I want it to be more like Morrowind's main quest, than any of the options in the poll. I also want more main quest choices and paths to follow.

Morrowind.
The main story should start out simple. "Hey, the Emperor released me from prison? Pretty cool, I guess. Neat that all I have to do is some errands."
As it progresses, slowly, bit by bit, the main element of the plot should become apparent. "Those nightmares are weeeiiird."
Only pretty late in the story does it get up to speed, and from then on it's a rollercoaster ride. "Tribes! Houses! Ruins! OH MY GOD IS THAT A ROBOT"
A climactic battle that you control yourself, with a decent, still sort of action-packed aftermath. (Like in the Dagoth Ur mod forgot-what-it-was-called) "Oh, phew... That robot's destroyed... OH [censored] LAVA RUN RUN RUN!"

The only real change to this system would be choices - and not just a basic "LOLOL GOOD OR BAD" ending choice. Several choices throughout the story, all subtly or majorly affecting the ending. Dragons everywhere sounds like a perfect excuse for a dragon break.

Of course, this is my personal opinion on main quests in general. Above all I'd prefer the developers to just do what they think is right - I'll take the risk.

I don't care what they add it, what interactions they make, what different quest-paths they do, what guard-rails and backpaths they set up. All of that is irrelevant to me and I'm sure they'll do fine on it.

There are only two things I would stress.
1. Start slow. End Big. Nothing detracts from the game more, IMO, than having a giant nagging guilt-trip of a MQ drive forcing me to abandon all thoughts of rationally exploring to my heart's content. I.e. Emperor Septim and his Amulet. Not to say that the beginning can't be exiting and hooking. But the game can't suddenly shoot you into things like a bullet.

2. Don't aim for epic. Simply BE epic. When Bethseda reaches for epic, they fail, because everything that they do is like the game nudging you and saying, "psst, look at how epic I am! Aren't you impressed with my epic scale and awesomeness?" When Bethesda lays off and just allows their storyline to unfold itself without drama and pretentious dressing, the 'epic' comes of its own accord and is better for it.

I've missed your posts.

Think about it like this: Way hack in Morrowind there was an almost civil war like thing going on, Nerevarine could have chosen a side, and later affected the political environment. In New Vegas the Nerevarine is different and is called Courier. Same civil war like theme going on. Courier picks a side and what happens? The world bows to his whim. That's pretty much how I would like Skyrim, your "Nervarine" in a sense and everyone is falling to your whim maybe, except with a little more back talk. You could keep your pimp hand strong, or just limp.

I think the main quest should be heavily linked into guild questlines. I hated that every quest happened inside of it's dimension so to speak. What didn't fighters' or mages' guild care about the daedric invasion? It just doesn't make any sense. Aside horrid level scaling the one thing that really ruined the immersion of a living world was how nobody really cared about the opening oblivion gates. People continued living their ordinary lives, guilds focused on their inner conflicts and so forth. If we know a one thing about mankind is that when there is a disaster like war, it either unites or divides people.

How about uniting the guilds against the daedric invasion for example? What if the necromancer plot was actually linked to the attack against emperor? they had endless possibilties but they failed to make use of them.

I would like to have more choices to make in the main quest. For me, being a bad guy in Oblivion has never paid off because it would end with most of the world hating me, and I would have to save the world in the end. Being able to choose to side with the good guys or the bad guys would allow for more roleplaying flexibility, so that you do not always have to save the world, but instead you can choose to conquer it alongside the villains.

I'm guessing this would not be very possible because it would give problems as to how the next TES would be like, since they would have to choose one ending to be "correct" in order for the lore to continue.

More like Fallout 3. Just not like fallout 3 since TES should not be Fallout or vice versa.

I want the main quest to offer choices. Not necessarily different endings depending on the choices, but enough to make the player to "feel" in control of the story, instead of just doing whatever the story NPCs tells him to do. The http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Dagon_Shrine in the Oblivion main quest kinda tried to do this, but in the end I felt it was very under developed and should have been expanded upon a great deal.

Daggerfall had a great branched plot too, several different parts that you could do at your own pace, and a juicy conspiracy in the middle of it.

I'm no fan of rail gaming a la Half-Life 2 at all, and it's really out of place for a TES game.

I honestly don't like that idea of how the game starts. Escaping from that village for the 1298th time will be extremely boring, just like how it was extremely boring to go thru the initial Oblivion dungeon or the Baldur's Gate 2 dungeon when the games start.

No, the beginning should be very short, no action and then offer an open world. Morrowind did it kinda right there.

I hate to always fall back on this, but... Daggerfall.



http://www.uesp.net/dagger/images/quest.gif

I don't need extensive choices in how it turns out; this isn't Heavy Rain. What I'm looking for is depth.

I chose other. Because I would like to see multiple paths to the same outcome. I don't another warp in the west.

Although I think the choices in FO3's main quest were really just token choices, it was a step in the right direction. The main quest for Oblivion was far too linear for a game with such an open world. Even though your character is supposed to be the champion of Cyrodiil, you can't really have any effect on how the story plays out. I would very much like Skyrim to have a branching main quest with multiple outcomes. I want to feel like my character is actually involved in events. In Oblivion, I felt like little more than an errand boy.

Well crafted and involved, that's all I ask.

I want the beginning of the quest to be more like Morrowind, where you don't feel rushed into it. If you want to play a character who isn't interested in the MQ, you don't "have" to do it. I disliked Oblivion's "You have to do this, now, and by yourself" attitude. I liked Morrowind's "Deliver this package, if you feel like it and run these errands if you want... then suddenly Main Quest" style. I would also like to have many different paths you can take to get to the ending. Maybe you make a choice to side with this group over another. I don't want to be railroaded into being the good guy in ever game. What if I want to help Lord Dagon? Can I not work to help plunge the world into darkness? What if I don't make "crucial plot twist mistake/decision?" "What if" alternative time lines/endings/stories are nice.

Veritas Secreto!! Welcome back.