Way to many spoilers in this thread.

did i spoil anything for ya?

Nope, but probably for someone.

Well, my goody-goody knight was on his way to Weynon Priory when he heard about this attack on the Chapel in Anvil. Being the devout worshiper of the Nine that he is, Erathiel decided to investigate that first. All though this is the first time I did it in this order, the Knights of the Nine dlc gives you a perfect "excuse" to ignore the MQ. By the time I finished it I was level 15 and then I started doing the MQ and it seemed a lot more dangerous and important than doing it at level 2. And I didn't feel like my character had ignored the game world to level up.

I have a thief who is very cynical and ignored the "urgent" pleadings the Old Man and his obviously lame body guard, and her instincts were right... no "invasion" of Deadra, no chaos or destruction on ANY scale. Life moves on in spite of superstitious fools.

Some "good" characters I have simply entrusted the Amulet and the Empire to Jauffre and the Blades- there's always a hero waiting in the wings, thanks be to the gods.

+Petrose

Yes that would be awesome I would definitely do that. Can you guys also check out my post on a problem I have? Thanks!

I have to agree with you on this. Oblivion is too fast paced in regards to its story line. Getting svcked into a great story line in the beginning of a game is great but not if you can't get away from the main story because it seems to urgent.

Now I know that you can put the MQ on hold and come back to it at any time you choose to or you can even choose not to do the MQ at all, if you choose that. However there needs to be a better continuum in the story line and the rest of the world, and not rush in...in other words, there needs to be more of a gradual quality in the beginning, that lets the player feel that there is lots of time to get to know the world, build up skills, explore, get to know people etc..

I remember when I decided to stop off at the Arena during one of the main quests, I started to fight and win battles, and although I was winning and having fun doing so...there was always this nagging thought of guilt that I *should* be doing the main quest. I think there needs to be a better interwoven main stroy that allows the player to feel free and breath and just be apart of the world without feeling guilt stricken over the main quest.

I have always found it curious that the game pushes you to finish the MQ. However, several items in the MQ are leveled (up to 25 if I recall). There is a contradiction here since the developers seem to want people to wait for the good stuff but the story does not match..

Another example is the conspiracy theory quest (Skingrad...the paranoid elf). He seems to wait for you at midnight every. single. night. (!)

The problem with the urgency is that no matter how you handle the issue, something will always seem to be wrong.

If you ignore the urgency and become master of one or more guilds, it seems weird that during that whole time Mehrunes Dagon decided to take a nap before leading the big invasion.

If you do the main quest because of the urgency, by the time you finish it and you are the Champion of Cyrodiil it is very weird to start a guild and to be treated as a lowly and unknown novice.

I have always thought that the main quest would have been better if it was something like this:

- Instead of being released from prison by the Emperor himself, you would start on a cell with a cell mate, someone who were deemed "mad" by the guards and would certainly look a bit eccentric to you. He would speak of ominous things to come, without revealing too much.
- After being released (supposedly after you served your sentence), and while you were being escorted out of the prison, you'd meet the Emperor by chance and he would strangely recognize you from a dream, but that would be it.
- At this point, you'd get the first quest in the main questline, suggesting you could try to find more about this strange dream and directing you to speak to someone like Raminus Polus or Chancellor Ocato. At this stage, the game already would be pretty much open to you and this quest would just be one of many you could pursue or not.
- Then you'd have a few more quests where you would be slowly learning about the dream and your role in all this, culminating with the moment when the Emperor is killed and you would be given the Amulet of Kings. Then the main quest would start in earnest with full force, daedric invasion and everything.
- By the time this would happen, you'd probably already have done some of the guilds quests and would be of a reasonable level, giving a much better sense of progression to the whole proceedings.

TES V should probably just have a Prison Ship shipwrecked near a small town to get you started.

I think some of you have been playing too long <_< . You already are too intimate with the ending and all the plot-points in between. Familiarity breeds contempt. :touched:

Let me splash a little newbie cold water into your whine and cheese fest. :foodndrink: Even though the Emperor prods you with omens of doom, the actual sense of world-ending urgency does not come for quite some time. Even after the hell-gates start sprouting like kudzu Martin is still sending you on fetch-this, find-that, kill-him errands.

