I have played Oblivion, but I never made much progress with the main quest as I just wanted to enjoy exploring the game.

Is Oblivion like Skyrim where once the main quest is finished, you can just go back to exploring and doing random quests?

It is. You get some kind of reward and that's it.

Ooh very good, something that my partner said put me off carrying on with the main quest.

At least I know that when I play the game again I will not need to complete things before I do the main quest ^^

Thank you for your help ^^

You also don't have to do the MQ in one fell swoop. For those characters that actually DO the MQ (most do not, and just live in Cyrodiil), they take it in short spurts, doing a little bit, then backing off to exploration, then back at it again. Months will go by in-game during these breaks.

Just to put my two eggs in here Tasendia, I′ve played Oblivion for +1600 hrs with one character and haven′t even touched the MQ. So don′t feel obligated to do it just because some old guy told you he saw you in his dreams.

As mentioned above you can complete the main quest and then continue to do lots of other stuff.

But that said I recommend not doing the Main Quest until you've at least started the guilds you want to progress in and maybe complete some of the questlines. The reason is immersion. As you might imagine at the end of the Main Quest you save the world (or at least are a key part of saving the world). If your character wasn't very skilled and experience (like a Guildmaster) then how would he or she be able to do that. Also after being a big hero you can join a guild and they'll have you do menial tasks until you prove yourself, even though you just fought and defeated tons of nasty bad guys (and bad gals, and bad entities) in the Main quest.

I've never completed the MQ because I could never enjoy it

How far into it did you get? My fear was that I thought Bruma would get destroyed without actually knowing anything about the MQ. That concern and the overwhelming amount of other things to do is what kept me away from visiting Jauffre.

I couldn't enjoy it because of the side quests, the DB was my LIFE in Oblivion

I did not want to the gates to destroy the landscape, so I only did the quest with one character and that was my CoC, every other character never touched the MQ, I mean how could they do it when someone else already went out and saved the world!

So yea OP, just like in Skyrim you can completely ignore the main quest, or just finish it and continue playing.

Yeah, the only way to see the unsullied Empire is to NOT go to Kavatch. I often postpone it until level 10 or 15.

That guy who runs down the road out of fright often has to repeat many times for me as I pass by the Kavatch turn off.
That's one thing I never really liked about Oblivion; the place was so neat, and I wanted to get out, and instead those damnned gates were opening everywhere and one is pressured to close them.

I imagine people have gone the opposite way and allowed the gates to spawn and spawn until the place was chaos.

I've learned, thanks to glargg, that you can go to Kvatch, and do the one gate, BUT DO NOT GO FIND MARTIN. If you do just the one, and blow off Martin, Oblivion gates will never appear in your world. Oh, and you can go deal with Kvatch, the city, as well, and not trigger more gates.

Actually, you can do all of Kvatch, including talking to Martin after he is down in the encampment. No extra gates will open at that point (I have done it plenty of times).

It is taking Martin to Weynon Priory that triggers the first batch of 10 random gates to open.

My experience has been consistent with the notes here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion_Gate

Acadian is correct that taking Martin to the Priory is what advances the quest line. My suggestion of not talking to him is more about the role play, since a character has no way of knowing what happens later. (The dialog tree leads to Martin agreeing to come to the Priory with you. Why would you not lead him there, since he has agreed to go?)

By leaving Martin at the Kvatch encampment (whether you talk to him or not), the quest line is "frozen," and can be picked up at any later time just by going and talking to Martin.

I remember rushing through the Kvatch gate and quests, I wanted that thing to be gone! I thought that giving Jauffre the amulet was the thing that triggered other gates and that is why I never talked to him at all. I didn′t want those pesky gates everywhere and I was afraid that my beloved Bruma would get destroyed

And all this gives fuel to the old saying; don′t start nothing and you′ll get nothing

I haven't had that option with my latest characters, as they were rolled specifically for testing quests that require the player to be CoC. But that meant that I had to get through the MQ as quickly as possible, which left the minimum number of closed gates (they only open when you're near), as well as more survivors of the battles at Bruma and the IC Palace/Temple.

You get a suit of armor and a new title, then you go back to playing the game and doing whatever your character wants to do.

Good sum up

And every one of my characters who has earned that suit of armor has stuffed it in a chest in their house, and forgotten about it.

It will be interesting to see what Kara Whey does with the armor, if she survives to the end (she's "dead-is-dead.") She wears no armor, being a mage.

yeah its like skyrim, you can do whatever after, but upon completing the game you do receive

It's what I did too . After finishing Knights of the Nine I felt sorry to put it in a cupboard so I went into the Chapel of the Priory and drop the whole suit of Crusader Armor on the floor, as well as the mace and the sword.

Etta is collecting that armor now, but it's unlikely that she will ever wear it in battle*. She's very embarrassed by being called a "Knight," considering herself unworthy of that title, since she is a murderer and ex-assassin.

Edit: *Except in the one battle for which that Armor is required, and this only because she has been told that it is necessary.

I only ever finished the game on one character, and like many others here I never wore the armour once. Actually, come to think of it, I never picked it up.

Oh, I went and picked the armor up alright, on two different characters. We worked too hard to let that slide. Tried the armor on both times and posed for some pics, but that didn't turn out too well. It seems that the armor is flat chested, and my characters are female. Well the girls were beside themselves, demanding some explanation as to why they were singled out for such humiliation. There were no answers forthcoming, so they packed up the armor and dumped it in a chest and quickly forgot about it.

You can do whatever you want without finishing the MQ...without even touching it..

I spent ages questing before I even went to Kvatch to rescue people, in fact I only did the quest up til i got permission to use Prior Maborel's horse then spent ages questing again before I took the Emperor's last son to the cloud ruler temple, and I haven't done any since. I still have that horse too. I've bonded with that horse, I've restarted saves and lost out on a wicked rare weapon because I love that horse.

The only quest you have to do is escape from the sewers, after that you can do anything without even touching the MQ. So far a lot of the people that I've heard finishing the game don't bother with the MQ the next time they play.