Out of Pod Experience

Well, the difficulty of the game should go up if there is powerful equipment in the game. However, like I mentioned the difficulty in skyrim is pretty much scaled to match your character. This means any powerful equipment would break the balance. The result is that it barely matters what equipment you use and the player can prefer the equipment that looks the nicest (or something like that).

It's not just about power either. The items in Skyrim are not interesting. Here's an example: in TES 3: Morrowind there's an item called Scroll of Icarian flight. It boosts your acrobatics by 1000, giving you the ability to jump pretty much over the land (island?) or Morrowind. Now that's interesting. And fun. There are plenty more of these fun items and spells.
In Skyrim the only interesting (not powerful) item is Wabbajack(?) which is essentially a magic wand that has a random effect on its target. The only somewhat powerful item I came across was a mask I got from one of those undead lich characters.

In Morrowind you can also craft your own magical items and even give them constant effects. For example you can craft a ring that gives you constant telekinesis. Of course you need a powerful soul and lots of money to do this.
In Skyrim you're restricted to the exact magic and powers you took from existing items. So you can never craft a truly powerful item.

The thing I miss the most about Morrowind is the challenge in the exploration. There was no magical compass with quest markers and locations. There were directions that you had to follow. In Skyrim you just follow the magical compass :(

These are just a couple of examples that I'm using to make a point. That point is that Skyrim is dumbed down.

Sorry but I feel somewhat strongly about the direction the gaming industry has taken in the past 10 years or so.
Games these days are too easy, too accessible (hate that word) and too casual. They're aimed at large audiences which means they cannot have mature themes or strong language. This means the games lack depth.

I'm not saying Skyrim is a bad game. I'm saying that the gaming industry is bad and that Skyrim could have been a lot better if it wasn't for the casual gamer. Still, according to steam I spent 62 hours playing Skyrim which means I enjoyed it to some extent.

Also, Skyrim was a lot better than Oblivion which was pretty horrid.

What the **** dude? I don't even know what to think of this one.. you like Morrowind and Skyrim to some extent but refer to Oblivion as "horrid"?

Not sure what your beef is but man to me that was one of the greatest games ever made, maybe it's because I played it at a pretty young age but it was such a huge game at the time and there has never been anything quite like it (except for Skyrim).

Such an epic game. Ur fuk'd.

that sentence invalidated the rest of the post, no, just no.

skyrim is perhaps my favorite game of all time lol.

i liked oblivion a lot as well...well...as long i completely ignored the main quest. lol

fallout 3 and new vegas, also love these.

the ease and availability of mods make bethesda games have a life of their own far beyond the scope and play through time of the vanilla releases. i mean...who wouldn't want to see a naked man swimming in a sea of cabbage? the possibilities are basically endless (within the bounds of the creation tools engine)

I actually enjoy it quite a bit. I like the ability to role play different characters. My main is a hunter. I literally will sit there in my camp and just watch the sun set.