So let me get this straight. Kvatch is burning, people are dying, the daedra are invading and you want Jauffrey to say "Well, dozens are dying and you can stop that OR you can go help that lady over there gather some flowers for her bouquet. The choice is yours."

Add to that the fact that if Martin dies everything will go to hell, literally, and you want things to be like "No biggy man, take your time, sure, the only person that can save our world from hellspawn is in a church surrounded by hellspawn, but you just take your time, perhaps go for a drink or sell some veal, go swimming or repair your armor."

That is completely nonsensical. In neverwinter nights you also had the quest giver say something like "You must hurry to that inn and save our agent. Quickly, GO!" but you didn't have to hurry at all and you could do 10 quests before continuing to do that one. Same thing for Morrowind and I'm sure many other open world games, if not all.

I mean really, out of all the flaws Oblivion had, you picked this one, which isn't a flaw to begin with...

The fake urgency might be bad for us on forums like this, but if you are playing your first rpg, it can be a bit daunting, all this freedom. One thing playing DA:O, but Oblivion is totally freeform, and some like to be told what to do.

Fallout 3's MQ let you skip whole sections of it (I actually found my Dad by accident after ignoring the MQ the first time), so maybe we'll see a less rigid approach to Skyrim.

My big problem with Oblivion's MQ stemmed from the leveling anyway; you could go through the whole thing at level 1 and face nothing but stunted scamps and clannfear runts, which was ultimately more viable than fighting hordes of Xivilai and Spider Daedra at level 20. Dragons are powerful regardless of level, so hopefully that makes the MQ a bit tougher to complete.

But, at the same time, you guys have to remember that the biggest complaint a lot of the casual crowd has about this series is that it "lacks focus." Everyone will tell you that "Oblivion was great, but I spent 20 hours doing other stuff and forgot what the MQ wanted me to do, by that time I just couldn't get back into it." This is the mindset of an audience that will likely buy millions of copies of Skyrim, so Bethesda does have to cater to them a bit, like it or not.

I don't see why they would buy a sandbox game if they wanted focus though, maybe Bethesda shoukd refine one game style rather than being a Jack of All Trades master of none

Mass Effect 2 actually took it one step further and punished you for holding off on the final mission.

Did it? I thought the more you did before the end the better chance you had at completing it (I finished as much I could find/do before doing the final mission).

Because everyone wants the exploration element as an additional thing. The casual gamer is a strange creature, in that it wants lots of things that, ultimately, it won't take advantage of. Remember, most of them also want multiplayer and other things that don't make sense for the series.

A strong, focused main quest is good, especially if 50% of your customers will probably stop playing after it concludes, especially given all the other games coming out this fall.

It can be avoided very easily, just make sure the writers for the main quest realize they're writing for an open world game, like they did in Morrowind, have the dialog acknowledge that you don't have to do the main quest immediately, it's just that hard to do, now, admitably, I don't expect the game to tell me to take my time when Alduin is looming overhead waiting to eat the world, but it doesn't have to, because usually stories have multiple stages and the pacing in each stage is not necessarily the same. They can still have a sense of urgency later on in the main quest, when the gravity of the situation becomes apparent, but it doesn't need to be there from the very beginning, they can start by telling you to take your time, but as the stakes start to get higher, they can make things seem more urgent, then you can still have your sense of urgency rather than it's needed but don't make it feel like you need to get to the main quest immediately right from the start.



Indeed, if anything, if you want to appeal to people who have never played a game like this, you should acknowledge that they don't need to hurry, or at least not tell them to hurry when they should, because while I knew that the world wasn't going to end on me if I didn't hurry to my next objective immediately, that's because I played Morrowind before it and new the fact that you can choose to play the main quest or ignore it at any time still held true, but someone knew to the series may not know this, if you want to draw in more new fans, you should explain how things work so there's no confusion, assuming they don't need to know is counter productive.

I don't see why they would buy a sandbox game if they wanted focus though, maybe Bethesda shoukd refine one game style rather than being a Jack of All Trades master of none

/shrug I don't see the big issue here. I've played OB plenty of times with either putting off the MQ or never even doing it at all. For all the folks here who claim casual gamers can't handle complexity and that for themselves they prefer thought provoking game play I would imagine them capable of handling an issue as trivial as this on their own without Beth having to hand hold them to explore the world instead of rushing through the MQ.

What stopped you from doing the other quests? The answer is nothing. Absolutly nothing was in your way of roaming free for as long as you wanted before or during the main quest, or any other quest for that matter. But you SHOULD thank the main quest for making you feel like it was so urgent that you couldn't, after all if a storm of creatures was about to invade your world would you stop and say " You know what; I don't feel like doing this right now. " If they got their point across that well to you, you should thank Oblivion; not chastise it by branding it with " Oblivion Syndrome. "

I don't want to be shuffled through an inevitable and rather boring story created by the devs. I want to use their world to create my own stories for my own characters. And I do hope that Skyrim doesn't make me feel forced to be Dovakiin always, forever, and without pause.

That is a fair point, but Kvatch is already burned down, so as soon as you get near it you are compelled to help out. I suppose you are right.

But the games MQ doesn't ease up on you like MW and DF, as soon as you start it, it's like a film. In MW every quest was only urgent while you were playing it. It was only Aid for Bruma that was more relaxed.

Then don't. Problem solved. This whole thing is really just people wanting to pick nits over Oblivion, and surprise surprise, people wanting it to be MW.

Then don't. Problem solved. This whole thing is really just people wanting to pick nits over Oblivion, and surprise surprise, people wanting it to be MW.