It seems likely from the information released so far that an important part of the main quest will be deciding whether to help the secessionists or the loyalist faction.

I would be surprised if there are not more opposing faction choices.

If there are quests that only become available to you if you have developed your security skill or alteration magic, for example, it would seem to follow that certain NPCs from specific factions would only approach you with certain other quests after you have completed some prior quest in a way that either improved or hurt your reputation with that faction.

I'm hoping for less "good" vs. "evil" and more nuanced choices with tangible consequences for your choices.

Yes! I wan't to be evil... and eat the world myself!
Alduin out of the way! Now my time has come!
Wan't to teach all the foolish people a lesson! XD

By the way you speak it sounds like its what YOU want. I'm not asking for something as outlandish as riding a unicorn on a rainbow trail.even though Bethesda has put one in their game before. Good and evil paths are simple paths a player could go. They could very well put this into Skyrim and what would you say about it then? Would you accept that being a good guy all the time can infact be boring and that changing things up is nice from time to time? Or would you be mad because "they changed your elder scrolls" and its not the same anymore? The point of this thread is someone wondering why he cant play a different role...in a role playing game...that svcks that he would even need to do that. Sure there are all the basic things but being able to play either side of the moral compass should be something that is possible. Hell even the force unleashed games had some "what if" endings that were not canon. I would love for there to be a canon ending but a few alternate ones that are there because you dident want to play the knight in shining armor this time around.

I dont get why so many are against this, it would add more quests, more ways to do things and more fun!! Hell they could pull a Demons Souls so if your character is more evil he will get different situations then if he were good. This would increase replayability and allow you to really play each character differently.

Wow, great roleplaying, a genocidal psychopath, that haven't been done before.
Seriously, roleplaying as an evil character is more than just "kill everyone for lulz".

Everyone flees because of the phrase ye of little faith and it doesnt mean that people were going to die. Heck if a hord of dragons were flying around and i believed the propecies doesnt mean i am going to die. Also the post about the edit. If you turn out to be a bad guy dont you think that another person will become the hero and strike you down. But there goes the point of being able to be a villian. If i was able to take down the biggest dragon in the world would you want to come up and attak me. Well he took down a divine and im having a hard time taking down a regular dragon. Does this make sense????

You know, I am starting to get tired of everybody thinking that I'm a "knight in shining armor"...

And if I remember... there where daedric quests, vampirism, Dark Brotherhood and role-playing freedom in previous game... that freedom of doing-what-you-want people keep talking about is something that, personally, I haven't seen in many games (NEVER at the level asked here), and can be tricky for the storyline and very difficult to implement.

And what I have said it's not what I want. It is the way it has always been done (have you ever heard something about how was the Nerevarine like, his race, his affiliations or his personality?).

The Scrolls don't foretell a certain event. They foretell a series of possibilities, and when one comes true, it gets permanently written in.

The point is, you don't really have a choice. Sure, you can choose to just sit there and do nothing, and eventually, Alduin arrives, and you die. But you are the only person who can stop him, and the Dragons know that. As long as you're alive, you're a threat to them. So regardless of the possibility, they will try to kill you, until eventually, you either defeat Alduin or die.

The only way to survive- literally, the ONLY way to survive- is to defeat Alduin. Walking away is basically killing yourself. So if you want to die, go right ahead. Play the game as long as you want, and when you quit, that's your character's "death". Alduin eats the world. If you want your character to live, he has to defeat Alduin.

It's a rather clever aspect of forcing the player onto a certain path. It's not like Morrowind or Oblivion, where the player probably could have sided with the big bad, or walked away, and the world would have gone on. If the player turns away from his mission, the world will quite literally end.

i'd love to have the "selfish" option like in fallout new vegas where u can get everyone playing against each other and then pull the carpet from underneath all their feet, that was awesome. For example you kill aludin then betray every1 else as well, for know doubtadly sending you to kill rats at the begining when the world is about to end. And for certainly throwing you in prison for no logical reasom.

Also i guess you could consider first degree murder and the dark brotherhood a bit evil.

becuz u wuld destroy the lore. the hero u play in the game is supposed to be relevant to the next game they make. if u joined dagoth ur there wuld be no battle at red mountain becuz u wuld leave to conquer everyone. numidium wuld not be destroyed. if in oblivion u joined dagoth the empire wuld be totally destroyed. meaning dagoth wuldhave never been defeated. and he wuld practcally gain control of the empire eventually. so maybe there can be some bandit guilds etc. but nothing too big.

Even in Oblivion, the lore and the canon ending are independent from the actions of the player.

You can play Oblivion and never finish the main quest and yet, there is a specific canon ending the devs adopt that is used as a reference for the next sequel, novelization or graphic novel, etc.

It has nothing to do with your specific playthrough choices. There is no reason why a future Elder Scrolls novel set following The Infernal City couldn't make reference to the Hero of Kvatch as being Dunmer or Imperial, Mage or Warrior, born with a particular birthsign, or having been the Arena Grand Champion, involved with the Dark Brotherhood, for example, or the Mage's Guild or not at all. At the same time, you could have made entirely different choices during your playthrough.

And since the in-game books were written by ancient authors who were not always correct (as discussed in the Skyrim Behind the Scenes video), the in-game lore can even conflict with itself.