YES!!!! 100000 times yes! I want to do side quests and factions at my leisure... I want to blaze through the main quest, and then take time to explore the world, join guilds, etc. etc. with that pesky world eater out of the way.

Not that worried really, I'm just getting worried that they pull a FO3 and have us pay for it bliviongate:

Of course I do.

A well-made argument.

To answer your question, I think it would be awkward to put off completing the main quest while you go around completing every side and free-form quest you can find. It would totally take away any sense of urgency there is to defeat the main evil badman, if you feel to get your monies worth or to truly "complete" the game, you have to do everything else beforehand.

I think your logic is sound for most games (and obviously level-based games with a final level). But RPG's and especially TES has a lot to do with your character's own story. You just can't account on how people are going to play an RPG. There may well be an adventurer for whom death and rolling credits is a fitting end. But say you've spent the whole game playing a merchant, and all the wealth you've gathered has been for nothing. Or say you've risen to the head of every guild, and because of a forced ending you don't get a chance to use the any of the perks. In an RPG the character is the story and the point of the game. Personally, I don't play games for plot. I play for the in-the-moment experience, the sense of achievement, progression and reaping the rewards of all the hours you've put in. It's a very different kettle-of-fish to a film.

Yes, it would do if you don't include all the reasoning behind it



A very good point. And yet, since when was there any urgency to do the MQ in a TES game? Just look through this very thread and you will see people espousing the virtues of a sandbox game so deep that you forget about the main quest. "Forget about the main quest"... sounds to me like 1) people already feel no urgency to do the MQ and 2) people are sandboxing quite happily even with Jagar Tharn running riot, Dagoth Ur planning imminent genocide or Mehrunes Dagon literally opening portals to hell Oblivion.


Well I would say that by the time they've knowingly played through the entire MQ they have not played a merchant - they've played an extremely economically savvy Dovahkiin who got filthy rich before saving the world. Saying "I was playing a merchant _{who also slew dragons and took on the god of time} and it's totally unfair that I had to sacrifice my character because I had bags of gold in my mansion that I decided not to spend _{before knowingly taking on aforementioned god of time}" just seems crazy to me. I think that the MQ should absolutely be a player choice in pursuing. I should be able to make a character, meet Esbern and then go... no. I'm going to be a dungeon diver. Screw you and your divine bloodline. However, once I make the informed, conscious choice to play the main quest (main quest) past the gentle introductory phase then the game should revolve around that, with the rest of the world being reduced to peripherals to what should be an amazing story.


Same point applies here. Nobody should be forced into the MQ, and the fact that it is a big deal should be made explicit before the player properly commits (like entering Camoran's Paradise in Oblivion - I knew that that was going to be a point of no return for a while after). As such, if you complain that your character died before you got to use your guild perks you should have been paying more attention and using more save files.


I didn't mention this before earlier in this very post so you weren't to know, but again: I am not advocating a story that is pushed on the player. That svcks. People are free to ignore the MQ as much as they like... up to a point. Once you've spent a significant time pursuing it (about 50 - 60% of the questline done) then it should become the game's primary focus. And if you ignored the warnings? Too bad. You probably aren't clever enough to enjoy the rest of the game either (aimed at people who would complain about being "forced" into the MQ after willingly doing 50% of it, not at you).

Why wouldn't you? Not being able to continue in FO3 only hurt the game.

It's cool. Don't - I don't know - read the thread... or anything.

...............of course I do

theres no way in hell bethesda would make it so we can NOT continue playing after the main quest, that would enrage so many people it wouldnt be funny.

we will obviously be able to keep playing after the story, because this is the elder scrolls, why would they not want you to explore the world to see the aftermath of the story and enjoy being treated as a hero?

i liked walking around in morrowind and seeing that nervous dialogue/text from the NPCs, realizing they're talking to a legendary hero reincarnated.

i kinda hope in skyrim, there will be songs of the dovahkiin, like in the trailer...

I can definitly see your point. Saving the idiot kid who fell into the well after fighting a god dragon does take a way a little. The thing is, I just cant see a happy medium here. People can just use your own argument. It's there character, and it turns out there character does live after the fight with the dragon. Your character may give everything, but there's does not. So...how would one walk that line? I feel for you, I really do. But that line is so slim that I don't know if any game could walk that.

I mean, imagine this. You're fighting the dragon, who is prepairing his final blast of doom that will take the world with it. What should you do? A selfless hero would charge in, not knowing if they could stop it but also knowing they have to try. More of a mortal player will be scared, trying to find a way to stop the blast from firing before its to late. A per say evil character might choose to let it happen. An evil character may also rush in, knowing that he had to stop the attack and live, because this is his world to kill, not some dragons. How can a main quest play all of these stories?

The hero rushes in, dies, but saves the world. Another hero may find a way to stop the blast, thus living. A neutral player may fail, or may not. The neutral player may die, but he may not. The evil player may not even give a flying ducks worth of care, or they might fight for it and save it because it's his world to mess with. Can a main quest line really deal with all of these?

Multiple endings would be the answer, but they would have to be done right. If they make the ending so it reads what the last action of the player is, not make a cutscene where you press what you want your character to do. Fallout had multiple endings, so this could work. If they could, then they could walk that small line between a gripping story and a sandbox. And with dimanic quests, I feel that maybe half way through the main quest, other side quests could start to shrink in importance. That I could live with.

All that would be necessary is to factor in a 'player lives' variable like in DA:O. If players are willing to do something a little bit... questionable (in game!) then their character survives. Ta da. That seems to be a pretty good compromise to me.

