So, I started playing yesterday. I feel like I've been shoe-horned to White-Run and then forced to talk to the Jarl. Here is my reasoning. I only found two side quests and one of them led to the Jarl to deliver a sword. But I couldn't deliver the sword because the dialogue with the Jarl was forced upon me. Which led to two main quest missions.

Does the game open up after this or am I constantly led down the main quest? I know I can do all the side and misc quests after the main quest but I feel like I'm being forced to follow the MQ when I want to explore more. I'm probably being nit-picky adn am reading too much into it. Other than that I'm really loving the game.

Oh, and the UI isn't that bad. Yeah, its quirky and sometimes difficult to navigate but its not that bad. I kind of like the way it looks. Although, I'd like the quests added to the items, magic..etc list. I'd also like an easier way to navigate through the quests.

I started the main quest about 100 hours of play ago and have just been doing other things since! Although it feels a little like you're railroaded into it at the beginning, once you've spoken to the Jarl you can ignore it completely if you prefer

Just explore more. You don't have to talk to Balgruuf at all. However, the only bit of shoe-horning which is partially legit is that, until you fight your first Dragon in the MQ, none will spawn randomly. You can find Shouts and Words but no Dragons.

After that? Go nuts. Explore. There is a LOT of stuff besides the MQ, trust me.

I've noticed this too and even worse is you'll find you automatically start quests to join certain guilds while doing the Main Quest, with very little ways to avoid them, it's a bit of a pain.

The two opening points during the MQ I found are.

This. You can even avoid Whiterun altogether, but if you have quests that require the Jarl you'll probably still be forced to do just this.

Anything after that is well out of your way, so you can ignore it easily.

I have so many quests logged in the quest list that I don't know which one is the main quest anyway.

Just walk around, discover the land and enjoy it.

M.

I did talk to the Jarl's wizard and when he asked for me to go back to the Barrow for the stone I had already found it within my first hour or so of playing so I just gave it to him. After that, I kind of left the castle and wandered around White-Run some more as I've got plenty of things in the misc list to do.

I hate this feeling too. Don't worry, there are quite a few good opportunities in the main quest to stop it and take a break - i.e. there is a natural point in the storyline where it doesn't feel totally wrong that you're not absolutely rushing to get the next bit done. Although don't start it at all if you don't want huge great dragons swooping down at you every ten minutes.

One of the many things I loved about Morrowind was the way the main quest directed you to explore the world - 'go away and get some experience first' sort of moments, that encouraged you to live in the world a bit before rushing headlong down the plot. Because I do kinda feel that once you start it, if you want to believe it, you need to carry on with it. So it's nice that Skyrim has provided a few bits like these, more so than Oblivion did.

You should have been interrupted at that point, I think you should go back and do a bit more, you'll get your chance very soon.

They just didnt want a new player to miss the main quest then be disappointed for not having it. You know right off where to start it, but you dont have to continue it if you dont want to.