What if at the beginning of the game, there was no main quest?
What if the protagonist was given a year before the events of the main quest?
To explore the world, to see the seasons pass, to start a family, to make friends and enemies, to solve local quests, to enter fully into the world of skyrim, before they get huge dragons to burn everything?
You could participate in politics, or start a business. You could marry the daughter of a noble or a peasant. Or you could live as solitary hunters in the woods.

THEN ..........

Here come the dragons threaten to change or destroy what you build or kill friends!
The involvement would be high, and everyone would fight like crazy to defend what he has.
Time spent playing before the disaster would serve to make you stronger, not making it seem absurd that one out of nowhere kill hordes of demons and dragons.

Imagine waking up every morning for 365 days in the same city where you live and know many, and find it in flames!
Much better than arriving in a place with a fast travel to kill the baddies and leave thereafter. And with the possibility to rebuild, to re-populate......
Imagine a world where many events are not dependent on the step of the quest but they are unique or cyclic, and if you're there, fine, otherwise you lose them. A Fair, a celebration, a small war between two lords, weddings, funerals, etc. etc.


This, combined with the ability to radically change the world around you, it would be great.

Interesting idea. But the main quest is quite useful to get started. (not necessary but helpful)

This proposal would be too ambitious. That's a lot of content.

Too complex, it takes time to do this and it would require a lot of resources. I say no, it's a good idea but it wouldn't happen in a game like TES.

Such complexity can only be implemented in rogue-like games. Just look at Dwarf Fortress and how deep it is.

From an "I want to play the main quest quickly and get through with things so I can start roleplaying without having to worry about the main quest at all." perspective, I wouldn't like it.

I usually avoid the main quest at all costs when I roleplay. :shrug:

Also, if you want to play as a normal everyday peasant, then no matter what you're going to be thrown into a main quest of dragon-destructo-death. If they give you the option to delay the starting of the main quest, you can draw it out for as long as you want.

What it sounds like to me, is that the dragons are already flying around destroying things when Skyrim starts. Maybe I want to have a character that worships the dragonic invaders and brings them sacrifices.

But, I think that it'd be nice, too.

Hi i'm new here.

Could be very interesting if pulled off in the right manner, i think they would give a fair bit of warning to possible consumers that the action will be stinted for a period of time. They could throw it in as an optional feature i suppose.

Cool idea, but I don't think people would "get" it. They would review it as "no storyline. srsly nonexistant. 1/10" because they're impatient.

Gonna have to wait a while to get that first walkthrough on Gamefaqs, eh?

A delayed MQ would be nice. Kind of force the player to explore and join guilds instead of rushing headlong into one big quest.

Considering the timescale gamesas games run on, most people would start accusing the game of not having a Main quest and saying they were ripped off after about one in-game month.

Might be bored by that time :shrug:
*Even meaning (as you do) an in-game year.

I think a year is too long, but a few days to let players get comfortable with the game would be nice.

They could make it. It would take time for sure, but i trust Bethesda on this.
Why being bored? You could make the bounty hunter, or a pirate, or gain control of the mage's guild. Cheat on your two wifes or kill bears with nvde hands.
What if every npc keeps building you expectation for an event to come? Something that will happen anyway, with ot without you? Obviously if you were there, everything is possible.

Suppose that everyone talk of the ceremony of commemoration of a great event to be held in several months .... and it will be at that ceremony that will be unleashed hell.
If you are there, you flee to survive. If you're away, when you arrive you'll see the ruins. And the main quest starts....

Main quest should be optional and behind a trigger. I've never played Elder Scrolls games because of main quests anyways.

A year in-game is still a huge amount of time. Most people would get impatient and think false advertising was at work. Us pc users would either advance the clock artificially or force the proper quest stage.

I don't play a game to wander around :shrug: (for the same reason I do not spend time moving pieces on a chess board for it's own sake).

If I play a game at all, I want it to progress through a series of main events and culminate with a definitive ending that reflects the in game choices I made during play.
I will play a game to the end, then move on, to another. Very [very] rarely will I immediately come back to it after finishing it.

If the game drones on with no end in sight, I get bored with it and usually quit.

Well, one year is not mandatory. And impatient players may be given a chance to begin seven days before......

The point is not how or how long, but if you can create a world that moves not only because of your actions.

It would be great to have on one side, the possibility to deeply impact the world we move in; and on the oter side an independent world filled with events.

The real mess would be evaluate the reactions, and the consequences, in time.

I like OP's ideas, but it's a little to complex methinks. I hated the way the Main Quest was rushed in Oblivion, but in Morrowind you could postbone it because that Blade-agent Caius told you to go and get some experience with the world, before he sent you out to save it. That worked fine imo.

No, I don't want to be forced to wait longer than we already are to get to the mainquest, if this happened I'd most likely just leave the game on until the time passes by. But its not going to happen, so it doesnt matter.

I'd just set the timescale to a ridiculous number so that BOOM, 1 year in 5 real life minutes. or you know, setstage MQ01 whatever.

I think a better solution would be for the MQ to be made accessible early on, like in Morrowind or Daggerfall, just without Oblivion's sense of urgency. That way everyone can play the way they want. You can start the MQ whenever, but your not really pressured from the start.

Nah man, with all this complexity it's impossible. To make a game with wonderful graphics which Skyrim is going to have, immersive gameplay and friendly learning curve with this complexity it would take 10+ years with 100 people. It's just too big man...

I fully agree. I don't see anything like this happening in the coming game. It isnt very much like Bethesda to change the structure of their games completely. Not to mention all of the technical hardships this would bring apon them...

So, what's Skyrim's equivalent of Fargoth? :whistling:

I completely agree, might I add to the ney-sayers, you're all absolutely right in almost all your concerns, BUT WHO CARES! Yeah the reviews would come out and the reviewers would give bad initial reviews, the full quality and ingenuity of the game wouldn't be recognized initially, but given the amount of time people play on these games, within the first 2 days almost guaranteed, someone who had been playing non-stop will get to that pinnacle moment, and the word will spread like wildfire. Sure we wouldn't all get to witness the surprise, but to be one of the few who did, would be TOTALLY worth it.

This sort of concept has flaws only to the exact type of gamers I have problems with, the inpatient, the linear gamers, the power-gamers, et cetera, for that reason this will never happen, but for that very reason I want it to happen and would throw my full support behind it. My only reservation is this, there are a lot of role-play gamers who don't play the main quest, I am fine with catastrophic events that make it HARD to ignore, but they can't make it IMPOSSIBLE, it MUST be the players choice to pursue the events of the Main Quest even in this sort of gameplay and likewise the player must have the option to ignore it, and while they're may be consequences. one of the inevitable consequences CANNOT be that its game over for you. That sort of thing would limit choice and defeat the purpose of an RPG, but other then that, Bravo to the concept, and I'm sure while a lot of Role-play gamers here know it won't happen, we're right behind you in wishing it would.

I don't even see a game like that even being possible to make on the Xbox 360. That would be an overwhelmingly fast second-life medieval game. It would no doubt be the best game of all time, I just don't see the Xbox's recourses being enough to support such an endeavor.

Didn't people complain that Morrowind's main quest lacked a sense of urgency, which led to Oblivion's main quest having a sense of urgency that you couldn't ignore if you were a good guy? I'd like a balance that gives the player the choice of when to start the MQ. I don't mind a quest in the journal that kicks it off, as long as I don't feel as if I have to do the quest immediately (or be forced to wait a year).