4 Reasons Why Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is bringing out my OCD

Skyrim has brought about the obsessive compulsiveness in me. It had not occurred to me a year ago when I played through Oblivion that dedicating this much of my free time to one single video game was obsessive. 

Don’t get me wrong, Skyrim and the previous games before it are awesome, but I am beginning to notice small OCD patterns in my gameplay, and from what I can tell, I may not be the only one.

1) Constant Character Re-Creation- 

This has not affected me personally as of yet, but I have heard tales of friends of mine running into this symptom. To their credit, there are a huge number of combinations of player types with games like this. Do I want to be a Nord Battle-Mage, a wood elf sneaky archer thief, or a brute power Orc? Those are 3 of about a zillion combinations. 

All of those combinations seem to lead people to obsessively create and re-create their characters, for the sake of replaying the game slightly different from the first time. In their defense, you can experience the game in a new light by specializing in different skills. On the other hand, doesn’t it seem obsessive to relive the same dialogue and quests over and over simply to use a bow and arrow as opposed to a sword this time? It’s not like the main quest lines change that much. 

I suppose if you messed something up on the first character (I’m talking to those of you who sold the thieves guild armor and couldn’t finish the Thieves guild quests) then it could be justified. It’s like everyone wants to have continuous do-overs until they achieve the ultimate character, at which point the game becomes too easy and they go on to play something else. Maybe we all just wish we had countless life do-overs. A chance to try again as something cooler than the first time...or it’s signs of OCD.

2)Lists and lists and will I ever finish...?
This is the side that has struck me the hardest. I will admit that day to day, I can be a bit obsessive with documentation. I like a good list to remind me of things I need to do, or to provide organization in this chaotic world. In the past I’ve made lists of all sorts of things from restaurants that I think have the best of a certain food, to which James Bond movies are the best for each actor(From Russia With Love-Sean Connery, OHMSS-George Lazenby, For Your Eyes Only- Roger Moore, The Living Daylights-Timothy Dalton, Goldeneye- Pierce Brosnan, Casino Royale-Daniel Craig). 

Bond Height is another area of expertise for me

Skyrim has made my obsessive list making into an all out nightmare. I currently have about 30 active quests and each time I finish one, I seem to end up with 10 more. It’s bad enough that half of them involve collecting some random ingredient for someone. I decided to fight back and recently began going through my quests one by one, ignoring any alternate options that pop up. After about 10 of these I was feeling good. Then another realm of my Skyrim OCD kicked in....

3)MUST...FINISH...ALL...GUILD QUESTS.....!
...as I was saying... I realized that in the midst of ignoring all of these random quests, I needed to be focusing on finishing specific guilds. After all, what’s the point of the game if I can’t be the absolute dominating factor in every single guild in the game. Oblivion made it simple by organizing quests by guilds and showing me a nice icon to tell me I was a winner and head of the guilds. Skyrim is killing me because my quests are not organized by guild, and I cannot seem to become the head of anything other than the Dark Brotherhood. 

I began going one by one through quests, only to find myself drawn back to my obsessive completist need to finish all the main quests first. The wonderful oddity of it all is that if I were to finish all of the main quests, I’m left with the damn ingredient collecting quests which make things boring and lead me back to re-creating characters just so I can re-do all of the guild quests to attempt yet again to become the greatest player in the game. And my next character will end up with just as many random unfinished quests in yet another taunting list that never is complete!

4)Smithing...Alchemy...Enchanting....Irritation!
I love the introduction of smithing in Skyrim. That being said, I cannot figure out how my mind continues to allow me to spend hours upon hours pressing the “X” button on my PS3 controller to create dagger upon dagger upon dagger. Is smithing really that interesting? Or did the game once again trick my obsessive need to create things and sell them for money into a never ending cycle of create, improve, sell; create, improve, sell. 

The sad part is I hit level 100 in Smithing a month ago and I still continue to make random crap to sell knowing full well that I could be spending my time completing guild quests. Of course then I am left over with ingredient hunting quests and therefore need re-create my character for the zillionth time because Lord knows that this character will be SOOOO much different. It’s not like I’ll spend every waking moment smithing and enchanting and making potions with him....oh wait, I will.

I will eat up all of your free time...rarrrr! 

Oblivion gave me a chance to actually do EVERYTHING in the game and say, “Yes, I completely dominated that game.” Skyrim is spinning me in a never-ending circle of obsessive needs, one leading back to the other, again and again....and I wouldn’t have it any other way!