I understand and appreciate the fact that an end-of-the-world scenario is a nice setting for a game. However, this doesn't mean that it should be extremely urgent for the PC to deal with and resolve the entire plot from the get-go.

For example, in Skyrim, you come out of the character creation sequence with a sense of urgency: a dragon just attacked and you had to fight through a bunch of panicked, politically-driven NPCs, and you barely made it through alive! After this, you're kind of forced to go to Riverwood (well, maybe not "forced" to, but it certainly feels fairly natural to do so), where one of the fist NPCs you meet is worried about his town getting attacked and requests your aid. This forces most good-natured PCs to lend their hand. But this is fine -- after all, it's fairly early in the game, so maybe things will calm down soon. But they don't; I will refrain from elaborating on this point because I don't intend to spoil anything for anyone. In any case, it feels like once you've started the main questline there is no point where it just takes a break and lets you go out and experience the world on your own terms, even though there were various points where such a break could've easily been inserted by the writers. This problem isn't really unique to the MQ in Skyrim; it's also present in the College of Winterhold's questline as well as in Oblivion's MQ, to mention but two examples. It's really difficult for me to fully justify or elaborate on my point without spoiling things, but I hope what I'm saying will at least resonate with other players who've gone through some of the main and faction questlines.

I miss the more relaxed style of Daggerfall and Morrowind, in which you weren't "thrust" into the MQ. In Daggerfall, after exiting the player creation sequence (i.e. the first dungeon), you had to wait to receive a certain letter from somebody, which the game allowed you to ignore, before the MQ was instigated. Similarly, in Morrowind, you had to deliver a package to someone, who in turn encourages you to join a local guild or faction and build a cover story for yourself before getting into the thick of things. And you were never really forced to feel like you had to get into the thick of things either, at least not in the beginning of the game. Moreover, during the MQ in both DF and MW, there were natural break points where you could take a step back and focus on developing your character before progressing the storyline.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

I agree that the MQ shouldn't be forced upon the player, at least not in the beginning. However, I do feel Skyrim is a massive improvement over Oblivion in this regard, even if it's still quite some way to go until it reach Daggerfall.

Thats where you consider that your essentially a criminal in the beginning of the game...so its easy to just ignore all these good folks that need help and just go off and try to make some money...The average criminal would definetly have a period of denial and disbelief that he was some "dragonborn" savior that supposed to risk his ass for the world or get into political matters, I personally went to falkreach before riverwood, in retrospect I should of just went and joined the theives guild right off the bat..............Then later you can go through a change for the better, become reformed and begin to care about your country...makes for the old redemption story...

Right, but that is only one possible character-type; you don't have to be a criminal to be in prison. In Skyrim for instance they tell you that you were caught trying to cross the border. It's pretty easy to think up a good, noncriminal character that ended up in this situation, especially in this war-torn Empire.

Exactly. I remember leading up to Skyrim, people complaining about the traditional TES Prison-start, stating that this made it impossible to RP a non-criminal. Well, no, it's not impossible to RP this. If you are playing Skyrim and your character, in the game, gets hit by a fireball, then you don't kick and scream saying that "My character's history doesn't include that!". No, you just work that in. Likewise, if you are doing something to arrive in Skyrim, there can be a misunderstanding and your character can end up a prisoner for a short while and then be released. This doesn't effect a thing about your character, and doesn't mean your character is a criminal.

Let me see my main character Rashir Nashida is a criminal and I made it that he was trying to flee Skyrim, bad timing though with Ulfric.

My second main character was entering Skyrim at the time of Ulfric Stormcloak capture. And has no criminal past.

So I never understood the whole prisoner complaint.

And I agree with you OP. It's rather annoying. Oh and the fact that I'm forced to do quest. Instead of being able to say "No" and they say "Okay" they wait for you to change your mind.

I do agree that, at least the MQ feels pushed on people. Then again, Oblivion was the same way. With Morrowind it did feel, since all you were asked was to deliver this package, a little more lax. With Oblivion and Skyrim your kind of put in this situation and told to deal with it.

I'd prefer to at least have breaks between the quests, sections where your next objective is pretty open. I don't know how or what the opening could be but if implemented right it would allow players to play to it and feel like they have the freedom, at least in a role-playing sense, to go do their own thing.

Eh, it honestly doesn't worry me too much. You have to remember, this is still an Elder Scrolls game. There still needs to be some semblance of a plot, and some sense of danger. You don't need to care about Riverwood. You don't even need to go and speak to the character. You just escape a dragon attack, and can then tell random people about it or just forget it happened. You really are still free to do anything. If you only want to roleplay characters who are interested in killing butterflies and saving small children, you still can.

My next character is going to be a psychotic dunmer who's family was killed in Morrowind. He's going to have no interest in this "dragon born" non-sense and will only be interested in killing....killing..... oh..... and killing.

I haven't progressed in the main quest past "Kill your first dragon," and I'm approaching level 20. I know it's not that far, maybe 7-8 hours in the game, but I hardly feel pressured into completing it. It's there to give you a direction, but it's hardly forced on you.

