Poll: Poll: How much did you care about Oblivion's main questline, and will you care about Skyrim's?

[gritch]

I always thought the main quest was to sort of a way introduce people into a open world in a game like the Elder Scrolls. It helps lead people to new locations and features they might not have discovered on their own. A good main quest in a sandbox game should encourage players to explore other aspects on the game.

That being said I believe Oblivion's main quest serves this purpose well enough. My first play through (after a quick bit of exploration to familiarize myself with the controls) I followed the main quest in a fairly linear manner in till I managed to get Martin to safety, at which point I get completely sidetracks by all the other wonderful content I had glance over on my way there. And after having my fill of exploring I decided to finish the main quest out of a sense duty. I imagine I'll do something similar with Skyrim, perhaps completing the main quest in till dragons are released before fully exploring the rest of the game.

 

[DanielBrown]

First time I played Oblivion I completed the main quest really quickly. Didn't know anything about the game, so I just went along with what they told me. As for caring about it... No, can't say I did. I prefered to run around the forests discovering new locations and pillaging every settlement I came across!

 

[jez29]

Purely in narrative terms Oblivion's main quest was just fine. Standard save the world stuff with a few nice locations and set pieces. The main problem with it was it clashed horribly with the whole ethos behind a Bethesda open-world game. A storyline where the main threat is presented as an immediate, cataclysmic danger to the world, as the Oblivion Gates were, is wholly incompatible with gameplay where you can just ignore it. It's called ludonarrative dissonance (goodness me but I'm pretentious), when a game's story clashes with its mechanics.

All the Daedra ever do, apart from a few scripted bits, is wander aimlessly around the Oblivion gates in twos or threes, whereas the story indicates that they should be trampling around annihilating everything. You're constantly being told the world is in crisis when it quite patently isn't. This, to me, is the reason that the ending of the quest is so underwhelming - your intervention hasn't changed the world in the slightest, apart from the guards hailing you as the Champion of Cyrodiil every other moment. That's also why the Guild quests are more engaging and make more sense, because the narrative of each one allows for delay and a period of quiet whilst you're off doing something else.

You could argue that all open-world games with a main quest line suffer from this, but to my mind Morrowind did it better, because the threat was a slow, creeping one (blight, ash storms, the painful decline of the Tribunal and rise of Dagoth Ur) rather than an immediate one as in Oblivion. I really hope Skyrim doesn't fall for this. If the story continually emphasises 'run for your lives, the dragons are coming to obliterate the universe' then it will have exactly the same problem. I hope the dragon threat is more cleverly done than this.

 

[GundamSentinel]

The first time I played Oblivion, finishing the main quest was the first thing I did (I didn't know much about this whole Elder Scrolls business, so I thought it a good place to start). On subsequent playthroughs it was the very last thing I finished, after all the other sidequests, or when I just became bored with the game and wanted to finish it.

 

[phantasmalWordsmith]

In Oblivion, I did a bit of it, then stopped on my first play through because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. On my real playthrough I did the main quest to get the amulet thingy then went and did everything else so that I'd be able to just breeze through the whole main quest.

Now since Skyrim has tweaked the system I'm going to ignore the main quest till I've figured out the best way to level up and such. Then I'm going to slam all the side quests out the way before I do the main quest

 

[jigilojoe]

Didn't care for Oblivion's main questline particularly because, though it was epic towards the end I didn't care for the gate closing and some of the guilds were far more impressive and well thought out without it just taking too long to do too little.

But from what I've read and seen Skyrim is a revolution against the Empire, now I love the sound of that

 

[maninahat]

Didn't give the tiniest fraction of a flying fart. I've never progressed the main story beyond taking Sean Bean to the cloud base.

 

[Misterian]

I actually didn't find Oblivion's main quest to be that bad, I felt it was somewhat engaging even though I could stop anytime I wanted, it was like I was becoming part of something bigger than just myself, and I felt it was a nice change of pace when I'm in a plot where I'm NOT technically the main hero but rather the guy helping the hero fufill his destiny in a world-saving quest (making me technially the Aragorn if you'll let me use tropes).

I haven't played the other Elder Scrolls games, so I can't really compare the past ones to see which of them were better.

But Skyrim we know has you playing as a Dragonborn, that alone has alot of potential on display, On top of that, you're fighting a dragon god and dealing with a civil war, how can one not find that awesome?

 

[Mordekaien]

Nah, Oblivion main quest was pretty stupid in my eyes... it's actually those kind of epic fantasy type of quests that I hate. The other storylines were much more richer and better for me than that idiotic courier run I had to do from one gate to another, through the exactly same environments of red, black and brown. (the only exception for me in this is the mages guild... the entry tests were great, but the rest felt like "ADDITIONAL FIGHTERS GUILD QUESTS, NOW WITH STAFFS, SPARKLES AND POINTY HATS!!!")

 

[Drakmorg]

It actually took me around 100 hours to finish the main quest of Oblivion.
Not because it's lengthy, but because that's how long it took before I was finally out of more entertaining things to do.

 

[CounterAttack]

I actually bring the amulet to Jauffre and then leave the quest line.
Free horse FTW.

That was exactly my thinking... After obtaining a horse I left the main quest behind, and began running around the place doing all kinds of things. That niggling mention of Kvatch at the bottom of my Quest Log became irrelevant when I was running around stealing half the Imperial City and murdering dudes in the Arena and various other locales.

I love the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood missions, though in the interest of fairness I never used my 100% Chameleon outfit for any of them.

On the subject of Skyrim's main quest... I don't know. There's too much that I don't know about the game, and therefore I cannot say.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I care about all of them. However my biggest disappointment in Oblivion was that Sean Bean was cast as such a lame character and gave a very bland performance.

 

[Wintermoot]

I mostly play for exploration I usually play a part of the main quest but I mostly play side quests

 

[Fuselage]

I didn't finish the main questline, too busy with the guilds, specifically The Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild.

 

[Puzzlenaut]

Oblivion's main quest was abysmal and absolutely NOTHING on the Dark Brotherhood or, hell, even just random cave diving expeditions. The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quest line were easily among the best I have ever played in any game ever.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

I'm going to stay away from the main quest for 1 single reason.

Until I know I can continue to play after the main quest is done, like Oblivion, I won't touch it.
I hate to finish the game, like Fallout New Vegas, and notice I still have half a questlog.

They have confirmed that the game will not end when the main story does, you will be able to continue playing.

 

[Rule Britannia]

I will want to know if it does the fallout/fallout new vegas bullshit or not (not being able to continue after beating main quest) if it doesn't do that I will do that pretty quickly, although I want to do a LOT of guilds/factions.

 

[AngloDoom]

I'm not even sure what Oblivion's main quest is about. I can tell you, practically line-by-line, the Dark Brotherhood's story though.

Overall, I probably won't play it through unless it hooks me and stays interesting enough for me not to want to just run around and do my own thing.

 

[lacktheknack]

Om nom nom, tasty poll.

THAT POLL WAS MINE! RAEG

OT: I wasn't a fan of the main questline in Oblivion, mostly because it was kind of restrictive. If Skyrim actually takes the plot to different places I'll probably care more.