I began to notice it around when the "Toontown" MMO was out, I always assumed it derived from that.

Seriously all you have to do is start the game as normal, once you get to Riverwood don't talk to the Riverwood trader other then to shop. Then just bail on Riverwood and start your journey. I did this and my journal is left very tidy, just one extra quest I'll never do which tells me to talk to the Jarl of Whiterun which I'll never do.

I'm doing the same thing as the OP. I just turned the little arrow thingy off and now I just do what I want. The same amount of dragons are there to fight and I don't have that nagging arrow pointing constantly to High Rothgar. Also, like the OP I just got done with the Riften quests and now own Honeyside and it's weird barrel storage space where if you move a hair to the right you fall down the stairs. My character hasn't broken a hip yet so I guess it's not so bad.

I've been through the MQ twice already and because of it I ended up not doing so many other things because I kept feeling the tug of it, feeling some odd and unfounded obligation to go through the whole rigamarole again. Besides, it ain't going anywhere anyway. And when my character is super-high levelled I'll role through it in a few hours.

This is how I started off playing Skyrim. Haven't done the MQ yet, and after seeing a little of it and the other questlines, will probably avoid it for quite a while longer. I much prefer just wandering and doing side quests.




Hardly. Being able to avoid the main quest has always been a staple of Elder Scrolls. It was even somewhat encouraged in Morrowind in-game by Caius Cosades when he gives you the option to go out and experience the world a bit before taking on the next step.



Yeah, there are sandbox games for that. They call them the Elder Scrolls series. I really can't think of many other companies making open world exploration fantasy games like this, other than some newer ones trying to copy the success of Oblivion.

You just waltz up to the gate, and when the guard stops you, select the "I come with news from Helgen" or whatever it is. Works every time for me....


I called my "characters" toons beginning when I began playing computer games (1985). "Character" at that point to me was what I did in tabletop AD&D, and for some reason I needed something different for the little guys (stick-figure-ish they were back then pretty much....) on my screen. Since they reminded me of cartoon figures, I settled on "toon". I was pretty surprised to discover many years later with my first MMO (WoW) that everyone used the term.

I don't get what's "offensive" about it. I CERTAINLY like it better than "paper doll"....

Really?

Actually, I can see one good reason to avoid the main quest, at least for a good long while. It all depends on the backstory you give your character, assuming you give your character a backstory. For instance, my most recent character is a female imperial, from Anvil, so she is a long way from home. Basically she was a serving girl, bored and restless. So she wandered onwards, and ended up getting caught in a bit of trickery involving some stolen goods she had to deliver. She didn't know they were stolen, and the coach to Skyrim she was on was stopped by the border Imperial Soldiers. Next thing she knows she is on the back of a cart somewhere with a guy claiming to be the leader of some rebel group who'd just killed the king or something. Next thing a dragon, and she gets her life saved, but is stranded in Skyrim with no money and no idea how to get back home. So she sets about trying to get the 30,000 septims she has been told for the journey back home to Anvil.

She heard about some wizards somewhere, did a few errands for them, but the pay was dire and the dudes there were pretty whack. So she quit that, and headed back to Dragonsreach to see what else she could do. Anyway she gained a crazy follower in a bar fight she thought she was going to loose. Next she knew she was hanging out with some hells angels, literally, and going bashing peoples heads in with her axe. She's pretty nifty with that old axe know. She's also good at running away, and healing spells. But hey, she is getting a taste for it now. And she kind of likes these hells angels she's met.

So at the moment, my character does not even consider themselves to be a dragonborn, for starters she thinks it's some male nord somewhere, smashed out of his head on mead. Secondly, she couldn't give a damn about a dragon born, she wants enough cash to split, and likes bashing heads to get the coin. Hey, it beats being a serving girl. And she runs everywhere as well, she can't afford a horse. Who knows, maybe that bard she met on the road was right when he sung about how you'd know when the dragon born comes. She's looking forward to meeting him.

I too avoid the main quest from a certain point (after having completed it on my first toon), that is, I complete the MQ up to the point where the Jarl starts talking to Preventous and before he can ask me to go talk to his court wizard Farengar. I quietly slip away at that point leaving them to decide how to protect Riverwood and Whiterun and then just play! Makes for a very nice transition for me in that I delivered Gerdur's message, the Jarl sends troops to Riverwood and I don't have to be bothered with dragons until I want. Happy adventuring Serethil!

Its a roleplaying game first and foremost.
Like in any other TES game, barely a quarter of my characters will ever start the main quest.
At the moment Im playing a Dunmer Telvanni who is only going to do the mages guild when it comes to major questlines.

Edit: The first time I ever saw the word 'toon' used as to refer to an animated character was I think the film Roger Rabbit.

I'm also playing in a dragon free world and I love it. It's peaceful and I can enjoy the music.

The absolute truth. It's ironic that the more advanced the graphics for RPG and other open sand box games become, the more the technology deducts from the players creativity. Also the more cynical I become of the increasing lack of novel, open sand box content with each TES generation game. But I guess this is true of all games on the market nowadays. It seems the gaming world is losing out as gamming innovation and aesthetics bows to technology, with graphics in particular. Take the evolution from texted replies to animated NPC speech, in order to have a more realistic graphic experience. This hasn't really resulted in significant value added to the game content IMO. Especially when you consider the lackluster way in which the graphically advanced TES NPCs of today interact with you. All of which suffer from amnesia the 3,000 time you interact with them: "So, you're Brynjolf's boy....." and "Welcome to the little family" or "I was once an adventurer like you....."

