Agreed. Personally I favor the idea that the conflict goes unresolved in game. Sure, you might swing some major victories for either side, but in the end the civil war continues. If they had it truly branch out into multiple endings for the Civil War, future lore will have to remain frustratingly vague to the point of being moronic. "200 years into the Fourth Era, Skyrim was rocked by Civil War. No one remembers the outcome." They could supposedly do another Dragon Break, but Dragon Breaks are as confusing as hell...and I wouldn't appreciate another.



Especially if Attrebus secedes his father. He'd make a much better ruler, imo. Indeed, if the Empire is indeed the inheritance of the Prince, you can pretty much count on me to support the Empire. Besides, its been hinted at that the King of Skyrim was murdered. Most likely culprits are the rebels. Just sayin'.

I think we can still see branching quest lines, even if the final ending of the main quest has more to do with Alduin's defeat than the civil war.

Obviously, even from the description of the first Stormcloaks encounter, there are branching options.

You can choose to free the prisoner, attack the Stormcloaks (harming your reputation with them), or heed their warning. If you talk with certain NPCs from Riverwood, you can even get a quest to find and join them.

You can also follow them to their destination and find out more about what's going on with that faction.

If those are not branching paths for this quest, I don't know what is.

This was probably the most exciting and important piece of information released in the latest batch of previews. I'd basically consigned myself to the fact that Skyrim's civil war quests would be linear, so hearing about this really lifted my spirits.

FOR THE EMPIRE! (unless they've turn into really big jerks, then I'll support the great Nord rebellion)

I'll be surprised if one side is good and one side is evil. The Elder Scrolls usually doesn't do that for politics.

I do, however, hope to see the darker side of the Empire: The greedy imperialistic side. The were presented as being too friendly in Oblivion.

I want to see propaganda on both sides. The Empire presents Windhelm as den of violent barbarians and I hope the Rebels present Soltiude as weak and corrupt (for submitting to the Imperials) and the Empire as greedy culture destroyers. I hope Windhelm presents itself as noble freedom fighters, and I hope the Empire presents itself as peacekeepers, and Solitude as the good guys.

While I have no qualms about killing digital people of any sort, I also prefer clearly-defined good and evil. Moral ambiguity has become so common in games that it borders on cliche. I intend to side with the rebels if I can. I've always hated the empire.

sadly the storm CLOAKS will be cloakless


LAME

Where did you hear this?

If it is the Mede Empire we're encountering, there's no reason to support them (unless you are evil). And if Skyrim will have only one ending like Oblivion, it would seem to be a pro-Rebellion/pro-Blades ending, which would mean in somehow defeating the Dragons and remove the presence of the Mede Empire in Skyrim. Because I don't see why the Mede Empire would be a good faction, seeing as they systematically removed the Blades as the Empire's loyal bodyguards.

The Blades served the Septim bloodline and the Emperor, not the Empire. Removing an elite unit of dubious loyalty to the new empire seems like commonsense, not evil.

It may seem like common sense, but if removing means mass murder, it's not common sense.That's just my opinion. So far I have no reason to believe Titus Mede is any better than the Septim bloodline.

Probably not
Still just look at Roman Emperors and what a bunch of corrupt self-serving :swear: they were for the most part, and yet the Empire brought a lot of benefits to the people it ruled.

I agree with you on that, but it mostly depends on the intelligence and insights of the Roman Emperor. Empires only survive for so long, the Roman Empire died a slow death after splitting up in West and Eastern parts, it was just too big and it didn't have a formidable Emperor like Julius Ceasar or Augustus Ceasar anymore.

I believe the same applies to the Imperial Empire aswell.

i like to rebel just as much as the next guy, but to be fair what did the empire to that was soo bad =(

Take over all of Tamriel...that's mostly it.

Why would you say that? What happens at the end of the next book will surely give a better idea, but even then there will be a gap so we won't know exactly how the Mede Empire looks. What happens with Attrebus in the second book is probably integral to guessing what kind of Empire it becomes.

Also the Blades were never the Empire's bodyguards. They only worked for the Septims.

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/elder-scrolls-v/1186740p1.html



Which one is the Stormcloaks? The soldiers or the prisoner?

Another one of the QuakeCon journalists, Tom Chick from Gamespy.com, also got a quest relating to the Stormcloaks:

"when one of the non-player characters makes a context-specific remark about the spell I've equipped, I can't help but stop to chat with him for a second. As I skip through the dialogue -- I really should keep heading north -- he asks if I want to join some secret rebel group called the Stormcloak something-or-other. That's a pretty cool name. So I tell him, yeah, I'd be into that. He then breaks off the conversation and tells me to follow him. A woman joins us. She calls to someone else to join us. Now I'm not just in an NPC dialogue anymore; I'm having a meeting. "


A few wolves later -- including one that was too preoccupied chasing a rabbit to notice me -- I come across some soldiers. They're escorting a prisoner, who my reticule identifies as a Stormcloak soldier. Hey, I'm in that club! This is one of my club brothers! I have the option to ignore him, free him, or free him and equip him with some of my loot. I take the last choice, handing over my iron longsword and hide armor. He can't have the battle ax and heavier armor, because I'm using those things.

Now my club brother and I are locked in battle with three soldiers. I'm doing the run-backward-while-swinging thing that I know so well from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, mainly because I don't bother to block. I'm also whooshing the equivalent of a flamethrower out of my left hand, thanks to my fireball spell. Eventually, the soldiers are all dead. Time to celebrate with my newly liberated Stormcloak brother! Wait, where did he go? Did he run off? Oops, nope. He's still here. He's one of the corpses on the ground. I hope I didn't do that with my liberally applied fire spell. I would feel awful if that was my bad. Maybe I should have given him the better armor. But I have no time for altruism -- I simply want to make a beeline north.
Source: http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/elder-scrolls-v/1186740p1.html

EDIT: @SilentColossus - this really seems to contradict Andrew Reiner's report. Reiner thought that the soldiers were the Stormcloaks, but according to Tom Chick's preview that it was the prisoner who was the Stormcloak. This would present a very different picture, perhaps seems a bit more logical that they are not the authority of White Hold.