When I first bought Morrowind, I started playing by ignoring the mainquest totally. At the first crossroad after Seyda Neen I went left, while Balmora and Gaius Cossades was right. For probably 40 to 50 hours I explored and did sidequest. It was only after about fifty hours or so, I talked to Gaius Cossades and began the main quest. For me that was a good choice. It might have been because of the anticipation of doing the mainquest or maybe the feeling fo freedom not doing what I was suppose to, but It made Morrowind feel fresh forever.

When I started playing Oblivion I did the opposite. Maybe it was because the tutorial really kicks you into the main storyline or I don't know, but I started doing the main quest right away. Because I did this and because all the loot was levelled, All the rewards I got during the first part half of the mainquest svcked. And also, when I was done with the mainquest, I had already visited most of Cyrodiil so the exploration wasn't as fun.

The mainquest is usually fun no matter when you do it, so if you wait with it until you're finished exploring every little thing, it will still be fun. The small sidequest and exploration can sometimes (for me) feel trivial after having completed the mainquest.

For the reasons above, this time around, after I have done the tutorial, i will walk the opposite way of my first mainquest goal. Exploring the land of Skyrim and doing all the faction quests before ever starting the mainquest.

I'd like to hear how you guys will play the game and why. Maybe I'll get som ideas.

I'll probably start by making a character and blasting through the main quest, then depending on his stat's and equipment will depend on whether I keep that save or make a new one and do everything on that and save the main quest for like 50-60 hours on game time in.

Im gonna play like this: wherever main quest will lead me im gonna do there all the sidequests and everything interesting.

I usually play the main quest with my first character then the others I occassionally do one quest here and there.

I'm planning on leaving the first dungeon and heading South East. If the first quest is in that direction, I'll pick a different direction. I'll walk as far as I can in whichever direction I end up with, until I hit a border. Then I'll head directly to the nearest city, and start a city-to-city journey, walking the whole way and stopping off in dungeons whenever I fancy it.

In Oblivion it was more fun to do the main quest later on because of the level scaling. As far as I recall you could do the whole thing by level 10 (I think that was the minimum level to collect a Daedric artefact for Martin, the Skeleton Key from Nocturnal's shrine), and it was pretty lame to have the fate of the world being threatened by Imps and Clannfear runts.

Exactly!

I'm planning on playing it by ear. Whatever interests me first.