With all due politeness and respect, because the following likely seems insulting, but isn't intended to be.
I'm going to say "Buggy", just because you said that we can't. I've done programming too, and I understand that the process of making iterations and running things in components and in whole, making beta phases is difficult, and more so the bigger the project. That will never excuse bugs. Some bugs, I can ignore. I'm pretty tolerant of dragons flying backwards, of people floating oddly, or similar. I'm not at all tolerant of glitching save files, blackscreens, random crash to desktop, three quests which are impossible to turn in thanks to glitches, and whatnot. My computer is new, and pretty standard. So frequent CTDs are a terrible failing of QA. Now, I still love the game. I've got 100 hours in so far, and it's one of my favourites. But you can't just dismiss criticism as "bottom-tier" because you can't think up a defence for it. That's weak. If I was to criticise Skyrim:
The long opening sequence starts off interestingly, with the usual prisoner bit, but takes too long, especially for advanced and experienced players.
The dragons quickly become a boring fight. They're great, but eventually it dissolves to, shout, shoot magic or arrows at dragon, wait for it to land, then bash with shield until dead.
The quests are incredibly linear and dumbed down. Moreover, for some of the quests, such as the very malignant ones, "Lights out" or, debatedly, "Parthunaax", there isn't an option to turn it in by completing an alternate objective, like say, reporting something to guards or deciding not to do it.
The transport remains dumbed down.
Most of this doesn't have any bearing on the community, I know. But when you've got these annoying people who think that being able to mod in or out anything makes the game perfect (For instance, one of my criticisms is sometimes that there is no horseback combat, to which the reply is always "Someone will mod it in". This is stupid.). Or the relentless drive of people saying silly things like "GOTY".
If you want to see why you're hated, read your own post. You insult everyone reading who isn't a part of your precious "Community". You're more intelligent and mature? You're defending a moot point in a passive aggressive post on an unrelated forum. That would be immature. More to the point, with the amount of uptake Skyrim has had, I don't think anyone can claim that the average TES player is smarter than anyone else. And I'd personally like to say, as someone who avoids these sorts of communities, and has a rather inflated opinion of my own intelligence, that I'm likely cleverer (I know, not a word, which is why I use it), or more intelligent, than 95% of the people in those circles. Of course, you'd have to define how to measure intelligence, and you get the picture. It's nonsense. And being Older? Hitler would be older than most of the people here. For a less extreme case, Jack Thompson, or B. That doesn't mean too much. As long as people can communicate nicely, maturely, and rationally, then age isn't so much an issue, it's up to the regulation of sales of games, and parents, not us, to judge gamers based on age.
Self-Loathing? Where does this come from? I rarely see the self loathing types on any forums, more importantly, the best part of the TES community, the modders, is not a self loathing idea. It's a mixture of pride in achievement and respect for the work of others. The "Unofficial Oblivion Patch" was not the work of self loathing types. Moreover, the hacks vs mods argument is trivial: Mods and Hacks are the same. Not in the use or the morality. But they require some knowledge of the game and its workings, and the ability to make something that works with it. The thing is, TES doesn't get hacks. It's single player only. That's a silly statement. And since it comes with a console (On PC) where the level of the player can be set at will, it doesn't need them.
Also, the community thing? I'm part of a gaming clan, and play in a competitive Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3 team. No-one in our clan acts in those ways on the forums. We happily discuss all the games in a franchise, or others, without this fanboy nonsense. I'd suggest you're frequenting the wrong forums, and moreover, you can't claim a valid argument by comparing bests to worsts. I've seen good TES sites and comminities, and I've seen some that make me wish I'd not gone looking for mods. I'd suggest that if you really feel that your community is in need of defending, then it has a bad PR problem, and you're contributing nicely to that.
