And still weaker than what RPGs more than a decade ago had to offer. I'd say Diablo (1996)'s combat system was superior.

Combat in Skyrim still feels like an afterthought rather than a central focus in the game, which is evident in the fact that they got rid of the class system altogether - they couldn't be stuffed coming up with a well thought out class system so they just decided to ignore it altogether.

The leveling system is weak and mostly meaningless, since I honestly can't tell the difference in gameplay from when I started the game to now, at level 42. The loot is mostly superficial too, since the only real incentive in getting the best gear is how they look on your character as opposed to combat effectiveness.

They need to make levelling up more meaningful, loot more varied and useful, combat more impactful and then we'll have an honest to goodness battle system.

@ItsHotOnTheSun @Scorpion1813 @Hodax If they're not going to cover all of Tamriel in an MMO, when will they? An MMO needs scale, and no one region alone will be big enough.

The only good thing that will come out of this is that Bethesda will actually try to develop a decent combat and loot system - something every Elder Scrolls game has been lacking - since that is one of the staples of the MMO genre.

This has now become Gamespot vs their user-base. Honestly, I'm starting to think GS is more upset with this than Bioware. @ Chris Watters: this has probably been said already but I think it's now you and your team that need to start considering the Five Stages of Grief :)

Your article has merit, Laura, but you're treading in slippery territory if you're applying these concepts to video games. Bioware aren't artists. They have artists working for them, but they are essentially an organisation there to meet the demands of a fickle market in order to generate a healthy cash flow. So they can ignore fans' complaints, if they don't mind losing their business as well.

@ The-Techspert I'm sort of on the opposite side of your argument. ME 2's character development was pretty thorough, I agree, but they were irrelevant because they did not progress the actual plot in any way. The writers spent too much time developing interesting but ultimately optional and unimportant characters and not enough on plot. The Collector's were merely lackeys for the Reapers, which were introduced to us as the primary antagonists of the ME universe, but passed over for a lesser villain in ME 2. That really irked me and it felt like the writers were undoing all their hard work in ME 1. I guess ideally, we need a proper plot and deep character development (for characters that actually move the story along, as opposed to being optional diversions), but if what you say is true I see ME 3 does not meet the criteria.

@ Defianc4 Actually, no, Defianc4, Bioware does not have the moral right because they are a business, bound by Laws and business practices pertaining to serving their customers. They're not a charity, and if they want our money (and they do, being a profit focused organisation) they need to create a product worthy of the price tag. Now, I've yet to play ME 3, but from what I've seen in the demo, it's a vast improvement over ME'2 no plot and dumbed-down combat.