Hi, traveler! You can't go past here because of some lame bs like an unpassable blizzard wall, or an unexplained sealing force field, or the entrance just isn't there until a specific time is reached. I know you saw something interesting and made a beeline here to see something awesome, and that's why you have to leave until the quest marker summons you. Yes, that boulder will be gone when the time is right. And everyone is in on it if need be. Poof, begone!

The worst part is the no explanation that screams "this is us letting you know that you're playing a game." Would you like TES to get rid of "come back later?" I mean, if the door needs an item found elsewhere, you can get in if you have the item, are strong enough, sneaky enough, smart enough, pass a check, etc, then yeah you can make it. But there wouldn't be any absolute rule that you can't get in sooner than wanted by Mr. quest marker. If you can get in somehow, the quest can be triggered.

Or is this asking for so much that it would be better for them to invest on a new shiny thing? The idea is that with two or more playthroughs where you payed attention you may be able to find a way to shortcut the MQ and get to the main antagonist to beat him up an alternate way and get a different story result. Kind of like if Gandalf made Frodo a hang glider then Sam could stay home and cook potatoes. Wasn't this already possible with Morrowind, although I think it required abusing / spamming something?

Long post.

I am willing to accept some locked doors if they are genuinely important to the story the developer is telling. We couldn't access Camoran's Paradise until we had progressed to a certain point in Oblivion's story line, and that made sense to me. But for the most part, I agree.

I'm good with some locked doors as well, so long as those doors don't hold important things behind them...like the final word to your favorite shout, and due to your chosen RP, it doesn't make a lick of sense to join that particular guild just to get access to that one shout. Poor design decision IMO.

"Requires a key" is so annoying, I agree. I unlock the door with the console and seem to get away with it normally without triggering a quest.

This highly reminds me of the linear Harry Potter PS1 games. You couldn't get into the Upper Castle until you finished a few certain quests, for example.

Quest locked dungeons and areas are sometimes the simpler solution, but don't place something an unrelated quest needs inside them. I'm referring to Stones of Barenziah in Skyrim here

Quest related is fine having impassable doors, but that archway /door east of Riften really drives me nutts nothing became of it.

Were the games done otherwise (and they were once, see Morrowind for example), these forums would be full of people claiming that the game is "so buggy, I can't finish my quest because I can't find the item" (they found it before and sold it). Why do you think devs came to making "quest objects" locked in your inventory?

The one to Morrowind? That one they put there because Oblivion didn't have any roads leading out of the province and this people found "unimmersive". SKyrim now has a road leading nowhere.

Several roads, three or four I think.

Patience is a virtue evidently not appreciated by some people