For me, I have no problem making detours. Maybe it's just because I'm old and wizened but I know enough to pace myself. I set goals for myself to only advance the MQ as I leveled.

Once I found out that finishing the MQ closes all the Gates I put on the brakes. There was no way I would close those gates until I got the Transcendent Sigil Stones I needed and I couldn't get those until level 17. There is no problem rationalizing that it is going to take the forces of evil a lot of time to build their siege engine and marshal their forces. Particularly when I keep distracting them by picking off an occasional gate or two.

Now, I agree you have a point that this pacing could have easily been built into the game. Each stage of the MQ could be scripted to advance at certain player levels. Why not after each sub-quest have the player told there was an impasse? That he would be summoned if there was a breakthrough. Then after he had leveled-up once or twice a messenger would race up and advance the plot line. Wouldn't it be cool if one of the roaming Legionnaires or one of those town criers riding around road up with a message from Martin or Jauffre?

You could, of course proceed apace if you wished. You could also choose to ignore the in game pacing. Just find one of the principles and initiate a speech check to proceed.

I keep my charicters down-to-earth. Im an evoker in the mages guild, the champion(But not grand Champion) in the arena,A swordsman in the fighters guild, and Cat Burgaler in the theives gild. He is required to assist the fighters and mages guilds as he is a ranger of vallenwood(A sort of semi-magical wanderer), on loan to the legion woodsmen, and theivery is merely his vice(Hes a bit of a klepto, stealing for stealings sake)

You can stop the main quest almost anytime if you do it right.
Imagine, on his way to Weynon Priory your charakter comes to a daedric shrine and then he thinks something like:"[censored] the Amulet, why should I destroy their world, if they can give me quests with huge rewards?!"

In all actuality you're not rushed at all

Save Kvatch now or save Kvatch in twenty years

Don't worry it'll still be burning and Martin Septim will still be there complaining about how the gods have abandoned the world

I like that I mean your not God you can't do everything I beat the MQ and all the other Q with a single character for Achievements I will make a guy like that.
I think you are somewhat rushed though and Explain this the Blades and all of the guards who love the Empire can't take down 1 Oblivion gate but a simple person can destroy the whole invasion by himself so your the 1 man army destined to save the world.

Thats not so true:

I roleplayed an evil thief and he came out of the sewers and never thought twice about the amulet or the invasion.
I roleplayed that once I delivered the amulet that it took 2 months (in game) for them to locate Martin, giving me time to join a guild and train up a bit.
I roleplayed that after saving Bruma and delivering Martin to cloud top temple that he spent time researching the things he said he was researching, again giving me time to explore a bit.

So Roleplaying gives you the opportunity to slowdown the urgency of the mainquest or simply not do it at all

Yeah I didn't role-play until last week. It's kind of the reason TES was created. 'Life Another Life, In Another World'. I never realised what that meant.

It was a problem for me too, since I only play good aligned characters. Nowadays I simply roleplay the beginning of the Main Quest slightly differently.
I will drop the amulet off since that was a promise made to a dying man. But once I've dropped the aumlet off, then that's where i take the break. This does take some selective hearing, but what my character gets from Jauffre is something along the lines of:

"Thank you for delivering the Amulet. Feel free to take anything from my chest as a reward. Then you can leave."

After all, you're an unknown ex-con, why would he trust you with such an important job, aren't the Blades much more suited to find and retrieve Martin?

Ofcourse they aren't, and thus after a while (this can be as long or as short as you want) you get a message from Jauffre asking you to go to Kvatch, since they've finally tracked down Martin. (I ignore the bit where he tells you where Martin is and RP they've lost track of him for a while, he wasn't that important up till now after all). Maybe Jaufre remembered that the Emperor asked you to find his son and his Blades are simply not destined to help him. Maybe tales of your deeds have reached his ears and he thinks you might be better suited for the job, or maybe he had someone following you/observing you and now finds you trustworthy. Maybe a combination of all of that.