As long as its not either one or the other im fine. I can understand why you want what you want, and I understand why others would want what they want. I dont feel that we should be forced to either live for die, it should have something to do with how we've played. I haven't played or watched DA:O, so I'm not sure how that goes, but it sounds basically like what I'm saying.

I want to continue playing, but i want my action through the main quest to have ACTUAL repercussions on the game. Not just "oh hi champion!"

You should PREVENT the attack, IMO. Thus, live on. But you have to defend yourself from Cultists...

Yeah, because that's epic. The entire Third Era culminates in the manifestation of a very angry Akatosh, and you want the MQ to deal with making sure that it never actually happens (even for a scary climactic bit before you actually seal Alduin off)?

Cool. Taking the monotony of Ulysses to the videogame genre.

Doesn't matter much to me.

I usually only finish the mainquest when I'm at the end of the rope anyways.

Hell yeah. I'd rather muck about in the wilderness than do the MQ anyhow. When I do fin the MQ, I certainly still want to muck around in the game world.

OR you could make a save before you do the MQ, use that for mucking around and use your first save branch to do the MQ which eventually culminates in the death of your character. No mucking around lost and a more final ending to the game.

Frankly I'm worried about the legions of people willing to sacrifice authorial integrity and an actual climactic ending just so that they can go mining after finishing the MQ.

I'd like to keep playing, but I'd like EVERYONE to recognize that I just saved their asses. Prices should be universally lower, people should help me, be polite, etc.

No. I don't. I want a well realised ending where the choices I made during the game (which hopefully will be offered) factor in. However, I do not mind a possibility of post-end playing here (it's a TES game, I don't care all that much) - although I wouldn't want it to be forced to the player. As in, the player being dropped back in the game after the credits without even asking. It is a small thing (and maybe just me), but having the game not end after ending (is that an oxymoron?), eats the impact of the ending and takes away the sense of accomplishment. At least the game should prompt the player if s/he wants to continue playing - shouldn't be a big thing to add.

Any RPG that wouldn't let you continue after finishing the main quest really isn't an RPG at all.

So a huge YES, I want to continue after the main quest.

I understand where your coming from, and I have to disagree. I, and I imagine many others, play gamesas's products for a certain pecuilar and particular experience, and part of this experience is being able to play after the MQ. while the story ending may be better with a permanent ending, I'm still getting a decent story even if the ending lacks a certain impact permanency may or may not grant it. So in the end, it'd be a greater loss for me if I couldn't play after the end, but I'm not really all that impacted by the ending feeling slightly less epic.

Almost completely one sided.

You've been able to play after almost every, if not every TES game. Never played the two before morrowind, so not 100% sure on that.

It lacks:
Depend how it ends.

If the world end you won t be able to continue.
If you become the new emperor, i doubt you will continue to adventure too.

You should definately be able to continue after the main quest, and I'm sure we will be able to. I suppose you probably brought up the subject because in Fallout 3 before Broken Steel and in New Vegas, the game ended with the completion of the main quest, but what one must remember here is that those games are Fallout sequels, not Elder Scrolls sequels, and both series have some differences. There have been arguments that Obsidian's decision to make New Vegas end with the completion of the main quest, but these arguments are made with the Fallout series in mind, and don't really work in the Elder Scrolls. For the Elder Scrolls, not being able to continue playing after the main quest simply would not feel right. It's not simply because you wouldn't be able to do side quests after completing the main quest then as you could simply finish all side quests before completing the main quest. The main problem with not being able to continue playing after the end, for me, lies in a fundamental aspect of the series, which is that there's a lot more to any Elder Scrolls game than the main quest. Usually, the main quest is the major storyline in the game that's going to help shape the future of Tamriel, but without the side quests and guild quests, the game would just be a bare core, the game is not just the story of the main quest, it's the story of your character, from the beginning of your adventure, to whatever point you decide to end the story, it doesn't have to end with the main quest, though if you don't want to continue playing the game after the main quest is over, that's your choice to make, and that story is shaped by your decisions, having the game end after the main quest would be a break from this trend, as it implies that Bethesda has chosen to put the focus on the main quest, with everything else just being extra, even if there was the same amount of content from side quests and such, it would still feel that way, because as a rule, stories end when the point of the story is over, and there's nothing more to tell, usually, you'll get an epilogue to show the aftermath of the story and what the characters are doing now that the big evil guy has been defeated and the world is safe, but it's not going to just keep going on and on with nothing especially interesting happening, because that would be boring. At the same time, if the story just stopped in the middle of the action without actually resolving the plot, it would seem a pretty unsatisfying conclusion. So generally, stories end when everything has been wrapped up, and if you look at a game as an interactive story, and the game ends once you've finished the main storyline, than that implies that the main storyline is the storyline of the game, and everything else is just extra, and this is fine, for most games, but for the Elder Scrolls, it's not. If an Elder Scrolls game ended with the completion of the main quest, it would seem to signify that the series has changed its focus from an open world sandbox with many side quests and faction quests and a main quest, if you choose to pursue it, to a central story with some side quests you might choose to complete if you like. And what follows then? Cut out the open world exploration entirely and turn the game into a linear RPG?



I'm more worried about the people who seem to think needlessly killing characters is the only way to have authorial integrity and a climatic ending, myself. And I'm worried about the people who seem to be entirely missing the point of the Elder Scrolls, perhaps you'd be better served by playing Dragon Age or something.