40 hours. Then 20-30 hours for factions. 200 hours for side quests.

I'm fine with a Mass Effect-style 20 hour main quest, provided there are hundreds of hours of side quests/faction stuff to do.

Honestly, I'm more concerned with the story being good than it being long.

Don't really care unless the main story is particularly engaging. I rather have it on the short side if it's not going to be anything special honestly. I mainly play TES for the open world exploring.

I would agree, but that doesn't say much about the length of the story.

In terms of length, though, I found Oblivion's main quest was satisfactory, maybe I'd complain it was too short if it was all there was to the game, I don't really know as I don't rush through it to complete it as quickly as possible and the estimates of others is not much to go on since different players play the game at a different pace, and a questline that might take one player 20 hours could take longer or shorter than that for someone else, but in the end, the main quest is only one part of an Elder Scrolls game. It's a part I wouldn't want to be without, but it's not the most important aspect to me. I don't mind if the main quest is reletively short because I'm sure there will be plenty of other things to do in the game to keep me satisfied, as there was in both Morrowind and Oblivion. I haven't even completed the main quest many times in either of these games, yet I've played them with many characters and not felt that I don't have enough to do.

In any case, asking for 400 hours for the main storyline is simply not reasonable, indeed, I'd be surprised if I spend that long on the entire game with any given character, counting side quests and guild quests, and I somehow can't see Bethesda keeping the story from getting boring with even a quarter of that length.

I'd rather beat myself to death with a spork than have a 400 hours of gameplay.

I would love for the main quest to be twice as long as Oblivions Main Quest.

400+ hours? Be realistic. There isn't a single game even close to 200 hours. 400 is way too much to be realistic or desirable. The game would be in development for another 10 years.

I think 400 hours is a bit much just for the main storyline. 300 max for storyline + side quests and everything else I think. Also you wouldnt want it too long because I would think that a lot of people would start a new savegame or two to see if they can improve and do things differently I spent around 120 hours I think over a long period of time but since there arent that many good games out that we know of yet I will probably play this a lot more.

Why are the two options "400+" and relatively short ala Oblivion? Thats a big spread.

I want longer than Oblivion, but it doesn't have to be 400 hours that would be ridonkulous.

I'm interested in seeing a 397 hour speed-run of Skyrim. In all seriousness though, it should take a while. And not the "walk here, walk there, now there, over there, find me a loaf of bread" questline either. As for those who love to side-quest, there should be shortcuts along the way that let you speed things up by meeting the prerequisite. For example, one part of the main quest might be to find a theif who has gone missing with an important necklace. You can either track him down (basic way), or as a high ranking thieves guild member just ask your colleagues (side quest short cut).

I don't care much about the length of it, the quality matters. And don't you think that having a 400 hours long main quest line would be quite boring? Come on, some people played Oblivion for about 200 hours and completed everything! But for my opinion, the main quest line should be about as long as in Morrowind. And the thing why people love TES games are the side quests and exploring free!

The lenght AND quality AND quantity AND complexity matters. No more "go get these three items to advance you linear questline" stuff - boooooring. Spinoff quests. Dead/fake quests (accomplishes nothing). Alternative routes to some next point, even if that means missing some or a lot of quests. Make it so that you don't really understand what the heck is going on until later in the questline. Make it so that playing the main quest the next time is a completely different experience regarding how the story unfolds. Couple parts of it to dates, holidays, maybe even season (have to wait for ice to melt), moon phases, days in the week, weather, whatever, so that you can't just race through it. Have side quests and random discoveries that are related to the main quest, but not by any means required. Have different houses compete for some item that later will be required in the quest.

Be inventive! MW and OB was so linear it was a disgrace to gamers intellect... MW was a tad better, but I had a hard time relating to the "setting". OB had a great potential to have a complex story in an awesome setting, but they blew it bigtime (for me anyways).

What is the fastest playthrough of Oblivions main quest?

that number of hours x10 atleast.

http://www.destructoid.com/speedrun-oblivion-beaten-in-11-minutes-97294.phtml



So, at least 2 hours?

Umm.. He never even got to kvatch after martin in that video.. Unfair..
I mean what is the fastest possible way of beating it without jumping on your own potion into some wierd glitch altar thing? Woot.

No real option for what i want, so i clicked the closet: Epic - 400 hours +

What i really want is an opening like Morrowind, 5 mins of introductions to the world then free to do as you like and you don't even have to start the main quest. I also want tons of gameplay and re-play potential, like a lot of sidequests and varied ways of ending each. A main ques to make Oblivion's look small would be nice, instead of the Fallout 3 main story where you could skip half of it by going directly to your father then finishing the rest in about an hour.

Epic. I don't want to finish until I'm thirty!

I'd love to have 400 hours of gameplay total. In Oblivion, I played about 100 hours... I had beaten all the quests several times... It got dull. If it took me 400 hours on one character to complete everything, I don't think I'd be able to say anything less than best game ever.

Epic in length, but I don't want to be rushed like how it was in TESIV. In TESII and TESIII, you weren't rushed at all. The main quest shouldn't be something that you "feel" you have to start right away. It should be a very slow paced main quest, with many spots in it that allow for breaks. i.e. No one saying "okay, well in the mean time, go see about this or do this." It should be something like "well, I have nothing right now." And then sometime later, you may get a letter or something, like how Daggerfall had it. You were not rushed at all in that game.

For me I would like a longer and more fulfilling story line as oblivion with it's epic side quests and amazing gameplay cut off the story line short and suddenely. Though no matter how long the story line is I will always love the elder scrolls a bit longer one wouldn't hurt.