All the time. Always tend to neglect the main quest in favour of exploration in TES games, but the exploration aspect in Skyrim is particularly addictive.

I'm at lvl 30 and only did the Mage "questline" [...and I use that term loosely] and some side quests.

Well said.

Be honest with you, just circling back around the map I found those stone at the beginning of the game and thought "Wow those would have been useful to find earlier". I didn't even follow the beginning guy down the path, I took off in the opposite direction if that telsl you anything about my play lol.

Nothing but roaming so far, and loving it.

I'm glad I didn't do that. The 20% boost to your favorite skills is really nice.

Is this when they start to randomly spawn on the map? I am looking fwd to that.
I just got the claw and tome from bleak falls and just got to go give it to that mage in Dragonsearch. am I close?
Thx
And great thread

I have to say that I'm a subscriber of the "Ooh, what's that?" method of playing. I can't count how many times, in this game and others like it, that I've seen something interesting on the horizon and started off in search of it only to encounter a mountain or other impasse and spend thirty minutes to several hours trying to go over, around, under or through it. This scenario usually ends with me finally hopping over some rock and finally reaching my destination, only to see a path winding down the side I didn't come up. So, in short, yes, I wander and I love it.

shameless self bump

I spend a lot of time getting to know the world and levelling through doing random stuff. I actually find the dungeons a bit ... scary ... and I know that the loot in them will be better once I've got my character up to a higher level. Moreover, there's always the fear that once the enemies have been levelled it will be like Oblivion and you won't be able to take a step outside the city gates without being mugged by xivilai. At least if you've unlocked the map you can fast travel later on.

Oh yes, a player after my own heart. Just wandering around......... the effort thats gone into this game and yet there are people out there that moan about the game. Yes it has his faults but everything in life is not perfect, so just sit back and wander the world of Skyrim and enjoy it.

i set off in the direction of a quest and end up being side-tracked and yeah i always wander off the beaten track with no fixed plan or destination in mind

I'm doing a mix. I do some quests, but make money through generic bountry-hunting. I wander around, stay at a city and bounty-hunt in the environs for a while.

The great thing with wandering through and just mucking around was that I inadvertently completed a bunch of quests by either killing important bandits or picking up important items!

Instant money from an unexpected completed quest is so gratifying