I've seen a number of polls asking whets most important to you, but they usually focus on a particular element. I was wondering what everyone is most looking forward to doing in TES V.

This is not the thing your going to spend most of your time doing, or what your going to do first, but what you most look forward to doing.

1. Dungeon crawling: Self explanatory, exploring and clearing our caves.
2. Thieving: This could be for the thief’s guild (or Skyrim equivalent) or on your own for the fun of it or money. Basically stealing things from people.
3. Factions: This is joining factions and becoming engrossed in the narrative of each faction.
4. Main Quest: Again quite self explanatory, do you look forward to experiencing the main quest more than anything else.
5. Getting to know the population: This is if you are hoping the AI is vastly improved so that you can get to know all the interesting people of Skyrim.
6. Exploration: Are you most looking forward to exploring the world of Skyrim.
7. Other: If I've missed something off this list that you are looking forward to.

My vote goes towards Thieving. I have always loved playing a thief character in TES games. I'll probably spend most of my time in cities staking out large houses and taking what I want from them at night.

Exploration.

Exploration.

Finding all the nooks and cranies for the first time is very exciting. Particularly in relation to when I first played Morrowind GOTY. I wanted to search every inch of the land, look into each building. Very exciting.

Exploration the most, then dungeon crawling and main quest a shared second place.

Exploration i think. To live another life in another world as Bethesda put it.

Exploration! it relates to all the other options of the poll, and for me one of the major aspects of these games : freedom to do what you want and not knowing what is around the corner.

other

most important is the combat/stealth/magic system, magic system is the most paramount of all three, if its anything like Oblivion I won't get skyrim, until I find a mod that fixes it.

Exploration.

This

Other: Killing things without being seen. Guess i'm an assassin at heart

yeh man im the same as u lot, i luv exploring and building up my experience, the journey is beautiful

i luv killing things unseen 2, the bow and arrow is my perfered weapon, the only downside is that its not the most powerful weapon

dungeon crawling is merely part of exlporation really...

Most choices come under the branch of Exploration anyway, so I voted for that.

Even today in Oblivion, I find a new place that makes me pause for a little bit, just to think 'wow'.
No other game i've ever played makes me do this and it's truly what I look forward to in Skyrim the most.

I voted for exploration, but I think interaction is just as important as it dictates most of everything that happens in game.

Exploration. I have been playing Morrowind for years and I can still find things I've never seen before in it.

Exploration, that's what it's all about.

Exploration and the lore. No other game even come close to the level of Elder Scrolls for me in those categories.

As with most others on here, I like exploration. Though, I hope I can explore without having a map/compass marker telling me where to go. I want to have to use the paper map, read my journal for directions, etc. This is what made Morrowind so immersible, but this isn't a rant thread so I'll stop.

Exploration, for me, would be in combination with dungeon crawling because while exploring I always go into a cave or ruin when I come across one.

Thieving is pretty important to me as well because my characters are always stealth based, and stealing things is the way I make most of my money early on.

Other, Immersion.

But Exploration is a close second.

Exploration for me. Finding lots of interesting places, then exploring these places in more detail. Dungeon diving comes second.

This may seem odd, but the mythology, books, and lore are what have snagged me. Second would be the openness of the thing. Communing with Daedra, doing research, roleplaying a complex character, looking for things not meant to be found. It's a wondrous exercise in imagination for me.

Exploration.

It is the most fun to engross yourself in the game, just get out there in the world and see what's going on. It's all kind of together for me.

Funny how exploration is clearly the most popular thing in an ES game, yet the design choices in Oblivion didn't reinforce or promote this style of gameplay at all. Between the mission design, world design, and fast travel the entire game was built to be played like a linear RPG and they wanted you to focus 100% on the main quest through the way that it was presented to the player (sense of urgency, linear "do this then this" design to it, etc).

If they put the game design and world design with exploration in mind then we'd get somethinng closer to morrowind, which had open ended faction questlines to promote non-linearity, a mainquest that didn't require you to dedicate yourself to it from a narrative standpoint, and being unable to just "teleport" anywhere.

I wish they would design Skyrim with exploration in mind, not with linear missions in mind like Oblivion.

Immersion

Oblivion has none, thus I look forward to Skyrim fixing this atrocity.

exploration, but I typically include dungeon diving in that category