As far as I know the game is supposed to take place during political strife among the people of Skyrim and fighting between them. That got me thinking, are their two or more distinct factions to help out and get quests from? Have lines been drawn in the sand and ever changing front lines drawn out? If so it would be cool to act as a merc working for all sides of the conflict like in Farcry2. You could do work for group A but then turn around and help group B to something. And maybe one of them would fing out what you've been doing and you'd be in some serious trouble.
With the new crime system it could mean that if I slaughter a small village with a hammer of Thor in group A's territory but flee to B's borders than the outstanding bounty I collected will not count there, or even the soldiers of B will protect you from A bounty hunters and guards trying to get you.
Just my small ideas. Discuss and elaborate more on this idea if you like it or want to add your own ideas.

Aside from its graphical accomplishments i didn't think it was possible to want something from FarCry 2.

It sounds like an interesting idea though. Frankly, knowing that it'd probably come back to bite me in the ass will probably deter me from going down that route.

I feel like only the evilest of characters would do something like that. In a kind of linear game like Farcry, you don't really have a choice...it was tied to the storyline, right?

yeah pretty much. Interesting idea, don't know what I really feel about it.

In FO:NV, the factions were smart enough to know if you were betraying them, and you'd end up screwing yourself by not showing loyalty.

I hope they allow betrayal in this, but don't make the factions seem idiotic. You should have to pick a side and stay with it at one point, or end up in a very poor situation.

Also, I'm hoping for more than two factions going at in the civil war.

Please, no, no Far Cry 2. This is an RPG. A TES one at that. In regards to playing both sides, it might be possible. Though you would hope not as openly as in Far Cry 2, otherwise that would just be stupid.

In Farcry, yeah, it was tied to the linear story pretty much. But in an open world free choice game like TES you should be able to stick loyal to one faction if you really want to, though it'll still bite you in the ass when the others take note of your preference for one side of conflict.

And I was just using Farcry2 as an example of a game where you have 2 warring factions that you work with, I'm not saying I want Skyrim to be exactly like it. Of course not!

Fallout New Vegas is a better example, I think. The only thing wrong with the new Vegas approach is that the plot is spread way to thin because of the multiple factions.

It virtually only played out 2 ways depending on If you were allied with the NCR or the Legion.

This
Starting out I'm sure you could play more than 1 side. Maybe if you were really sneaky for quite a while but with a risk
If a faction sees you as an enemy it should be bad enough but if they discover you're a traitor which is how I'd think they'd see playing both sides they're really going to hate you

So you wanna bat for both sides huh? lol

Idk, could be nice. I guess we'll find out at E3 when they talk about factions(hopefully).

As for Far Cry 2....I think some of the best things that could be taken are some of the graphical elements, including the fire. But more than anything the best thing would be the first person animations for your actions. Those were incredibly well done, and I would love to see that type of character animation in Skyrim, if not better.

Hammer of Thor:Mjollnir.

But yes,I would find it amuseing to play one side against the other and see how it goes without certian people...

Would be cool to act as a double agent for one side.

But also there should be realism.
Not something like "betrayal = failure", just because I'm betraying an certain faction it doesn't mean I HAVE to be caught by them.
It would be really interesting if the player could ruin a faction by messing up plans and giving important information to the opposite faction, seriously.

I did that a la FNV I went with Legion up til a point ( kill president kimball) then I killed everyone in the fort and then killed the NCR then killed Kimball and finally finished Independent

I hope it is like Kurosawa Akira's Yojimbo (or A Fist Full of Dollars, if you prefer). The main character of each movie tries to play both sides of a local feud. It works great in the beginning, but he is eventually found out by one side and gets his ass beat! You should be able to get caught but not necessarily make it guaranteed, and if you do get caught there should be some kind of consequences!

I'm certainly hoping they've learned from, and built upon, the concept of 'sides' in New Vegas.

Two mutually exclusive sides, where you can eventually have to choose one or the other, would be cool. It's fun to see how long you can keep playing both sides in New Vegas. There was also the Independent / Mr House route as well.

The way that you could choose to align the smaller factions like the Boomers and the Great Khans to one side or the other presents plenty of possibilities in Skyrim, where there are the various holds, towns and so on. It would be awesome if you could sway these regional holds to one side or the other of the 'war'.

And of course it promotes replayability.

Yeah, I don't know, Beth did say there's going to be a lot of factions, but I don't think they'll let you join a side, I mean beth doesn't like giving any insight as to what the "hero of whatever" did in any of the books, and for the hero to join one of the factions of the civil war would turn it indefinitely, it would affect the future of skyrim, it would have to be wriiten in the books of future games, I just don't see it happening, so I'm gonna say they're gonnna pull a "nereverine" and have the hero re-unite everyone against the dragons, and whether skyrim stays with the empire or not will be left to the new ruler.

I was kind of hoping they would have joinable factions that work like the Great Houses in Morrowind. Except they would be Nordic clans that you would ally yourself with and support their interests over the others. Not sure how it would work though, because in Morrowind the Great Houses are based on the three class specializations: Mage (Telvanni), Warrior (Redoran), Stealth (Hlaalu).

I hope that playing both sides is an OPTION and not forced on you.

I think in my first play-through (if this is an option), I think I'll just pick one side and stick with it

If you make it like FO:NV, then clarify what hurts your relationship with a faction. I am playing NV and for some reason the faction that I'm appealing to more hates me, never found out what I did wrong.

Of course aiding multiple factions should be optional like in FO-NV (which is a better example) you can stick pro NCR all the way if you felt like it.

And there could be things the player can do to not get caught aiding other factions. Being stealthy and unseen for faction quests, leaving no witnesses, etc.

I hope beth really incorporates the civil war option with the clans and holds ect. Also I would think the radiant system will play a part in this. If you wind up doing alot for skyrims independence ( which is what i plan on doing) the radiant should pick up on it and make those loyal to the empire more hostile towards you after a certain point . I think this could be pretty interesting barring you from faction towns,sending bounty hunters, and the ever zealous loyalist who might just want to murder you. FONV touched on this but ultimately I found the scope and plot of the main quest line rather thin.

When I saw "playing both sides" I thought this was another of those unwelcome Fable 2esque post on romance

This sounds very interesting, and I would not be surprised if there was a similar concept put into the game.