There might be mods doing something similar, but just RPing it is easier

As others have said there are other points I can RP a break, leaving me free to persue my own goals. This way I can do the MQ at my own pace without any guilt

I've recently started a new character, and I was confronting exactly this problem. I got the amulet and was swept along with the seeming importance of the mission. I delivered to Wenlon, went to Kvatch, closed the gate, rescued Martin, then immediately did the battle for castle Kvatch continuation, with Martin following me. In the Castle courtyard Martin got into a fight with the High Elf archer (Melendil?). All the daedra were dead but Martin was still going at one of his loyal soldiers.

At that point I decided Martin was a jerk. Savlian Mattius can look after the guy. I finished the quest and left Martin in Kvatch. If he's the next emperor I don't want to know. Me, I'm off to Elseweyr to seek my fortume.

Man, you tell the guy he's the emperor and it goes to his head!

But as for the topic at hand, I think Allies for Bruma is a great time to take a breather (that is, if you don't mind an Oblivion Gate popping up every time you walk out into the woods to pick some flowers for whatever roleplaying "thing" you seem to be engaged in at the time.)

But, I really don't find myself pressured. Like someone said, it's not like you're the Nerevarine or the heir to the Emperor. You're just a dude that got the "Get out of Jail Free" card. In my opinion, this adds even more to the calm, laid-back mood. You're free to shove the amulet in your bag and go do what you people do

That is where I have an issue with game logic. There is not enough wood for Kvatch to burn for 20 years. Kvatch should really be peaceful at the start of the game and only when you reach a certain point would the place start burning. In addition, once it starts burning, there should be a time limit for getting Martin out of there.

This approach would presume that the Emporer would be alive at the begining and would die later...

Yes, unless you have a mod you either have to accept the urgency of the storyline and follow it, not follow it because your character doesn't care, or ignore what has been said and RP a slight changed version. There is no actual breathing-space in the beginning to do your own thing if you follow the story to the letter.

If you don't mind me saying so, I think that most people who have already said it are right that it may be faster but there are still ways to put off the main quest. The very first time I played I felt compelled to do what the Emperor said right away, like I had no choice, but playing it again I found that I could just pretend that Martin didn't exist and go ahead with building up my skills by doing other small quests and such. And I found that it works to just not go back to Cloud Ruler Temple when I'm seeking aid from Bruma 'cause no one comes and gets you in the middle of looking for help when things get serious in Bruma. They don't say that you should forget looking and come on back. It worked for me to go to all the cities and find allies. The game just had them waiting for me at the scene where Martin's made up his mind to allow the Great Gate to open, as if I hadn't been gone for a couple of game weeks.

I've never played previous Elder Scrolls games so I don't know what it could be like if this game were slower-paced. At least every mission is so darn long that it doesn't seem slow to me. You can't get anything done without having to accomplish something else first. Every time I think I've finished a quest, something's happened or I need something else. For example, (spoiler) I knew we'd eventually get to become Lord Sheogorath and have that final battle with Jygalagg(sp?) but I'd forgotten just how much you have to go through just to get there. Building a new gate-keeper, defending the fringe, having to find all the pieces to make a new staff to absorb the power of the god or whatever. So, basically, if all of it's fast-paced it kinda makes up for how much you have to do to finish some quests. I like the game but sometimes I become fully concious of just how much time has passed since I started playing and it makes me think that I just need to quit my real life so I can devote all my time to this game. Heh.

I remeber my first Char. It was straight into a dungeon after I got out of the sewers. Then I pissed around for a short while, before I knew it I was trying to save Kavtch. Then I was in the arena. Then I ran around with my light raiment for a while. Then I learned about the levelling system and started a new character.

I did feel the pressure to keep on the MQ for a while. It seemed very exciting, but I didn't feel guilted.

My RP character was actually an excon, who cared less about royal politics, and decided to hang onto the amulet in case it might be worth something someday. Screw the royalty, my char would have stolen everything in the royal palace if he had a chance. And because he never turned in the amulet, guess what...Cyrodil continued on its relatively peaceful path, and he never knew it might have been any different. Gave him plenty of time to ramsack all the vaults of Cyrodil (great mod btw). No oblivion gates. No urgency. No main quest. Suits me fine. Then he decided to join the Archeologists Guild. (another great mod.) Maybe someday, when he is old and gray he might decided to drop the amulet off. But thats no where on his agenda atm.