No one will call you a hypocrite just because you like the game. That would be more then stupid and silly. We would only get angry if you try to explain us how "skyrim is the bestest RPG in the world and you all dont like RPGs or you would LOVE skyrim to death!". Skyrim can be a very fun game. No doubts about that. But what you basically did was changing the game to suit your needs, changing the expecation you have doesnt make the flaws it has dissapear. Thinking about Skyrim as action game
with RPG elements doesnt mean it's suddenly a better game as far as RPG games goes, just because we ignore the part where it
s not doing so well as RPG. If you get what I mean.
I must be a weirdo then, if I find something shitty or boring I surely don't waste 94 hours of my life with it.
To be fair though, its very very difficult to "stop" with games particularly if they are mediocre and not outright bad, like it is in the case of most of Bethesda games. I mean the main purpose of games is to be fun, and I would go so far to say that even Oblivion which is an absolute trash RPG, can be very fun. Walking out of that dungeon, whacking bandits, finding your first sword of prettiness, whacking some more bandits, getting your first skill points. That is fun. A lot of fun. It was for me at least. Its the most simple mechanic RPGs have to offer and thus it will give you the experience you are looking for, at least in the begining. Now, the further you get though, the more do you realize how dull it actually is, because the NPCs are bland and the quests very often boring and the gameplay repetitive. but you still stay in the game because you have the feeling that it might get better right around the next corner, or with the next bandit camp or the next ruin, town etc. Bethesda games are very good with that, creating this feeling of anticipation and fun in exploration. Because honestly, there is usually so much to explore! Only later do you realize that there is nothing inside those caves, ruins and buildings that is worth to be explored actually.
This has something to do with the nature of RPGs. How they work. And what people that like RPGs expect. If you take a shooter, then it probably doesnt take you long to decide if you like it or not, because the mechanics are so straight forward. Either you like the weapons and gameplay, or you dont. That simple. Sometimes you stick around because of the story, because its so awesome, but in general, if the mechanics are not really good and the story is bad, then you simply walk away. With RPGs this is a bit different. Sometimes a story and even the gameplay start to kick in HOURS after you got in to it. Your character is a weakling usually, so getting your ass handed over to you is more or less "normal", because you are supposed to gain power trough playing, getting beaten by the enemy very hard in the begining of the game while you, the player has nothing, is a well known and proven concept. This works even better if the story is revolving around a very powerfull force or vilain. Just to come back later, from the journey that gave you the experience and power to beat the odds now. The typical hero on his quest. I mean it would all start to fall apart if the story is trying to give you that sense of danger and doom, but your character could already beat everything on lvl1, but the villain always escapes you with a seemingly cheap trick, it would not simply feel very believable to have a villain like Sauron or Dragon beeing a Foe that talks about its powers just to be beaten right away in the first 10min. Like in a game with a type of villain you are fighting with, lowering his health to 5%, just so he can release this "uber-spell-of-power" that he never used in combat to throw the player at some wall so he has enough time to escape or trigger this "scripted" event where the player is suddenly in a weak position, because the story needs the player to be weak in this moment to progress. This all comes usually down to what a good story is and what kind of characters it needs.
So to make this not to long, it sometimes can happen that you play RPGs for many hours, just to realize how shallow the experience was in the end. Its because you dont throw RPGs away just because they are "slow" in the begining. Not as RPG gamer at least, because you know that many good RPGs need time to kick in. Take Fallout as example, or Planescape Torment. Those games dont unfold the complete gameplay or story to you right after the first 5 or 10 min of gameplay. Thats why you can still discover a lot of new things after years of playing. But Half Life 1 or 2 for example? You play trough them once, and that was it, its a very linear experience, not a worse experience, just a different kind of game.
