I`ve been playing for loads of hours without noticing Riften. I`d visited Riften sometimes but always thought it really boring because all I saw was mostly a misty forest and a few houses, so immediately jumped on the cart and went elsewhere...

This time I decided to explore a little further and ...oops- iscovered an entire city with a guard in front trying to rip me off.

I didn`t realise I was just looking at the stables and huts OUTSIDE Riften.

Wait'll you check out the sewers running below Riften and don't forget to peek inside fish barrels on the dock, they usually have goodies for alchemy and food.

I bought my first house in Riften.It has a porch out back on a lake.Beautiful.

I played twice that long before I ventured into Falkreath for the first time. Its amazing how much there is to do and see in the game.

How is that possible? Aren't there a handful of quests that force you to go through Riften? The main quest and the appraisal of strange gems.. Have you not done those quests?

63 hours in, and I still haven't gotten to Markarth or Solitude(and have only strolled through Falkreath and Dawnstar; though they look about as exciting as Morthal), and have a bunch of quests left to do in the other cities.

i'm about 50 hours in and i've only been to falkreath, riverwood, whiterun, helgen and their immediate surroundings, lol!

I have been ignoring Falkreath and only went through it once to get to the Dark Brotherhood. Though I did manage to find the stray dog for the blacksmith, if you know what I mean.

took my a while but found riften docks... some stuff to do there.... dragon attacks me of course.

I didn't step in the Reach or Markarth until level 46 and ~100 hours in.

I once tried running to Markarth immediately after exiting Helgen to begin my journey and that didn't go so well. The Forsworn were beast!

How did you not see the town? xD

You just...don't do those quests yet?

Honestly, I could play another 20 hours out of Whiterun alone. I still haven't done all those town exclusive quests. I'm also over 100 hours in and haven't done ANYTHING in Windhelm yet, just popped in to steal something for the thieves' guild and left. There's another half dozen quests waiting for me, and a huge town to explore when I'm ready

I was 130+ hours in before I did anything in falkreth

I didn't go to Riften for the longest time too. It was simply too far to walk and I figured I'd get to it eventually. I was actually expecting Riften to be a lazy, little place with friendly townsfolk since it's so separated from the other cities in Skyrim. I didn't know it was Scumbag Central.

I just saw Markarth for the first time about a week ago (I'd run past it a couple of times but had never gone in). My jaw dropped.

Honeyside home in Riften is quite nice. Has your own deck on the lake you can watch the water and drink an ale, go fishing or for a swim to wash the blood off after a long crusty adventure, plus it comes with enchanting /alchemy stations (better than the whiterun home) and there is a plethora of merchants you can unload 4k+ of loot no problem. Great place to live IMO, especially if your a thief/assassin type since you can enter your home from Skyrim and bypass guards.

Well it`s very possible. I`m the explorer, adventurer type, I don`t just go to the immediately obvious place and I don`t do just the first thing i`m told to unless it seems real urgent.

I did get a couple of quests pointing to Riften, but I like to travel around. I don`t FT and remove the quest markers so it`s easy to come across a load of sidequests and stuff and before y`know it, the earlier jobs are forgotten. Also I did want to find out what the Gem was about, but again, the quest notes on that were so vague, `get gem appraised` that I just ran around every shop to see if an option came up for it. then got tired and figured eventually something would come up.

The nice thing this proves is that you can indeed totally wander about and not break anything - at least in most cases. Now I have a whole fresh city to explore.

Yeah. My favorite thing about ES games is running off on my own from the beginning, ignoring the first task for quite a while.

Heh, funny. I played 1 1/2 games before I found Falkreath or an orc stronghold.

im a fan of the this two, i often go to some trouble to set up new characters with interesting beginings. last week started a monk play through.
no killing apart from daedra, so i leveled sneak to 50 at helgen then c
carted to riften, meadery sent speach up to 50 then to the northen sea to arrive by boat, so i found a ship climbed on saved it and started back up as if the game had started me there, i had 2 quests one to join the stormcloaks the other to join the college i attributed this to fellow sea fairers storys and set off towards the college, did the first few quests no killing, then headed out for a long walk ended up at riverwood did the goldenclaw quest no kills, then headed for the throat of the world, once high enough i sat and meditated leveling illusion to 50 also. Now my monk was really ready to face skyrim.

double chimp, first time offender...

180 ingame hours, and I have yet to do more than just travel through Falkreath, Morthal, Windhelm and Winterhold.

I had a whole 70+ hour playthorugh on my first characters, never went to the left side of Markarth (where the smith is etc) or explored dawnstar.

I think another important thing this shows is just how huge this game actually is.

I thought I`d seen all that most of the cities had to show even without doing the MQ; I have what looks like dozens of places on the map i`ve yet to properly explore...

And hours and hours later there`s a WHOLE EXTRA CITY?

I`m beginning to think this game is bigger than even FO3. It`s not perfect by any means but it`s BIG.