So, Skyrim's out 11/11/11

[Roland]

Have you looked into http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/ ?

It's been awhile, but I had it installed, and enjoyed it for awhile before that machine zonked out on me...

TES3 is so open ended, and with the Construction Kit, is is so very easy to add additional NPC's and quest lines.

Mostly for me it was the whole leveling aspect in both Morrowind and Oblivion that killed the game for me (although I still yearn to play through them both - more than once, potentially). I'd get so hung up on the idea of gimping my character that I never just PLAYED the game - too much anxiety, which led to too much min-maxing, which led to burnout. Fallout 3 has been very kind to me in that regard (and to think I only bought it, reluctantly, on a Steam sale). It's been very enjoyable to just run around shooting baddies, gaining XP, and eventually doing quests here and there. If Skyrim can combine those elements with everything else in the world of Tamriel, I'll be ecstatic.

One of these days I'm just going to start actually playing Morrowind again, and not care about my character so much as just having fun. Although, the insanely slow movement speed in Morrowind and Oblivion (if you don't take Athletics and Acrobatics) have always been a turn off. It doesn't help that I always want to play a Thief type character, and thus have difficulty trying to complete Mage and Fighter's Guild quests.