You haven't felt pressured yet? Something very momentous happens after you kill that first dragon:

I've never done the main quest past the "escape Helgen" part.

Can't say it really felt pushed on me. Not like Oblivion, anyway.

It's only once you finish that do things start moving on their own, but even then it's not as bad as Oblivion was.

Forced to go to Riverwood?

were we playing the same game? I went to Solitude before I went to riverwood.

You not having the imagination to go outside what some AI is telling you to do is not the game's fault.

There's no need to be insulting. Did you read my parenthetical comment? I explained what I meant by "kind of forced to go to Riverwood".

I felt a LOT less forced in Skyrim than in Oblivion. I think Skyrim hit a pretty good balance, actually: there's a sense of the world being in danger, but you're free to ignore it. In Oblivion you immediately knew that the fate of the world was in your hands. In Skyrim, even though you have places to go, you are not told 'do this now or we're all going to die'. It's easy to think up a reason not to continue the main quest.

I couldn't say it better my self.

I've played Morrowind, Oblivion and now Skyrim, and if someone ask me to rank each game about a forced MQ my rank would be Morrowind, Skyrim and Oblivion about the player been forced into the MQ. I can't say how it was in Daggerfell since I haven't play it yet perhaps later.

This whole subject is so dang dumb, IMHO. I mean, there were people complaining that previous games had no sense of urgency in their main quests, so they made it SEEM more urgent (Remember, this doesn't matter, since you can ignore it), and you are complaining that now it's urgent?

Remember, TES games, while being open-ended, are still story-driven. They have a main quest because people LIKE having a "main" quest. Me included.

So while you are told "this is urgent, go there now", you have no business RPing in a TES game if your character "isn't the kind of person that ignores something that urgent". No, it's ALWAYS your character's choice, and if you don't want him to have a destiny as Dovahkiin, then just pretend it didn't happen. You can pretend that your character needs to sleep, why can't you pretend that person didn't just give you a quest?

You misunderstand. I like having a nice MQ - love it, in fact. I have no problem with my character finding out their destiny as Dovahkiin. What I don't like is being rushed through this process.

Sure, you can always pretend an NPC didn't give you a quest, but then what is the point of playing in a world that is meant to feel real? It doesn't sit well with me to RP a character who hears that there is a universe-ending orb that just showed up, that must be dealt with immediately, but instead ignores this and goes on collecting alchemy ingredients and exploring caverns. I don't play ES games just so that I can roam in their world and use my imagination to fill it with substance. At some point, I actually want to get feedback from the game - I want to actually interact with the world and change it. This is typically done by playing through quest storylines. What I'm complaining about is that in the previous two ES games, some questlines (not just the MQs) were very rushed and wrote me into a corner and restricted my RP.

I didn't feel this way with in DF or MW. I really think it's more of a problem with the writing than my lack of imagination. But again, this is just my opinion...

Here, let me give you a concrete example from Skyrim that has nothing to do with the MQ. (Edit: I'll put it in spoiler tags just in case. There really aren't any spoilers though.)

Well If that is how you feel, then isn't it kind of not up to your character how urgent a matter is? I mean, if you'd rather never have big issues happen in the world, I'm sure Bethesda would be able to make a game where all your quests were just minor inconveniences and have no universe-ending orbs anywhere.

I know that's not what you mean, but then how are they supposed to write a quest that DOES have a universe-ending orb? Do characters say "Hey, this orb deal is a pretty big deal, but take your time, it's no rush"?


Your wish precludes anything actually HAPPENING in the game.

Again, you're missing the point. Urgent quests definitely belong in the game. But with good writing it's possible to have urgent quests AND breathing room at the same time. Have you played either DF or MW (and Tribunal and Bloodmoon)? Plenty of examples of this kind of writing can be found there...

Well, yeah, and I always felt that their NPCs seemed extremely uncaring. I mean, if I know that we need to go kill X RIGHT NOW or the world will BLOW UP, I'm not going to say "He is at Yhouse Xplace. Kill him and see me when you are done.". I never felt any urgency, so they were too detached for it to feel important. Someone talking about a universe-ending-orb will BE URGENT, just as urgent as in Skyrim. "There's this universe-ending orb, lets GO STOP IT!"

This reminds me of how in RPGs, everyone knows you are going to go save the universe, but still charges you 30 gold for a health potion. Needed for gameplay, but immersion breaking in some cases.

I personally found the whole Dagoth Ur and the Second Numidium thing in MW to be fairly eerie and urgent, but that's just my personal feeling. To each their own I guess.

Anyway, it seems like lots of people are starting to complain about the excessive sense of urgency present Skyrim's questlines in Skyrim's forums, as I expected they eventually would. To quote from the thread "http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1280890-the-guild-questlines-have-the-pacing-of-a-modern-warfare-campaign/" (warning: link contains spoilers):

I think the simple answer to the question "Why is so much big stuff happening everywhere" is that this is a province in turmoil. In a world where dragons are coming back, the crown of the high king is indispute, the empire has outlawed the major religion of the region, and the very way of life of the nords is being usurped by high elves, it doesn't strike me as suprising that many individuals are panicking, trying to take control of various factions, or otherwise causing problems.