I guess what I"m saying is the special effect graphics and animated sound features didn't exist back then the way it does now. So highly skilled NPC script writing went a long way in making up for this. Which meant a player could literally end up really making themself suffer. Especially if they had an overly active immagination. And particularly one that enjoyed running buck nekkid everywhere in immagination land on crack.

And I've also got to admit, the special effects and graphic capabilities we've got today of the "scarier" creatures (like a Wisp Mother apparition or Dragur) have NOTHING on what my immagination was capable of conjuring up back then. After Arena, I wanted the full immersion of being stuck in a dungeon somewhere. So when Daggerfall came out, there were times I was warped enough to actually play at night. I'd turn all the lights off, crank up the AC, and jump at every other shadow my VGA monitor screen would produce! Good times.

You are OH SO RIGHT. I actually turned of the voices completely - they ruin the immersion for me. I have subtitles on, and that alone is enough to make me feel more like it's the games I remember with so much love.

I have to give this game kudos though.... Some things can make me jump right out of my skin. The first time the bats flutter out at you in Bleak Falls.... When you miss a little opening in a cave, and just as you pass it a skeleton jumps you from behind.... When a sabre cat jumps from a ledge in the middle of the night, taking you to the ground (I literally shrieked IRL that time - husband was justifiably upset when I explained it wasn't anything to worry over, just the game....)

I LOVE TES games....

If you never do the dragon killing mission for jarl balgruuf do dragons eventually start to randomly appear anyway?

Not as far as I'm able to determine. If you want dragons later, you have to (on pc) use the console to restart the MQ.

I haven't gone through the main quest yet at all. I have never finished it in Morrowind, though I did play one single run in Oblivion on a character as an experiment to see how bad the "leveling problem" was if you did a character without efficient leveling. I chose to do the whole main quest as the test because I accurately predicted I wouldn't be able to get too high level before it started getting tougher than it should be, thus focus on one thing. It was the one single playthrough in which I have ever finished an Elder Scrolls game's main quest.

I play on XBox, and you can ignore the main quest quite easily. If your purpose is merely to avoid dragons (which is not mine except while initially establishing myself), you can go to Whiterun and even do Bleak Falls Barrow for the Jarl's wizard. I never knew at first that the wizard had a quest there. I always just went for the trader in Riverwood, though I'd noted the 25 pound dragonstone that is "weightless" as a quest item. If you want to buy the house in Whiterun, you must finish that quest for his wizard (by handing in the stone in my case already in my hands) and talk to the Jarl. He then gives you as part of his reward permission to buy property in the city. At exactly that point, I usually just ignore the meet up with Irileth. You must also not go too near the Western Watchtower where the first dragon you fight is. Too close, and the sequence triggers. But you can do all that and own the house in Whiterun and never see a dragon until you want to, if you ever do.

On the one where I went straight to 81, all dragons are ancient dragons. Makes life real interesting.

I'v tried to avoid the main quest but I always end up doing it for the reason that there are things you can't get in the world without doing it. (unless you are on PC and cheat, which is why i purchased the console version as to not give in to temptation). Such as getting the storm call ability. I like to the play the roll of a powerful wizard and being able to Conjure a massive storm is essential.

i am using a PS3 so not as easy to fix issues like you can on PC.

But i did exactly this for a fair while, had CBF doing the MQ and just avoided it.

Now i am at a point where i can't continue the MQL because all the outside Quests have bugged up and broken the the next set of MQL's i need to complete

i think that if the new PS3 1.4 patch doesn't fix things i may have to start over and do all the MQ first nothing else until completed then mop off the MISC Quests that way i can't bug or break anything

I just created a toon last yesterday without the MQ. Even so, I've managed to pick up three quests. Join the Stormcloaks, Join the Imperial forces, and visit the kid in Windhelm. Even so, it's nice not to be sandbagged into playing a certain role. I can go and do most anything, without taking a side.

And as for "toon", yes, it comes from cartoon: an animated character. Please see Roger Rabbit for more info.

"Toons!"

Play however you want, just stop saying toon

"Toons!"

Weird problem. I'm on Ps3 and last game I just headed off into the woods after Helgen to go adventuring. Haven't touched the main quest and nothing is bugged

I've never had to use the console. I just go back to the Jarl with the method I posted above and he asks me to go talk to Farengar and then once I proceed through the quest dragons appear as "scripted" from then on; easy no fuss no mess with no glitches this way.

Roger Rabbit has RPG video games and calls the main character a "toon"? I remember the cartoons being called "toons" but don't remember the RPG in that movie.




I have to agree with a few others here. "Toon" seems like a silly way to reference a person's character. In all my years and in the time I've spent reading this board, this is the first post I've come across that used the term "toon". Admittedly I've never played WOW and in fact stayed away from it like it was the plague.

After you get out of "baby's first dungeon" with Ralof, go get your starting money by looting Riverwood. You'll get the prompt to go and talk to the Jarl of Whiterun. Then you just don't do it. That's how you avoid doing anything in the Main Quest.

You can still visit Riverwood to sell loot, etc. but don't talk to the Jarl. Just wander around and take other quests, and the Main Quest will never advance, and Dragons will never spawn if you skip talking to the Jarl.

On my current character, I am doing this. I have something like 15 different Shouts in my inventory through exploration, but none of them are unlocked as I have collected zero Dragon Souls. It's really kind of fun.

My Dunmer Assassin is wealthy, powerful, and has entire Guilds of Assassins and Thieves at his beck and call. Life is good!

the memories of AD&D computer games.

pool of radiance
secret of the silver blades
pool of darkness

all characters looked like toons.