Has anyone just decided not to talk to the Jarl of Whiterun following the dragon attack at Helgen? Is there any downside to this besides not being able to use shouts?

i never talk to him, those dragons are more annoying than cliffracers

as for no shouts, well not much of a big deal to me. most shouts are replaceable with perks that do similar stuff, but most shouts i wouldnt use anyway

You wont be able to continue the main quest though or become the Thane of Whiterun.

Main quest is kind of boring to me compared to other quests.

I do it all the time, even when I don't continue with the main quest. Being a Thane is cool.

and the house in whiterun is [censored], and thane if whiterun useless

i found the game a much better experience without dragons bugging you every 100 meters u go

I agree. I was only answering the question.

You wont be getting blade armour. (that should pull you over yes?)

I like getting dragon bones and scales and sellingthem. Good septim maker

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I will move this now.

On my current character I haven't yet, and I'm level 20, about to do the Mages Guild storyline first. Dragon attacks at the College are annoying as hell because of the cramped quarters, and the dragon always seems to land on top of the Hall of Elements. So, I'm waiting until after I finish the college storyline before I approach Balgruff.

I only did on my first playthough just so I could do the MQ. Since then never, dragons bore and annoy me no end. So glad you can play the game without dragons as I would've gone back to Oblivion along time ago.

i found the college to be the only fun place for a dragon, any of those overgrown lizards that show up there get waxed by the mages real fast. then he gets his corpse ragdolled far away

If I'm not doing the MQ I don't go visit him. Once you recieve the Bleak Falls Barrow quest everything seems very urgent and delaying the MQ for other things negligent at best so often I won't do the MQ straight away even if I intend to later.

On my first half-dozen toons, I ran one all the way through the MQ, and the others partway - so they all talked to him and had thaneship and Breezehome. However, they're all long deleted now, and none of my current crop of 6 or so are even starting in Helgen, and certainly NOT talking to anyone about the entire dragons/MQ stuff.

Um you also can't complete Civil War questlines I think

why would anyone want to do the civil war?

My character always talks to Balgruuf, but walks away when the argument dialog begins between him, Proventus and Irileth. From a role play perspective I have delivered the message to the Jarl for Gerdur; later you can see that the Jarl has Irileth send troops to Riverwood, but I don't have to deal with dragons until i'm darn ready! Win-win for me! No issues have resulted from this strategy to date, since 11/11/11. Cheers!

On my third "reboot" I decided to hold off on talking to the Jarl in Whiterun until after I finished leveling up smithing, enchanting and alchemy (so I could get my gear and my "trade" up to speed), leveling archery enough so that I could use the zoom and slow aim (to help vs the dragons) and until I got my first house in Riften.

On my next playthough I may just start the MQ straight on, since Breezehome is a great central location, Honeyside in Riften is not bad, but it's not as good (in terms of a commerce hub) as Breezehome in Whiterun.

What do you mean? The house in whiterun maybe not the greatest but if your character is heavily involved in Smithing it's the perfect house to do it since you can store all of your dragonbones and scales that tends to weigh alot. This also includes all of your ingots.

i've played two characters both over 100 hours and have yet to bother starting the main quest. i don't think you'd be missing out on anything as i don't feel i've missed out. plenty to do still and from what i hear dragons lose their sparkle after a few fights anyway. eventually i'll start the main quest, but even then it's iffy (I never finished the MQ in Oblivion even after 500+ hours of play, though i did finish morrowind's 3 times)

My Argonian was told official business only at the gates of Whiterun. He didn't consider his information, official, so he left.

The other quests are extremely boring when you don't have any shouts to use. Shouts add quite a lot to the game, IMO.

Also, I'm fairly sure that you can't do the Civil War questline until you get to a certain point in the main questline.

The last time i used a shout was on my first play through... lasted around 25 hours....that was last November i think..

Naw you get the "join the stormcloaks or legion" quest while walking around the map usually by a farmer or something

Yeah, but you can't finish it until you go to a certain point in the main quest.