played Oblivion on 360, PS3 and PC, and enjoyed them. I figure if someone knows they don't like how Bethesda makes games, then they probably shouldn't play them.

We do, I spent a lot of time with it as well, but I did use mods to remove most of the level scaling.

Just one more question for the scalers, especially Siannah, why don't you like the scaling in Oblivion? All the arguments you have brought would make Oblivion the perfect game for you guys, yet you have readily accepted the scaling there as "yes it was lazy designed, flawed and bad in Oblivion" or the worst example we should not use because its unfair.

But why? You can explore where you want there. You can do all quests wherever and whenever you want. You never have to fight too strong or too weak enemies. You never "ruin" your game with too strong loot. You are never "overleveled" for the content. Sounds like all you scalers ever wanted.

Interesting Box. But I already have all of those excluding Skyrim because its an steam exclusive. Would have bought the box if the Skyrim version in there was steamworks free.

Scaling is a good thing in my opinion but it has to be properly used and as invisible as possible to the user. The reason to scale is basically to avoid the one zone to the next progression style of an MMO. In a game with no scaling what-so-ever you typically find yourself doing the same quests in the same order, perhaps taking a risk here and there for a chance at reward but largely feeling funneled.

In a game with bad scaling, like Oblivion, nothing ever seems to feel dangerous or pitiful, and the world itself feels more like a video game.

Properly done scaling, which I think Skyrim largely achieves, finds the happy medium between these two extremes. There are dangerous areas of the map with strong enemies for a low-level character, like the hilly regions with sabercats or the giant camps. However you also feel free to explore the world and go in any direction. It's a nice mix of risk and reward with a truly open world. Skyrim kind of signposts the danger by putting it on higher elevations or larger looking dungeons, which makes a lot of sense. Some of the dungeon bosses are truly difficult, even on the normal difficulties, until you level up past the teens.

Everything is about balance and I think scaling is no different.

Yeah but if you do that (reduce Oblivions scaling) then you might meet monsters that are too strong, or a level wall as the scalers called it, and then Siannah and amok can't freely explore the world anymore. And if you reduce the scaling, then Jmich will get annoyed by monsters that are too easy for him, or find loot that is too strong and ruin the game for him. So why exactly don't they like Oblivions system although it does all they have argued for?

Besides, what is the use of a steamwork free version if you can't use their modbase of the Steam-workshop. The Skyrim Nexus is all dandy and such but I doubt you have all available mods there.

Steam workshop: 17k mods vs. Nexus: 27k mods.

Steamwork free version because of no DRM. The problem is, the only one that was available was version 1.0 - and I highly doubt Bethesda seeing a reason to strip updated versions of it, even less with the workshop around.

Nice little prejudgment you have there. No, but the workshop has a limit (currently 100 MB) on Skyrim mods you can upload. So you'll not gonna see a Falskaar there.

100 MB is nothing; that basically rules out any mod adding or changing a large amount of assets. That certainly explains the Nexus's continued popularity.

It looks like the limit is part of Steam Workshop, not something chosen by Bethesda, but either way that's really not very good.

Actually I was joking and refering to these two cartoons:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9282-The-Guide-to-Skyrim-Modders-Part-2
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9274-The-Guide-To-Skyrim-Modders-Part-1

If I actually want a "nude experience" I would check nudemod.com