So that if you walk into a dungeon you can finish it. So that walking through areas you already completed is not brain-dead easy. They are concessions toward accessibility. You and I might not like it, but it's not hard to see why they make the decisions they do considering it is a mainstream franchise.

Like most of these kinds of topics, the question more is about why people like these things than why companies that want to make money serve the larger audience. That last question isn't a question at all.

It's a mix, and more toward Oblivion than Morrowind unfortunately, but at least it's a mix. There is hand-placed loot about, some of it really good for how soon you can get it. Daedric quests have no level requirement and give you the same reward at all levels I believe. Still, every chest that is not quest related is randomized based on your level. I don't think they will ever shy away from that.

You can get some high level stuff with some luck though. As someone posted before, I think it goes something like "between levels X and Y you have a Z% chance of getting ebony" and so on.

This goes back to what I said about there being much better ways to handle this. Again, level scaling is just the lazy way out of these concerns.

Well, ultimately it doesn't matter much to me. The game using Steamworks ensured I won't be grabbing it until it hits the $10 range, and by that point there will be plenty of mods to change the experience to just about whatever I want it to be.

Better ways? There are different approaches (with sealed-off by difficulty / level-scaled being the two widely used), but better or being lazy is pretty much a personal opinion not a common fact.
And frankly put, I've always found the Gothic (or should I say "Piranha Bytes") way of clearing the world / reach a specific plot point / repopulate with higher lvl / rinse and repeat approach way off - being it from an immersion, a roleplaying or a simulating a living, breathing world point of view.

There is no way. However, I can't shake off the feeling that it isn't the point either.
What some understands under "freedom" is to get the best loot as early as possible, then walk among the world as an invincible half-god, breaking the game on purpose. Of course this doesn't have anything to do with "roleplaying" anymore.
And yes, the same guys would then rant about fucked up QA / gamedesign....

I thought the goal we were talking about was allowing for player freedom and ensuring that the game was accessible. Making every dungeon completable at level 1 is a means towards these ends (and a very poor means at that), not an end in itself.

Yes, and personal opinions are what we are all expressing here. Does it really need to be spelled out in each and every post?

And me who naively thought that having the TESV file not requiring steam was done on purpose by Bethesda (similar to the CD-check less EXE of Fallout 3).

My point was they want a certain degree of accessibility, like being able to complete any dungeon you come across. Your statement seemed to say there was a better way to do THAT. If you more meant there is a better way THAN that to make a game, I would agree with you. It would not, however, be more accessible.

Expecting them to make these games more niche is like expecting NBC to start airing classical music concerts in prime time on a weekly basis. It makes no sense.

No. But do we have to get through the same discussion for the 5367. time again?
It's not that the Gothic approach is the be-all-end-all nor that the DA:O or any other system could be considered the best.

The system Bethesda used was done in Oblivion, F3 and F:NV and each time improved / refined. It's no surprise they used a tweaked version again in Skyrim. In fact, it was stated time and time again that way.
I welcome the diversity of different systems. Yet we're still being pulled back to "Oblivion lvl scaling sucks" times, no less from guys who haven't played Skyrim / seen if and what has changed at all?

Newsflash: the horse is dead. Stop beating already.

Eh, forget it. I'm having flashbacks to the discussions that occurred just after Oblivion came out, and I've got way better things to do than retread that ground. Time will be the judge of Skyrim's system, just as it was the judge of Oblivion's system.

Scaling is a bit annoying, but could be worse.
Removal of stats doesn't bother me anymore at all, the new system is just better than the old one.
(I do miss acrobatics though.)

Area design is great, much better than before.
Yeah, the dungeons are of a single path design and a quick exit at the end, but that works for me.

But the quest design is starting to annoy me more and more.
Everything is the same, it's go there, kill a bunch of enemies, retrieve object x. Doesn't matter if you're looking for an elder scroll or a pencil sharpener, it's always go there, follow the clearly marked path and find the object at the last room at the end of the corridor. :(

I don't know why you keep thinking we are advocating for things when we're just explaining the,.

Just encountered my first bug..... Sigh 5 hours gone

I mean they designed the game the way they want it to be, fitting their vision of the perfect gaming experience.

Blizzard has been listening to a whining community for years now and what do we have today? Kung Fu Pandas, feminine elf males and anime looking characters, death knights, helicopters, motorcycles, unicorns, etc.

Let them do their job, if you like open ended game with no scaling there are games like this out there. They try to stay true to the series while trying to avoid some of the mistakes that affected Oblivions gameplay.

MINOR SPOILERS :




So I killed the bride as Dark Brotherhood commanded me to do, but I did something extra. I stole her dress, put it on myself (I am MALE Khajiit). Then I ran away from guards who wanted to kill me for killing to bride and I was singing to myself : "I am pretty happy kitty cat..."...be honest am I normal?!

How did you get out of your cell?