Well, so much for Skyrim

Yup, I finished the main story arc of Skyrim last night along with a vast number of side and misc quests.  Kind of anti-climatic frankly, though the end of the story arc was pretty awesome (no spoilers).  Then everything just kind of wraps up and now I'm left kind of scratching my head.  Was I supposed to go through the entire story arc first and then do all the side quests?  The story is complete and I still have free roam of the world (which is awesome, I hate when you complete a RPG and then it's game over) but I don't know if there's anything really to do.  I have one acheivement left to get, guess I could do that. 

Final thoughts:

• A friend brought up a valid point when I said I broke the 200 hour gameplay mark, "Yeah but out of that time how many hours were games play and how many were load screens?"  Le sigh.  I realize it's a belaboured point folks.  I know but frankly those screens are one of the main reasons I won't be playing the game over again with a different character.
• Replayability of Skyrim - for me at least is slim to none.  There seems to be minimal difference between races (from what I've read) and I've already become the Grand Poobah of every guild and group in Skyrim and the end of the main story just goes, "Right, there you are.  Carry on then.  Go on, explore this wide wonderful world."
• Skyrim was a great exploratory experience with a solid story arc, some excellent voice acting, a gripping score, some excellent side arcs (I could play an entire Dark Brotherhood game), allies who were actually useful.  These were balanced out by:
• Bugs that crashed quests as to make them unfulfillable (I don't really bag on a game for bugs as long as it doesn't crash the game or otherwise make the game unplayable, floating cows are funny), frequent lengthy load screens (fuck you I don't have a good PC for gaming), crappy melee combat (by combat I mean flailing about), game breaker stealth/enchanting/smithing systems (my current kit of light dragon armor is just over 700 what with perks, each item dual enchanted - a daedric bow that dishes out just shy of 200dps sans enchantments or arrows), and a shrug inducing There Will Be Done "I'm finished." ending.
• Cooking was a total waste of code.  Seriously, a complete and utter waste of resources.
• Horses are bat-shit awesome crazy on their own in combat.  At first I kind of poo-poo'd people who were saying they wished they could have fought on horseback but y'know that would have been awesome and could have opened up a kick ass combat style (lances, spears, short bows) and could have created some exciting combat sequences - hunting dragon on horseback a la Shadow of the Colossus.  Would that have been awesome?  Fuck yeah it would've. 

So is Skyrim an end all be all fantasy RPG?  No, and neither was Oblivion.  However it is important to note that Skyrim fills a need for a part of the market who doesn't play "Call of Bromance XIII".  My plan is to trade it in for full credit, pick up something to play during the break, and in two years I'll pick Skyrim used with all the DLC for less than $20.  In the meantime I might see if I can find a copy of Morrowind, maybe go back to playing NesTalgia.