I'm finding my second run through much much more enjoyable. Like you, more exploring and less opening every chest, urn, pile, stash, dead body, etc. I'm putting much more resources into Smithing and Enchanting too, and making weapons much better than any I can find in a fight. I'm taking my time, doing all the side quests I want, and focusing my points into specific areas.

Last run through was a constant battle of having enough mana and magic potions to throw fireballs at everything that moved. And while that was fun, it required shitloads of work to battle the way I wanted. This time I'm keeping it simple. Violent hack and slash.

I'm doing a lot more exploring as well. I can't believe the amount of stuff I missed the first time.

Totally underwhelming. Only one real quest and a few side quests. No ability to play instruments, no progression. The player is essentially a gopher.

The gopher aspect of this game is probably its biggest weakness. In Oblivion you had to do a bit of investigation to find the location the quest would take you. In this game the quest giver just marks the location on your map and its up to you to find it. Its also very difficult to find the path to some locations, even with clairvoyance, especially for dragon roosts.

It's pretty easy on horseback. Just ride up the side of the mountain.

You never played Morrowind apparently.

Also, I'm pretty sure Oblivion marked the map in the exact same way.

Not quite. Generally you needed a bit of investigation to find out where the quest would end up. And they weren't all just dungeon diving.

I am trying to get back into the game and the ****ing thing keeps freezing on the PS3. One one particular side mission it has frozen 4 times. I may try playing on my slim PS3 and see if it works better.

Is it the one where you have to go on something like an acid trip?

Good memory, sir. I think it's called the Nightcaller chapel and you drink this potion where you go into a dream state to get to a certain point in the chapel.

If you're going to say that Oblivion was less redundant, then I just don't agree at all.

All ES games are redundant, and Oblivion was the most redundant of the three I've played.

Also, FWIW, I hate walking around trying to find locations on the map. I hated it in morrowind and I love the map markers.

I just looked it up. If you try to save inside of the temple after you drink the potion, the game will freeze so you exit the temple and save and it should work ok. I ****ing hate goofy glitches like that.

If you're on PC, there's a workaround that involves rapidly saving at just the right moment and then reloading. I'll try to find it.

Edit: I see you're on PS3 and that you've found a fix.

I never got the Nightcaller Temple thing to work. I've seen "fixes" where youuse a platter to trick the game into going through a wall, or something, but I could never get it to work.

The main problem I have is with Dawnguard. I've never been able to transform into the vampire lord, so that entire quest line is unavailable for me. But the last time I tried to play as a straight vampire hunter, I encountered some glitch that made one of the main quest characters endlessly fight everybody. It was maddening.

Not saying its less redundant. I'm just saying you don't have to do any work to finish the quest. The quest giver in Skyrim almost always tells you exactly where to go. They made it to simple. Get the mission, go dungeon diving to get the goal, bring item back to quest giver. Rinse, repeat. There was a certain amount of that even in Oblivion, but you had to do some investigation to finish the quest. Oblivion also didn't have an arrow over the quest item.