I'm about 60 hours in on my second toon. I actually scrapped my first one before I got too far into the game. I'm now ready to choose a faction. Will my choice end up screwing up quest lines or such later in the game? By choosing one over the other am I in danger of missing out on a faction quest line or something? What major changes will it make besides the obvious. Can I choose not to pick a side and what will it cause?

Thanks in advance.

well you can choose not to pick any side and nothing will happen until you actually choose one.as for the quests no you wont screw up anything.

eventually, if you want to finish the main quest, you have to pick a side. the only real major issue is it can be challenging to purchase a house in windhelm if you side with the imperials.

Ok.. Cool

Nope, pretty much nothing I don't think. Apart from Jarls being replaced so watch out for that.

If you choose a side before the MQ is completed and finish the civil war quests, you get to skip a giant, annoying portion of the MQ which is a peace treaty being talked out.

Do the dark brotherhood questlien FIRST before civil quests, because determining who u side with can affect some imperial guards in stormcloakd controled towns and vice versa.

Another issue, at least for me, was that during the civil war quest I missed out on large chunks of the overall quest because during the negotiations the stormcloaks already gained a fair bit of ground so they don't need to fight for it in the civil war. I missed out on some leveled armor, and since I got 2 daedric weapons for "leveled weapons", I'm guessing It was daedric armor I missed out on.

So yeah...just a litle tidbit there.

How so? I finished the MQ, did then some random things, and finally decided to pick a side in that silly civil war for the achievements.

That is not true. You do not have to choose a side to finish the main quest. I know this from experience- my main character has completed the MQ, but still not chosen a side.

You DO have to choose a side to purchase the house in Windhelm, though. Either, but it will take longer if you choose imperial.

For the love of Talos, don't try to do the Main Quest and the Civil War questlines simultaneously.

I feel like a broken record because I've lost count of how many times I've posted this, but there are piles of posts on the forums from people who hit bugs where quests in the Main or Civil War lines won't progress, or won't update, etc. I believe the source of the issue is how entangled the two questlines are, and it can cause problems in certain parts. I'm not saying it's impossible to do both at the same time; I'm sure there's plenty of people who have with no issues. But I would do one or the other (order doesn't matter) instead of doing like, a quest on each at a time.