Also I think Todd said somewhere that he expected the MQ would take around 30-40 with the game having around 300 hours overall gameplay.

Who in their right mind is going to try and speedrun this first time through?

I think it's reasonable for people to be worried. It all comes down to whether or not they exploited glitches, and how much of the main quest can be bypassed. Oblivion can be beat in a few minutes using some paint brushes. In Fallout 3 you can skip half of the entire main quest just by going to a certain location right at the beginning. If they utilized exploits such as these, then 2 hours isn't bad. However, if they rushed through EVERY main story quest, then I am worried. That said, the great thing about TES games is that to me the entire game is the main quest, in a way. It's the story of my character, whether he's assassinating bums or slaying dragons to save the world.

All previews have hinted that there has been a Dragon attack early on but whether that has anything to do directly with the player or just for atmospheric purposes is up to debate.

If it was numerically possible to beat a dragon at level 4 then they're too easy, even on the easiest difficulty.

If the entire main quest is level scaled then that's a little better, but will still be VERY immersion breaking when the dragons you fight in the main quest are 100x easier than the ones roaming the mountains.

If you can get through the main quest without ever killing a dragon or anything similar that's kinda lame, but I guess I can live with that.

If I had to take a ignorant guess, I would say it was part of a cinematic intro into the game.

Yeah well the whole bleak falls barrow thing seems to give the impression that there is a dragon around there at the start of the game, but this could be out of context of course.

I heard 25-30 hours


Yes, Todd said in a interview a while back saying that you will fight a dragon, and when you win you hear your name being echoed by the Greybeards and you go "What was that?"

He said something like that

I agree... But maybe they just ran the hell away from every enemy they could? Or maybe since items aren't leveled they knew where the most badass weapon in the game is and just used that? Also could of found badass armour and stuff as well.

My rule of thumb is to cut the dev's estimation in half. So if what Todd says is true, it'll take me around 15-20 hours to complete the main story, first run through. This has worked for me for pretty much every game I have played. And with the dev's boasting about how much more content is in Skyrim compared to their others games, 15-20 hours sounds about right. For me.

So you want players running from dragons for the first 10-20 levels?

What do you expect from dragons in Skyrim?

This makes no sense what so ever.

I've posted links to a couple of the most difficult RPGs... ever and how seemingly impossible bosses are beaten in a relatively short amount of time if you KNOW how to do it.

I agree with the above two posters. So what gigan, you want all characters to..
Start mq
find the first dragon
Run
Level up 20 times
Continue mq

Rofl? Really? Have fun with that. Ill be killing dragons while you mod that in LOL.

Dragons do seem to be the primary source of fear and antagonism in this game, so them being trivial right out of the womb would be disappointing. Yes, I expect to have to retreat from them a lot when my character is in his infantile state. What am I getting more powerful for if I can already curb-stomp my most powerful adversaries at level 4?

Maybe they found the best weapon and armour in the game, since they would know how to get it, and items aren't suppose to be leveled this time around...

I think that what he wants is sort of a level requirement before Dragons show up- ie. the quest when the lowest Dragons are 'unlocked' for normal gameplay can only be done until you reach a certain level.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would want to do a Speedrun.

Side note, a tasty, tasty pumpkin pie has just arrived at my desk.

he seems like the kind of person that thinks if a trained pro can do it and "make it look easy" that means that every average schmoe like yours truly and him will be able to do the same very easily.

Woo U of M reference!

An hour longer, eh? Well that's promising for main story length.

What if you designed how they fight and have probably fought hundreds before?

Oh right you're LEVEL 1! so it should be impossible...

Wait...

Well that's false..

also I wasn't talking about leveling.. I was talking about the speed runs.. which involved circumventing large portions of quests, and knowing exactly where items were/bypassing enemies by running past them/using exploits..

come on nubeasaurus rex..

Great. The second you leave the character creation screen immediately start killing dragons then sit there wondering what would be the point of finding more powerful weapons and spells.

Hahah, I had a pretty good laugh. I never knew they held such traditions. The pie-part made my day. Also, 2 hours speedrun? That, to me, is pretty darn long. To the worried, since I couldn't reply in the old thread. We don't know if they fought, and how they fought. If they overdosed on skooma or what not, what difficulty setting yadda yadda. Complete the game at level 4 or not. 4 is actually higher than I would expect. It's a speedrun, if you expect anything higher speedruns aren't your type of thing.

Ok dude. Go try to finish the main quest at level 4 when the game is out.

Let me know how that goes.

Quit being ignorant.

Congrats!

You should definitely tell these lesser mortals that the game isn't too easy because you schooled it..

Can I look forward to getting dominated in Skyrim at least a couple of times? :cryvaultboy:

P.S. pumpkin pie is my favorite kind of pie.. want to be my new favorite dev by telling us all that it's yours as well?

It is not scaled but you can assume that in certain area's like the first few places you will most likely visit you will be encountering weak dragons. However I don't doubt these will actually be hard to defeat its a matter of relativity, the guys doing the speedrun would most certainly have know how to avoid every fight or obsticle that would have held them back timewise. When you get to the end of the game or harder area's I would expect powerful dragons that would prove to be extremely difficult to beat. The guys on the speedrun either had epic gear which they knew how to obtain easily or glitched the final boss (if there is one).

Edit: Oh and they would most likely be playing on easy... ever tried Oblivion/Morrowind with the slider right down?