I definitely will not be looking for shortcuts, though one thing I noticed is that mostly all Bethesda RPG's have ways to sprint straight towards the end or damn near halfway there. I've read about many players accidentally stumbling upon something early game that wasn't meant to be discovered until later, unintentionally shortening the main quest.

In Fallout 3, you can beeline straight to your dad from Vault 101. In New Vegas, you can head straight towards the strip after leaving Doc Mitchell's house in Goddsprings. Hopefully Fallout 4's main quest will be extensive enough to avoid you accidentally missing out on a large portion of the story.

I hope fallout 4 is different

Meh, I see it as the natural risk you take for exploring.

Note that in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, you can accidentally skip a good chunk of the main quest... by ignoring the game when it says "MAIN QUEST OVER HERE!" and randomly explore.

It's likely we can do some sequence-breaking, though. It's the nature of a sandbox game that gamesas is known for. That, and that most of the fanbase genetally appreciates nonlinearity.

Oh no, there will always be a way to speed through a game. Speed runners will always find a way.

But I see what you're saying, and the very thought of such has always made me cautious when approaching certain events within a video game. However, I think it is something that should be left unaddressed. I don't find such restrictions necessary (especially in a Bethesda game) if someone has the desire to explore the game world, regardless of the possibility of running into something that cuts the main questline short. If it happens, it happens. Just part of the charm when having the ability to go where ever you want. If you don't like where you're going, take a few steps back and explore elsewhere or load a previous save. However, if someone is ever so curious, progress through the main quest through this new alternative route if they so desire. It will be their choice in whether they want to continue going on this new path or not.

You know, freedom and stuff.

On the contrary, I hope this is possible. They shouldn't railroad you into their particular story, let you do things your way. You won't actually miss out on much, since even in those examples you can go back and do the earlier quests in basically any order.

Eh... In both F3 and NV you can go different routes to your objective. However, finding your dad in F3 doesn't cut you off from any of the quests before that... you can still go see three dog, still go solve the Rivet City stuff and still do all the stuff in Megaton.. In Nv it doesn't matter how you get to Vegas. Getting there doesn't cut you off from anything except following Benny around the wastes. You still have to make friends with factions and choose a side. Benny's little chase just made it so you met those groups and maybe solved some of that stuff before you got to vegas. If you didn't... well, you have to go back and do it anyway.

See, I like finding dear old dad first.

It is nice to have such luxuries on subsequent playthroughs. But the first playthrough, it's best to keep from going too far down the rabbit hole, if you don't want to find yourself somewhere you may regret.
There is usually a lot to explore within the areas you're naturally traversing while progressing through the main or side quests, as well. There isn't really much need to get too far off track and stumble into something you shouldn't, unless you aren't really playing the game, and instead are simply there for the exploration. Which is fine. But know what you're about.

If people want to speed run, I agree that they will find shortcuts. It takes some time to find them all, I'm sure. The game will be out for a minute before these loopholes will be exploited. At any rate, you'd have to be looking for them in game, or searching online. And if that's your thing, then that's fine, too.

Don't get me wrong, the last thing I want is New Vegas linearity where it's almost a crime to do off rails exploration. Though I do hope the main quest is set up in such a way where you can attack it from different angles and still have a fulfilling experience.

Like if I stumble upon a mid - late game event early on, the main quest would proceed down an alternative path, allowing me to still experience the story from another angle. Versus, heading to the strip in New Vegas and finding Benny soon as I leave Doc Mitchell. In the event that I do make it to the strip early game, this would trigger Benny catching wind of my unexpected arrival, causing Benny to flee somewhere else and let the story unfold a different way with alternative quests since I didn't head towards Nipton.

Or in Fallout 3, if I headed straight to Vault 87 after leaving 101, this would trigger the Enclave kidnapping my dad and a new set of quests would unfold allowing me to experience Fallout 3 from a different perspective instead of allowing me to automatically purify the water and end the game.

In other words, if I follow the story, one set of events would trigger. If I stumble upon a latter portion of the original quest line, an alternative quest would automatically trigger, ultimately leading to it's own conclusion. So there would be no real way to speed through the story, since alternative stories could pop up depending on how I explore.

Lol if Beth took 15 years to make there games we maybe see this perhaps, but otherwise no, I doubt we see that kind of main quest.

Lol, maybe Beth will take notes for TES VI. That would be a wonderful surprise, heading for shortcuts in later playthroughs only to discover the main quest line opening up an alternative route.

In terms of glitching through the game or breaking the logical sequence of the story, I'm with you; although I don't think anyone's ever glitched through the entire main quest on accident. But in terms of back-paths or shortcuts, I actually like those. I have a gut feeling, mostly based on wishful thinking and a little bit of what's happened with Fallout questlines in the past, that the first segment of the main quest will be about finding our family, which will eventually get us caught up in the fate of the wasteland (as all Fallout questlines do); but if we disregard searching for our family we can instead get involved in the major conflict some other way.

No, I like the way Bethesda has it's games, wide open so anything can happen. If I want to be herded along a storyline that won't let me access things until a certain event happens, there are plenty of RPGs out there for me.

I like the anything can happen method with Bethesda games.

You have a point about Fallout being a save your family, then the world type of fate. The Presley and Piper segments sort of hinted at that.

I agree. Which is why I suggested Bethesda taking an alternative quest route of you happen to bypass a huge portion of the intended main story. This would also add to the replay value realizing the actual main quest line could also change depending on how you play.

Pretty much every Fallout plot follows the same general path: Leave your home on a quest to find something (Water chip, GECK, Dad, Platinum Chip, and presumably our family in 4) and then get caught up in a huge conflict with the powers that be, eventually deciding the fate of the wasteland. And each game lets you skip a good amount of the initial quests, if you have the foreknowledge or just happen to stumble upon the quest.